Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkle923
From the 1/20/15 Topps Vault posting.
But who is the Cleveland righthand hitter? He is among the "J" names, and that's clearly a 1972 image. There were very few "J's" in their system in 1972 (and this is not catcher Larry Doby Johnson). So my guess work is, it could be a first baseman named Ray Johnson, who looked like he had a good enough year in the minors in 1971 to conceivably merit a non-roster invitation.
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I spent quite a bit of time looking through 1972 Indians spring training box scores in the Sporting News and also trying to link the name "Ray Johnson" with the Indians in other newspapers, and couldn't make a confirmation. That doesn't mean that this isn't necessarily Ray Johnson. It just means that I couldn't find the evidence. The Sporting News didn't publish the box scores of all the Indians' games, so he could have appeared in camp with them, and the record wouldn't have been there.