'61 All Stars....Done

I've been off the grid for a week or so. Attending to real world things can be hard.

But while that was going on some 'stuff' came in the mail and I'll try to post it over the next week or so. First up, the last two cards from Topps' 1961 MVP subset. Yogi Berra's card was one of the more costly of the bunch and I bid on more than a few before I picked this one up. I like how the photo is cropped so that his jersey sort of resembles the point of home plate at the bottom. I'm sure that was unintentional but it's sort of cool nonetheless.

Yogi's recent passing brought him into the news quite a bit and a lot of the stories centered around his personality and his always quotable tongue. But he won THREE MVP awards in the '50s. Here is a portion of Yogi's page on the Hall of Fame's website:

In addition to his colorful persona, what made Yogi so great was that he was one of the most feared hitters the game had ever seen. Teammate Hector Lopez said “Yogi had the fastest bat I ever saw. He could hit a ball late, that was already past him, and take it out of the park. The pitchers were afraid of him because he'd hit anything, so they didn't know what to throw. Yogi had them psyched out and he wasn't even trying to psych them out”. What was even more amazing was that when he donned the “tools of ignorance”, he had a reputation as being one of the best in the business behind the plate as well, as his manager Casey Stengel praised “Why has our pitching been so great? Our catcher that's why. He looks cumbersome but he's quick as a cat”.

When I picked up the Berra card I thought the subset was complete. But I soon realized that I had crossed Phil Rizzuto off the checklist but his card was missing from the binder. I was 99.9999% sure that I had bought one early on in my pursuit of the set but I sure couldn't find it. I went thru every box I could lay my hands on and then remembered that checking my purchase histories on various sites was a lot easier than shuffling thru stacks of cards. No Rizzuto purchases appeared so I wrote it off to loss of brain cells and picked one up cheap on COMC.

I never saw Rizzuto play but his prime was right in my Dad's wheelhouse as a fan and he was always talking Rizzuto up. I knew him as the Yankees' broadcaster and I always enjoyed him. He had a lot of stories and sometimes the game we were watching took a back seat to some tale of a Joe DiMaggio hit or something.

He played eleven full seasons as the Yankee shortstop. Prior to a three year service hitch during WWII he hit .304 and .284 in two seasons the Bronx. When he returned his only year to hit above .275 was his MVP year of 1950 when he hit .324 with a .418 OBP. That's sixty points above his career batting average.

With the '61 MVP subset done I'm in the market for another goal but I may wait until I clean up the 1960 set. I'm nearing the end of that one.

1961 Topps MVP Campy!

There are only 16 cards in the 1961 Topps MVP subset but oh, boy it's packed with star power. Here is one on my favorites. Roy Campanella had his career cut short due to the injuries he sustained in a car accident in January of 1959. He lived not far from where my family was living on Long Island in those days, on the north shore in Glen Cove.

How great a player was he? Well, he won three MVP awards over the course of just five seasons. Just for grins here is the list of the top NL MVP vote getters in 1955, the year Campy won his third trophy:

• 1    Roy Campanella                                               
• 2    Eddie Mathews                                                
• 3    Duke Snider                                      
• 4    Red Schoendienst                                          
• 5    Warren Spahn                  
• 6    Robin Roberts    
• 7    Ted Kluszewski                                                
• 8    Stan Musial                        
• 9    Carl Erskine
• 10  Carl Furillo 
• 11  Pee Wee Reese                                               
• 12  Jackie Robinson

And don't forget that Hank Aaron and Willie Mays were in the league as well. That's some serious competition. Lots of info on Roy Campanella out there. The more you dig the more interesting stories you find. Here is a snippet of Campy's bio on SABR's site:

Like most of the first generation of black players to cross the color line, Campanella took a steep pay cut to enter Organized Baseball and was forced to start at a level far below his ability. A top star in the Negro leagues, he found himself competing against a bunch of inexperienced kids, most of whom would never rise above Class A ball. Furthermore, he would be making only $185 a month for six months at Nashua rather than the $600 a month he’d been earning with the Baltimore Elite Giants.   

Campanella hit .290 and drove in 96 runs in 1946 to win the Eastern League MVP award. Early in the season, Nashua manager Walter Alston, who doubled as the club’s first baseman, asked Campy to take over the team for him if he ever got tossed out of a game. His reasoning was that Roy was older than most of the players and they respected and liked him. Sure enough, in a June contest Alston was ejected in the sixth inning and Campy became the first black man to manage in Organized Baseball. Moreover, his strategic move resulted in a comeback victory when he called on the hard-hitting Newcombe to pinch-hit and was rewarded with a clutch home run.

Roy’s experience in Nashua also changed his parents’ life. Fences around the Eastern League were virtually unreachable, and a local poultry farmer offered 100 baby chicks for every Nashua home run. At the end of the season, Campy collected 1,400 chicks as reward for his league-leading 14 circuit shots. He had them shipped to his father, who promptly began a farming business on the outskirts of Philadelphia.  

I'm down to just two cards from this subset on my want list, the Aaron and Yogi Berra cards. I keep bidding and losing but I'll get lucky at some point.

More from the 1961 Topps MVP Subset

I thought I'd toss these up since I had them scanned. They span a decade of  MVP winners and include a bunch of well known players. Nellie Fox, for example. There he is with the chaw. He won his MVP while leading the White Sox to the '59 AL crown.

Al Rosen missed out on the Triple Crown in 1953 when he finished barely behind Mickey Vernon of the Nats for the AL batting title. But he was a unanimous choice for MVP.

The Pirates' Dick Groat won the batting title, a World Series ring and the MVP Award in 1960. In 1963, his first year with the Cardinals, he finished second in the voting to Sandy Koufax.

Ernie Banks won back-to-back MVPs. I'm sure he would have traded them both for a shot at a World Series. This card came at a discount because some kid was kind enough to add the name of Ernie's team below his name.

Hank Sauer is the 'least celebrated' player in the group. His winning year, 1952, saw him lead the league in HR and RBIs. Robin Roberts, pitching for a fourth place Phillies club, won 28 games, had an ERA of 2.52 and a WHIP of 1.021 and finished second in the voting. I might have voted for him.

1961 Topps MVP Mickey Mantle

At the risk of becoming 'Mr. Vintage Subset' I decided to chase the 1961 Topps MVP cards. I started with the Don Newcombe that I posted last Monday. I already had Jackie Jensen, Roger Maris and Bobby Shantz so it was a matter of finding the others in this 16 card subset.

I thought Mantle was going to be the tough one and I had figured that it would take me quite awhile to find one that was in my price range but still presentable. But I got lucky. Right out of the gate this one showed up with a reasonable price and a 'Make Offer' option. My offer was accepted and here he is.

The scan doesn't really show how nice this card is. It's off center but that doesn't detract from the condition in my eyes.

I'm down to five 'needs' in this little group of '61s and I'll get to those soon enough. I'm going to finish off the '63 Fleer set and add a few 1060 Topps before I worry about these.

1961 Topps MVP Don Newcombe

Late in September Night Owl featured Don Newcombe in his 1956 Topps Card of the Month feature. It's a sweet card and it reminded me that Newk was included in the Topps MVP subset from 1961. It's a group of cards that I've been (very) casually collecting for what seems like decades.

I went out and found this copy on eBay and am very happy to add it to my collection. Don Newcombe is a often overlooked figure in the history of baseball in general and the Dodgers in particular. Night Owl outlined much of the story in his post.

I commented over there that Newk never got much consideration for the Hall of Fame and that's understandable I suppose. He got a late start in the majors due to a couple of factors. He came of age in a time when he wasn't going to be signed by a major league team. He spent a few seasons pitching in the Negro Leagues before Jackie Robinson broke through those barriers. And once signed by the Dodgers he had to climb up that incredibly deep farm system put together by Branch Rickey. In the end his numbers don't hold up to those pitchers enshrined in the Hall but his reach was much greater than just baseball stats. A recovered alcoholic Newk devoted much of his post-career time to assisting others to reach sobriety.

My father, a pinstripe-bleeding Yankee fan, had good things to say about Newcombe. And that was high praise considering that my old man lived just blocks from Ebbets Field and yet held the Bums in such low esteem that he never even walked the few blocks to see a game there until the Yanks played a World Series game in Brooklyn.

As for me I never saw Newk pitch but I do remember him being acknowledged one Sunday evening after his retirement as he sat in the audience at the Ed Sullivan show.

A few final random Newcombe thoughts:

• I couldn't find a Newcombe bio in a quick Amazon search. With as many baseball books as are published each year I'd have thought he would be the subject of one.
• He hit .271 as a major leaguer with 15 homers and over 100 RBI. The Astros have a first baseman who hits under .200. I'm just saying.
• He finished his career with a season in Japan as a first baseman/outfielder and hit 12 dingers and batted .262. Those numbers, at the age of 36, placed him 11th and 12th on the league leader boards in those categories. 
• Someone was kind enough to add the year of this card to the back. It doesn't bother me one bit. It shows that once upon a time someone cared.

Here is a checklist of the 1961 MVP subset. The ones I own are in red italics and I'm looking for the rest.

• 471 Phil Rizzuto - New York Yankees MVP
• 472 Yogi Berra - New York Yankees MVP
• 473 Bobby Shantz -Philadelphia Athletics  MVP
• 474 Al Rosen - Cleveland Indians MVP
• 475 Mickey Mantle - New York Yankees MVP (added Oct 19)
• 476 Jackie Jensen - Boston Red Sox MVP
• 477 Nellie Fox - Chicago White Sox MVP
• 478 Roger Maris - New York Yankees MVP
• 479 Jim Konstanty - Philadelphia Phillies MVP
• 480 Roy Campanella - Brooklyn Dodgers MVP
• 481 Hank Sauer - Chicago Cubs MVP
• 482 Willie Mays - New York Giants MVP
• 483 Don Newcombe - Brooklyn Dodgers MVP
• 484 Hank Aaron - Milwaukee Braves MVP
• 485 Ernie Banks - Chicago Cubs MVP
• 486 Dick Groat - Pittsburgh Pirates MVP