Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Final Card: Jeff James

This is the last of two Topps cards for Jeff James (#302).  In 1968, the Phillies injected some youth into their pitching rotation. Veteran pitcher Jim Bunning was traded to the Pirates for Woodie Fryman, and James replaced aging veteran Dick Ellsworth as the #5 starter.

James was signed by the Phillies in 1960, and was a starting pitcher in their farm system for 7 seasons (1961-67), finally making it to triple-A in 1967, where he compiled a 13-5 record.


Jeff made his major-league debut in mid-April, and was with the Phillies for the entire 1968 season. Pitching in 29 games, his 13 starts came mostly in July and August. His spot in the starting rotation was taken over by fellow rookie Jerry Johnson for the rest of the season.

James was back in triple-A for most of the 1969 season (compiling a 13-10 record), and only returned to Philadelphia in September, when he pitched in his last 6 big-league games.

Jeff pitched the '70 and '71 seasons in triple-A before retiring. He passed away in 2006 at age 64.

4 comments:

Douglas said...

James' card reminds me that I had a tremendous talent to obtain cards of Phillies. Not only did I get the "star" pitchers of Wise, Bunning, Fryman, (exception Chris Short one card of the years he had a card) but the obscure like Fred Wenz, the "coolest man of earth" lowell palmer, and a ton of Billy Wilson/Champion cards.

Jim from Downingtown said...

Douglas,

Stay tuned. Palmer, Wilson, and Champion will be among the next 6 or 7 cards posted on this blog.

KellyLynne said...

this is my father, never got to know him very well. lost all his baseball cards years ago.

Jim from Downingtown said...

Hi Kelly Lynne,

Every once in awhile a relative of an ex-major-leaguer posts a comment on one of my blogs. Thanks for stopping by.

Jeff only had 2 cards ('69 & '70), since his major-league career was only in '68 & '69.