Honest Abe and two Dons

February 12th is the birthday of (IMO) our greatest president and the (IMO, again) most remarkable man this country has ever produced, Abraham Lincoln. I'm a Lincoln-phile and have a couple of shelves of books written about him (not all of which I've read yet). I have a couple of modern cards that depict him. This is some sort of Upper Deck card. I've never really looked into the whole set.

There are two other birthdays of note (to me) today. First off is former big league reliever Don Stanhouse. He spent two seasons ('78/'79) as the closer in Baltimore and took at least that many years off my life. I was working at the late, much lamented Houston Post back them and most evenings I'd hang out in the sports department tracking the O's on the AP ticker. His innings took forrrevvver. Seemed like he'd go 3-2 on every guy he faced and he worked so damn slow.

I know Earl Weaver called him 'Full Pack' because he claimed that's how many smokes he'd go through in a Stanhouse inning. So Happy Birthday Don Stanhouse, wherever you are.

I spent the 1967 season as a temporary resident of Houston. My father was 'on loan' to the Shell Oil's Houston division helping the company get ready for the moving of their headquarters from New York. That year my father and I got to see a lot of games in the Astrodome using the Shell corporate seats right behind home plate. And I DO mean right behind it...we were in the second row behind the ump. That was my first look at Don Wilson. Maybe it was the vantage point but he was incredibly impressive as a pitcher. He threw serious high heat. The sound of the catchers's glove was something my father always commented on. I'd never been that close to a major league pitcher-hitter confrontation and I wondered how those guys had the guts to stand in against Wilson.

And oddly it seemed that through the years (we returned to Houston for good in 1970) Wilson was always the Astros' starter when we went to a game. It became a running joke. Because of that Wilson became one of my favorite Astros player. When he died so mysteriously at the age of 29 in 1975 it was pretty shocking.

I'll always remember reading about his second no-hitter and wishing I could have seen it. It came in May of 1969 against Cincinnati a day after the Reds' Don Maloney had no hit the Astros and supposedly shown some disrespect or at least that was how Wilson and the Astros saw it. Reportedly after the last out of his gem Wilson charged the Reds' dugout and had to be restrained. He was just that kind of guy.

Beam me up, Scotty

I came back into town earlier this week and found and package waiting for me. In it were a couple dozen cards and this:

The cards in the envelope were eclectic mix of new stuff, Orioles stuff, vintage stuff, red stuff, blue stuff. Pretty amazing actually.

The RAC package came from (if you haven't guessed already) 'CaptKirk42' of the blog of the same name. Kirk also hangs out over at the Trading Card Zone. Like myself his interests are ...ahem... varied. If you don't believe me go check out his 'want list'.

Anyway back to the RAC package. There were too many interesting cards in it to include in one post so I'll put up some in this entry and some in the near future.

The '68 Ron Hansen at the top may not be the world's most exciting card but is may be the most perfectly preserved '68 I've ever seen. It looks like it was sealed up in a time capsule the instant it came out of the pack. Hansen is a guy whose cards I like to hang on to because he was the 1960 AL Rookie of the Year as an Oriole and because of his 1968 unassisted triple play.

I've been accused of 'sleeping with the enemy' because of my affinity for 60's era Yankee pitchers cards and how I tend to slobber all over the '59s I feature that have nice Yankee Stadium backgrounds. Well, I grew up watching games in the Bronx with my Dad and at my age the nostalgia factor is pretty strong. This '64 Young Aces is a great example. I'd bet I saw more Al Downing starts than I did of anyone else on the Yankee staff outside of Whitey 'I Pitch the First Game of Every Sunday Doubleheader' Ford. 

And I played ball with and against a couple of the 'Bouton Boys', Jim's cousins/nephews in Essex County, NJ.

Speaking of guys I saw a lot of, when we moved to Houston and went to games in the Dome it seemed like Don Wilson was always the Astros' starter. He was a 'take no prisoners' kind of bad azz dude. His no-hitter in May of 1969 against the Reds came a day after Don Maloney had no-hit the Astros. Knowing Wilson the general assumption was he getting some revenge for the previous night's humiliation. But in this great game story from the Houston Chronicle it's clear that Wilson carried much more than that into the game.

I got this 1960 Topps Julio Becquer among several others from that set. I love the gold and black reverse sides of the 1960 set. And the 'Season Highlights' are very cool. I just recently featured Becquer's '59 card on my other blog. I am seriously considering finishing the set as my next major hobby project. I have a hundred or so '60 cards so that's a nice head start.

Ron Hunt played for five different National League clubs but the only one I associate him with is the Mets. Seeing him in Dodger gear as on the '68 is always a surprise. He plays a key part in the narrative of the best baseball book I have ever read, A False Spring. He was author Pat Jordan's roommate as a rookie in the Milwaukee Braves' spring training camp in 1959. I blogged about the book previously so I won't repeat myself here. 

Here is another 64, Don Lock. He looks like a friend of mine from childhood. Hell, he looks like a friend from everybody's childhood.

1962 Bobby Shantz

How about this gem, a '64 Roy McMillan. Pretty nice shape and you have to love the glasses and cool Milwaukee batting helmet.

I'm only a card or two from completing my Johnny Callison PC. Here is one I've wanted for awhile. The '66 Power Plus with Callison and Wes Covington. It's one of a couple of Callison 'specials' I had been lacking. Is it creased? Sure, but the crease is across Covington, not Johnny C. so I'm happy to mark it off my want list.

A big tip of the cap to Kirk. I'm post more from the RAC package soon. The next one will feature the cool Oriole cards he included.