Like Bill Buckner, Ross Grimsley was a 1971 Topps All-Star-Rookie.
Traded, from the Reds, who banned long hair and mustaches, to the Orioles, Grimsley was finally able to let his personality show. But you wouldn’t know it from his 1975 Topps card, in which Topps airbrushed an old Cincinnati photo even though he had pitched for Baltimore all year.
Finally in 1976 Topps showed us the real Ross Grimsley.
However this tame photo was upstaged by the epic shot captured in the SSPC set that came out that year.
The awesomeness of that card was perhaps the inspiration for Topps going with a hatless card the following year.
After a couple of years in Montreal, when Topps went with action photos, Grimsley was traded to the Indians, where he got a fantastic send-off with his final and most famous card.
When he resurfaced on cards six years later as a minor league coach he had cut off a lot of the hair and looked more like a responsible adult.
His most recent card came with the Richmond Flying Squirrels in 2012.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bo Rosny is The Hall of Very Good’s resident baseball expert. You can read more from him at his website Baseball Cards Come to Life.
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The Hall of Very Good™ Class of 2016 is presented by Out of the Park Developments, the creators of the wildly popular baseball simulation game Out of the Park Baseball. Out of the Park Developments has made a generous donation to The Hall.
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