1958 Topps Sport Magazine All Stars, National League edition

And the other shoe drops today. Here's the '58 Topps National League Squad as selected by Sport Magazine.

Manager Fred Haney appeared yesterday and we don't want him to get a swelled head so we will skip right to the players, and what a crew it is:

That outfield! Robby, Willie and the Hammer. I wouldn't care who you had, if that was my outfield I'd beat you 75% of the time. 

And there are three more Hall of Famers on the infield. Add in Warren Spahn and you have 7 of 10 guys who have a plaque in Cooperstown. Really hard to pick a favorite card out of the NL group. I tend to favor the Stan Musial. It's different than any of the others and Musial has that nice guy smile that I always associate him with.  

Of the eleven Hall of Famers in the complete subset I missed seeing two in person, Musial and Ted Williams. Musial retired after the '63 season and I'm pretty sure I never saw him play in person. The few Mets' games I saw in the Polo Grounds were against the Giants and Dodgers. Williams played through 1960 and, while I saw the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium in the early 60s, I don't think it was before Williams was gone.

I like the Spahn card almost as much as the Musial. There really is no such thing as a non-cool Spahn card. He's all angles and crooked lines and almost always in the classic Braves uni.

This was a fun subset to chase (after I finally had the Mantle in hand!). The rest were easy to find and not very costly. To my eye they are the best part of the '58 Topps set. Now I am free to chase Baltimore Colt cards for awhile. When I get back to Topps subsets I think I'll look to finish one or two others of the 1960 and 1961 subsets that I like, the '61 MVPs or the '60 rookie sets are possibilities.

1958 Topps Sport Magazine All Stars, American League edition

I finally finished off the AL All Star subset by 'finding' Luis Aparicio. He'd been MIA for a week or so but he turned himself in on Monday night.

There are ten players in each league's set of All Stars so I scanned the position players and then the two pitchers. They'd have looked better presented in 'nine pocket sheet' style but whatcha going to do?

First the manager, the Ol' Perfessor (and his NL friend, Fred Haney)

And the players:

And finally, the pitchers:

My favorite is the Mickey Mantle but I sure like the Jackie Jensen card as well. The Mantle was a card I worked very hard to get, bidding on many of them before I hit on one at a decent price in a condition I could live with. Jensen was a guy I casually collected but didn't know a lot about until I dug into his backstory. I touched on it briefly on my '59 Topps blog.

Tomorrow I'll show the National League All Stars.

1958 Topps All Star Ernie Banks

This is the final card of the '58 Topps All Star subset that I was lacking. I actually picked it up right after the Aparicio but Luis has apparently decided that being scanned isn't a priority and has squirreled himself away someplace on, under or behind my desk. He'll turn up while I'm looking for something else.

Meanwhile Ernie Banks, one of the most universally popular players of his era, is here to entertain and inform. I looked at the stats on the back of his card and noted that of his 43 homers in 1957, 11 came against the Dodgers. And a nearly equal percentage of his RBIs came against the Bums. I suppose that would make sense given the homer total. I went to Baseball Reference and checked Banks' home run log. In '57 he hit two homers off both Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale and twice he victimized Brooklyn with three homers in the course of two days.

He hit 64 of his 503 career dingers against the Dodgers. Interestingly he not only tearted Koufax and Drysdale equally in '57 but he hit seven homers off both Koufax and Drysdale over their careers. Here is the team by team breakdown:

   11 Opponents   
Phi---82
Mil/Atl--71
StL---64
Bro/LA---64
Cin---61
NYG/SF---58
Pit---57
Hou---26
NYM---23
SD---5
Mon---1

His most victimized pitcher played for his most victimized team. Banks had 15 homers against Robin Roberts.

It took me a while to find this Banks because I was determined not to pay more for his card than I did the Mays card. I finally gave in and spent $9 to reel this one in. It was graded and slabbed but I freed him up immediately. 

This is the last baseball subset I'll chase for awhile. I'm going to concentrate my time and funds on my Baltimore Colts project. I already started with a COMC purchase of some 1970 Colts that should land here next week.

1958 Topps Willie Mays All Star

This is the next to the last '58 All Star card I needed to finish off the subset. It is one of the more affordable vintage Mays cards around and if you are not particular about condition you can score one very cheap.

Again, the back is fun to browse. Except for the Pirates Mays knocked around everyone in the NL in 1957. He had seven extra base hits against the Bucs and the Phils but was in double digits against everyone else.

Isn't that a neat write-up as well?

'58 Topps All Star 'Commons'

If there is such a thing as All Star insert 'commons' I suppose these three cards would fall under that heading. They certainly are not the big names that fill some of the other slots in this 21 card subset. I recently finished it off and these are about half of the cards I'd been lacking.

Herb Score is one of the more interesting stories in 50's baseball lore. The back of the card here hints at it but you can read more here in his New York Times obit. He put up world beating numbers in his first two seasons with the Indians and was off to a great start in 1957 when that line drive derailed his career. He never again approached anything close to his glory days.

This is the checklist of the '58 All Star subset. They are the last 21 cards in the set.

475 F.Haney / C.Stengel All-Star

476 Stan Musial All-Star 

477 Bill Skowron All-Star

478 Johnny Temple All-Star 

479 Nellie Fox All-Star

480 Eddie Mathews All-Star

481 Frank Malzone All-Star

482 Ernie Banks All-Star

483 Luis Aparicio All-Star

484 Frank Robinson All-Star

485 Ted Williams All-Star

486 Willie Mays All-Star

487 Mickey Mantle All-Star 

488 Hank Aaron All-Star

489 Jackie Jensen All-Star

490 Ed Bailey All-Star

491 Sherm Lollar All-Star

492 Bob Friend All-Star

493 Bob Turley All-Star

494 Warren Spahn All-Star

495 Herb Score All-Star

My copy of the Ed Bailey card is rough but for a buck I'm not complaining. Bailey made five NL All Star squads during his career. Interestingly he made the '61 ASG after being traded by the Reds to the Giants early that season. 

Bob Turley won over 100 games in the AL, mostly for the Orioles and Yankees. 1958 was his one 20+ win season.

These are really neat cards i think. I love the 'vs. team' stats lines. I feel richer knowing that "Bullet Bob" Turley beat the Athletics four times in 1957.

I'll be posting the 'big name' cards I picked up to finish these off later in the week.

1958 Topps All Star Subset

One of my collecting goals is to complete the 1958 Topps All Star subset. I'm not too far from it now. I just love this group of cards, much more than the base '58 set. I picked up the Mickey Mantle card a few years back so the last of the higher dollar cards of this group that I lack is the Willie Mays. But it's not outrageous so I'll nab one at my price one of these days.

Meanwhile here are my latest four additions. They came via a fair sized COMC purchase recently. Maybe the reason I like these so much is the stat laden back of each. It gives the players 1957 numbers versus each opposing team. That sort of thing used to keep my occupied for hours as a kid. Look at Eddie Mathews' stats against the Cubs. He crushed them for a .408 average on 31 hits. He killed the Dodgers, Pirates and Giants as well.

The 'big head' portraits like Mathews and Johnny Temple are OK, but the Spahn is the star of this group. Heck any card of Spahn is the star of a group. He's all nose and hat brim and angles.

Spahn only pitched two thirds of an inning versus the Dodgers in 1957. Made me curious enough to check his Gamelog for that year. It doesn't look like he skipped any starts for avoid Brooklyn (Spahn wouldn't do that). Turns out he pitched that brief turn in relief and picked up a save versus the Bums. It was his third and final save of the '57 season. 

The All Star Managers card is surely a picture taken at the '57 World Series.

The back of the managers card is a checklist of the final thirty something base cards and the All Stars.

When I first discovered eBay in the late 90s the first things I went afetr were small lots of 1958 Topps commons. I had aspirations of putting the set together back then. I quickly decided that I had better things to do but out of that came this desire to finish off the All Stars. A year from now I'll be done.

A pair of '58 Topps All Star cards

The 1958 Topps All Star card  of Jackie Jensen combines two things I've become a fan of... the 1958 Topps All Star cards and Jackie Jensen! Jensen is, as I have gone on about a few times previously, an interesting and much under appreciated player. He had all the tools needed for stardom but his career was undermined by his 'inner' demons.... anxiety, self-doubt and fear of flying.

My interest in the '58 All Star cards I think goes back to the fact that the '58 set was the first one I remember seeing. Living in Jericho on Long Island at the time I had a friend, a girl who lived down the street, who had a stack of them. They must have made a huge impression on me because I can still recall looking through them on my back porch with her.

Many years later I set out to collect as much of the set as I could at card shows and then on eBay but there came a point where I just lost interest. The set just didn't grab me as some later ones, the '59 and '60 for example, did. But out of the aborted collecting campaign came the one subset that did interest me, these All Star cards. I'm closing in on completing it.

Below is the Bob Friend which I snapped up along with the Jensen. Friend was three time NL All Star and among other accomplishments he became the first pitcher to win his leagues ERA title while pitching for a last place club. He did that in 1955. He led the NL in wins in 1958.

Bob's son, Bob Friend Jr., was a golfer on a couple of the PGA tours and is currently an analyst for Sirius Radio's PGA Tour Network among other golf related activities.

1958 All Star Frank Robinson

I'll check in on the All Star Game tonight but I'm not devoted to it like I was as a kid. The World Series home field gimmick doesn't add any allure for me. But there are three players that I'm interested in seeing (besides the four Orioles, of course). I'll get back to them in a bit.

I'm slowly but surely working on my '58 All Star card subset. Since I have the Mantle and Musial my next goal is the Mays. All the others (and need about seven) can be had cheaply, especially since I'm not very condition conscious. The Frank Robinson came my way for just a couple of dollars. There is a chip in the lower right, and its off center but other than that it's very presentable. It looks better in hand than in the scan, thats for sure.

As for Frank, well he had one really great All Star Game, the second of the two held in 1959. In that game he took over at first base for Stan Musial in the fifth inning and went three for three including a homer off Early Wynn.

In 11 total All Star appearances Frank hit .250 with a pair of homers. His second homer came in the 1971 Game at Tiger Stadium. He hit it two batters after the monumental light pole blast off the bat of Reggie Jackson. It made Frank the first player to homer for both leagues in All Star competition.

The three players I mentioned earlier all have a connection to the schools my sons and I have graduated from. And I always follow those schools.

Jesse Crain is a former University of Houston star. He had some up and down seasons with the Twins but has found a home in the White Sox bullpen. He's been putting up some outstanding numbers there. Unfortunately he's on the DL at the moment and won't get to pitch tonite. I was reading that there are a few contending clubs that may be interested in his services. With the trade deadline looming Crain may be headed to his third big league team.

Alex Gordon is a Lincoln, Nebraska native who starred for the hometown Nebraska Cornhuskers. His time there preceeded my son James' by a year but we are definitely fans. My son and his buddies have made several trips down to Kaufmann Stadium to see him play. He had a lot of hype coming to the majors and had a slow start to his career but has put things together now it seems.

Texas State University product Paul Goldschmidt played there for a strong Bobcat program through 2009. My son Brooks is a 2011 graduate and saw him play quite a bit. I got to see him knock a few out of the park against Houston and Rice. This is his third year in the big leagues and his numbers seem to get better every season. 

Hope everyone enjoys the game tonight. 

Hammer Time #3

Technically this is not a part of my 1959 set that I'm blogging. This is my 'other' Hank Aaron '59 All Star card. I wrote about how I ended up with two of these over on that blog.

I mentioned in that post that I'd be happy yo trade it for something. I got no takers but the offer still stands. If you have a '58 or '60 Topps All Star card that you'd be willing to trade for the Aaron, I'd be all ears.

These '59 All Star cards have grown on me as I've dealt with them but I still rank them behind both the 1958 and 1960 All Star subsets.

Random Hank Aaron Fact: When Hank left the Negro League's Indianapolis Clowns his 2nd base slot was taken over by the first of three women to play in that league, Toni Stone. She is a pretty interesting character and I may have to dig a little deeper on this.

Hammer Time #2

This is just the second example of an NL player from the 1958 All Star subset that I've posted. It's a favorite subset of mine and I'm slowly crawling towards completion. S-L-O-W-L-Y being the operative term.

One thing I like is the stats versus opposing teams that filled the back. Hank hit 10 homers against the Pirates in 1957. Ten! When you played 7 other clubs 22 times each in your season stuff like that could happen. But still. Ten homers in twenty two games means one almost every other game. I wonder if the Bucs' staff ever knocked Hank down?

Random Hank Aaron fact: There is a Hank Aaron State Trail. It runs between Milwaukee's Miller Park Stadium and the Lake Michigan lakefront

Yet Another Baseball Legend Passes Away

The great Stan Musial has two cards in the 1959 set. I've posted both previously over there. His regular card which is really pretty sharp and personifies him in my mind:

And the Baseball Thrills card, not my favorite Topps subset ever. But it was nice to track down the original picture.

I've got a couple more of his vintage cards in my Hall of Fame binder but my favorite Musial card is right at hand. Posted previously was the terrific 1958 All Star card. Now that's Stan the Man!!

Musial was the ultimate hero of one of my oldest and dearest friends. How ironic that within 12 hours or so we would both learn of the death of a favorite baseball figure we held dear. Sam, I'm thinking of you tonight.

And yet another two 1958 All Star cards

This Nellie Fox has a creased corner which doesn't show up on the front in this scan to the same extent it does when viewed in person. OTOH the horizontal lines that cross the front in the scan are barely perceptible in person. I need to figure out my scanner's properties I think.

Anyway the back of the card, as on the rest of these terrific '58 All Stars, tells us that Nellie terrorized the Tigers in 1957. He went 40 for 93, a .430 clip. In addition he scored 22 runs, had 7 doubles, two homers and drove in 13 runs. Those are the best numbers he had against any one club. Of the 21 times he collected three or more hits in a game that year, eight of them came against the Tigers. He did it four times between August 9th and 17th against them. Then on August 18th he hit one of his five 1957 homers. I bet they got sick of him.

I like the Skowron card a lot because it's not a portrait. And because Moose has his trademark 'squint' on. And because he looks like John C. Riley. And because I just liked the Moose in general. Ignore the ragged left edge and soft corners, it's got a nice shine to it. Looks like my Orioles kept Moose in check fairly well in 1957. The three extra base hits they allowed him are the fewest of any club that year.

So this wraps up my '58 AS card eBay haul of last month. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try and collect the rest of this subset. May not be anytime real soon but I'll get to it.

The Elusive 1958 All Star Mickey Mantle..... Finally

I've been after this card for a long time. I'd bet I put in eBay bids/offers on 40 different copies over the last few years. And I never was able to win. That's because for once I set a certain standard and price point and was determined to stick to it. I was finally able to pick this one up for a 'best offer' of $27 or so.

Chasing vintage cards to me is chasing childhood memories. Yankee fan or not (I was not) I watched many many of their games with my Yankee fan father growing up. And you couldn't watch that many games without developing an admiration for the sheer talent of Mickey Mantle.

Combine that with my affinity for the 1958 Topps All Star subset and you get a card that I've had on my want list since I've been back in collecting. It's not 'gradeable' but it doesn't have any creases or paper loss. The corners are soft but I'm not too fussy about corners, especially when the picture is clean and the back looks as good as this one does.

As I mentioned in my Ted Williams post last week the numbers versus each team makes a great card back for a numbers nut like me. Mickey hit less than .333 against only one club, the Tigers. I would have thought that Yankee killer Frank Lary was responsible for that but Mantle hit .357 against him in 1957. But Billy Hoeft and Paul Foytack gave him fits

I haven't decided on which of my 'Most Wanted' cards I'll pursue next. The '56 Koufax is tempting. It's the only one of his Topps cards I need.

Two More 1958 All Stars

Another Red Sox and a White Sox were among the group of 1958 Topps All Star cards that I picked up last week. Here is Boston infielder Frank Malzone. He was known as a fine fielder who could also hit some as indicated in his 1957 numbers shown on the card. a .292 average with 103 ribbies isn't too shabby. Looks like he had good success against everyone except the Yanks and Senators.

The card itself has some soft corners and a crease that shows mostly from the back but it's certainly collectible to me. My scanner seems to dislike these cards and the scans show a level of 'scuffing' that just isn't there when you look at them in person.

Sherm Lollar's skills behind the plate earned him the spot on this All Star card. He had several Gold Gloves to his credit. He was a seven time AL All Star including the three years prior to and following the 1957 season reflected on this card. '57 was the only year in the second half of the decade that he did not get a spot on the team. 

This copy is a bit better than the Malzone both front and back. I love the Sox cap logo outlined in red that they wore in this era. I have one of those. 

Too Soon

In the wake of the Orioles ALDS(?) loss to the Yankees it's just too soon for me to post a Mickey Mantle card, even if it is one I've finally picked up after several years of trying. So instead I'll post one of the other '58 All Star cards I scored off eBay.
The 1958 Topps All Star cards comprise one of my favorite subsets ever put out by Topps. I like everything about them. Because of the All Star cards the '58 set was one I considered chasing and blogging before I settled on the 1959.

And while I was doing my weekly scan of the online bidding site I came across a dealer who was selling reasonable copies of not only the Mantle but this Ted Williams along with a few others I needed. I haven't actively pursued a Ted Williams card but since I don't have any outside of his managerial cards from the late 60's/early 70's Topps sets I figured this was a good opportunity to add a card of one of the all time greats. The fact that it was from this subset made it even better. This is the last time Topps featured Williams on a card during his career. Fleer, of course, had it own dedicated 'Ted' set in '59. Williams did show up on the 1959 Topps Red Sox team card. You can see him if you look close.

My scan really does the card a disservice. The scuffing that shows itself in the scan isn't nearly as noticeable on the actual card. Ted's head (and I'm going to eschew the obvious jokes for the time being) dominates the front of the card and quite a few of the cards are portraits. A couple of exceptions will show up here soon.
The added bonus is the fact that the cards carry the Sport magazine imprint of the front. I grew up a dedicated Sport reader. It was a monthly so my folks were not as reluctant to buy me a subscription as they were when I wanted one to the Sporting News. (I usually bought that myself with money I saved from my allowance or my newspaper delivering job.)

But the back of the card is 100% gold for a guy who loved the stat laden team and leader cards of the 1960's. How great is a rundown of the player versus each club in the league? And look at Williams' '57 numbers! He hit .474 with 9 homers and 20 RBI and 22 runs scored against the Indians. His next highest average came against the Yanks. He tattooed Whitey Ford and company at a .453 clip. His lowest average against any team was .333 versus both Washington and the White Sox. The Orioles actually held him to one homer and seven ribbies. Part of that probably was a result of the dimensions of Memorial Stadium in those days.

And check out the write-up. It all but canonizes Ted. I love the last line especially..."Ted is truly a remarkable man." And this, to me at least is a truly remarkable card. Check back for some others coming soon, including the Mantle.