#7 Don McMahon : AKA Steve McQueen

 The title explains how I felt about this card as a kid. You have to admit, the picture of the pitcher posing as though he is peering in for the sign from his catcher, resembles Steve McQueen.  Aside from that, I never thought much about this card and to be honest, I was never the biggest fan of Steve McQueen's acting.

I always felt that McQueen was McQueen in all of his movies instead of the character he was playing. The mark of a good actor is when you see his or her film, you cease to think of the person on the screen as an actor and solely see them as the character they are portraying. With this in mind, Tom Cruise, Ben Affleck and many more are lousy actors. Jack Nicholson, Alec Guinness and Anthony Hopkins are good actors. And that will end my lesson on how to determine the quality of an acting performance, but this aside I did love some of McQueen's movies especially "Bullit"

This is the first Red Sox card to appear in this '67 set and  unfortunately, McMahon is featured in those dreaded and vested Cleveland Indians jersey instead of the standard and unchanging Red Sox uniform. Some things just don't have to be changed and that is true with some uniforms. The Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs all have had the same uniforms form decades. 

The color scheme on the card is a little unusual too. The Red Sox logo is orange while the player name is white and the position is yellow and while these colors could overwhelm the card, the understated design of the '67 set makes it accessible to the eye. The head and shoulder shot is

standard as well as the fact that McMahon is pictured without a cap.  Around 1960, Topps came up with the bright idea to take pictures of players without hats just in case they end up being journeymen in the MLB. This saved them a good deal of bother for the '61 set which featured the recently relocated Minnesota Twins. You will find no Twin players in uniform in the '61 set and no Mets in uniform in the '62 set and so on.

As you can guess I, never really analyzed this players stats before but they do look impressive for a career reliever.  He began his major league career pitching for the World Series Championship Milwaukee Braves in '57. He led the NL in saves (15) and games finished (49) in '59. He went on to pitch for the Colt 45's(or Astros), Indians, Red Sox, White Sox, Tigers and finally with the Giants. Not many of baseball journeymen find a home to call theirs late in their career but McMahon found one with the Giants. He finished his final five seasons in San Francisco still pitching his heart out well into his 40's. For more details into his stats, Please check my source.