Some Pretty '67s

I'm at an odd spot with my 1967s. I'm past the point of no return, as it were. I've made a couple of decent-sized 'lot' purchases which kind of commits me to the set. But I'm not yet to the point where I'm trolling COMC and eBay to begin filling in slots. In fact, I don't really know what slots I have open.

I don't collect McCovey cards per se, but I sure do enjoy onwing some. The one up top is one of my favorites. A great portrait shot.  The '67 set is so clean.

 Jim "I'm not in the Hall of Fame you dummy' Kaat looked like a high schooler himself. And he did for another 20 years.


We moved from New Jersey to Houston (for the first time) in the summer of '67. It's hard to believe now, but the house my folks bought was just about at the western edge of Houston civilization. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot between us and San Antonio. But we were close to a shopping center where there was a brand new supermarket and an Eckert's (now CVS). Both sold cards and I bought plenty of them since I didn't know a soul and had nothing else to do but continue to build my '67 collection. Lord knows it was too damn hot to do anything outside.

Another lefty, Whitey Ford. If I had a buck for every time I saw him pitch at Yankee Stadium...I'd probably have thirty bucks. At least.

Don Drysdale. here's a fun fact...from Opening Day right up through the month of June in 1968 Drysdale made 18 starts. Only once in those 18 starts did he allow more than two earned runs. Once. 'Year of the Pitcher' or not, that is damned impressive. And of course, that run included his stretch of six consecutive shutouts.

Joe Nuxhall, former 14 15-year-old big leaguer, and wearer of the short-sleeved rubber sweat top.

Rico Carty who kept his wallet in the back pocket of his baseball pants because he didn't trust banks fo the clubhouse safe. At least according to Jim Bouton in Ball Four.

And last but certainly not least, one of the big cards from the high number series...#600 Brooks Robinson. I really love this card. I own one that's slabbed as well as this one which will go in the set binder. I used to have a couple more of this but at one point while I was at college my brothers, and some cousins who were visiting decided to make a 'scrapbook' of Orioles cards and cut them up into their component pieces (name, photo, team name, etc) and glue them into spiral notebooks. Lucky me.

I also sent one to the first person I got to know when I joined the hobby community online. He was an Orioles fan in Australia and I sent him a box of Orioles cards, maybe 100 or more. I never heard back from him. He never again responded to my messages. I wasn't looking for something in return or even a thanks, but to just ghost me was pretty weird. I hope he enjoyed the cards.

I'll commit to this set with some energy once I clear off some of the projects that are sitting on my desk right now. One of those projects, something I've wanted to tackle for maybe three decades, is finally coming to fruition. I'm saving that for another post.

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.

Another 80's Oddball Set

I hate spending more for postage than I do for the card I'm buying and because of that I find myself buying 'add-ons' to make my transactions 'worthwhile'. I can't recall what I was picking up or where when I grabbed these '86 Sports Design Products cards.

These have popped up on other folks blogs from time to time. They use photos from the collection of J.D. McCarthy who did postcards for sale to fans and players over the course of several decades. I love old McCarthy postcards and have quite a few in my various collections. Hobby icon Bob Lemke purchased the McCarthy archives and was in the process of cataloging it when he passed away about a year ago. So we may never see much more of that huge treasure trove of photos any time soon.

These are obviously a riff on the 1969 Topps cards. At least the fronts are. The backs are spare and look pretty amateurish compared to the front side. These remind me of the sorts of cards I'd see alongside Broders, Bammers and phone cards back when card shows attracted lots of 'dealers' looking to cash in on the sports card/memorabilia boom.

I think the seller had most of the set available but I just grabbed these because they struck my fancy. I don't have a favorite but I sure do like this shot of Sandy Koufax.

Just to slide a bit off-track I found a postcard that would seem to be from this same photo session. It's a McCarthy postcard. You can see his logo in the lower left corner. He used that on most of his postcards but not all of them.

Back to the cards at hand..... aren't those stirrups on Roberto Clemente grand?

I add Whitey Ford cards to my collection from time to time because he was a favorite of my father. And because I saw him pitch more times than I could count. I can't decide if this shot comes from his playing days or not. Ford had a couple of stints as a coach with the Yankees and I know he spent a lot of spring training time with the team after his retirement.

Looks like Yaz' picture was taken on the same day as Ford's. Maybe McCarthy drove from Ft. Lauderdale to Winter Haven one day in the mid-60s.

This last one, listed as #1 in the set's checklist is a bit different in that there only the rounded frame mirrors the '69 Topps theme. If you clicked on the Wrigley Wax blog link above you saw that the other duel player card in this set, Banks/Hodges, uses this same design. This one shows J.D. McCarthy himself posing with Ted Williams. I'd never seen McCarthy in a photo so I added this to my 'stack'.

There isn't much online concerning this set. Sports Designs put out a two part set in the years prior to this one. It used artwork by Doug West. It was featured in a couple of posts on The Oddball Card Collector blog.

For those interested here is the SDP/McCarthy checklist:

1 J.D. McCarthy / Ted Williams
2 Lou Brock
3 Carl Yastrzemski
4 Mickey Mantle
5 Roger Maris
6 Walter Alston
7 Ernie Banks
8 Billy Williams
9 Hank Aaron
10 Brooks Robinson
11 Joe DiMaggio
12 Casey Stengel
13 Juan Marichal
14 Jim Bunning
15 Matty Alou
16 Eddie Mathews
17 Sandy Koufax
18 Roberto Clemente
19 Gil Hodges / Ernie Banks
20 Duke Snider
21 Robin Roberts
22 Willie Mays
23 Willie Stargell
24 Whitey Ford

'17 Archives...One and Done

OK, technically it's Two and Done since I bought a blaster and a single pack but what the heck. Nothing much to say about these that hasn't already been said a thousand times on better blogs so I'll keep it short. The collation in my blaster sucked. Bigly. I got 19 dupes. In a seven pack blaster. That's ridiculous! So any thoughts I might have had about buying more...gone.

The designs are fine. I liked the 1960 design in 1960. And the year they had it in Heritage. This is cool as well.

The orange Rookie Star cards are just as cool as the originals. One of my favorites.

I noticed that the Bregman RS card is on thinner stock than the other faux 1960s. Dunno why.

1960 card backs were awesome. Loved the Season's Highlights.

I got two Jeters. (shrug)

Same Bregman photo shows up in the '59 Bazooka-style cards.

Some sort of new/old design insert thing.

Coins!! I like these.

The '93 design is pretty nice on these. Congrats to Topps for not recycling the same old tired photos of the long ago guys. And stop the presses! I got an Oriole!!

I think Night Owl made the point about them going to the '82 well once too often. Yup. That Whitey Ford tho. He had one of the coolest cards in last year's Stadium Club and of the ones I got in this Archives blaster his is again the best card. Nice of them to do a Pettitte card with him not in a NYY uni.

Those are the highlights of my 2017 Archives venture. Blaster and a pack ran me $26+tax. This is me thinking about this.

I think I did pretty well

Please allow me to pat myself on the back (and after the debacle of my last post I need it). What you see above is the photo of the cards contained in the eBay listing that fell into my lap for $21 over the weekend.

Nine 1960 Topps cards that cost me $2 and change apiece with shipping factored in. Even when you take into account that I had the Nellie Fox card already that's quite a deal. Now the Gibson and Mathews cards have creases, and the Colavito isn't great but the others more than make up for it. The Whitey Ford card is in at least excellent condition and the Robin Roberts and Nellie Fox cards are close. The Fox will be an upgrade over the one in my binder now.

I'm saving the actual scans for my 1960 Topps blog but I was so pleased with the cards when they arrived I wanted to show them off.

Fathers Day

I'm sure most of us can say that we got our love of sports from our Dads. I know I did. He's been gone for a few years but I'll always have memories of the great times we had at ballparks and arenas in and around New York and elsewhere as I was growing up. And even much later as I was able to take him to ballgames. He loved watching the Texans and Astros in later years. Thankfully I was in a position where I could repay in a small way the stuff he did for me back in the day.

So in his honor I'm posting cards of his favorite players (or guys who were among his faves... I don't have a DiMaggio to post for him. Joe D. was his hero.

The one team we both lived for was the Rangers. I went to my first game with him in 1959 or 1960, I'm not sure which. Anyway his favorite Ranger was longtime Blueshirt backliner Harry Howell.

This 1965 Howell came as part of an amazing package from Chris of the terrific Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains and 1964 Tall Boys blogs. I'll have plenty more to say about that envelope real soon.

Next up, Whitey Ford's 1964 Topps Giants card. As I noted Joe DiMaggio was my Dad's favorite ballplayer, and Allie Reynolds likely his favorite pitcher, but whenever I see a Ford card I'm reminded of the umteenn times he and I saw this guy pitch in Yankee Stadium. My Dad loved doubleheaders and we went to most of the ones the Yanks played on Sundays in the 60s'. I bet Ford pitched in 75% of them, usually the first game.

My Dad also was devoted to the New York Football Giants, as they were called by those who had grown up with two Giants franchises in New York. He and I never saw that Giants play in Yankee Stadium but we always went to Princeton to see them play the Eagles in their annual exhibition game there. The NFL wasn't on TV like it is now back in the day. We listened to many more games together on the radio than we could watch on the tube. I wasn't a Giants fan but the sound of Marty Glickman and Al DeRogatis broadcasting from Yankee Stadium is part of my being.

My Dad always loved Sam Huff. He never failed to mention that Huff was a 'real football player'! This 1963 Huff really takes me back. I love this card. It looks like it was shot during the training camp sessions we went to up in Connecticut back then. Good times, great memories. I'd never fail to tell my Ol Man what the Colts would do to the Giants if they met for the title.

My Dad was a helluva guy. I bet Sam Huff would say he was 'a real father'!

One last thing, here are a couple of pics of my Dad at the 2005 World Series. First outside Minute Maid with my friend and college roommate Robert Wuhl (a.k.a Arli$$):

We watched the game from Roger Clemen's suite. My Dad got a huge kick out of it all. Great night, he talked about it all the time after that.