1981 Donruss, Britt Burns

#279 Britt Burns

Here is the Britt Burns card from the set that I got signed at Spring Training this year. Britt is the pitching coach for the White Sox AA affiliate in Birmingham and I was able to get this card signed after the minor leaguers scrimmaged the morning I was at Camelback Ranch.

It was a little difficult for me to ID the coaches at the Sox minor league camp. All of the players had names on the back of their jerseys, but that was not the case for the coaches. I thought there would be a lot of 'graphers there to help point me in the right direction for the coaches that I needed. But, it was towards the end of Spring Training and I was the only 'grapher out there. So, I spent a good deal of time on my phone looking for recent pictures of the guys I needed and was lucky enough to find one of Britt so that I could pick him out of the crowd.

There was one other White Sox coach there that was featured on an '81 Donruss card, but I was unable to get him. It seemed like the morning scrimmage was never going to end and I wanted to get into the park to try to get some 'graphs from a team that I never see play, the Milwaukee Brewers. So, I decided that my 50% '81 Donruss success was good enough and I called it a morning.

Britt pitched in the Majors for just eight seasons. All of them were with the White Sox and he went 70-60 with 3 saves and a 3.66 ERA. Britt's best season was his final one and he had career highs in wins (18) and strikeouts (172). He was traded to the Yankees after the season, but never pitched again as a degenerative hip condition ended his career.

'81 Donruss Tracker: 132/100