RAC package From Kirk, Part II

Here is a second part of the Random Acts of Cardness package I received from CaptKirk42. These are Oriole cards and maybe one or two others thrown in. 

A Donruss Threads Brooks Robinson. When you see the short brim, you know it's him!

Is it possible to be as cool as Eddie Murray? I doubt it although I've never tried.

A couple of Panini Prizm Orioles. First Frank.....

Then Brooks...

Now two Upper Deck Classics... Brooks..

And the great Earl Weaver.

Long time minor league pitcher and coach Ken Rowe.

Rowe is an interesting guy. After signing with the Tigers in 1953 it took him 10 years to make a major league appearance. With the 1963 Dodgers he got into 14 games and went 1-1 with a 2.93 ERA. His best game was on August 23 when he came in with two outs in the top of the first against the Braves in L.A. Down 2-0 Rowe kept the Braves powerful lineup in check for more than six innings before being lifted for a pinch-hitter. He allowed one unearned run on 5 hits. Rowe didn't pitch in the '63 Series (I don't know if he was active) but I hope he got a share from his World champion teammates.

He next appeared in the bigs in an Oriole uniform in 1964 and 1965 when he pitched in a total of 12 games. Then it was back to the minors and soon he became a coach and manager in the minors and he served as the Orioles pitching coach for awhile. He was active in the game through 2010 and passed away last year.

On his '65 card he's got the windbreaker-under-the-jersey thing going on. You saw a lot of that back then. For his career Rowe pitched in only 26 games in the majors but in the minors he was a part of 563 games over 15 seasons as a pitcher and countless games as a coach/manager. That's a lot of bus trips.

This is a 'playing card' from a set I've never seen. But it's an oddball and what can be better than an Orioles oddball item?

Here's the back of that Ripken card. Made by Pacific apparently. Here is a gallery of the full set. card #2 is Erubiel Durazo. I am 101% sure that I've never heard of him. 

1960 Topps Earl Wilson. Two things about him. I saw him beat the Yankees twice in Yankee Stadium. I only remember this because my Dad decided he didn't like the guy just for that reason. 

Is it just me or do the letters that spell out his name on this card look misaligned?

Happy Birthday, Earl Weaver

The Earl of Baltimore would have been 83 years old today.

On the day he died I posted a story of meeting Earl a couple of times, one time at a baseball luncheon. It's one of my favorite baseball memories. Earl Weaver was a Baltimore treasure, one of a kind.

This Upper Deck card was part of the package sent to me by CaptKirk42. The rest of the Orioles cards will be posted soon.

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.