Card of the Moment #33
June 18th, 2010 by slangon

1959 Topps #273 Joe Jay

The first thing that strikes me about this card is that Joey Jay looks like a pretty intense batter. Or at least that’s a pretty sweet posed batting pose. Then my eye wanders down to the lower right corner and I see that Joe is in fact a pitcher.

In reality, it’s not like Jay was a very good batter, even considering the fact that he’s a pitcher. His 13 year career numbers include 55 hits in 483 at-bats for a paltry .114 average. He did have a pretty decent year at the plate in ’62, when he hit .167 with a power surge of 2 dingers (which were the only 2 of his career) and 9 RBI. Wanna know who he hit the first of those 2 homers off of? Sherman Jones of some team called the Mets. Interestingly, the other home run he hit that year was off of Bob Tiefenauer of the Colt .45’s. So since both teams were expansion teams that year, Jay became the first pitcher to ever hit a home run against both teams ever.

As a pitcher, he wasn’t terrible. He won 20+ games twice in his career, both times being after he left Milwaukee for Cincinnati. Oddly enough, he won 99 games and struck out 999 batters. That’s got to kind of drive you a little nuts when you look at those numbers after you’ve retired.

Looking at this card sort of makes me want to see a card featuring a position player as a pitcher. It’s happened a bunch of times when, mostly during blowouts, that a manager throws a position player up on the mound to save his pen. I mean, just this season, Felipe Lopez, who is an infielder by trade, pitched an inning for the Cardinals during that crazy 20 inning game between them and the Mets. Wouldn’t it be fun to see a card of Felipe showing him looking sheepish and a little confused on the mound during the top of the 18th?

By the way, is it just me, or is that a bit obnoxious to put Joe’s signing bonus on the back of his card?

One Response to “Card of the Moment #33”

  1. Check out the 1994 Score Jose Canseco card.

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