1969 Topps, John Donaldson

#217 John Donaldson

Here is another card from my "KC A's reunion TTM project". This one features the former Athletic and Pilot, John Donaldson.

John played in the big leagues for parts of six seasons, spending the majority of his time with Kansas City and Oakland. His best season came in 1967 when he played in 105 games and hit .276. That was his only season where he batted over .250. For his career, John hit .238 with 4 home runs and 86 RBI.

In my post yesterday, I noted how strange it was that that Norm Miller's Astros hat was blacked out. Luckily, Night Owl swept in and provided me with a little history lesson on that. But, that doesn't explain why Topps blacked out the A's hats. I understand that they are blocking the old KC logo. But, why didn't they use green? It would have been less noticeable and would not have looked so bad. It's not like Topps had not been airbrushing prior to 1969.

I sent this card to John on January 14 and I had it back on the 22nd. I thought that it was pretty cool that he included his number on the card. You do not see that very often from older ballplayers.

Those are some fantastic uniforms that the A's had in the late '60s.