1977 leon hooten

leon hooten got his very own card with a different picture and his very own facsimile autograph in the 1977 o-pee-chee set

which was an upgrade from sharing signature-free space with three other guys as he did in the topps set.  here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

i suppose i should check and see if the cartoons on these cards are taken from topps cards that didn't make the o-pee-chee checklist or if they are exclusive to the o-pee-chee set.

until then, just enjoy the cartoon-less topps back:

i'm going off on a tangent here, but i blame leon hooten for the frequent misspelling of burt hooton's name.  go ahead and search ebay for hooten.  i'll wait.  see all those burt hooton cards?  crazy.  of course, there  is actually a 1975 hostess card that for some reason lists happy as 'bert hooten'.  that's just bad.

as far as leon hooten goes, he was picked up by the blue jays in the expansion draft from the a's for whom he appeared in 6 games in 1974.  it turns out that those 6 games were the only major league appearances that hooten would make - he was released by the blue jays towards the end of spring training in 1977.  at least he got a card of his own!

voici à vous, 1977 leon hooten!