Scan Dump, Part 1

Between a couple of hotel shows, the TriStar show and some online purchases, I've accumulated a bunch of  'stuff' that covers a wide range of my collecting interests. I have most of it scanned, but little of it posted. This will keep me occupied for a few weeks.

From Net54 came a pair of un-connected lots from the same seller. This one, obviously, was a group of signed vintage cards. Now I'll admit that I'm not much of an autograph guy. But when a grouping of them comes cheap, has cards of Orioles, players I semi-collect, and/or come from sets I have chased, I'm gonna buy it.

I'm going to crank up my '57 chase once I finish off the stuff I'm doing now. But I bought a fair sized starter lot some time back and I add to it if something falls in my lap. Add to that the fact that one way I spice up my vintage sets is sprinkling in a few signed cards, and the Triandos is a natural for me. And as a bonus, it's nicer than the one I would have yanked from my old Orioles team set pages.

Hal 'Skinny' Brown pitched for several clubs but had his best seasons as an Orioles starter from 1956 through 1961. This '64 card is from his last season in the bigs. That's the Polo Grounds behind him, I'm 99% sure of that. I don't plan to collect the '64 set but there are worse ways to spend hobby money, I'll say that.

It's a lousy sig on the Milt Pappas but it's got a spot in my '62 binder.

A few years ago I made a halting start on chasing the 1963 set. Considering how much I was into it as a kid in '63 (it was right in the heart of my collecting days) I'm surprised that it doesn't really inspire me these days. 

I have a couple of Bobby Richardson signatures but this is the first on a real card. I saw so much of him at Yankee Stadium back in the day. If I had a 'favorite' Yankee list, he'd be at or near the top.

Manny Mota just sort of came along for the ride. Too bad he got an airbrushed helmet instead of a pic in that spectacular Expos uni in their first year.

That's the first load from my backlogged scan file. And the last baseball cards to be shown from it. The rest are spies, cars, presidents, actors, and oddities. I know you can't wait.

That Salada goodness

I've been fighting a bug for the last few days and haven't had much energy so I dug through my scan folder for something to post. (Tell me you've never done that).

I picked these Salada coins up off eBay a few weeks ago. I really only wanted a Colts example for my Baltimore Colts collection but Ol' Milt called out to me so I added him to my cart and checked out. These were issued from 1962 through 1963. I believe both of these are '63 vintage. A 'parallel' set of the baseball coins as well as hockey versions were available in Canada under the 'Shirriff' brand name at roughly the same time (and later that decade). I have the Salada Billy Pierce but the Shirriff one has proved to be elusive.

Jimmy Orr was a big deal in Baltimore during his 10 seasons there (then again every Colt was a big deal to Charm City fans). He always seemed to be catching TD passes from John Unitas in the right-hand corner of the endzone of Memorial Stadium's south end. That corner was dubbed 'Orrsville'. 

And with the Super Bowl coming up tomorrow it's appropriate (though painful for me) to note an infamous moment of Colts' lore. From Wikipedia:

Orr is known for his part in a play in Super Bowl III against the New York Jets. On the last play of the first half, Colt quarterback Earl Morrall handed off to Tom Matte, who threw a lateral back to Morrall in a flea-flicker play. Orr was wide open and waving in the end zone, but Morrall did not see him (perhaps because Orr was camouflaged by a backdrop of uniformed band members outlining the end zone). Videos of the play reveal that on an otherwise overcast day, the sun mysteriously came out just before the play, and shone directly into Morrall's face, while Orr was downfield in the shadows. Morrall threw instead to fullback Jerry Hill, but the ball was intercepted by New York Jets safety Jim Hudson.

I loved Milt Pappas before he was traded to the Reds for Frank Robinson in December of 1965. I was kind of disappointed that he was gone. But I got over it. 

As noted on the reverse of these coins they came in packages of Salada Tea and Junket desserts. I don't recall having either product in our home growing up. I do remember hearing and seeing commercials for Junket Rennet Custard. I had no idea what that was and didn't until a few minutes ago when Google enlightened me. Apparently the same company that now owns the rights to that name also owns the rights to the Salada Tea brand. Whatever.

Manny's Baseball Land 8x10 Orioles

I couldn't pass these up when I came across them on eBay a few weeks ago. For about $6 each I won these 8 x 10s from Manny's Baseball Land, the iconic store that was on Jerome Avenue across from the old Yankee Stadium for many years. See this previous post for more on Manny's.

One of the fun things about these is doing the detective work to date them. The Pappas above is the only one of the three with enough background visuals to even attempt that. The two Orioles on the field to the right of Pappas I believe are Walt Dropo and Gene Woodling. I'm more confident of Dropo that Woodling but it appears that the numbers work (14 & 17) so I'll go with that. Pappas, Dropo and Woodling played together on the O's in 1959 and 1960. The guy over on the left signing for fans along the railing sure looks like Paul Blair but Blair was only 16 in 1960. I blew the shot up as large as I could and I just feel like he is a black player wearing a single digit number so if that holds true it's either Bob Boyd or Valmy Thomas.

Not that it matters, or that anyone besides me cares. LOL

In the one below Jack Fisher is posing in Yankee Stadium.That's all I know for sure. When he was a rising start for the Orioles in the early 60s we all thought Fat Jack was going to be the staff ace soon and for a long time. His career derailed in 1962 and he never had an above .500 record as be banged around for the rest of the decade. I saw him pitch  for the Mets a few times at Shea Stadium. I never rooted for the Mets but it was hard to root against him.

And this one of Brooks Robinson makes him look to be a rookie doesn't it? The Orioles switched to the orange brimmed caps in 1958 so this shot of him wearing the all black cap dates back to 1957 at the latest.

Good ol' Manny's Baseball Land. Great memories of my Dad buying me a yearbook or pennant as the subway rumbled overhead and we got ready to head into the big ballpark.

An Orioles State of Mind

I made it out to the ballpark this past weekend to catch the four game series between the Orioles and Astros. First thing I was happy about was the super reliable Minute Maid Park wi-fi service which allowed me to stream the Rangers clincher against Montreal. Needless to say I was AT the baseball game but I was WATCHING the hockey game.

The Orioles ended up splitting the series and didn't show much with their bats for the most part but I enjoyed being out there. Seeing the O's live always gets me into more of a baseball mood and Sunday night I dug out and scanned a fair-sized pile of Orioles postcards. Lots of different eras and postcard styles were in that stack. I'm going to show a few this week over a couple of posts.

First up are these two Perez-Steele Hall of Fame cards, Frank and Brooks Robinson. I've noted before that I run hot and cold on Dick Perez as an artist. These HOF cards are his best work IMHO. Both are signed, the Brooks was an in-person sig. I can't remember about the Frank. I had him sign a few things at a small local card show many years ago and this may or may not be one of them. How odd it seems now the recall him sitting at a table in a Ramada Inn ballroom in east Houston.

While I'm thinking about it I took a few pictures at the games. Most are pretty uninteresting but on Sunday Cal Ripken, Jr. was in the house. He signed autographs for quite awhile before the game and then threw out the first pitch.

And here is the Houston Chapter of the Orioles Brotherhood hanging out after the Orioles warmed up. Many more had headed down to the dugout to pester Ripken for a sig. I followed a short time later.. Ignore the dimbulb wearing the Stretch Suba jersey over on the left. There's one in every crowd.

Next up are some JD McCarthy postcards. The Jim Northrup is pretty much a standard issue JDM example. The logo is the one that most of his postcards carry.  The backside has the McCarthy info but no stamp box. Northrup played the final two weeks of the 1974 season with the Orioles and stayed through 1975. The picture is from Tiger Stadium and the O's ended the season there and I can see Cleveland at Boston listed among the out of town games on the scoreboard and that matches up. We can date this photo to October 1st or 2nd of 1974. All that and 4 bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I really love this Milt Pappas postcard issued by JDM. It's quite different from the other McCarthys I have. No logo on the front and it has a 'postcard' back. One of these days I'll do a little research into some of this stuff. This is a spring training shot.