burt hooton through the mail success!

man, was i 'happy' to see this in my mailbox the other day. 

last june, i sent two cards to burt hooton, care of the round rock express.  when that didn't work, i sent two cards to him at his home address.  both sets of cards were returned to me on monday. 

hooton is the pitching coach for the express, which is the aaa affiliate of the houston astros, for whom he was the pitching coach from 2000 to 2004.  before he was a coach, though, he was one of the dodgers' more reliable starters.  his 1978 season was one of his best, as he won 19 games and finished 2nd in the cy young voting, but i remember him more for his performance in the 1981 postseason.  that year, hooton was 3-0 and allowed just one earned run in over 21 innings in the playoffs.   he was also the winning pitcher in the decisive game 6 of the world series.

i should also mention that he pitched a no-hitter in only his 4th major league (and professional) game.  that's right - hooton never pitched in the minors. he did pitch for tommy lasorda in a winter league, and my guess is that tommy lobbied al campanis to acquire hooton from the cubs.  in 1975, the dodgers paid the price of eddie solomon and geoff zahn to do just that.

here are the other two cards that burt signed (he signed two copies of the 1978 card):

his first dodger card - 1976 topps

and a fantastic 1985 o-pee-chee team and text variation!

shameless plug - i featured this card a short time ago on my other blog 'oh my o-pee-chee (oh mon o-pee-chee)'.  check it out! link to it! ask me to send you some o-pee-chee cards!

back to the 1978 topps card - it is the 22nd piece in my modest 1978 topps dodger autograph project.

here's the tally:

team card (red adams) - through the mail success!

team card (mark cresse) - through the mail success!

dusty baker - through the mail success!

glenn burke

ron cey - through the mail success!

vic davalillo - ebay success!

terry forster

mike garman - through the mail success!

steve garvey - through the mail success!

ed goodson

jerry grote - through the mail success!

burt hooton - through the mail success!

charlie hough - through the mail success!

tommy john - in person/through the mail success!

lee lacy - through the mail success!

tom lasorda

dave lopes - through the mail success!

ted martinez - ebay success!

rick monday - in person/through the mail success!

manny mota - through the mail success!

johnny oates - ebay success!

doug rau - through the mail success!

lance rautzhan - through the mail success!

rick rhoden

bill russell - through the mail success!

reggie smith - through the mail success!

elias sosa - through the mail success!

don sutton

steve yeager

nlcs (davey lopes) - through the mail success!

22/29 = 76% - over 3/4 of the way there!

thanks burt!