My Favorite Year (for the Orioles)

The post title is NOT a reference to the Peter O'Toole movie from 1982 (a fun flick, btw) but rather this is a contest entry post, something I don't often do. Collecting Cutch's Brian asked folks to post about their favorite team's memorable, non-title-winning season.

This was timely (I've been blogging the 1960 set) and untimely (I've been traveling for the last week and haven't been online much). But better 'almost late' than never. As I hinted, the team is the 1960 Baltimore Orioles, aka the Baby Birds. BTW..everything posted here is from my collection.

My first live game came in 1959 and by 1960 I was a big baseball fan. I decided that I would have 'my own' team and not follow the lead of my father (and everyone else around me) and adopt the Yankees. Baltimore was where I was born so naturally, the Orioles fit.

And the Paul Richards-managed 1960 Orioles were the first edition to which I paid close attention. They were also the first Orioles club to compile a winning record and actually be in contention (well, sort of). The began the year well and held the top spot in the AL in late June. July was pretty rough and included a disastrous five-game homestand which saw them swept by the Yanks and Senators. They slid back as low as fourth in the standings, behind the White Sox, Yanks and Indians.

But a young team can sometimes be oblivious to the pressures of sports and the Orioles rebounded nicely and retook first place in August before ending the month just a game back of the Yankees. They continued hot and jumped in front for a while before reality (and that Yankee depth) caught up with them and they faded to second, eight games out. I was there for the September 18th doubleheader that the Yankees swept on their way to a complete, four-game series sweep. That dropped the O's out of a tie for first to four back. Game, set, season.

It was a disappointing finish but it was the franchise turnaround which launched them towards the very successful 1966 club and beyond. The team featured 26-year-old Jim Gentile who had been picked up from the Dodgers for cash and some spare parts, rookie Ron Hansen at short, a still-maturing Brooks Robinson at third and a rotation made up of one veteran and four youngsters. That starting staff, Chuck Estrada, Milt Pappas, Jerry Walker, Steve Barber, all 22 or younger (plus 35-year-old Hal Brown), was the main reason for the 'Baby Birds' nickname.

Brooksie, Gentile, Hansen, and Estrada all made the AL All-Star team in 1960 which is quite remarkable given the depth of talent in baseball at that time.

And, as it happens, 1960 was the first year I actively pursued a Topps set. I'd seen '58 cards in the hands of a friend. And I'd received a few packs of  '59s to call my own. But in 1960 I began really asking for cards, keeping them in order in cigar boxes, trading with friends and looking for packs whenever we shopped. I remember the cello rack-packs at E. J. Korvette stores that my father liked to shop in. They also had cards at Bamberger's in Newark.  I'm fairly certain that I didn't complete the set but I remember how exciting it was to hold those things in my hands. Especially the stars and the Orioles!

This has been a fun little exercise. Thanks to Brian for prompting me to take a look back at the beginning of my love for this historic (and sometimes frustrating) franchise.

One last note... the scorecard posted up top is from the 1960 opener which resulted in a 3-2 win over the Senators. Last week, while on family business in the NY area I made spur-of-the-moment decision to attend the Orioles taking on the Yankees on Opening Day in New York. My brother and I braved some very chilly, windy weather (for which I was seriously underprepared) and had fun despite the Orioles loss.

If you need any proof that the decision to attend the game you need look no further than what I wore. Dylan shirt, NYR cap! "Undercover Bird Guy" at his best!

I did manage to find something with the Orioles logo (whatever happened to stadium gift shops that carried all the teams) and changed into it part way thru the game.

If I could have found some duct tape it wouldn't have had both logos, believe that!

1969 Orioles Yearbook

At the card show on Saturday I made one non-card purchase...an Orioles yearbook form 1969 that cost me $5. The thing was absolutely pristine, too. So nice in fact that it immediately took the place of this one in my publications bookcase. I wanted to make a post of it but I simply couldn't bring myself to flatten it out on my scanner so I scanned a few pages from my original and here they are.

The Orioles were a 91 win team in 1968 and finished second to the Tigers but were never actually in contention. Earl Weaver, who had a nice feature in the yearbook, took over a team in July that was six games over .500 and 10.5 games out and saw them go 48-34 but actually lose ground to Detroit. But better things were on their way in '69.

Too bad the yearbook isn't as memorable as the '69 Birds club it profiles. It's pretty run-of-the-mill as far as yearbooks go. The Weaver profile....

Coaches get a glimpse, and there was a similar page on the front office crew.....

Players got a write-up and a few pics each. I didn't scan it but Brooks and Frank Robinson were 'combined' in one profile page.

The standard roster page.....

This color photo formed the centerfold and was perforated for easy removal.

The books ends with the obligatory 'wives, special days and fun photo' section....

Even the ads were mundane. Luckily for a publications collector like me the Orioles would venture out into more ambitious yearbooks in the years to come.

The Orioles Yearbook Is Here!!

I ordered this thing online from the O's before the season even started. They sent the Media Guide back in April I think. But I was beginning to wonder about the yearbook. I was going to try and track down someone to email about it when the big yellow envelope showed up in the mail on Tuesday. Happy happy joy joy.  I love yearbooks the same way Night Owl loves minis!!

This year's addition edition has one of the better covers the Orioles p.r./media folks have used in a long time. Front and center is the Orioles' 60 year anniversary logo surrounded by current popular Oriole players and Buck Showalter. But lurking in the background are the Orioles six Hall of Famers. The same six who were honored last season with bronze statues.

Pretty standard stuff on the inside. I can't put this thing through a scanner so I had to take a few pictures. Not very satisfying but here are just a couple.

You get the usual front office bios, support staff pics a team directory, some ads and then color spreads on Showalter, the coaches and the full time players. 

There are several pages of prospects and minor leaguers. Yes, that's Carl Yastrzemski's grandson Mike on the page below. He's tearing up the Orioles minor league chain. He has moved up the ladder to Bowie this year having made two jumps in competition since the season started.

Then there are pages of 'behind the scenes' stuff, community affairs and then....

.. the promotional schedule.  It begins in July and given the players that are included in the photo/bio sections I'm guessing that the book was put together fairly recently. For example Nick Hundley who came over from the Padres in late May has a full spread.

Finally there is the full schedule and Camden Yards info, plus more ads.

I keep an excel file of all my publications. It's nice that I can change that annoying 'P' (for' pending') into an 'X' for 'Got it!' in the little box in the yearbook column next to '2014'.

I'm trying not to smirk

I mentioned in this post a few weeks back how I was getting close to finishing my Orioles yearbook run and the only one I lacked was the 2008 edition. I discussed the guy on eBay who had one for sale for the exorbitant sum of $18 which I was willing to pay to finish my collection. Turned out he had me blocked as a buyer. Why he blocked me I'll never know because I had no records of what he claims was bad feedback I left for him. Whatever.

So with a bit of patience I found another one. As you can see my 2008 Orioles yearbook arrived yesterday. Cost me $6 delivered. Six bucks. Meanwhile Mr. Smug (I ought to post his emails here...but that would be chickensh*t) has re-listed his $18 book over and over.

But the important thing is that I'm done. From 1954 through 2013 I have all the yearbooks the Orioles have published. They skipped some years during the last few decades but if they issued a yearbook, I have it. I've been working on this collection since I returned to collecting a few years ago and had to play 'catch-up' with the ten books they published since 2002. Glad to have it done.

Just a handful of Orioles and Baltimore Colts publications remain on my want list. I'll get them soon enough.

1965 Jay Publishing Yankee Yearbook

When I was growing up in Nutley, New Jersey I spent a good part of my free time hanging with my best friend at a little store near my house run by a man named Lee Jentis. It was a typical suburban Jersey candy/newspaper/cigarette/soda fountain place. It had originally been owned and operated by a guy named Sam but the crowd he allowed to hang out at the fountain was pretty intimidating to a couple of Catholic elementary school twerps. The high school-aged crowd were what we referred to as "hoods". They generally wore pink 'high-roll' collared shirts and greased their hair back. We'd go in to buy our baseball cards and candy or a newspaper for our folks on the weekend but we gave those 'hoods' a wide berth. We were very happy when Lee bought the place and made a big deal of telling everyone that the 'hoods' were no longer welcome.

Lee gave me my first 'job'. I filled in for his helper during a summer break the guy took. I recall feeling pretty damn self-important to be behind the counter and serving the Cokes instead of buying them. I think I worked several hours each day. I'll never forget that he paid me $5 each week which my Dad thought was not nearly enough but I was thrilled to get.

A few years later my buddy and I had a Newark Evening News paper route that we shared. I delivered the east side of the route, he did the west. There was an old dark but well kept apartment building on my side of the route just full of old folks who seemed to always be cooking. I can still remember how that building smelled. When we were done we would pedal our bikes as fast as we could and meet back at Lee's and have a fountain Coke or a 16 oz. Royal Crown Cola in a bottle and a Drakes Cakes treat. We might buy a pack or two of cards or some cheap 2 cent candy.

I also liked to flip through the magazines. I remember finding a Yankees' unofficial yearbook put out by Jay's Publishing. I was familiar with yearbooks, I had lots of them.... Orioles, Phillies, Mets, Yankees, White Sox and more. My father would let me buy them at Manny's Baseball Land across from Yankee Stadium. But those were the official yearbooks. The Jay's book was a strange animal. I never saw them other than at Lee's although I know if Lee had them then they had to be at other newsstands.

This 1965 version doesn't look familiar to me but that year is right in my collecting wheelhouse so maybe I had one. I hadn't thought of them in awhile but when I was searching for some Jay's Picture Pack photos this thing popped up and it brought a wave of nostalgia over me. I put it on my watch list and it was relisted a few times. Finally my sentimental side overcame my fear of losing my 'Orioles Fan Card' so I bid and won. On a Yankees item. Yikes.

I guess 'unofficial' in those days meant you could use pictures of the players in their uniforms but showing the team stand-alone logo was off-limits. And there are no ads in this thing. The title page has a fun picture of the volatile Joe Pepitone raging on an ump with the since fired manager Yogi Berra coming to fan the flames. Note the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.... "Not an official publication".

First up is a story about the Yankee 'dynasty' and a compelling picture of the ever stuffy Col. Jake Ruppert.

Next we see a three page essay on the 1964 World Series. I remember watching some of those games on TV at my grandparents place in Brooklyn. And the nuns at St. Mary's in Nutley always had the TVs on for the World Series so we saw a lot of the weekday games as well.

When I heard about it I was fascinated by the fact that both teams cast  off their managers that winter. And the Yanks signed ex-Cardinal manager Johnny Keane.

After the Keane bio there are two page spreads of the Yanks' high profile players. Each is the same as this Mickey Mantle spread, a full page photo ...

...and then a bio/stat/smaller photo page.

Second line stars and regulars got one page. I played ball with Jim Bouton's cousin Danny. He was good. Bouton has an interesting bio here. Painting and designing costume jewelry. Wasn't long before he added 'author' to that list of hobbies.

I always liked Al Downing so I'm showing his page, too.

Subs and prospects are two to a page. Elvio Jimenez' bio mentions that he is the brother of "the Kansas City A's gardener Manny Jimenez." I have never heard that term used to describe an outfielder if indeed that's the reference.

The final pages had this 'Immortal Yankees' feature with bios and pics of the guys who were memorialized on the three monuments way out in centerfield at Yankee Stadium. 

And the back cover promoted the rest of the Jay's lineup of yearbooks and the fantastic 'Picture Packs'. 12 photos for a quarter with a dime for postage. Only a handful of Orioles pictures have survived in my collection from those days. I've added a few more along the way and recently purchased a six picture lot of Billy Pierce photos on eBay. 

I'd be curious to see other Jay's yearbooks and I might look for some online but the price would have to be right.

And just for comparisons sake here is the Official Yankee yearbook for 1965. This one I DO remember from back then.

Oh, as for Lee's? It's long gone. I recently found out that Lee had passed away in 1977 at the age of 68 and 'Mrs. Lee' had moved to Florida and lived to the age of 90 before she died in 2010. Thanks for the great memories.

This screenshot from Google Maps Street View shows the corner of Franklin Avenue and Vreeland Avenue in Nutley where the store once stood. That does not look like the same building so maybe it was rebuilt or completely remodeled. The Starbucks two doors down was a shoe and boot repair shop back in the day. Right there where the cab is was where we caught the 13 Broad New Jersey Transit bus to school every day.

Sorry for the maudlin stroll down memory lane. I feel privileged to have grown up when and where I did. 

Getting Organized

Both of my regular readers have probably noticed that I've spent a lot of space on my publications lately. That was prompted by my determination to get my collection organized again after years of just being a hodge-podge of shelved paper. Once upon a time I had a nice system and display of my team-issued ephemera but then came kids, storage issues and shuffling rooms.

Two "bad weather/no-school" days later I have everything cataloged, organized and dupes ready for possible eBay selling. And boy, do I have dupes! With my needs finally clear and laid out in a spreadsheet I have been able to close the gaps on my list.

This 1956 Baltimore Colts' Media Guide I picked up brings me to within one of having a complete 'modern franchise' run from 1953 through 1983. I lack just the 1977. I'm a victim of assuming that I had all the guides from that decade as I spent lots of time over the years poking around the 'net in search of 1950's and 1960's guides. If I had the '77 at one time it's gone now, and so I'm on the lookout.

I also am tracking some Orioles items. The 1954 media guide is out of my monetary reach for the time being but a 2008 O's Yearbook should be easy. There is one on eBay right now but the guy is asking $18 (waaay too much) and he has me blocked as a buyer anyway. He claims I once left him unwarranted neutral feedback over a shipping issue. I have no idea of what he's talking about. I used Toolhaus.org to go back through time and I have no history with him. Whatever. He has failed to sell and had to re-list that '08 yearbook over and over. Before I found all this out I was willing to over-pay on a BIN but he was a rude jackass. LOL He can choke on it now.

Meanwhile I'm upgrading a couple of vintage Orioles yearbooks. From 1962 through 1965 the Orioles issued over-sized yearbooks. They are roughly double the width of standard ones and apparently were very hard to carry home or browsing through without really roughing them up. My 1962 is particularly 'used' with big-time creases and some kid's writing throughout. I've been looking for a replacement for it and the 1965 for awhile.

'62 Orioles yearbooks are normally pretty expensive. Here are two currently on eBay:

I know that's tough to read but they prices are $180 and $230. And the top one, the $180 book looks pretty bad, certainly less presentable that even my book. I'll pass. Especially since I won a bid for one for the grand total of $2.50, yes.... two dollars and fifty cents!

It's not here yet but it should be soon. Here is my win:

Add in $9 shipping and I have a much upgraded example of one of the coolest pieces in my collection for under $12. Hard to beat that.

I also won a pretty nice copy of a 1965 for about $18 shipped. It's not a huge upgrade ofver what I had but since I can probably sell mine for at least that it's like a free upgrade. I've added quite a few other items lately. mostly New York Ranger Guides/Bluebooks and Baltimore Colt game programs. Nothing hobby-related makes me happier than picking up new-to-me publications.

With my publications collection shaping up I've turned to my cards. Each day I am devoting an hour of so to sorting my boxes and boxes of loose cards into recognizable piles which will in turn be placed in albums and shelved. I can't believe I've let it go this long. Like a trip to the dentist I just kept putting it off. As a result I now have to ignore the immensity of the task and concentrate on one shoe box at a time.

The first step was deciding on categories and sub-categories. "Primary Orioles faves" consists of the Robinsons, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Elrod Hendricks and Dennis Martinez. "Other Orioles faves" means Mike Cuellar, Cal Ripken, Ken Singleton, Boog Powell and so on. There is a Koufax pile, a vintage stars pile, an 'oddball Orioles cards' pile, a 'cool vintage cards of guys I don't especially collect' pile and a 'pink card' pile among others.

I have 22 piles of cards and a fair sized box of 'crap'... junk wax that survived my purge of a decade ago, football cards of defensive players who will never make my fantasy team binder, non-Orioles Topps base cards from the last couple of years, etc. Piles get re-done and re-named regularly. It's all a huge-ass work-in-progress.

Last night's biggest dilemma... where do I file this beauty?

And trust me, there is a pile for it, I just haven't decided on it yet.