Musing about my five collecting interests: All things Orioles and BALTIMORE Colts, 50's Baseball, team publications, Japanese cards and even some football and hockey.
You might find some beautiful women, soccer stuff, presidential pins and life advice from time to time. I don't charge extra for any of those.
Showing posts with label University of Houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Houston. Show all posts
This is a two-sided David Klingler laminated drink coaster. It was a $1 buy at the last TriStar show. It's exactly what I went there to find.* It sits next to my keyboard at the moment.
*=that's just bullshit.
Oh, I forgot to include this '67 in my last post. Helluva lot of talent here I'd say.
Hard to believe a half century has passed since the Game of the Century played out on the floor of the Astrodome in 1968. I can't say 'I remember it like it was yesterday' but I do have a lot of memories of that night.
I've posted about the game several times so I won't repeat all that. I just have a few photos and rambling thoughts.
Here's a postcard I received recently as part of the mailing from Joe Shlabotnik featured yesterday. It's a beaut. We had first arrived in Houston that previous summer (July '67) and seen Astros games and Houston Cougar football games. So the Dome wasn't new to me but it was still awe-inspiring.
This is not my ticket but I do still own mine. I stored it in a plastic case a few years ago to protect it. I need to pull it out and have a display made with it. This one belonged to a high roller who paid $5 to sit in the red field boxes. I had a better view.
We had $2 seats in the front row of the upper level directly across from where this photo was taken. In baseball terms we were right up behind home plate. Funny thing is I ended up in that section as a student for UH football games for years and bought them as a young alum after I graduated.
I have a folder of game pics that I save from various online stories.
I have the program and some replica covers that UH gave away. This one I got signed by Guy Lewis and Elvin Hayes and a dinner held for Coach Lewis.
The roster pages from the program. They are hard to read but Vern Lewis was on the team....Guy Lewis' son. In those days colleges fielded freshman teams.
Mike Warren of UCLA went on to become an actor and starred in one of my favorite shows, Hill Street Blues. He's now Jessica Alba's father-in-law.
Here's Mike Warren as Officer Bobby Hill in HSB.
Playing that night in the prelim game for Tyler JC was one Poo Welsh who ended up at UH as a shooting guard. He was the star player when I got to campus.
The Coogs won 71-69. Inexplicably Elvin Hayes found himself dribbling out the clock as the final seconds ran down. He's said it was the worst moment of his career. He was by far the worst ball handler on the court. How he ended up plodding around the backcourt among UCLA guys reaching for the ball is a mystery.
Game Over!
I remember the crowds coming out of the stands in waves from each side and people jumping over the press rows and team benches which were below floor level. Crazy stuff.
It took my father and me a looong time to get out of the parking lot and headed home. There were newspaper vendors selling copies of the Houston Post and Chronicle in the lots and at the exits to the streets out of the backs of trucks. I have part of this Post front page. I chose to cut the relevant parts out and saved it.
Finally here's a really lousy pic I took of my signed Hayes poster showing him in the GOTC. Unfortunately the reflection on the glass is my office. LOL
January 20, 1968 was the greatest sports night I've ever experienced. I've noted many times that because of that I chose to return to Houston and attend UH even though my family had moved back to New Jersey later in 1968. If I had gone to Rutgers, or Fairleigh Dickinson, or Glassboro State like I had thought I would, my life would have been far different. I'm glad it turned out the way it did.
OK, I really don't have any 'tales' of this past Saturday's hotel card show. I didn't even stay that long. But I did bring back a rather large piece of a set I've been working on (off and on) for a very long time...the Pete Maravich rookie from the 70/71 Topps hoops set.
It's a weird and wonderful set, maybe the last set I bought from packs before college life took over and I put collecting on a back burner. I'm waiting on an Amazon delivery of the six pocket sheets these cards require. I'm going to finally get this one organized and make an attempt to finish it in 2018.
It's also one of those sets in which the backs are more interesting than the fronts. The Pistol gets a glowing write-up on this one to go along with his vitals, his college numbers (he averaged over 44 points a game at LSU) and a cartoon that mentions that his father (Press Maravich) was his college coach.
I never saw Pete play in person as a collegian but I had just started working for the UH Rec/IM department when LSU played in a holiday season tournament against the Cougars in the Astrodome in 1971/72. Press was still their coach but the Coogs prevailed.
Speaking of the University of Houston....I was thrilled to see Case Keenum's magical moment on Sunday. That last play TD pass to Stefon Diggs and the ensuing media attention is something Case richly deserves after a long uphill fight to grab a bit of NFL glory. He was overlooked coming out of high school (UH was his only offer), ignored by the Heisman voters despite his eye-popping stats, spurned by the NFL scouts ('too small, weak arm, system qb' etc)and undervalued by the teams he played for. He's a class guy who deserves every second in the spotlight.
Houston's first alum to play QB in the NFL was this guy, Bobby Clatterback who was drafted by the New York Football Giants in 1954. He was a 27th round pick! He muscled his way past a couple of much higher previous picks to win the back-up job in New York and played for several years before finishing with the AFL's LA Chargers in 1960.
I guess finding his 1955 Bowman in the dollar bin at the show on Saturday should have tipped me off that Case was destined for a memorable weekend.
Almost all the hockey cards I add to my collection come through the generosity of fellow bloggers. But I managed to find a couple of Rangers in the bargain bins. Unless you were a Rangers fan in the 60s and early 70s it's hard to fathom just how popular Rod Gilbert was.
Jean Ratelle partnered with Gilbert and Vic Hatfield on a line known as the "GAG Line"...as in Goal A Game. When the Rangers traded him AND Brad Park to the Bruins for Phil Esposito I was beside myself.
These cards are from the 1969/70 Topps set. That was my last year to live in hockey country. I don't remember the stamps that apparently were inserts and were supposed to be applied to the back of the cards. The Cardboard Connection site says this:
Any card that has a stamp attached to its back will be considered to be damaged.
To which I bull. Those stamps are awesome additions!
I grabbed a few other vintage cheapies as well. No specific reason other than I liked them and I knew that Darrell, the show promoter whose tables I haunt, would knock the price down to nearly nothing since I was buying the Maravich from him.
Love the old Browns uni and mascot on Lou Groza's 1955 Bowman.
Of course Topps bought Bowman the following year and used the same pic on his '57 card.
Chuck Bednarik was famous for being a two-way player. He was a center and linebacker for the Eagles and was the guy old farts always mentioned when they were comparing the 'toughness' of then-current players and those of days gone by. I once bought a large print of the famous Bednarik photo of him standing over a KO'd Frank Gifford and was intending to mail it to him for signing when he passed away in 2015. He was a prolific signer who famously would inscribe a few lines about the hit. Check out the video below the '56 Topps I bought.
George Shaw's '56 Topps was one of several Colts cards I bought because they had a chance to be better than the ones in my All Time Colts collection binder. Shaw's card wasn't but one or two others were.
Finally I selected this 1956 Sandy Amoros. Why? #1) I dig the set (who doesn't?) #2) It's got Yogi Berra there on the card, a fun guest appearance and #3) I'm sure someone out there needs this card.
That's pretty much all I could do in my short visit. I grabbed a few cards for some other bloggers but Darrell seems to have rotated his oddball box off his tables which was a disappointment. He had some real gems in that thing in months past. I forgot to ask him about it.
The huge TriStar show blows through Houston next month. It's always fun to wander around a couple of hundred dealer tables of 'stuff'. Negotiating around the lines of folks waiting for the (seemingly) 4000 autograph signers..well that's a different story.
Last week I attended a performance by the Spirit of Houston, the University of Houston Marching Band. Proceeds went to the band's scholarship fund. A silent auction was held in conjunction with the show and lots of UH sports memorabilia was up for bid.
I won a couple of lots and my favorite was this group of three UH related bobbleheads. The Guy Lewis is a dupe and this one will end up with a friend but the other two were new to me. Jim Nantz is a UH alum and he does a lot for the school. He joins Vin Scully and Chuck Thompson in a group of three broadcaster bobbleheads I own. Not too exciting but all three are among my favorite media types so that's pretty cool.
The one I really wanted was this guy, The Big E, Elvin Hayes.
The base is signed.
Hayes does Cougar hoops radio broadcasts so he's around the school a lot these days, and that's a good thing.
I recently had to install a couple additional shelves to accommodate more of my display items as I pull them out of boxes.
Baseball Reference has always listed Roy "Beau" Bell as a University of Houston alum making it appear that he played there prior to his days at Texas A&M. The only problem with that is that the UH baseball didn't start until at least 1947. Bell might have played club ball while attending UH but he certainly never played at the intercollegiate level.
He ranks third in almost every stat category among pro players listed as UH alums according to BR. He's behind Tom Pacoriek and Micheal Bourn.
I wasn't aware of this when I added Bell to my Houston alum collection. But it's no big deal. I'm happy to add another Play Ball card to my collection. They don't get much love on the blogs. I think the black and white format and the humdrum card backs probably account for that.
Bell played seven years in the American League from 1935 through 1941. He played primarily for the Browns but spent time with the Tigers and Indians as well. His best seasons were 1936 and 1937. He hit over .340 both years and he led the league in hits and doubles in '37 while making his only All Star team.
In addition to this card Bell appeared on at least one Detroit regional issue and on a Wheaties panel.
It's called Wallet Card, it's from the mind of Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown. You've probably read about it and I'm late to the party. But I had to find this card. It comes from a University of Houston football set put out in 1992 by a company called Daily Motion. At one time I had cases of this shrink wrapped set but through the years I've given nearly all of them away to my students. I've kept a few. This is my favorite card from the set.
Brisket Howard (he's actually Brisket Howard Jr., his dad had the same name) was a DB and special teams player for the U of H in the early 90s. I left the school's employ in 1990 but I was out there on that same practice field more times than I care to recall. That's downtown Houston off in the distance.
This is my perfect 'wallet card', Houston player with a great name in a shot taken in a spot I know well, This wallet card thing is a great idea and I hope we all have fun with it. I'm looking forward to seeing where some of these cards travel to.
And here goes Brisket into my wallet...keep your hands off my AmEx card, will ya?
I'm a University of Houston alum. And I support the athletic department in several ways. I'm not the biggest contributor but my support is pretty significant, enough that I'm on the list of invitees for the department's big functions. I say this not to pat myself on the back but as background for this:
I'm sitting here two home games into the hoops season and I still haven't received my season basketball tickets. I've 'chatted' online with the ticket office, emailed them and talked by phone. The latest I've gotten from them is that they will be 'overnight'd' to me in time for Thursday night's game. We'll see. UH wants to return to the days when it was a fairly significant player in the college sports world. Conference championships, Cotton Bowls, Final Fours, that sort of thing. If that's going to happen we'll sure need a better ticket department.
We have a nice shiny new football stadium and complex, a major revamping of Hofheinz Pavilion including a basketball training and practice facility is underway. How can season ticket holders be shuffled off to the side if we hope to make it back to the big time?
Meanwhile here are some things I use to remind myself of better days for the program.
