No Upgrade Needed!

Not long ago Shane, the Shoebox Legend himself, messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in a '61 Juan Marichal rookie which happened to be the last non-high number I lacked in that set. He warned me that it wasn't mint and there was some paper loss on the back. He'd picked it up at an antique store at a good price and thought I could use it until I found a better one.

Well, Shane has never looked through my vintage binders. 😁 If he had he'd have seen that a little back damage never stands between me and an open slot. And that's especially true when I'm down to just the most expensive open slot-fillers.

The Marichal card (and a few friends that came along for the ride) arrived Saturday and I'm happy to report that it's a fine fit in my 1961 set build. The damage is no big deal and the card is really in fine shape. I can think of several cards (I'm looking at you, 1960 Nellie Fox All-Star) that I have in sets with more significant issues than this sweet Marichal.

The fact that for my money (or maybe Shane's?) this is one of the cooler cards in the 1961 set.  Marichal always had a million dollar smile and it's shown off here.

I'm telling you if I had won this card 'flipping leaners' in the schoolyard at St. Mary's in Nutley N.J. in May of 1961 I'd have been thrilled.

 And Marichal finished off a binder page, a really nice binder page at that. He shares the top row with Hank Aaron and Dock Howser, the runner-up for AL RoY in 1961. The sweet Charlie Neal card is gravy.

It comes right before this one which I posted back in January.

Five Hall of Famers, three Rookie Star cards and that mis-numbered error Braves team card within 16 binder slots of each other.

Shane sent along some other cards as well. My most unlikely PC is Bobby Locke. I kicked that one off when I lucked into pulling a signed card in a Heritage pack a few years ago. After that, I added the few Topps cards that were available and some fun oddballs. I also had found a '68 buyback issued in 2015.

Packed with the Marichal were two more buybacks. I'm not sure which stamp was issued in which year but I'm sure I can find out easily enough.  Doh....this first one is a 2017.

This next one is stamped with the 75th-anniversary foil mark so Google tells me it's 2014.

Along with them were a few shiny Orioles. Cards are the only thing associated with the Orioles that does any shining lately.

Schoop will find a place in my fantasy player binder. This one boots out some plain jane Heritage card.

I miss JJ Hardy. And Chris Tillman is not on the Texas Rangers roster. Nor anyone else's as far as I can see. The two guys that came to the O's for Erik Beddard from Seattle in 2008, Tillman and Adam Jones, are without baseball work. Time marches on I guess.

Do I have to give up my Orioles fan club membership when I admit that I have no clue what Luis Matos did?

OK, Google to the rescue again...he played in Charm City for SEVEN SEASONS!! Who knew? Not me!

Soccer cards! Mbappé starred in the 2018 World Cup and plays professionally for Paris Saint-Germain. He's ridiculously talented. Paul Pogba, who did a Manny Machado-like reputation nose-dive over the past year, has had a nice resurgence under the new Man United manager. Thank God.

And this next card has a story, too. It was one of a pair that Shane used as a buffer on the outside of the stack he sent. Kind of like some eBay sellers will do. A 'bonus' with a job to do in a way. Well, this Kendrick went straight from the scanner to my fantasy football baseball (I had the fb one on my desk 😵) binder since I needed a card of him as an Angel to replace the (wrong team) Dodgers card that was in the binder. Yes, I am that anal when it comes to that collection.

Again, Shane...Thanks so much for the most generous trade package. It is appreciated.

You meet the best people in this hobby, yes?

Bobby Locke Additions

Well if I'm gonna be a Bobby Locke 'supercollector' I might as well dive in head first. I added a couple of items via eBay last week. Neither is spectacular but both are pretty cool.

First is a Jay Publishing B&W 5x7 from 1961. Jay's put out these photos as well as un-official yearbooks for a bunch of teams back then. The photos were sold in 'packs' at stadium concession stands. I remember buying them at Manny's Basebals Land across the street from Yankee Stadium as a kid. 

Next, a 1967 Seattle Popcorn card. These were stadium giveaways that came with a box of popcorn at Seattle's Sick Stadium. The Seattle Angels were an affiliate of the Angels in those days and Locke was up-and-down between the majors and minors. The card is about the size of Topps '75 minis and the ones that they stuck in some packs of '17 Heritage. .

The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards says the year can be determined by the list of sponsors on the back.

The Seattle Popcorn series ran from 1954 through 1968. Here is the SCBC entry for them:

Locke has a few more oddballs floating around out there. I don't have the time or energy to track them down at the moment but over time I will probably find them. It's fun to have a project.

Topps Bobby Locke PC

I never thought I would include Bobby Locke in my list of PCs but here he is. Before I pulled his autograph out of a Heritage pack I really had never given him much thought. I had his 1960 Topps card but I haven't featured it yet on that blog. He has no '58 or '59 cards so I had yet to do any looking into his career.

Locke appeared in five different Topps sets during his career. I picked up the ones I didn't have from eBay last week.

This is his 'rookie' card, the 1960. Pretty standard card with a portrait and a b/w 'action' pose. I'm 99% sure this is a picture taken in Municipal Stadium. Those windows over Locke's right shoulder look a lot like the ones in this one of Rocky Colavito.

The back is where this one shines (well it does to me, I love the 1960 cream/orange/black early series cardbacks. Locke had pitched for the Indians in 1959 after nearly five minor league seasons. The pix were likely taken that season.

Second year Bobby Locke, his 1961 card. It's a high number and cost more than the other put together. It's also my favorite. Note that the picture used is the same as the one in the 1960 'action' shot. more of those windows...Municipal Stadium. 

I'm not a fan of the green cardboard but you get full stats and two cartoons.

Now we are up to 1962. Same background. More than likely the same photo-shoot with the photographer getting his cap-less pic, just in case. With Locke now with the Cubs the cap-less shot came in handy. 

A nice play on his last name in the cartoon caption. Locke didn't make it out of Spring Training as a Cub. He had issues with the the weird 'College of Coaches' idea and he was dealt to the Cardinals in April. He was with them for three weeks before being traded to the Phils. He spent most of the season in the minors.

The '63 and '64 seasons were also mostly minor league years for Locke although he was around in September of '64 to watch the club blow it's big lead in the NL. After a couple of years off Topps' radar in October of '64 he was sold to the Angels. Topps pulled out their 'Locke' file and made him another card. He is listed with the Angels but he never played for them, at least in 1965. He was in the minors before he went to the Reds in a July deal. He pitched a bit in Cincinnati the second half of the year. 

He is obviously in his old Indians uni again here. Only the cap logo is scrubbed out. The pose is also exactly the same as his 1960 'action' shot. This picture is obviously from that same photo session. 

The '65 set rightfully holds a place dear to the hearts of many vintage collectors. It's about damn perfect.

After a couple more seasons spent mostly in the minors Locke appeared in the 1968 set. This is the same photo they'd used in 1962.  It's well within the range of possibility that Topps issued five separate Locke cards over the course of nine years using the pictures taken at one 1959 photo shoot!

He'd returned to the Angels' organization about a year after they had traded him to the Reds and in 1968 he pitched in 29 games, easily his most since 1961. Topps crammed a lot onto the backs of these '68s.

I have two more Locke cards from Topps. This is the 2017 signed Heritage done in the '68 style.

And I picked up another version of the '68, a buyback issued in 2015.

So that's my Bobby Locke 'rainbow'. I know that's not the right term for whatever you call a complete run of a guy's cards but whatever. Bobby turned 83 earlier this month. Here's to many more years of health and happiness with his family.

I found a few other Bobby Locke items including a couple of cool minor league oddballs. Those will hold for another day. Here is a montage of his Topps cardback cartoons:

Let's wrap this up with a handful of off-the-wall facts I found on his SABR bio page.:...

• He debuted in the big leagues with a starting assignment against the Boston Red Sox on June 18 [1959], and in his second at-bat he hit his only major-league home run, a three-run shot off Frank Sullivan over Fenway Park’s Green Monster wall in left field. 
• Locke was born on March 3, 1934, in the little town of Rowes Run in the rough mining country of Southwestern Pennsylvania about 40 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. He was one of ten kids in the family.
• [In high school] he played fullback and defensive back in football and made several all-star teams. He excelled in baseball as a pitcher, throwing two no-hitters and averaging 13 strikeouts a game. His 1952 team went undefeated, and he pitched a one-hitter with 13 strikeouts to win the state championship. Locke played in the Sandlot Classic at the Polo Grounds in New York City as a member of the 1952 USA Baseball All-Star team.
• Locke accepted a football scholarship to Arizona State University but returned home to focus on baseball early in his first gridiron season.

You can read the rest here.

Everyone's doing it, doing it

I bought two 30-card packs of '17 Heritage today. I'm not gonna collect this but I'm sure I'll need at least some of the guys I got for my fantasy baseball binder this year so it's not really a waste of money. 

And I got an autographed card. No, it's not a star card but a signed card out of a pack is good nonetheless. This is only the second time I remember getting a signed card through a pack purchase. The other was an Eric Davis card from 2015 Stadium Club. In that instance I had bought a box in the misguided belief I'd try to collect that set. I think a signed card was guaranteed in that box purchase so this Bobby Locke is my first random auto 'pull'.

Bobby Locke played in parts of nine seasons from 1959 thru 1968. And I do mean 'parts'. Looking at his Baseball Reference page I noticed how often he bounced from the minors to the bigs and back.

Anyway he had cards several Topps during the 60s beginning with the 1960 set. His '68 card, which of course is replicated for this Heritage set, was his last one. The photo was the same one Topps used in 1962.

He won 16 games in his career against 15 losses. While with the Indians early in his career he was a part time starter. He pitched a couple of shutouts in 1960.

Other than the Locke autograph I received nothing of note. I will say Topps did a nice job of replicating a few of the little details of the '68 set including the variation in the 'burlap' pattern.

I don't know what cards are short prints and don't care either. I looked at the backs of these and didn't see any gum stains. I got one of those in one of these Topps non-flagship sets a couple of years ago. Not this time.

This 'game' card is a nice touch. I liked the original insert set. These are bigger though.

One thing I didn't like is that of 60 cards not one was an Oriole. Not one. I got four White Sox guys though. These packs were misdirected I guess. They were meant for Jedi Jeff.

So all in all I liked the cards and I hope to get some use out of them. One weird card though is this one of Matt Holliday. He just looks creepy. Like a toy or movie character I've seen but can't put my finger on. I guess he's photoshopped into a Yankee uni, too.

And I got five team cards. I like Photo Day shots of guys standing on bleachers a lot more than team 'action' shots. Now get the hell off my lawn.