Frank Robinson Postcard

 

 

Picked up some stuff from Net54 members recently. I've bought more there in the last few months than I have from eBay, SportsLots or anywhere else. In addition to some oddball football and baseball sets I paid a few bucks for this addition to my Frank Robinson collection. The unused postcard shows Frank and his staff as he was about to become MLB's first black manager.

 

This is almost surely a photo from Spring Training in Tucson where the Indians trained from the late '40s through the early 1990s. On Frank's staff that first season were (l-r) Harvey Haddix, Dave Garcia, Tom McCraw, and Jeff Torborg . Looks like all five of them wore their stirrups as they had during their playing days. Frank had those long, thin ones going on. 

I know a lot of folks look back wistfully at those Indians unis but I wasn't a fan, then or now. Wouldn't turn down one of those lids though.

ST will be here fairly soon (I think). We had very preliminary plans to head for Florida for last season's camps but we all know what happened. Maybe we can get there in 2022. I would love to see Sarasota, Lakeland and Bradenton again.

Finally, here is a quick clip of Frank's debut as Indians manager in which he famously homed to help get himself a win. RIP

Frank Robinson

Today would have been his 85th birthday. I've posted more Frank Robinson items than I can count. Here are some of my favorites.

Orioles Kangaroo Court Pic

This Topps Frank Robinson card that I posted a bit ago led to a question from Joe Shlabotnik about the picture. The shot comes from the Orioles' glory days (sigh) when they were having fun and winning pennants.

Frank had a 'kangaroo court' where he levied fines for various team infractions like leaving the bases loaded, getting caught stealing, etc.

EDIT, EDIT, OH DAMN, READ THIS!!

I went looking for other pics and saw this one for sale. I thought it would be a nice addition to my Frank Robinson collection.

IIRC they took the money at the end of the year and donated it to charity rather than the postseason party as the photo caption states.

The photo library tag is pretty much wrong. Dave Johnson does NOT call the court to order, FRobby does.

My other recent Frank Robinson-related purchase is the memorial patch the O's are wearing this year.

My wife promised to stitch it to my new 'lucky' shirt. I wore this to the only Orioles win in Houston this year. A rare occurrence (the win, not my wearing a shirt).

10 Posts, 10 Cards, 10 Books, 10 Songs (#10)

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.

Frank Robinson

Let 'Em Breathe!

I picked up two more All-Stars for the 1961 set build. I almost always go after raw cards but sometimes you find a graded card at a reasonable price. My normal procedure is to let them stew in their cases for a few days and then throw a 'freedom party' out on my workbench.

Ever since I damaged a '59 Killebrew rookie with an overzealous screwdriver I've been more careful doing this. I did ding my '62 Willie Mays but overall I've had success. What I normally do is stick the label (I've learned it's called a 'flip') into the binder on the back side of the card.

This morning I went from this...

...to this...

...and finally to this...

Now that I look at the scans I think I'm going to pull the flips out of the binder pockets. Viewing three of them on a page is kind of annoying. #retiredguyproblems :-)

Progress report: I'm at 538 of the 587 cards in the '61 set (92% give or take). 34 of the cards I lack are high numbers including three All-Stars (Aparicio, Banks, Mays). Of the 15 lower series cards a couple are stars/rookies including the Marichal rookie. I'd also like to upgrade one card... I have a Mantle World Series Game 2 (card #307) which is trimmed.

I made the hotel show this past Saturday but I've pretty much exhausted the supply of  '61s that my friend Darryl had available. I picked up both of Bill Mazeroski's cards from him.

Overall I think I've made pretty decent progress on this thing. From time to time (particularly when looking at high number cards of lesser-known players) wonder how I could have let myself get into the chase for this. But it's been fun. I have a goal (a soft goal!) of finishing it this calendar year. We'll see.

Orioles Wire Photos

While looking for something else I came across a seller on eBay with a bunch of reasonably priced wire service photos and among them were some Orioles-related ones. I bought what I thought was the best of the bunch.

Since I'm such a sucker for the early '60s Orioles jerseys I had to pick this one of Robin Roberts and Manager Billy Hitchcock. The fact that it's a shot of Roberts is a nice bonus. Even I tend to forget that he did some good things while a member of the Orioles. He was a double-digit winner in each of the three full seasons he played there. I saw him pitch at least a couple of times. He beat the Twins in a game I attended in 1963 during our annual 'late in the summer' trip to Charm City. I also saw him in Yankee Stadium but I can't recall or figure out when exactly. All I remember is that it was a night game.

The photo's caption relates to Roberts' debut with the O's in May of 1962. He had signed with the Yankees after the '61 World Series but never made an appearance with them early in 1962 before he was cut and signed with the Orioles.

Roberts stars in this next photo as well. This picture comes from this game later in that same season.

The caption states that the Orioles swept a five-game series from the Yanks. That was five games in three days. Good times. Of course, the Yanks had the last laugh, they won the pennant and my Birds finished 7th.

No action in this third and final photo. It shows Frank Robinson as he signed to manage in the Puerto Rican Winter League in 1968. The team was called the Cangrejeros (or Crabbers). It was a big deal at the time since the majors had still not had a black manager and Robby was a big star. This is really what set in motion his eventual hiring in Cleveland.

Frank's Hall of Fame bio recounts his days as a manager in Santurce. And has some cool pics as a bonus.

I picked up a handful of other photos in the purchase including a couple of Billy Pierce shots. I'll get those posted in the new year.

Happy 82nd Frank Robinson

Just some FRobby stuff on this beautiful Thursday morning. He's one of the less appreciated stars of the 50s/60s. Hope his day is great.

The story behind these next two is here in this post from 2012

And finally Frank's 1957 rookie card. A classic.

That ain't me!!

I recently received an interesting group of cards from one of my favorite bloggers, "Joe Shlabotnik" who writes the always entertaining The Shlabotnik Report. (Props to me for spelling it right twice before I checked it!!)

I got a big kick out of the 1978 buyback Rob Andrews. I've always felt a 'kinship' with the guy. Not only do we share a name but we were born just six days apart in 1952. As a bonus he was originally drafted by the Orioles.

Andrews had some very good minor league numbers in the O's chain but with a 25-year-old Bobby Grich (already a three time All Star and MVP candidate) holding down 2nd base the Orioles they didn't see a reason to hold on to him. So Andrews was dealt to Houston where I got to see him play before moving on to the Giants.

He's got about five Topps cards plus a few odds and ends. I have one besides this '78. And it looks like I used nearly the same post title for that one. Might be fun to try and track down a buyback of each Topps card he has.

Next up is a really, really nice 2002 Topps Gallery Frank Robinson card. I know nothing about this set but that sure is a nice piece of artwork.

Checking the back Topps gives a shout out to the artist which is nice.

The blurb is hard to read so I blew it up. Ron Stark does some very impressive work. You can check out his website for more.

This next card is of Orioles shortstop prospect Mychal Givens. It's interesting for a couple of reasons:

First of all Mychal Givens, a second round 2009 pick, is an Orioles late inning reliever now. He transitioned from infielder to the mound between the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

More interesting is what Bowman/Topps put in this signature space. I'm not sure what to make of it:

It isn't Givens signature which you can see numerous times (as well as read more of Givens' backstory) over on the Great Orioles' Autograph Project blog. It's like someone wrote out his name as a placeholder and they just went with it. <shrug>

Joe also filled a few holes on my 1970 want list. Capless guys, airbrushed guys, nicely posed guys...and Ray Oyler.

Only the Ron Clark (top middle) was a dupe but even at that it was a plus...I was checking the two copies and examined the back:

It revealed the fact that the utility infielder was formerly both a Golden Gloves champ and a rodeo rider. Pretty cool.

And finally a couple of Orioles, one new, one old...and a famous Oriole in a weird uni. I'll never acknowledge Eddie Murray as a Met. But I will stick this card in my Murray pages.

So there you have one of the more notable and offbeat PWEs I've received. Many thanks to 'Joe' for the 'fun-to-investigate' cards!