Musing about my five collecting interests: All things Orioles and BALTIMORE Colts, 50's Baseball, team publications, Japanese cards and even some football and hockey.
You might find some beautiful women, soccer stuff, presidential pins and life advice from time to time. I don't charge extra for any of those.
Showing posts with label 10 Posts 10 Cards 10 Books 10 Songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10 Posts 10 Cards 10 Books 10 Songs. Show all posts
I was surprised at how much the loss of Frank Robinson last week affected me. Maybe I shouldn't have been. On January 23 I lost my youngest brother to cancer. He was only 58 and left a wife and three kids, two of them 16 years old. I remained stoic through all the services. I'm not the emotional type, I try to focus on the fun times in the past.
Anyway, when I got news of Frank Robinson's passing I was pretty down and it still saddens me. Even going to the TriStar show on Saturday didn't lighten the mood. I think it's been just the suppressed emotion bubbling up.
But things get better over time and I'm ready to roll again. I'm working three days this week and that'll be fun. I dug out a few Robby items for scanning today. That's a Dexter Press postcard up top. Both their cards and postcards are really sweet. Very under-appreciated collectibles.
Here is his rookie card, of course. An all-time favorite of mine. I found a decent enough second copy not long ago and bought it. Normally I'll put PC cards into the set binders to save costs. But in some cases, I can't bear to pull a card from a player's page and this is one of them. My fledgling '57 build isn't going to poach my Frank Robinson binder.
Frank has several books that have been issued with his name on the cover. I can't speak for the others but this one, co-authored by Al Silverman, definitely rang true to Frank's voice. He didn't shy away from discussing his earliest professional days as a black man traveling through the South in the 1950s. I read the original edition back in the day. My copy was lost over time and I later replaced it, thanks to a good friend, with an autographed copy of the updated edition.
As the title implies, Frank lived the game his entire adult life. He changed the culture of the sport in Baltimore when he arrived. He brought the team two World's championships. He gave me one of the most remarkable moments of my life as a fan. RIP, Frank.
I had a few other songs in mind for this final entry. I realized that I hadn't included either George Jones (my favorite vocal artist) or the anything by the great Isaac Hayes. One of these days I'll toss a few more music vids into posts to remedy that. Meanwhile here is something I was listening to this afternoon while driving...Miles Davis in a live performance of one of the great jazz standards, Stella by Starlight.
Fantastic. Miles teamed up with John Coltrane (two guys who would interpret songs from opposite ends, as it were) and the result was these performances in Paris and Stockholm in 1960. Here's the concert which was later released as Miles Davis & John Coltrane – The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6.
And now for something completely different... a pair of 60s Dutch Gum cards that I added to my non-sports binder recently. It's a fun set that includes all sorts of celebrities. I have picked up some of my favorite actors and musicians over the last few months. I haven't posted them obviously. This kind of card draw much less reader interest than posting the latest Topps offerings but you gotta collect and blog what you like, right?
These particular cards are blank-backed and measure about as tall as standard cards but are just a quarter inch or so narrower. It goes without saying that both Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart are icons of Hollywood. If they are in a film, I'll watch it. And both made baseball-themed movies. Cooper as Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees is the more widely known but Jimmy Stewart did a commendable job in The [Monty] Stratton Story.
These are smaller in size. More like those Topps stickers from the 80s. I would never even consider trying to figure out the Dutch Gum issues and various series.
How's that for a pair of icons? Give a listen to their 1956 Ella and Louis album:
These are five of the 1975 Topps cards that Steve from the 1975 Baseball Cards blog sent me recently. Steve also tinkers with a blog that features athletes on phones and I flipped out when I found it. One of my first collections, when I re-entered the hobby in the late 80s, was of guys in all sports on the phone and with other electronic devices. I actually did a 'Guys On The Phone' post way back in 2012. When I saw Steve's blog I dug out the old pages I'd filled and sent him some of the cards (I've since found more and should send them his way, too).
Anyway, these colorful 1975 gems are most welcome. I'm down to less than two dozen needed for the set. I should do some damage to my want list at the TriStar show in February. My 1976 chase is winding down, too. Just about 40 needed there. I'm not sure how I got the bug that has sent me after the 70s sets. I followed baseball thru that decade (as best I could) but didn't collect much. I remember that I would buy a pack of cards just to see what Topps was doing.
I'm probably going to try to finish all the 70s sets at some point. My scorecard looks like this at the moment:
1970-done and in a binder
1971-I have a large box of 71s, well over 400, that I haven't even dug into. I need to sort 'em to see what I need.
1972, 1973, 1974- I have all the Orioles and various small amounts of others.
1975 & 1976-See above, bindered and almost completed
1977-Just the Orioles and a few stars
1978 & 1979- completed and in binders
Truth be told the 70s was sort of a 'lost' decade for me. I was in and out of college, held down numerous jobs to feed my habits, and wrecked some relationships and friendships. Not all of them, I did meet my wife during this time, but enough.
Phillip Roth's 1973 novel is just outstanding. I wasn't much of a fiction reader when I was in college but I read this on a recommendation and I've always been glad I did. I posted this on my1959 Topps blog in 2011.
I had tried to read one or two of Philip Roth's books prior to The Great American Novel. The key word being 'tried'. I never got very far. So I was pretty skeptical when a friend gave me his copy of this book and insisted I read it. Turns out to be the funniest, cleverest and most entertaining baseball novel I've ever read.
In it Roth chronicles the odyssey of the Ruppert Mundys, the only homeless franchise in the Patriot League. If you are not familiar with the Patriot League take heart, Word Smith, the book's narrator will explain the Communist plot and Capitalist scandals have conspired to wipe out it's rich history. It's enough to know that the Mundys have lost their stadium in Port Ruppert to the war effort (WWII) and have taken to the road more or less permanently.
The book is difficult to describe with murderous plots against umpires, wooden-legged catchers, games scheduled against teams from asylums and players named for mythological figures (Luke Gofannon, Gil Gamesh, etc).
The book slows in spots but will keep you laughing and wondering at the depth of Roth's imagination. Highly recommended.
One additional note...this is the only book I've ever bought after having read it.
Music in the 70s was something I clung to in stressful times and I will always consider it the best decade for music. I had access to lots of concerts through my jobs on the campus and through my job at the Houston Post.
The ticket is one I posted previously when I blogged about some of the shows I saw back then. I had pretty good seats for Traffic at the rickety old Sam Houston Coliseum back in '73. I loved this group and it's one of the concerts I remember attending (not always the case).
Want to hear my kind of rock? The music I still fall back to? Give Traffic's greatest song a listen,
I'm a sucker for old Johnny Unitas items and I found this on eBay. It's pretty fragile so I scanned it for posterity (I'll put it safely away now) and for this post. The Unitas pics are probably from the same photo session that produced the MacGregor Staff photo and related pics that I posted this past November.
As indicated by the cover, JU is the featured athlete and gets a two page spread in addition to a second photo.
Sonny Jurgenson waxes poetic on eating right, etc. It's hard to tell by the scans but this thing folds out so that the text and Jurgenson's photo are each one page.
Bart Starr did NOT explain the 'Lombardi Sweep' play that they ran down everyone's throats back in the day. Of course, I always think of the late, great Ray Scott doing Packer games on CBS. If you want to hear him at his best go to 1:05 of the clip below and give a listen to how a pro calls a TD.
"Starr.........he's throwing for Dale...................[crowd gets crazy].......Touchdown." Ray Scott was just the best.
A nice bonus is the appearance of one of my favorite players, Tommy McDonald, in the brochure. And he helps date the thing since he was a one season Cowboy (1964).
Mike Ditka looks very young in his photo, yes?
My favorite network broadcast show ever will always be Homicide: Life On The Streets. It portrayed the city of Baltimore through the eyes of it's Police Homicide Division. It ran for seven seasons, the first four or five of which are about as good as network TV could ever hope to be. It starred and was enriched by among others, Daniel Baldwin, Richard Belzer, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo and especially Andre Braugher.
The show was inspired by this book: Homicide (A Year On The Killing Streets). The author had spent a year with the homicide cops of the Baltimore City Police and wrote a really great book as a result. I seem to remember getting it from a bookstore as soon as I discovered the show. Excellent look at the workings of a big city homicide squad, warts and all. No whitewashing anything.
To continue my Charm City theme, here is the remarkable Nina Simone and her cover of Randy Newman's Baltimore:
Bonus material...David Gray doing the same song live in Baltimore. I've probably seen Gray more than any other performing artist. He's the only musical act that, when I say "So-and-So's coming to Houston, wanna see him/her, again?" doesn't get a moment's hesitation from my wife. And he's coming back again in March. I'm looking forward to it.
This one was a long time coming. I've queued up T-3s, 1910-11 Turkey Red cabinet cards for purchasing several times over the years and never pulled the trigger. I always found they were too expensive for one in nice condition, or in terrible shape for a price I was willing to pay.
Meet Solly Hofman of the Cubs. Known as 'Circus Solly', he was a centerfielder and utilityman who played everywhere on the diamond except pitcher and catcher over the course of his career. His career covers all or part of 14 seasons and peaked in 1910. That year he hit .325 with 16 triples which were good for third in the NL in both categories.
In addition to his ten years with the Cubs, he had two brief tours in Pittsburgh, one with the Yankees and he also played for Brooklyn and Buffalo in the Federal League. He played in three World Series and hit .298 in them. His Cubs lost twice, in 1906 to the White Sox and in 1910 to the Athletics but in 1908 they got a title with a five-game Series win over the Tigers. They had beaten the Tigers in 1907 in five games but Hofman never got into a game. I'm assuming he was hurt at season's end because he was an everyday starter that year garnering 530+ plate appearances in 134 games.
BTW...there are two reasons given in his SABR bio for his nickname. One story attributes it to a cartoon character of the era while the other to Hofman's flashy centerfield skills. This little nugget was also on that page:
Before the 1908 World's Series, [manager Frank] Chance forbade Hofman's wedding to Miss Rae Looker and demanded "for the good of the team" that the ceremony be postponed until after the season. The Cubs won their second consecutive World Series in Detroit on October 14, 1908, and the Hofmans did not dally. They were married the next day in Chicago.
As for the card...well, it's a beauty for sure. I love the color and the background. The Net54 seller had several of these for about the same price and I zeroed in on this one. It had the best front by far. There is a crease in the upper right corner which is hard to see in the scan and barely visible even in hand. It shows up in the scan of the back but the back had other issues. That is if you let the marks made by a kid in 1911 become an issue. They don't phase me in the least.
The checklist shows that cards 51 thru 76 were boxers including the wonderfully named Knock-out Brown at #66. Card #80, Charles Bender, is one card I'd love to have. But I doubt I'll ever find one I could fit into my hobby budget. You can look deeper into T3s on the Oldcardboard site.
I recently pulled Lawrence Ritter's The Glory Of Their Times down off the shelf again. It's one of the few books I've kept since I originally received my copy about five decades ago. I signed up for both a record club and book club through magazine ads when I was in high school. I stayed in both for a few years until I decided I could spend my money in other ways.
Ritter's book was my introduction to players from the early days of baseball. It's now considered a classic and for good reason. Ritter's interviews with baseball legends are timeless. When I skimmed it last week I remembered why I enjoyed it so much back in 1969. It's currently cued up for a re-read.
I don't know how many people are familiar with Rodriguez, the Detroit native singer/songwriter who struggled mightily here at home but became the biggest music sensation in South Africa (and New Zealand) in the mid 70s. Ironically he had no idea of the fame and fandom he had garnered due to the oppressive South African government's tight lid on media and culture.
The 2012 documentary Searching for Sugarman tells the amazing story of his re-discovery in the 90s by a nation that had never seen him despite his fame and, in fact, had believed he had commited suicide decades before. Highly, highly reccommended.
This clip shows the opening of his first live performance in front of a South African audiance and it's pretty crazy.
His whole story is carzy atually. While he was a sensation overseas he was dropping out of the Detroit music scene, getting a degree at Wayne State University, dabbling in local politics and eeking out a living at various low paying jobs. He never saw a residual check and later decided not to pursue those who cheated him out of his wealth. The Rodriguez story truely is stranger than fiction.
My wife and I have seen his in concert a few times. He's now in his 70s and has almost no sight and the last show we saw was a bit rough around the edges. But he's still got that unique voice.
Even better than the movie clip is this segment from his David Letterman debut in 2012. Give it a listen:
Bonus content: Here's the video of the song he tries to play in that South African concert:
See, I told you they wouldn't all be cards. What we have here is the latest addition to my modest Jennifer Beals collection. I have a serious crush on Ms. Beals and have for a long time. I first saw her in 1983's Flashdance which I watched when it opened because my friend, Robert Wuhl had a one-line, very brief, moment of screen time in one of the club scenes. I won't debate the quality of Flashdance but I came away with an appreciation for Ms. Beals. (And, yes, I know she had a double for much of the dancing) As attractive as I found her then, she is one of those women who has gotten even more beautiful with age.
That photo is a promotional piece for The Bride, which I have never seen despite Beals' role. It just looked unwatchable. But it did also star one of my favorite musical performers, Sting. I don't have much in my Beals collection....a few movie stills, a weird French poster/card that I showed here way back when, and a commemorative Flashdance DVD that came packed in a 'leg warmer sleeve'. I kid you not.
(BTW....the White Whale of my Jennifer Beals collection would be, well, Jennifer Beals 💘)
I wrote about this book (which I read for at least the third time last summer) on my 1959 Topps blog when I did some 'suggested reading' posts. Here's what I said then:
Coover's book centers around J. Henry Waugh, an accountant who in his spare time, has built a fictitious baseball league the schedule of which he plays out using a dice based baseball game he devised. That's a little like saying "Hoover Dam holds back water".... it doesn't begin to describe the real treasure that this dark story is.
Waugh's league has 59 years of history, generations of players, league politics, feuds and rivalries. All of which has been chronicled in meticulous detail by the ever more obsessed Henry Waugh. Little by little the league has consumed Waugh and taken over his life (and the narration of the book after awhile).
Coover tells a great story and though his works contain no other baseball related books he has an obvious knowledge of the game and it's nuances. This is quite a ride. I had wanted to read this one for quite awhile and finally grabbed a copy a couple of seasons ago. I played quite a bit of Strat-O-Matic baseball as a kid and I was expecting a story of a guy obsessed with dice baseball. It's obviously much more than that and had me hooked from the start.
I mentioned Sting above and the fact that he's one of my favorite performers. I've seen him many times in concert, both as a member of The Police and on his own. My wife and I saw his Houston show when he toured alongside Paul Simon a few years ago. I paid with blood to get seats in the second row and it was worth every dime. They sang together, singularly, sang their own stuff and each other's. A memorable night for sure.
Desert Rose, from his Brand New Day LP, is among my favorite Sting songs. It features a guest appearance by Algerian singer Cheb Mami, a not-so-great guy with a remarkable voice.
I had just about given up on finding Batman sketch cards on eBay. I check once a week or so and the same old stuff was there, most of it not close to being worth the asking prices. Then a few weeks back I saw that Nathan Parrish had put up a bunch of his work at very low prices. I've picked up some of his 'cards' before. He uses several different tools in his sketches, pencil, colored markers, and so on. I also like how he portrays the different eras of the Dark Knight saga. The one above is my favorite of the latest batch.
As a really cool bonus, he wrapped them in a Japanese paper, similar to how I believe cards were traditionally distributed. Although the paper was likely not this beautiful. Here are a couple:
When my kids were very young we had them enrolled in the daycare facility at San Jacinto JC (yes, the place where Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte pitched). The program they had was top notch. They required that one of us be enrolled so I took night and/or Saturday classes each semester. I ended up with an IT certificate. But that's a long way to my point...I took one 'for fun' non-credit class, Intro to American Roots Music aka...Jazz Appreciation 101.
The instructor was a huge fan of tenor sax legend Dexter Gordon. From that class, I came away with an appreciation of him as well. I nabbed this book when it came out a few months ago and read it over the holidays. Gordon was a remarkable talent, grandson of a Medal of Honor winner and son of a doctor. He also had his share of trials and failings. But the sum total of his music is staggering. The book, written by his widow (actually she finished his autobiography), is very readable and insightful. I enjoyed it. It's too new to be out there at a discount though.
I could have picked any one of dozens of Gordon videos out on the net. If your life is spinning too fast try this: pour a drink (Makers 46 is my current choice), find a comfortable recliner, and crank up some Dexter Gordon.
My wife has been out of town most of the week so it was the perfect time for a crack party. Now hold on. It wasn't what you just thought. You see I've had about a dozen graded cards that need to be in my set binder kicking around my hobby room for months. Today I grabbed a pair of pliers, a flat screwdriver and those encased cards and went to town. The result? Filled binder holes and a few upgraded cards as well.
That Mike Schmidt was one of them. He had a place reserved in my '76 binder and since it was filling up fast I needed him in there with his friends. A '76 Ryan joined him.
Here is Schmidt before he was free to breathe.
The others who were paroled from plastic prisons were from Topps 1959 and 1962 sets (all upgrades) and several 1961s. Those were filling holes. And rest assured that the broken plastic pieces were properly disposed of. They went into the recycling bin. The best news is that I didn't damage a single card which shows that I'm improving my skills.
There are dozens of Muhammad Ali bios. Just search Amazon and you'll be overwhelmed. But of the few I've read David Remnick's King of the World is head and shoulders above the rest. It's nearly twenty years old but the story holds up. Great writer detailing a fascinating man. Reading about the Liston and Patterson fights, which I thought I knew quite a bit about, was eye-opening. Amazon has copies for under $2 plus shipping. I grew up listening to Top 40 A.M. radio during the time of the British Invasion. The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, etc. Mixed in was a lot of Beach Boys, Motown and Philly Soul. But when I got to high school my group of friends (and therefore the music I heard) changed quite a bit. One artist I discovered and came to love was King Curtis. Curtis Ousley was a terrific sax player, bandleader and composer. He died far too young. I absolutely wore out this album in the early seventies. Heavy rotation in my dorm suite alongside Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, and Miles Davis. King Curtis live at the Fillmore West Soul Serenade
Bonus content: I found this video looking for the above one. It's from the Montreux Jazz Festival. I had this whole thing on a reel-to-reel tape at one time. Never had a player so I had to date someone with one. Here 'tis: King Curtis & Champion Jack Dupree Live from Montreux 1971
This is a Dorman postcard featuring my Dad's favorite pitcher, Allie Reynolds. Love these Dormands. Just terrific photography. I have three others but they are all of Billy Pierce. I first bought a graded one which I never had the heart to un-crack. So I fond a couple of others, one for the BP binder and one for my postcard collection.
Reynolds was an Oklahoma kid who didn't play baseball until after he graduated high school. His parents' strict religious belief prevented that. He's an interesting guy and his SABR bio is worth checking out. He was the first AL pitcher to throw two no-hitters in one season. He had a World Series record of 7-2 and won seven titles with the Yankees. No wonder my father loved the guy.
Today's book gets an asterisk. That's because I'm not quite finished with it. I have about a quarter of it left but I can't see it letting me down so I feel confident in featuring it. If you were to check my bookshelves you'd find about equal amounts of historical fiction, presidential bios, baseball and football history, sports bios, and hobby-related books. This is one of the better presidential bios I've read:
I really didn't know much about Grant past what you read in history books and such. Ronald White does a fine job of revealing him as a great military tactician, family man, and patriot.
And speaking of my Dad, as I was earlier, he picked up a love for the Beatles from me. I remember he'd come to sit in my room (I had the only record player in the house) and listen to the Beatles' Second Album with me. It was his favorite. Interestingly it was a US-only release album that was put together by Capitol Records to capitalize (pun intended) on their unbelievable popularity at the time. Of course, we were unaware of this. All we knew was that they were putting out music like their hair was on fire. By the time we'd saved enough paper route money for one album, another one was hitting Nunzio's record shop in Nutley.
My father bought this album for me in New York City the day it was released in December of 1965 so I could have it for my birthday the next day. He stood in line after work at some record shop in Manhatten. I always suspected he was anxious to hear it, too.
Bonus content:
Here's something I picked up in the same COMC haul as the Dormand. It a sweet (aren't they all?) '53 Bowman Reynolds.
And more bonus content, the old man's favorite Beatles' song:
I enjoy cards, I enjoy books, I enjoy music. Nothing unique about that as I'm sure plenty of you do as well. Recently I've been going thru my hobby collection as I get ready to downsize it. By 'downsize' I mean organizing the good stuff and getting rid of the clutter. All my remaining junk wax era non-Orioles? Adios. Commons from earlier this decade when I was buying blasters that I opened and immediately boxed up? Toast. The 1600 count boxes of 80s and 90s basketball and hockey that I've sifted through for anything worth keeping? Gone.
Anyway, in scrounging through boxes, binders, and shelves I've come across cards, pics, publications I've intended to put up on here but never have. I thought that I'd remedy that over the next few weeks. And just to make writing these more fun for me I figured I'd pair the memorabilia with books and songs I own and enjoy as well. Because why not? And as I implied they will not all be cards.
My guidelines:
Only things that have not been posted here will be included
The elements may or may not be connected
I'm gonna keep them short
Books and music will be from my shelves so you'll get an idea of my tastes in both. Be warned: I'm pretty 'mainstream' when it comes to my reading and listening.
I'll kick this off with the wonderful 1952 Topps Jackie Jensen. If anyone would ask me why collectors dig the '52 set I'd just show them this card. I'm not sure what the background shows but I like to think it's the colors of a sunset reflecting on a stadium net. Whatever it actually is makes for a great card.
My copy has some seriously rounded corners but I'm fine with having added it to my Jensen PC.
First book up in the rotation of books is Game Faces by Peter Devereaux (that link takes you to the book on Google Books where you can see sample pages). The book features cards from the tobacco era and ties them to history, culture and the people of the time. You can read it from the beginning or just pick it up and browse through random pages. really good stuff.
I own that Mathewson on the cover, but I've shown it here multiple times.
Today I will tie the song to the card, sort of. It's Jackie Wilson, a much-underappreciated talent who really never gets much mention anymore. My friends and I were fans when we were in school in the mid to late 60s. Here's my favorite Wilson song, (You're Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher.
I hadn't thought about him or the song in a long time. Then, during
this last Christmas season, I set a bunch of new presets in my Sirius
radio to escape some of the temporary holiday stations. It was playing on an R&B channel and soon it was in my gym playlist. Catchy, right?
