'67 Clemente (and friends)

I'm accumulating a bunch of 1967 Topps baseball these days. I really don't know if I'll go after the whole thing. But, even if I don't, there are worse things to have sitting around that these gems, yes?

I got this Clemente from a guy on Net54. My friends and I were endlessly amused by the fact that the Pirates wore caps with their letter logo applied via a patch on the front. That was the sort of thing we got as giveaways on Cap Days.

But 'patch cap' notwithstanding, it's a neat portrait card.

Glenn Beckert passed away recently, and I was reminded of how good that Banks-Beckert-Kessinger-Santo infield was back in their heyday. I also thought about it just this week while looking into Dick Ellsworth's 1960 card for an upcoming post on that blog. He had few good things to say about the Cubs' organization of that time.

Roy Face popped up on that blog as well with his special card shared with Hoyt Wilhelm.  Face went 18-1 for the Bucs in 1959 pitching 57 times out of the bullpen. I don't see how that's possible but it happened.

And it looks like Face had a legit, directly embroidered cap. I wonder how this all worked?

Here are three guys who were, at one point or another, Orioles.

Don Buford played for the O's for five seasons, from 1968 through the end of his career. He was with the Sox for five years before that although his first season was just 12 games. Buford played four years in Japan after his Orioles tenure.

He was an infielder during his Chicago days. When he came to Baltimore he played almost everywhere for a bit before settling in as the regular left fielder on those powerhouse clubs of  '69-'72. He made one All-Star team. In the 1971 ASG he batted for the guy whose card is just below and he whiffed.

My scanner cut the bottom border off Buford's card and I'm too lazy to dig it out to re-scan.

Here's one of my very favorite players, Mike Cuellar. I've always liked this road uni. It was what the 'Stros were wearing when I first got here and I followed them very closely. Cuellar was good in Houston. Begining in 1969, he was great for the Orioles.

This is as good a place as any to reprint my story of sitting next to Cuellar in the Astrodome for a 1968 game. This was posted back in 2014.

We came to Houston in the late '60s because my father was transferred here by Shell Oil. One of the perks was scoring company seats at the Astrodome from time to time. And I'm here to tell you that Shell had goooood seats. Second row behind home plate. So nice in fact that they shared that row with the Astro management and sometimes we were sitting next to team executives and other front office types.
But we attended one game in 1968 that had us seated next to then-Astro Mike Cuellar and  reliever Fred Gladding. Fred Flintstone was on the DL so I understood his being in street clothes in the stands but why was Mike Cuellar sitting next to me with some sort of binder charting pitches? Didn't guys do that from the dugout? But there he sat, wearing expensive-looking shoes, shiny silver/gray pants and a mock turtleneck. That 'look' was pretty much the off-the-field 'uniform' of major leaguers back then. I got my program signed by both players and I remember having a few brief exchanges with Cuellar.
Cuellar became a favorite of mine and I was thrilled when he was dealt to my Orioles that winter even though the thought then was that the O's got snookered, picking up a washed up junkballer. But tossing that remarkable screwball he went on to become one of the best pitchers in O's history, winning the Cy Young in 1969. I skipped school to stay home and watch him beat the Mets in Game 1 of the 1969 World Series and he cemented his place in my heart with his great win over the Reds in Game 5 of the 1970 Series which wrapped up the championship for the O's. That was the same year he hit a grand slam in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Twins. Didn't pitch well that day but his slam was a huge kick for me.

Last man up is Johnny Orsino. Unlike Buford and Cuellar, he was an ex-Oriole in '67. He came to Baltimore in 1963 after a long minor league climb through the Giants' chain and a few months of big-league time in San Francisco. He stepped into the starting catching job, played 116 games, hit .272 and swatted 19 homers. It was easily his best year in baseball. His playing time dropped over the next few years as his hitting regressed. He split time with Dick Brown and Charlie Lau for a couple of years. Andy Etchebarren pushed that entire crew out of the picture in the Orioles' championship year of 1966. Orsino had been dealt to the Senators for Woody Held. He played little and, in fact, had just one at-bat in '67 and never played in the majors again. But he can say something that a lot of major league vets can't say. His name is in a World Series box score. He had an at-bat in the '62 Series for the Giants. In Game One, he entered as part of a double switch in the top of the ninth and faced Whitey Ford in the bottom of the inning. Ford got him to ground into a 5-4-3 double play.

A Little of This, a Little of That....

I pulled a 200 count card box out of my closet yesterday just to see what was in it. It was marked 'Oddballs, Orioles, etc." I always seemed to label boxes with 'etc.' as if I'd know what was in them 20 years later.

I pulled a small stack of cards from the middle of the box and among other weird junk these cards stood out. First is this Hires Root Beer George Zuverink card. These were issued in 1958 and as you can figure from the name they came in cartons of soda. There is a lot to love here but for me the nostalgia value tops all of it... Hires Root Beer was a staple in my grandparents' Brooklyn house.

Zuverink spent all or parts of 8 seasons in the bigs, about half with the Orioles. I covered his career on my 1959 Topps blog including the fact that he was one half of the first battery with both partners having names beginning with 'Z'.

The rest of the cards were less interesting. This Astrodome card comes from a UH Cougars set issued in 1992. I was working in the athletic offices part time back then and had tons of these seats. They have made for good student prizes over the years.

If you could zoom in tight enough you could see my seats at the exact opposite end of the Dome, up in the yellow upper deck seats on the front row. They were perfect for watching our veer offense as conceived by Coach Bill Yeoman. I also sat there for the 1969 Game of the Century against UCLA. 

1976 Hostess Mike Cuellar.

1982 Kmart Boog Powell. Back in the early 80s there was a new 'boxed set' available every day, or so it seemed.

On this date.....

....something really neat happened (if you were an Oriole fan in 1974). On September 6 of that year the O's got complete-game pitching performances by Dave McNally and Mike Cuellar. The Orioles sweep a doubleheader by stopping Cleveland twice, 2-0 and 1-0. The wins that days were the fourth and fifth consecutive shutouts thrown by the Birds. That established an American League mark by hurling 54 straight scoreless frames.

1970 Topps Booklets from COMC

When I found the Topps 1970 Mike Cuellar Comic/Booklet in my binders of 'old, forgotten things' not long ago I checked into the set and found that like many of the Topps 'inserts' of the day, they could be had cheaply. So with just 23 to track down, not many of the big name stars, I used my COMC credit to grab a bunch of them.

They were all in nice shape with varying amounts of browning. Some were close to perfect. And they came out to less than a dollar apiece even figuring in the $3 shipping cost.

I scanned a few of the pages from my favorites:

The Bob Moose booklet mentions no-hitters and references the one I saw in September of 1969 against the Mets. But I didn't scan that page because of how the booklet is glued. I didn't want to force it open on my scanner.

Maybe it's my 'Oriole-centric' imagination but I think that Wally Bunker alternately resembles Steve Barber, Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer in different panels of his booklet.

You just knew that the Walt Williams booklet would reference his 'No Neck' nickname. 

I like how the crowd in the Bobby Murcer booklet is checking out his his cheerleader-soon-to-be-wife rather than Murcer playing ball in the background. (that's an odd infield layout btw).

Here is the checklist. I am lacking the ones in bold/italics. My plan is to finish the set at minimal cost.

• 1 Mike Cuellar
• 2 Rico Petrocelli
• 3 Jay Johnstone
• 4 Walt Williams
• 5 Vada Pinson
• 6 Bill Freehan
• 7 Wally Bunker
• 8 Tony Oliva
• 9 Bobby Murcer
• 10 Reggie Jackson
• 11 Tommy Harper
• 12 Mike Epstein
• 13 Orlando Cepeda
• 14 Ernie Banks
• 15 Pete Rose
• 16 Denis Menke
• 17 Bill Singer
• 18 Rusty Staub
• 19 Cleon Jones
• 20 Deron Johnson
• 21 Bob Moose
• 22 Bob Gibson
• 23 Al Ferrara
• 24 Willie Mays

Oriole Comi-com

I suspect I'm using that term in the title incorrectly but I thought it was clever so there you go. Anyway, the Eddie Giacomin comics booklet posted the other day garnered a comment by Jim From Downington that mentioned a baseball version from around the same time.

Coincidentally I had just been pulling some oddball Orioles items from loose 9 pocket pages as part of my re-organization process. The 'Mike Cuellar Story' is the only one of these I own. It's part of the 1970 Topps insert set of these comics. I didn't scan the remaining page because of the way it's glued together. I didn't want to flatten it out. Below is on of the inside two page spreads. I've blown te pages up separately so they can be read easily.

As with the hockey booklets the back page is the checklist. It's easy to decipher the way Topps did this. Booklets 1-12 are American Leaguers obviously and listed in order of their teams alphabetically. Cuellar=Baltimore, Petrocelli=Boston, Johnstone=California and so on. NL guys run the same way with the 13 to 24 numbers.

What's harder to figure is Topps choice of players. Some of the selections were the 'face of the franchise', or at least close to it....Mays, Gibson, Banks, Rose. Others are star players who you can justify as a player worthy of being featured... Oliva, Staub (now that I think of it Staub WAS the Expos in 1970), Jackson, Murcer, Freehan, Cepeda and Cuellar. The others are more puzzling.

Bob Moose? He was coming off a year in which he pitched a no-hitter (the only one I've ever witnessed, btw) but you wouldn't think of him if somebody asked you to 'name a Pittsburgh Pirate'.

My guess would be that several factors were in play here.... possibly Topps didn't want to use the 'usual suspects' and maybe more to the point was Topps trying to find what they considered an 'interesting' story to feature. If I had a few of the other booklets I might be able to check them out.

That may also be the answer as to some of the hockey player selections that were debated on the Giacomin post. I dunno.

Anyone out there have any of these? below is a pair of pics I got off eBay. The listing is for 10 of the 12 AL booklets. The bottom pic shows how colorful the set is. they'd look cool in binder pages, yes?

As I type this late Thursday the lot has no bids at a $5 asking price. I may have to go back and do something about that.

Four Years Ago

One of my very favorite Orioles passed away four years ago today. Mike Cuellar died of stomach cancer on April 2, 2010. This is my 1959 Cuellar rookie from my 1959 Topps set. When I posted this one over on my '59 Topps blog I told the story of sitting next to Cuellar one night in the Astrodome.

We came to Houston in the late '60s because my father was transferred here by Shell Oil. One of the perks was scoring company seats at the Astrodome from time to time. And I'm here to tell you that Shell had goooood seats. Second row behind home plate. So nice in fact that they shared that row with the Astro management and sometimes we were sitting next to team executives and other front office types.
But we attended one game in 1968 that had us seated next to then-Astro Mike Cuellar and  reliever Fred Gladding. Fred Flintstone was on the DL so I understood his being in street clothes in the stands but why was Mike Cuellar sitting next to me with some sort of binder charting pitches? Didn't guys do that from the dugout? But there he sat, wearing expensive-looking shoes, shiny silver/gray pants and a mock turtleneck. That 'look' was pretty much the off-the-field 'uniform' of major leaguers back then. I got my program signed by both players and I remember having a few brief exchanges with Cuellar.
Cuellar became a favorite of mine and I was thrilled when he was dealt to my Orioles that winter even though the thought then was that the O's got snookered, picking up a washed up junkballer. But tossing that remarkable screwball he went on to become one of the best pitchers in O's history, winning the Cy Young in 1969. I skipped school to stay home and watch him beat the Mets in Game 1 of the 1969 World Series and he cemented his place in my heart with his great win over the Reds in Game 5 of the 1970 Series which wrapped up the championship for the O's. That was the same year he hit a grand slam in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Twins. Didn't pitch well that day but his slam was a huge kick for me.

I have all of the cards that were issued during his career and from time to time I add some of these post-career cards put out by Topps or Upper Deck or whoever. Here are two I have added in the last couple of months.

Topps American Pie from 2001.

And an Upper Deck Times Teams something or other from 2004.

 I'm certainly not a 'completest' when it comes to these modern issues but when the photo is one that I don't see regularly and/or I like the design, I'll buy it.

This Orlando Sentinal article, posted just a few days before Cuellar's death in 2010, is a nice if somewhat sad read. I had no idea before I read it that Cuellar struggled with finances in his post-retirement days. I'd bet that a lot of these retired player do.

Rest In Peace, Mike Cuellar.

Three Years Ago Yesterday...

....one of my favorite players passed away. The great Mike Cuellar. I once sat next to him at a game in the Astrodome. I related that story over on my '59 Topps blog.
That 1968 Topps Cuellar is one of the cards that survived multiple moves and 're-organizations' of my collection over time. One of my favorites, too. That of course is Shea Stadium and Mike is grinning as if he knows the best years of his career are about to unfold.
Those were the days when Topps used the 'Houston' designation of cards featuring Astros. Several theories on this. Probably some sort of licensing dispute.
More of my Cuellar goodness...
Orioles team issued postcard, circa 1974

1973 Topps

Picture I took of Mike playing long-toss at Arlington Stadium in 1975, chronicled here.

1960 Topps

1960 Topps Mike Cuellar

I know that sometimes this seems like the "Mike Cuellar Blog" but it's just that I have a lot of his memorabilia on hand. I've mentioned several times how much of a favorite he was.

Cuellar was on my mind again just just this past Friday because one of my favorite bloggers, William from Foul Bunt, featured an Cuellar autographed ball he picked up at the National.

I've also mentioned how much I enjoy the 1960 Topps set so the Cuellar card would naturally be one I'd cherish. Ignoring for a moment the fact that Topps used the same picture twice on the front of the card, check out the cartoon. They show a pitcher wearing a Castro-like beard and refer to Cuellar being discovered while pitching for the Cuban Army team. I guess they were trying to be timely as Fidel Castro had taken over Cuba on New Year's day of 1959.

And it looks like Topps had one, and only one, Cuellar photo in their files. The '60 card repeats the same picture  (twice) that first appeared on the '59 Cuellar 'Rookie'.

Over on my Topps '59 blog I related a story of how i came to be sitting next to Mike Cuellar at a game in the Astrodome. And somewhere in my boxes of 'stuff' is a ball he tossed to my brothers and I in the old Arlington Stadium. We were seated in the first row of the outfield stands and Cuellar was doing some warning track laps during batting practice. My two younger brothers would shout "Mike, throw me a ball!!" every time he passed under us. Eventually he did.

40 Years Ago

On July 30 of 1972 I was in Baltimore for my pretty much annual summer trip up there. It was usually a week or two of cramming in as many O's games and crab feasts as humanly possible. When we had spare moments I'd go to Faidley's for crab cakes.

My Uncle would score tickets and we'd head for the Stadium using his 'shortcuts' and winding along beside Druid Hill Park. And he had 'out of the way' parking spots that never failed. That Sunday Mike Cuellar shutout the Yankees on three hits. Boog Powell homered and he and Brooks Robinson each had a pair of RBI's.

I seem to recall a Yankee batter getting tossed by an ump but I can't find any evidence of who it could have been. Maybe that was another game. :::edit.. maybe it was Ralph Houk?:::

My man Mike Cuellar passed away a couple of years ago. I just loved watching him pitch. There was just something special about the guy and how he worked on the mound.

Those were really good days.

Heartbreaking Cards from Matt

I received a surprise envelope from Matt of Heartbreaking Cards fame on Monday. Those kind of surprises are especially welcome. Here is what he included:

Dig this one. 1967 Topps N. League (N. League? I never noticed that before) ERA Leaders. I'm always rambling about how much I like these leaders cards with the list of players on the back. I'd spend lots of time as a kid studying the numbers. Is this one scarred? Yes, but who cares, look who's on the front...Sandy Koufax, Mike Cuellar and Juan Marichal!!! I have collections of all three. I sat next to Cuellar in the Astrodome at a game in 1968 and he became a favorite of mine.

Look at Koufax's ERA... 1.76 One point Seven Six. LOL

A couple of Lance Berkmans. The first of these is a patch card that's about as thick a card as I've ever seen. My kids and I have followed Lance since his days at Rice. His leaving the 'Stros was a day of mourning for my boys. He's had some tough luck lately and I just heard he got hurt again this week. 

Wei-Yin Chen A&G. The 20 years of Camden Yards patch is a nice touch. I like cards that show sleeve patches front and center.

A Mike Cuellar issued by Topps in 2005. Someone who collected in those days can clue me in as to whether this was a regular issue card or some sort of insert, subset, etc. The modern card stuff confuses me. But either way it's a nice addition to my Cuellar binder pages. 

Finally here's the immortal Johnny Unitas on a Allen & Ginter's Yankee Stadium Tribute mini card. The back mentions that it was a National card show promo. This looks like a variation of my eTopps Johnny Unitas card except I can actually scan this baby. 

Thanks so very much Matt. Again I find that this hobby has some very generous and thoughtful people in it.