Mike Paxton's Brush with Cardboard History

Day 20 of the 2025 Spring Training Challenge -- An airbrushed card

Feb 28, 2025

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1978 Topps Mike Paxton (#216) - Card of the Day

Today’s collectors will never know the anxiety of waiting for a traded player or breakout rookie to appear on a baseball card for his new team.

Or the exhilaration of pulling said up-to-date card from a wax pack when it finally rolls off the presses.

Or the sheer mind-melting “artwork” that card companies unfurled in years gone by to finally align player-team cardboard marriages with reality.

Consider the case of Mike Paxton, for example.

The right-hander signed with the Red Sox in 1975 after they made him their 23rd-round pick in the draft that June. From that point, the University of Memphis product spent less than two full seasons in the Boston minor league system before debuting in the bigs.

On May 25, 1977, Paxton started a night game against the Twins at Fenway Park. He got lit up for five runs in 2.1 innings, but he did strike out two batters. More importantly, Sox manager Don Zimmer kept coming back to the rookie.

By the end of the season, Paxton had made 12 starts among 29 total appearances for Boston, crafting a 10-5 record with a 3.83 ERA, two complete games, and a shutout. The Sox won 97 games to finish second in the American League East behind the Yankees, but the future looked brigt, and 23-year-old Paxton looked to be part of it all.

You can imagine, then, that collectors among the Boston faithful must have been eager to get their hands on Paxton’s rookie card. Had he debuted in 2027 (or even 1987) instead of 1977, chances are his cards would have preceded him to the big leagues. At the very least, he would have appeared on one of those “instant” cards that seem to pop up nowadays (get off my lawn!).

But in 1977?

Anyone keeping tabs on Paxton’s progress and hoping for a pasteboard glimpse of the youngster knew they’d have to wait. That forced patience paid off in the spring of 1978, though, when Topps unleashed the Mike Paxton rookie card:

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Yikes.

So, even though Paxton spent more than half the 1977 season with the Red Sox, Topps wasn’t able to come up with a picture of the righty in his Boston togs. Or maybe not a picture of him at all — the whole thing, including Paxton’s mug, looks airbrushed to me.

Maybe this was an homage to the 1953 Topps set? Or maybe an attempt to give Ty Cobb some company in the bakery?

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Whatever the case, the Mike Paxton rookie card stands as a masterpiece of Topps-monopoly-era baseball card culture, even if it tends to lose spotlight time to set-mate Greg Minton (#312):

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As for Paxton himself, well, that airbrushed Red Sox cap lost all meaning about the same time it first saw the light of day. See, Boston traded Paxton, Ted Cox, Bo Diaz, and Rick Wise to the Indians on March 30, 1978, in exchange for Dennis Eckersley, Fred Kendall, a mostly clean canvas, and a bottle of spray-can nozzle cleaner.

Paxton went 12-11 with a 3.86 ERA for the Tribe in 1978 before falling to 8-8/5.92 in 1979 and 0-0/12.91 in 1980. He was done in the majors at age 26.

Along the way, Paxton made a few more baseball card appearances, all with the Indians, including a career-capper in the inaugural 1981 Fleer set. None of them, of course, rewarded collectors’ patience or damaged their psyche quite like his inimitable rookie card.

Check out the entire series of 2025 Spring Training Challenge posts here.