The Ballad of Carl Mathias (or Chasing Rabbits Down Holes)

When I research players for my 1960 Topps blog I try to find something entertaining for the Off The Charts entry. Something besides his numbers or vitals usually pops up for every player. Frequently it comes from a player's SABR bio, a Wikipedia entry, or local stories that pop up on a Google search. I always find something.

But when I was looking at Carl Mathias' card and googled him I was disappointed. I went through several pages of search results and hadn't found any references to him at all outside of the normal stat pages (Baseball-Reference, etc) and mundane stuff from the 'off-brand', copycat wiki pages.

Then I found something that led me down an entertaining path. The official site of the AA-level Reading Fightin' Phils had a page for Mathias in their Baseballtown section. It stated that his nickname was Stubby. That was a fun fact but I figured I could find more. And I came across this:

Carl Mathias and the flip side of Boston’s biggest rally

Turned out to be a 2014 entry from a blog related to a book about the 100 greatest games in Boston sports history. The author had come across Mathias' name in connection with an improbable Red Sox win in June 1961. The game didn't make it into the book but the author was intrigued enough by Carl Mathias' story that he tracked him down and interviewed him. It's really fun.

Here's a taste of the backstory...

The Red Sox, as I noted in the book’s introduction, once rallied for eight runs with two down in the ninth for a 13–12 win over the Washington Senators. That game, in June 1961, didn’t make the cut. But a detail from that game became lodged in my mind. While cross-referencing various sources, I noticed that Carl Mathias, Washington’s starting pitcher, was still in the game when the Red Sox started their historic rally. Then I noticed Mathias’s lifetime record: 0–2.
In other words, the poor guy was on the mound at Fenway Park with a seven-run lead in the ninth inning, one out away from picking up his first win in the major leagues … and he never got it.

And it also tipped me to something I had looked at but hadn't fully processed…Mathias pitched 29 big league innings. and allowed five home runs. Not that big a deal until you know that three of them were hit by Mickey Mantle.

Here's Mathias' 1960 Topps card. It'll be posted on the 1960 set blog soon.

I also found a few other quirky things while researching in the past few weeks. And both were prompted by comments from Fuji. The first was a minor error. I was reading about Dan Dobbek and found that his Baseball Reference's Bullpen page stated that the Washington outfielder had been intentionally walked by the Red Sox three times in a game early in the 1060 season. Fuji's curiosity was peaked, and he found that it was two walks, not a record-tying feat after all. Not a big thing, but it did remind me that just because someone writes something on the internet doesn't make it true.

And finally, a quote from Cub's pitcher Art Ceccarelli in yesterday's post caught Fuji's eye. Ceccarelli was commenting on pitching in Wrigley Field and said "It wears pitchers down. The winds are unbelievable. Willie Kirkland once hit a home run off me that Ernie Banks called for at shortstop."

Fuji mentioned that he would have liked to see Kirkland's homer. So I thought, remembering the Dobbek deal, that I should find out if Willie Kirkland had ever homered of Ceccarelli in Wrigley. Sure enough, it happened on August 13, 1959. But the neat part of that game turned out to be that the Cubs beat the Giants, 20-9. It was 10-7 Cubs after four. There were eight homers in that game. Giants pitchers issued 13 walks, four to Ernie Banks (yes, he was at short so the Kirkland homer story is possible). Stu Miller walked five of the eleven guys he faced (the wind must have played hell on his knuckler) and Don Elston got a five-inning save. Getting a save in a 20-9 win is weird in itself.

Of course, none of this comes close to the high adventure of looking into the cartoon on the back of  Don Rudolph's 1959 card.

Art Cards...by Edward Vela

I went a little crazy a few weeks back and picked up a pile of Edward Vela's cards from his website. I think he's about as good as there is when it comes to stuff like this. I'm not going to delve into them deeply, just post a few today and over the next week.

I'm posting a handful of football cards first since this is the first day of NFL play (for me...I ignore most Thursday night action).

The Johnny Unitas up top is one of two in the post. Next, my current favorite QB, Pat mahomes. He's fun to watch.

I like this Unitas even more than the first one.

Tommy McDonald. He was a childhood favorite. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Vela had done a card of him. He's not exactly a household name.

Now for some baseball cards. Mr. Charles Bender kicks it off.

Eddie Murray. Nice, right?

Brooks Robinson. Vela was working off a picture we've all seen many times.

Dick Allen. Is that Tiger Stadium?

Spahnnie...I picked up a couple different. I'm a sucker for Spahn cards.

Same for Koufax. I now have several different Vela Koufax cards.

And a couple others...hoops and Ali.

That's The Stilt, of course. And below Ali tries to knock some sense into Joe Frazier.

Vela has changed up the backs of his cards as he has gone along. Here are some random backs.

These are prints, not original sketch cards like those I collect for my non-sports sets. But wonderful nonetheless. More to come. I just remembered that I added a Billy Pierce card not long ago. I don't have it scanned though.

Artsy Fartsy Billy P

With only two items* on my Billy Pierce 'wish list', and both of them being costly/hard-to-find, I haven't really done much to bolster my Pierce collection lately.

I added a couple of 'art cards' which fall into the 'I'll add them if they are reasonable' category. They weren't 'must-haves' but they are attractive pieces that I was happy to pick up.

Almost all my Batman art cards are original sketches. I rarely give a second glance to prints, no matter how limited. When it comes to sports art cards I'm not as fussy. I really like Edward Vela's style. He's done a handful of Pierce cards previously. I have bought and posted two others. This one is the best of the bunch. It's based on a photo that I've seen used multiple times on cards.

That card back is signed which is unique among the Vela Pierce cards I own. The fact that it has "#4" after Pierce's name means there is one more I might eventually track down. I bought a stack of his cards a few months ago and still haven't scanned them. I'll get to that soon enough.

The other addition is a Gypsy Oak 'faux' vintage postcard. I believe it's a woodcut and it's done on old cardboard. This came from a third party seller on eBay. I purchased a few items from the artist directly some years back and I see some of his work on Twitter. Earlier today I tried to locate his home page by looking at his Twitter profile and found that he has blocked me. 👀😏😄 This could be due to the fact that I declined his offer to sell me a large Pierce commissioned piece. (too costly and I couldn't display it anyway) or, and this is more likely, due to my left-leaning, socialist (LOL) Twitter posts and re-tweets. Sigh.

Nonetheless, it's a nice piece and it'll go into the Pierce binder postcard pages. I hold no grudges. Besides, I think I blocked him first. ᕦ(ツ)ᕤ

LATE ADDITION:

Today's afternoon mail brought something that fits this post perfectly. A postal cachet featuring BP with the Giants canceled in NYC in 1985. I don't think the date has any significance at all. One reason I liked it is the fact that it mentions his duels with Whitey Ford. I saw a couple of those at Yankee Stadium with my father.

But it's another oddball Pierce item. 

*= they are the '59 Bazooka Short Print and the 1959 Topps Venezuelan Ace Hurlers #156 with Robin Roberts

One Bat, Two Bat, Red Bat, Blue Bat!

So who sez I don't post-baseball stuff? Check this out:

Yup, Robin has a nasty high, hard inside fastball. That's card #27A of the 1966 Topps Batman Puzzle-back series, aka, the 'red bat' set. I posted about my black bat set some time ago. Topps was all over the Batman mania that prevailed in the mid-1960s, in 1966 specifically. They released five Batman sets that year, six if you count the two different styles of 'blue bat' set card backs. More on that in a bit.

Batman collectors tend to migrate to the black bat set as the best of the cartoon-style bunch. I can't disagree. It has the sharpest artwork and the backs are really nice. But Topps piled on with these two similar sets. I recently completed them both. 

Before moving on I must address the condition of these. Like all the vintage non-sports sets I have, I am perfectly happy to pick them up in less than pristine condition. It would be neat to have gem mint Batman sets but that's not a priority with me. What I have come to learn as being 'collector grade' is just fine. Cards in one piece, creases not too obvious, decent corners, minimal extraneous marks....I'm good to go. 

Both the red and blue sets are made up of 44 cards. They also both come with backs that form puzzles of various characters involved in Batman's world. Both sets are also primarily made up of horizontal cards with a mix of vertical ones.  

Here's the back of the card up top:

If you can read the small print on that card back you can see that the puzzle was formed with six cards. The villains were all six-piece puzzles while out heroes got bigger, 10 piece puzzles.

Here are a few more of my favorite cards from the set. Hard to beat mixing in the Statue of Liberty!
 

I guess Gotham City has a 'Broadway', too.

Why would a ghost wear glasses, other than to better visualize him in a cartoon?

And a shapely damsel in distress.

And here is a look at the Joker puzzle when it's put together:

The blue bat set was the third of these cartoon art sets of 1966. It's also the weakest in terms of artwork. But no Batman art is bad Batman art. It was numbered as 1B thru 44B. 

Again with the puzzle backs.

Robin gets to work his arm again in this set.

Here is the variation mentioned above. This blue bat series was also issued with these backs:

They are called the blue cowl backs and I much prefer them to the puzzles. I picked up a couple of these cowl backs on COMC just as 'type cards' and I'm fighting the urge to chase the whole thing.

The two different back from the #9B card, side-by-side:

I mentioned that Topps had six Batman issues in 1966. Here are cards (not mine) from the other two. These used photos from the TV show and the movie. The Batman Laffs set had TV pics...

The Batman/Riddler set was based on the movie.

The three cartoon-style sets, black, red and blue, were re-issued in 1989 as a 'deluxe' set of 143 cards. I was unaware of that until recently and mine is now in route. I really haven't given much consideration to the two 'photo front' sets. I was a Batman comic guy and the show, while entertaining, wasn't something I really went out of my way to watch after the novelty wore off.

That doesn't mean those two sets don't appeal to my 'completist' side.

Floating Heads!! 1962 Rookie Parade

If there is one thing I'll always be grateful to Topps for it's floating heads cards! As I wind my way towards picking up the final 60 cards in the 1962 set I've found myself tracking down decent yet affordable copies of these fun things. The '62 set wasn't the debut for these with Topps. They used the 'floating heads' style with coaches cards in the 1960 set. But I recall being disappointed at getting coaches cards in 1960. Not so with the Rookie Parades of 1962.

There are eight of these that bring up the set's rear. They are 'sorted' by position and feature pitchers (3 cards), infielders (also 3 cards) and one each for catchers and outfielders. The NL drew the short straw however as two of the three pitchers cards AND two of the three infielders cards were devoted to AL players. The poor NL had to make due with one of each. The outfielders and catchers cards had players from both leagues.

As with Topps Rookie grouping through their history, the players featured went on to careers that vary widely.  This AL pitchers card is a good example. 

Bo Belinsky and Jim Bouton are well-known names, mostly for off-the-field reasons. Dave Stenhouse and Dan Pfister saw most of their action in 1962 (Stenhouse made the ASG!) and Joe Bonikowski came and went quietly with one year of major league service.

These four AL infielders (two Twins and two Yankees) all had long careers. Trivia time..... which of these four players got consideration in the 1962 AL ROY balloting? Answer at the bottom.

Sidenote: Joe Pepitone dated a friend's older sister for awhile while in the mid 60s. She was what was referred to back then as 'fast'. The family was Greek-Italian and very...ahem...colorful. My friend was about a few years older than most of the kids on our block. And he'd 'been around' if you know what I mean. But he was a geat guy, a good friend and the best ballplayer I knew. He was the guy everyone wanted on his team, our version of Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez.

Of the NL infielders, Denis Menke and Hot Rod Kanehl had the best careers. Amado Samuel stuck with the Braves for three seasons. Jim McKnight had 91 big league at-bats.

The catchers card is the most costly of the subset. It features Bob Uecker. I was lucky to find this one at a (relatively) good price. It's going to stay in the case until I work up the guts to free both it and my graded '62 Willie Mays.

My favorite head belongs to Bob Veale on the card at the top of the post. I always love his glasses. I'm currently awaiting the arrival of the second AL infielders card. I nabbed it off eBay after failing to find it at the TriStar show over the weekend.

I did locate a copy of the outfielders card at the show but the dealer was mighty proud of it. I can wait.

The eighth card of the group features Sam McDowell and four other AL pitchers. It may be awhile before I buy that one. The reason is that one of the 'other' pitchers is the Orioles' Art Quirk. I have one of those cards....somewhere. I have all the 1962 Topps cards of Orioles but at the moment they are eluding my grasp. I have all my original Orioles year-by-year team sets in a box but the '62s are missing. I've done thorough searches on two occasions and come up empty. It'll be just my luck to pay $40 or $50 or more for a copy of that #591 and then find my other copy the next day. I'm in the same boat with a couple of other O's from the set who appear on higher number cards. Chuck Estrada for one. The other Orioles I had second cards of in player binders or came cheaply. 

BTW...Art Quirk was an interesting guy. I looked him up the other day and found myself going down a fun 'rabbit hole'. He was featured in Sports Illustrated during April of 1962. He was a Dartmouth grad and after his brief baseball career led an interesting and productive life.


Trivia Answer= Bernie Allen. He finished behind Tom Tresh and Buck Rodgers. He was tied with Dean Chance and Dick Radatz. In the NL Ken Hubbs won the award over Donn Clendennon. Of the seven players who received votes only Radatz appeared on one of these floating heads rookie cards.

Amazing Batman Set from Angels In Order

About a month ago Tom of The Angels, In Order contacted me to ask if I was looking for any cards from the 1996 Sky Box Action Packs/The Adventures of Batman and Robin set. My answer was "I would be if I had knownit existed!" Even as a collector of all things Batman I'll admit that my modern card game needs to be stepped up. My sons were 8 when the TV series was popular and I watched a bit of it here and there when I could. But those were busy times for me.

According to the BatmanWiki this set is based on the second season of the televised Batman: The Animated Series. It consisted of 20 episodes. I love the artwork. Batman has gone through many changes over time. This art is among my favorites. 

Tom was kind enough to send what is pretty much a complete set, wrapper and all. Research (and Tom's envelope) told me that there are four 'card' components to this and each pack also came with gum. The set itself is pretty small, 36 cards plus the assorted extras. But what it lacks in size it more than makes up for in 'coolness'. 

Here is the sample wrapper that Tom included. 

The card at the top of this post and the next couple are 'game cards'. They are the closest to what might be called the 'base set'. Total of 12 comprise this group.

Just great artwork.

The backs form a game board.

One card has the game directions on the reverse:

There are 12 'Pop Out' cards which feature the major characters:

The back of each had instructions on how to make them stand-ups:

Being an activity set aimed at kids there were six cards meant to be colored:

Quiz questions forms the backs of these:

And there are also six puzzle cards:

Here is a look at the backs of these:

New to me is the gum sealed in cello with four different characters printed on them. Tom sent the whole group. Tough to scan but a fun addition.

The 'completist in me appreciated the fact that Topn included the Eskimo Pie coupon that was inserted in each pack!

Poking about on non-sports sites told me there was a 'promo' card. I found one on eBay for a buck or two. It is pretty much a dupe of the Batman pop-up card on the front. Here they are together with the promo card on the left, regular card on the right:

The backs with the promo card announcing the sets release date, etc.

I can't end this post without showing off a couple more of the sweet 'base' (or technically 'game') cards. This whole thing looks really great in a binder. 

Tom, I really appreciate your generosity. This is a nice addition to my modern Batman collection. I have a few things set aside for you and once they holiday nuttiness quiets down I'll be packaging them up for you.