C.A.: 1977 Topps "Dave Collins"

(Hello, after a couple days away, which usually means I've been out of town, but in this case it's because my city ran out of water due to a massive water main break and, yes, I do live in Watertown, and I've heard all of your "No Water Town" jokes. The lack of water wasn't nearly as taxing and time-consuming as the reaction to the lack of water. So, anyway, I'm back, a little scruffy, but ready to post again. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 327th in a series).

 

Some time ago, probably more recently than I'm willing to admit because recent discoveries fall out of my head more and more quickly these days, I came across this card and found out for the first time that the photo is not Dave Collins.

 

I don't know why it took me so long to know that. I usually have every factoid about 1970s baseball cards on file in the noggin, ready to dispense at any moment. But the consensus is that the photo is actually of someone named Bob Jones.

I am not familiar with Bob Jones' baseball career, but I do know him as one of the great gappers on baseball cards. He appeared on cards briefly in the late 1970s and then did not show up again until 1984.

That's his 1985 Topps card, eight years after he appeared as Dave Collins in 1977. They do look like the same guy, just with different haircuts.

But the thing that threw me briefly about the Collins photo being Jones is that Jones has his own card in the 1977 set.

Obviously some time has passed between the two pictures and Jones had made some style changes. I've known the Collins card a lot longer than the Jones card (I never pulled Jones back in 1977) and knew his hat was airbrushed into a Mariners hat. But I never figured out the jacket. Now that I'm looking a little closer at the card, that could be some sort of Angels logo on the back of the jacket.

So that's about all there is to this post -- a recent discovery that I should have known a long time ago.

But it gave the excuse to pull out my Dave Collins cards. His career lasted almost all through the 1980s and he had a lot of looks over that time.

There is his rookie card. Yeah, that doesn't look like Bob Jones. I guess all it took to confuse a photographer/Topps editor at the time was large glasses.

 

Had I owned the 1977 O-Pee-Chee card of Collins back then, I would have already figured out the Topps mistake. It's pretty obvious those aren't the same guy.

 

But then you look at the 1978 Topps card -- Topps got the right guy this time -- and maybe you could think it was the same guy on each card.

 

Collins came to the Reds in 1978, which meant removing all of his facial hair. He'd remain clean-shaven for most of the rest of his career. After the Reds, he went to the Yankees, another team that had an unhealthy fear of facial hair. By the time he left the Yankees maybe he forgot how to grow a mustache.

The arrival of the 1980s meant lots of action photos for Collins. I think he has some pretty decent ones. He was termed "the fastest white guy in baseball" so these are appropriate. He once hit 15 triples in a season.

I really like the composition of the 1982 card, with his signature written over the stands as he's bolting out of the box. '82 Topps could get it right sometimes.

 

Collins went without glasses for a few years between 1978-80 but they were back in FORCE by 1981. He really seemed to have a lot of looks, almost like a different person every year, so those card editors had to be on their toes. They didn't want to repeat that 1977 mistake!

 

His later years cards are pretty static compared to what came before in the '80s. I do like that 1986 dugout shot.

So, there you are, a little card retrospective on Dave Collins, one of those names that was pretty much household in the 1980s but totally ignored today.

As for Bob Jones, well, I don't remember him at all. But I do know that he's on two cards in the 1977 Topps set now.