'52 Spahnnie

 

 

I've wanted to add a '52 Topps to my Warren Spahn pages for some time. I finally scored this one from someone over on the Net54 card forums. It's got some flaws, but don't we all?

The write-up on the back called him 'smooth and graceful', and he certainly was that. I only got to see him in person at the tail end of his career but it was still a kick to watch him (pun intended).

Spahn is one of those guys who doesn't seem to have ever had a 'bad' card. OK, maybe the '65 where he's a cap less coach isn't all that attractive, but it's still a '65 of one of the greats. BTW...he won 363 games despite losing three full years while serving in WWII in the U.S. Army in Europe. He was 22 when he entered the service. It's hard to believe he wouldn't have been a 400-game winner had he pitched during those years. But he sacrificed a part of his career as did many Americans, ballplayers and otherwise.

Pages of Talent

One of the really fun things about putting together smaller vintage sets like the '57 Topps is the incredible concentration of amazing players that get grouped together on binder pages. If collecting encased, graded cards is your thing, that's fine. But for me there is nothing like flipping through a set and just seeing stars on top of stars.


The first two pages in this wonderful set are perfect examples. Here's the very first one:

Teddy Ballgame, Yogi, Aparicio, all Hall of Famers. Plus some really talented 'other guys'....Sal Maglie, Don Mossi (a blogger favorite!), Dale 'Eight Straight Dinger Games' Long and one of my Dad's favorites, Hector Lopez. BTW... I'm looking to upgrade that Maglie.

And when you turn that page you're faced with this...

Willie Mays, Robin Roberts, Don Drysdale the underrated Dick Groat and three, count 'em, three Orioles!!  Here's something I bet you didn't know...Groat is the color guy on Pitt Panther basketball broadcasts.

I bit deeper into the binder comes this one...

...Bob 😒 Clemente, Gil Hodges, Jim Piersall and Lindy McDaniel. Those bottom three cards are all beauties, yes? And don't overlook George Crowe. He had an interesting and accomplished life. His SABR bio is well worth the time it takes to read it.

OK, so this last page doesn't have the star power of the other three but I'm including it because it holds the cards of three players I love, Warren Spahn, Moe Drabowsky and Ellie Howard. Not to mention a great card of Larry Doby.

As I zero in on the last couple of dozen cards I need to finish off this set it's really becoming a favorite. I didn't appreciate it nearly as much going in as I do now. I'm really glad I took it on.

Project '57

Close to two years ago I bought a nice lot of 1957 Topps baseball with the intention of building the set. But some other builds and projects kept getting in the way. Now that my 1971 set is complete and my '74 attempt got sidetracked (more on those soon)  I have the time to work on this beauty.


Through the years I've picked up some stars and such from the '57 set. I always have liked the Dodgers' cards with the photos from Ebbetts Field. I'd buy them never really intending to build the whole thing. But the starter lot I mentioned came available at a good price and it was more than I could pass up. So here we are.

I hit up the hotel card show on Saturday and added about 40 or so cards in really nice shape. My friend Darryl really hooked me up. All the cards in this post are from my purchases at the show. The mantle/Berra is obviously the priciest of the bunch but it's nice to get one of the big ones behind me. I have some stars already but not as many as I thought. LOL, The checklist is sort of daunting, to be honest.

Gotta love Spahnie! This was picked up from a different dealer. It was one of the rare times I hit up any other tables.

I hear folks rag on the '57 set as being dull, having lousy photographs, etc. And I don't see much of it on the blogs. All of which is encouraging to me because I don't need more people digging for bargains while I'm chasing it.

And while you're at it...tell me these next two are not wonderful cards.

The Al Cicotte and Brooks Lawrence cards are flatoutawesome. Love the old YS scoreboard and Lawrence's terrific Reds uni with the Polo Grounds behind him. Cardboard art.

Don Mossi is always great to see on a card. This whole set is pretty much a mix of portraits and posed action shots.

Dave Pope was in his second go-round with Cleveland. He had also played for the Orioles.

Mack Burk is at Connie Mack Stadium. He had 16 big league at-bats with one hit. He was a grad of Houston's Stephen F. Austin high school which is where my wife went to school. It's on Houston's near SE side, just a ground rule double away from the University of Houston..

Jim Lemon never had anything but a portrait card. Well, that's not true but that's what it seems like.

Another Phillie here. Jack Meyer was a Philadelphia native.

And finally a great card of Turk Lown of the Cubs. He led the NL in appearances in '57 and a few years later with the White Sox, he led the AL with 15 saves.

Topps packed a bunch of stuff onto the backs of these things. Most players got a blurb, a cartoon, full major league stats, vitals, and a big number inside that baseball.

I'm past the 150 card mark with this set now. I likely have a few more minor stars stuck in some binders I haven't dug through lately and that will help. If you're interested you can check my progress with my needs list over at the top of the sidebar.

Pins and Needles

Every once in a while I pull my riker mount cases off the wall and change out some pins. These three are new and are gonna go in my vintage pin display.

I like all things Spahn as I've noted several times. This pin was given to fans on a night honoring the great lefty. It came just two months after he took part in one of the great pitching duels in modern baseball.

I was also happy to add this small PM10 of Don Newcombe.


This Browns pin is not destined for the display, at least not yet. It'll have a spot on my St; Louis Browns cap for a while. I wore that cap to The Maple Leaf, Houston's best (only?) hockey bar last night to catch Game One of the Stanley Cup finals. I wore it to rep my best friend who is a Blues fan even though I'm not really rooting for either team. As expected it was packed and rowdy (in a fun way) last night. My boys and I enjoyed it as always.

This one, like the other two, has surface scratches but stuff like that just adds character. 


Three cheap additions to my pin collection. Now all I need is the ambition to pull down those displays.

Project '61 Continues

I'm making steady progress in my quest to complete the 1961 Topps set. That'll slow to a crawl when I get to a certain point. That point being when I am down to the high numbers and especially those high number All-Star cards.

Meanwhile, I have knocked off some stars and semi-stars. I really wasn't planning to do updates here on my set build. That's why my Willie Mays card and Spahn All-Star are sitting in the binder unscanned.

But I snapped up a nice handful of cards off COMC a few weeks ago and when they showed up I was very impressed with the condition. These are beauties and my stupid scanner doesn't do them justice.  mostly it makes them look off-center by 'trimming' the borders. Oh, well, you will have to trust me on these.

Not much to say about them other than they are among the better cards in my binder now. The 61s I have are far nicer than my 71s. Oh, did I mention I'm working on that one? No want list just yet. I'll have a post coming soon though.

Good old underappreciated Richie Ashburn. 4-time NL hit leader, 4-time walk leader, 4-time OBP leader, and 5 times an All-Star. I'm guessing he'd have been a 'more time' All-Star if the NL hadn't been thigh deep in outfield superstars back then.

Whitey Ford. I posted his 1960 card over on that blog recently.

Two Braves, Mathews and Spahnnie. I'm trying to figure out what stadium that is on both cards. Wrigley?

I've said it a dozen times on this blog. Spahn cards are always fun. A series of oddly slanted elements, none at the same angle as any other. 

Clete Boyer. I have no recollection of him playing anywhere else besides third base.  But it looks like he played about a season's worth of shortstop early in his career.

Luis Aparicio. I absolutely love that Sox cap with the red bordered S-O-X logo. I have a couple.
 

Finally..here is the Cadillac of the '61 Topps cards. The highest dollar card I'll buy for the set. When I bust it out of the plastic prison I'll be extra careful not to ding it like I did my '62,Willie Mays. That was a hobby moment that nearly brought me to tears.

I figure that by the summer I'll be looking at tackling the last series of this thing. I've got quite a few other projects going in the meantime.

1953 Red Man Tobacco Warren Spahn

I wish I'd had the chance to see Warren Spahn at his best. The huge windup and high-legged delivery were still in evidence when I finally was able to watch him in person in his final season as a player. He was no longer one of the most dominate pitchers of all time but he was still Warren Spahn and that was pretty cool.

I actually saw him twice in 1965, once as a Met and late in the year when he made one of the last starts of his career as a Giant at Shea Stadium. That game I saw him pitch as a Met was a loss to Don Drysdale and the Dodgers and came in front of one of the larger crowds I was ever a part of at Shea. I remember it because my friend's father explained how the Mets used a different ticket pricing scale for games against the Dodgers and Giants. This was the first I'd ever heard of that practice.

This Red Man card was an impulse buy from a dealer who had some very reasonable 1964 Philly Gum football cards. The sets (Red Man produced then for four consecutive years) are not difficult and in most cases not expensive either. They make for an easy way to add vintage stars to your collection. I guess they compare to the 1964 Topps Giants in that way. The ones without the 'tabs' along the bottom are even cheaper and who misses the 'tab' anyway?

I never really set out to become a Spahn collector but through the years I've really gained and appreciation for both him and his cards. I've joked in the past that Spahn cards are just collections of different angles...his cockeyed cap, crooked smile, bent nose and prominent ears make them unique. Add in the classic Braves unis and it's hard to pass up a Spahn card in a bargain bin or online at a good price.

It occurred to me as I typed this that this card is a 'night card'.You paying attention, Night Owl? My scanner did weird things with the back of this card. In hand it is just the usual color of 50's cardboard with a ghost-like hint of 'bleed-through' from the ink on the front. But my scanner gave me this:

I'm going to need to inventory my Spahn cards. I doubt I'll ever become a Spahn 'completist' in the same way I am with Billy Pierce but there are worse ways to fritter away one's retirement savings.

Topps Archives...late to the party again

I picked up some '16 Archives in Dallas earlier this week while I was up there for a convention, Opening and flipping through the cards on Monday night was a much better idea than subjecting myself to Chris Berman hyperventilating over batting practice dingers in my empty hotel room.

My first impression...well after the initial shock of paying $6 for 18 card 'bonus' packs...was that I like them. But I always do. Not enough to buy more but the throwback designs are fun. I've about given up on ever getting Orioles out of retail packs I buy. But with me keeping a fantasy baseball player binder I can usually find a few cards I can use. Archives provides some variety on those binder pages.

Here are the highlights of my packs. The borders were sliced off by my scanner but I didn't feel the need to re-scan them.

Any Spahnnie card is a welcome sight.

As is a Koufax.

Jim Abbott escaped the wrath of my fickle scanner. He got to keep his border. Probably due to the 1953 design which runs the color to the edges.

And the Kipnis card confirms that. Only these two made it intact thru the scanning process.

A few others:

Rizzo and Cutch make the fantasy binder kicking their Topps base cards to the curb.

And one more thought...when I opened the second pack the first three cards were dupes of those I'd gotten in the first pack. Of course in keeping with my current card karma the dupes were ho-hum ones, current players I was vaguely aware of.

All in all I'm happy with the cards I got but I won't be chasing the set or any part of it. I like the concept and design but the cost per card is just too high for me.

Odds and Ends

A big thick envelope arrived in the mail awhile back. It wasn't from a blogger but it did contain (among other things) a card. That's it up top and it depicts Joe Stephens, former NBA player who happens to be running as a candidate for Justice of the Peace out here in the boondocks east of Houston. The envelope was chock full of has campaign material and it turns out he is hoping to replace the current (and retiring) JP. That judge is a neat guy who plays golf every afternoon at my course as soon as he clears his docket. Now that he's hanging up his gavel I suppose I'll see him out at the course in the mornings as well.

I don't have anything of interest on Joe Stephens. I remember his name from his days as a high school star locally and from when he played for the Rockets. Looks to be a nice family oriented guy. I hope he wins.

The next card is one of those things that an eBay dealer included as an extra card mainly to protect the card he was sending.

I wasn't aware that Fleer did a 2001 Red Sox 100th set. I bet I know two guys who know all about it! (Looking at you, Mark and Shane). Joe Cronin played a good long time and since the numbers on the back were nearly unreadable I'm posting the backside in jumbo form.

Finally here is a Warren Spahn from a 2003 Upper Deck set. I was cruising COMC and padding my order to justify the shipping charge when I found this. I'm always up for a Spahn, even one that features a sepia pic and only lists the last five years of his career. Why not add a few more tidbits and his career totals? Oh well, I still like the card overall.

1963 Fleer Warren Spahn (and friends)

With Spahnie it's all about the angles. Smile tilted one way, nose bent another way, cap brim cocked to a different angle altogether. Add in the terrific Milwaukee Braves gear and the result is almost always one fine baseball card.

I'm now at 56 60 of 66 in my pursuit of the 1963 Fleer set. Spahn was the first 'star' card I picked up once I knocked off almost every common. To get those commons I set myself a goal of collecting them in decent shape and priced at $2 or less. I couldn't quite pull that off but I wasn't much over in most cases. I don't have all 60 in hand yet but with the group I nabbed off COMC last week in route it won't be long.

It may not appear so in the scan but the card of Glen Hobbie shown below is the worst of the 'commons' in terms of condition. That visible crease on the lower right is much longer and more pronounced in hand. But for a dollar card I'm good with it.

Sometimes my friends and I would be captivated by a player due solely to his name. Bill Monbouquette was one such player. We'd like to imitate Red Barber describing a Monbo outing against the Yankees. I can still hear that in my head.

With what I know of Turk Farrell I'm guessing he was a real blast to have as a teammate.

I dabbled with the Phillies as a NL team to follow way back when and Demeter was a favorite of mine. The crease on his card is pretty ugly. This one may some day get upgraded.

Dick Howser on a card that includes a bat rack and the iconic old Yankee Stadium facade and lights. Bonus points for the cool Athletics sleeveless tops. One of my favorite cards in the set. RIP Dick Howser. A baseball 'lifer' whose life ended much too short.

Bob Purkey in the Polo Grounds.

That's old Griffith Stadium behind Tom Chaney. I have no memories of those caps. This is another creased card. Since I bought this one I've seen others in better shape for $2 or less. Sometimes my impatience costs me.

I've posted my remaining needs for this set over near the top of the right side column. I have no illusions of someone discovering that they have a spare Joe Adcock and dropping it on me but, hey you never know.