Concatenating columns via Python

[hannahgracemcdonald16 at gmail.com]

I extracted a table from a PDF so the data is quite messy and the data that should be in 1 row is in 3 colums, like so:
   year       color                 location        
1 1997       blue,                   MD
2            green,
3            and yellow

SO far my code is below, but I know I am missing data I am just not sure what to put in it:

# Simply read and split an example Table 4 
import sys

# Assigning count number and getting rid of right space
def main():
count = 0
pieces = []
for line in open(infile, 'U'):
if count < 130: 
data = line.replace('"', '').rstrip().split("\t")
data = clean_data(data) 
if data[1] == "year" and data[1] != "":
write_pieces(pieces)
pieces = data
str.join(pieces)
else: 
for i in range(len(data)):
pieces[i] = pieces[i] + data[i]
str.join(pieces)

# Executing command to remove right space
def clean_data(s): 
return [x.rstrip() for x in s]

def write_pieces(pieces):
print 

if __name__ == '__main__':
infile = "file.txt"
main()