I often wonder... OK, not often but it has occurred to ask myself once or twice.... who was it at Topps that decided which cards would be Short Prints and which wouldn't be. I thought of this again when trying to complete the '64 Topps Giants set. There are supposedly seven SP cards. Why seven? How does seven factor into printing sheets of a 60 card set? Beats me.
The seven SPs (at least according to the Cardboard Connection) are: Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Galen Cisco, Bill Skowron, Dick Stuart, Bob Friend, Wayne Causey. None of them are very difficult to find and only the Koufax and Mays carry price tags over $10. But again I wonder why those players? A mystery of life I suppose.
Anyway here is the Dick Stuart. This is supposedly the 'shortest' of the SPs, at least according to the PSA registry. I offered $6 to a guy who had a '$8.50 or Best Offer' price on it and I have it in hand now. Stuart is, of course, the powerful outfielder-turned-first baseman known far and wide as 'Dr. Strangeglove' for fielding deficiencies. He played for six different teams in a 10 season major league career and spent some time playing in Japan before returning to finish his career stateside in 1969 with the Angels.
In 1956 he hit 66 homers for the Lincoln Chiefs, the Class 'A' affiliate of the Pirates. That's a bunch in any league. That was a minor league baseball record and was noted on the back of the Topps Giant card.
I have the Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron cards coming my way out of this set and that leaves me just two shy of completing it. I lack Mickey Mantle and the short print Willie Mays.
From Dick Stuart's Wikipedia page:
ReplyDelete"In their book, The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, Brendan C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris, Little Brown & Co, 1973, on p. 77, the authors wrote an essay on Stuart's notoriously poor fielding. An excerpt: "Every play hit his way was an adventure, the most routine play a challenge to his artlessness. It is hard to describe this to anyone who has not seen it, just as it is hard to describe Xavier Cugat or Allen Ludden. Stu once picked up a hot dog wrapper that was blowing toward his first base position. He received a standing ovation from the crowd. It was the first thing he had managed to pick up all day, and the fans realized it could very well be the last."
LOL, that's a great quote! I'd forgotten how good that book was. I think I still have a copy on my shelves somewhere. Thanks for adding that, Jim.
DeleteI'm off to see the O's play again. Four games in four days.... haven't done that in many years.
I've toyed with the idea of a Dick Stuart collection but never followed through. I had the book at one time but gave it away at some point before I got back into collecting. Wish I still had it but don't want to spend the money on another one.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about re-buying the book. I have gottn rid of a bunch of books that I wished later that I had kept. I've only bought one back...Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop.. In fact I bought back the same copy I had donated to the local library branch during one of their used book sales. I wrote about the book on my '59 Topps blog. It's strange and fascinating. As one who played many many seasons of Strat-o-Matic with dice I could identify with the central character.
DeleteI paid double that for my Stuart.. Good deal on your part. I've had the Mantle since I was a ten year old. It came free when I subscribed to the old Sports Hobbyest .
ReplyDeleteTopps was wrong that Stuart set a minor league record for home runs. Joe Bauman had hit 72 the season before in Roswell.
ReplyDelete