who took jim bouton's hat?

quite a while ago, i posted a mess of maury wills custom cards i had made, designed to fill the gap in maury's topps career.  i was so pleased with myself that i offered to take custom card requests and give away a 1968 topps deckle edge wills card.

there were only three takers - dayf, larry from emerald city diamond gems, and rod from padrographs.

dayf won the randomization, so he gets the wills card, and here is his request - a 1979 topps jim bouton card.  or, more precisely, two 1979 topps jim bouton cards.

first, sweaty and hatless jim

using a photo from sports illustrated, and second, clean and still hatless jim

in the pajama uniforms.  that photo is the one that popped up first on my google search.  

bouton had been out of major league baseball since his release from the astros in august of 1970.  he signed with the white sox in 1977, but didn't get back to the majors until 1978 with the braves.  he was 1-3 in five september starts, three of which were 'quality' starts.  bouton retired after the season, meaning the 1979 cards would be a final tribute.  unfortunately, i'm not going to do the back.

i have a signed copy of bouton's book 'ball four' with the default inscription 'smoke em inside!'  sound advice from his pilots roommate gary bell.

i figured that since there were only three requests, i would fulfill them all.  here's a card that rod from padrographs requested - a 1951 bowman artie wilson

i colorized and cartoonized a black and white photo of wilson, and used the background from alvin dark's '51 bowman card.  i think it came out ok - a card of a giant requested by a padres fan and made by a dodgers fan.  go figure.

wilson appeared in just 19 games during the 1951 season, but was more than just that one major league season.  rod has written about wilson several times on his blog.  if you don't know anything about wilson, his was a life worth learning about.

finally, larry requested a 1983 harold reynolds card featuring the hugger wearing number 18 - the number he wore during his 20-game stint in his rookie season.  i couldn't find any photos of reynolds in that number, and was surprised at how few photos i could find of him in the old mariners unis.  i'll keep an eye out, but if anyone has a jpg to send me, please let me know.

dayf - i'll get maury out to you soon.