Waiting for Maury

As a young collector in the early 60s it would have been nice to have had access to the internet, had there been an internet. It would have saved my friends and I a helluva lot of time trying to figure out why we never could find a Topps card of Maury Wills.

There was a Post cereal card of him. And he appeared (unofficially) on a card in the World Series subset in the 1960 Topps set. But other than that he was a ghost. Of course most everyone now knows the story of how he was snubbed by Topps until around 1958 when he was finally offered the standard $5 contract to appear in Topps products.

By then he was signed to appear only on Fleer products and what is considered his 'rookie' card is part of the wonderful 1963 Fleer set. There are several blog posts around that go into much more detail on the 'missing Maurys' but I'll direct you to the late Bob Lemke's entry. There he details the story and shows off a couple of his customs. I was happy to have added his '59 to my binder holding that set.

Enough about Wills cards we never got...I'm here to show off one I do have thanks for fellow blogger and Twitter friend Shane Katz. This super sharp example came along with a Bob Bolin card yesterday and brought me a couple of steps closer to finishing my 1970 set.

Look at the back of that card. That's a huge wall of stats and it chronicles Wills' long slow climb through the Dodgers' organization, an exceptional career in the majors to that point and his return to the Dodgers in 1969.

Interestingly the stat that put food on the Wills' family table isn't included... stolen bases. He led the NL each season from 1960 thru 1965 and then closed out the decade finishing 3rd, 2nd, 2nd and 4th. I don't think it's a stretch to say that he and Luis Aparicio changed the game in the 60s.

I'd forgotten that Wills was an expansion draft pick by the Expos prior to 1969. He was gone from the club in mid-June, traded back to Los Angeles, so I missed out on seeing him play in Parc jarry when I was there that August. I did see him play for both the Dodgers and Pirates. He also managed 83 games in Seattle over the the course of the '80 and '81 seasons. He had less than stellar results and his style never messed with the modern player.

Thanks again Shane...and look for the Bolin to appear in another post very soon.

Shiny Things

At the last hotel card show I hardly bought anything for my collection (outside of the big ol' lot of '70 Topps). But I did do something I hadn't done there in a long time. I ventured around the meeting room scrounging through tables looking for 'stuff'. No specific goal, just 'stuff'. Normally I camp out at the promoter's table where he has some great cheap vintage or in the hallway where he sets up his dime and dollar boxes.

In a box of new and relatively new '25 cents or 5 for a buck' cards I found these two which caught my eye. They are 2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic base cards. I've discovered that UD loved to make neat stuff using old photos that didn't show up in every other set, put a bunch of foil on them and then give the sets unwieldy names.

I don't have anything to say about these except that I found the checklist and the apparently numbered them using the players' first names in alphabetical order which is unusual. There are 161 of them including 71 which are given a FF notation that stands for Famous Firsts.

Here is a look at the back of the Campy card.

I might go find the Elston Howard card. I'm adding him to my list of player collections. More about that in another post.

1963 Fleer....Willie Mays and his National League friends

When it came time to pick up the pricier cards from the '63 Fleer set I figured I'd settle for lesser conditioned examples. I mean I'm not opening an art museum or anything. I just like to be able to flip through a binder and appreciate the cards for what they are. 

Willie Mays' '63 Fleer card came from COMC. It was one that had a "Warning: this card has issues" pop-up when you clicked 'add to cart'. Which didn't deter me. The creases aren't as pronounced in hand as they show in the scan. there is some back damage that seems to come from being pasted onto a page but it wasn't a deal breaker for me. The card of a smiling Willie in his old stomping (Polo) Grounds is very welcome in my collection.

Hey kids...It's Maury Wills! On a baseball card! 

Topps failure to sign a young Maury Wills is one of the more well known baseball cards 'legends'. He made a cameo on Topps' 1960 World Series Game #5 card but other than that this is his only appearance on a standard issue card. The yellow diamond on his card got a special MVP designation instead of the usual generic player artwork.

As a kid growing up with a lot of Dodgers fans as friends I was well aware that Wills never had a card from Topps although we never knew the story as to why that was. 

The rest of these were commons from the same purchase.

Bob Aspromonte posing in front of a brick wall. I always think of the old hockey sets that had so many photos of players seemingly taken in the hallway outside the clubhouse. I like the old .45s cap. I have one of those and wear it on my visits to Minute Maid Park when I'm rooting for the Astros (i.e. when they are not playing the Orioles).

Smoky Burgess, pinch hitter deluxe.

And finally one of my favorite Mets, lefty Al Jackson. Yes, back then I did have 'favorite' Mets...right up until October 16, 1969. After that it took about four decades for me to look at the Mets as 'just another team.' Yes, I held a grudge and was pretty bitter, sue me.

But anyway Al Jackson was a Texas-bred member of some terrible Mets' clubs and he always had the reputation as a hard-luck guy who deserved more support. He attended Wiley College which never was much in sports but had a top flight debate team that was made famous in a Denzel Washington movie.

After his active playing days Jackson was a pitching coach in several organizations, including the Orioles. Here is an interesting fact from Al Jackson's Baseball Reference Bullpen page: "A number of pitchers from that awful 1962 Mets team that went 40-120 became pitching coaches besides him, including Roger Craig, Bob Miller and Galen Cisco."

I'm down to seven cards on my '63 Fleer want list including the elusive short printed Checklist. None of the cards are actually hard to find. I just haven't seen them in the condition/price 'sweet spot' I have targeted. I'm very patient.