Another Mike Curtis Appearance

Mike Curtis once broke his thumb in a game so badly that he was scheduled for surgery but played the next week instead. He was a bad dude. But now he is fighting the same sort of issue that many players of his era face. A slowly encroaching loss of mental function. His chances of making the Hall of Fame grow shorter every year as deserving players are added to the backlog of guys who must wait their turn.

That's one great picture. BALTIMORE Colt football. It'll close out the football season around here on 5 Tool.

1966 Orioles World Series Charm

This charm is a companion piece to the press pins given to media and VIP's at the World Series every year. I had my eye on the 'pin' version but I decided that my budget would be just as happy with the charm. It doesn't scan as well as the '69 version. Nor was I able to get a good picture with my camera. Trust me, it's pretty sweet.

The 1966 Series, of course, was my introduction to the joys of rooting for a baseball team in the post-season. I was an 8th grader in the fall of 1966, my last year at St. Mary's School. Luckily the Sisters of Charity that ran the place were baseball fans because every year they would roll out the big ass black-and-white TV's on carts and we'd get to watch until it was time to go home.

I remember very well running home from the bus stop in 1960 and getting there in time to see Bill Mazeroski's homer to beat the Yanks. I have vivid memories of watching the '62 and '63 Series on those tv's as well.

Outside of the World Series and the very lame 'educational' shows we viewed from time to time, the only other tv watching I recall  at St. Mary's was the afternoon that JFK was assassinated.

But back to '66. It was pretty darn glorious to be an O's fan. The Robinsons, a young Jim Palmer, Hank Bauer and the rest. My aunt in Baltimore saved all the sport sections from the Sun and sent them to me. Although the Dodgers were my 'second' team and Sandy Koufax was my favorite non-Oriole at the time, I don't recall any reservations about praying for an Oriole win.

Good times!!

More 1961 Topps Goodness... Wes Covington

I finally picked up this card after admiring it for a long time. I can strike it from the list of my Most Wanted cards. That Milwaukee Braves uniform is a classic. Wes Covington wears it well, the stirrups are the standard of a bygone era and the pose is pretty unusual for cards back then. I even love that patch on his left sleeve. It's a lot more dignified than the screaming brave logo that appeared in about 1957 if I am not mistaken.

I wonder if the photographer had Covington pose like that or did he catch him as he was pulling a bat from the rack before batting practice and by calling his name got him to look up. Probably a pose but either way it's a unique and beautiful baseball card.

Covington has two cards in the 1959 set that I am collecting, an All Star card and a his regular card which features a good portrait shot. He was an interesting man who lived and worked in Edmonton, Alberta and wasn't involved much in baseball except for his work with a minor league team there.

Mike Curtis Mug Shot ('71 Topps)

I'm not sure what Mike Curtis was arrested for but I think it's pretty fortunate that the Topps photographer was on hand to snap his picture for his '71 card at the same time the cops were doing their thing.

I can't decide if I think this is a great football card or a terrible one. What I AM sure of is that Mike Curtis was one bad ass football player!

I have an autographed Mike Curtis pic that I'll post here soon.

Super Bowl Sunday

Today is the Super Bowl of course. And if all has gone as planned I will turn on the game at the kickoff and  I've successfully avoided all the endless talking heads and stupid personality features that make up the day long pregame.

I'll be rooting for the Ravens, but not very passionately. Baltimore is my hometown but I was long gone before the Ravens showed up. Between the time the BALTIMORE COLTS were highjacked to Indy and the Texans showed up here in Houston I tried to be a Ravens fan. It didn't take. Just felt wrong to cheer for a team that had been taken from their home the same way the Colts had been.

I've gotten over all that. It was painful for a long time but now the Colts are just another team. I don't get twinges of disgust at seeing the blue and white on someone else's team like I used to. What's the point. I adopted the Texans, bought season seats and never have looked back.

I have some cards of Raven players. These are guys I've had on my fantasy team in the last few years. Like almost all the shiny new cards they are all pretty and cool. But are they half as cool as the 1961 Fleer Abner Haynes card up top. I mean look at that thing. They don't make those cards anymore. The great helmet-less action poses! I wonder how many times they asked Abner to jump across the photographers field of vision before they got one they liked? Once? A dozen?

That scan does absolutely no justice to the actual card. In hand, except for the brownish aging tint on the back, it looks like it came from a pack last week.

Here are the Ravens from my fantasy team collection:

Let's hope it's a great Super Bowl!!

Some 1961 Topps Goodness

The 1961 Topps isn't my favorite vintage set but there are some cool things about it. The regular Koufax card is just great. The MVP cards of Maris and Aaron are unique and the All Star cards have the classic 'breaking out of the Sporting News' look. 

Here is my Brooks Robinson All Star. A classic card.

And these Rookie Award cards, with the top hat logo are spectacular. This was the second year for them and it is one of the best Topps subsets ever.

Along with the Dodger special at the top I recently picked up the nice Bill Henry. He's a University of Houston alum as am I. He had the unique experience of having his 'baseball identity' hi-jacked. Some other Bill Henry was claiming to be the MLB vet. It all came unraveled when the real Bill's wife received condolence cards on the death of her husband. Even the phony Bill Henry's family had fallen for his ruse. I've linked to the original Rick Reilly story in my post of Henry's 1959 card.

Speaking of my 1959 Henry, not long after that post I received and email from someone with the Pasadena Tx. ISD system (or it may have been Chamber of Commerce or even Historical Society) who asked if I would donate the card to be used as part of a display honoring Henry as a member of that district's Hall of Fame. Pasadena Texas is just south of my home. Anyway I got busy and didn't respond right away and the idea got lost in a busy time. And so did the email because I hunted for it and never did find it again. I still feel guilty for not responding. It would have been neat to have one of my '59s in that display. Looks like they found one anyway. 

I like this '61 Henry a lot more than my '59 because the Reds uniform of the day, sleeveless pinstripes and red undershirt is really attractive. And the white over red cap is nice, too.

I don't know as much as I should about the history of Topps Most Valuable Player subsets. I'm pretty sure they were first issued in 1961 in a 16 card group. The only others I can remember were the 1975 MVP cards which featured the Topps cards of each years MVP, two to a card. I can't remember how many there were of those but I bet I could find out easy enough. 

Here are the 1961's in a list:

• 471. Phil Rizzuto
• 472. Yogi Berra
• 473. Bobby Shantz
• 474. Al Rosen
• 475. Mickey Mantle 
• 476. Jackie Jensen 
• 477. Nellie Fox 
• 478. Roger Maris
• 479. Jim Konstanty
• 480. Roy Campanella
• 481. Hank Sauer
• 482. Willie Mays 
• 483. Don Newcombe
• 484. Hank Aaron
• 485. Ernie Banks
• 486. Dick Groat

I have the Roger Maris, not in great shape, but it's a favorite of mine as it was issued in his record setting year.

 And finally, that card up top. I've been lacking it for quite awhile. I'm slowly but surely knocking Koufax cards off my wantlist. It's got a crease, and it's got a slightly blurry photo (but not as much as the scan makes it seem) but it was affordable. And that counts for a lot.

A Nice Package, Part Two ;-)

My family first moved to Houston in the summer of 1967, early July to be exact. I was heading into my sophomore year of high school and I was the one family member that hated the idea of pulling up our New Jersey roots and heading down here. I pretty much figured that being summer I wouldn't know anyone or even get a chance to know anyone my age until school opened. And a new school itself was not something I relished.

But Houston had baseball, and with the Orioles struggling following the great 1966 season, I decided to throw myself into following the Astros, just because. We were in a hotel for a few days before our moving van arrived and I remember cutting out Astros game stories, box scores and pictures from the Houston papers, the now-defunct Post (where I later was employed for many years) and then afternoon published Chronicle.

Those clipping turned into a scrapbook of the second half of the Astros' dreary 1967 season. I wasn't new to this. I had kept New York Ranger scrapbooks for years. Which brings me to the card at the top of the post. It was part of the Nachos Grande group break and it is why I was happy I dealt the Twins for the 'Stros as my 'second' team. I would never seen it otherwise. It's a 2004 Upper Deck Play Ball Home Run Heroics Eddie Mathews.

It's a gimmick card, sure, but it commemorates Eddie Mathews  500th homer which he hit in a Friday night game on July 14 of that season in Candlestick Park. I don't specifically remember listening to that one but I listened to just about every Astros game that year after we arrived. What I do remember (and probably still have stored somewhere) is the newspaper account of Mathews' milestone. Those were the highly competitive days when newspapers held deadlines until the West Coast games were finished before going to press.

So when this card came out of the stack from Chris I really got a kick out of it when I realized what it was. There are a couple of others in the break that are worth mentioning, for differing reasons.

This is Dave Crouthers, a 2001 3rd Round pick of the Orioles. After the 2004 season, with a 30-25 minor league record, the O's tossed him along with Mike Fontenot (who?) and Jerry Hairston, Jr. into the trade for Sammy Sosa. This may be the most obscure autograph card I own but in looking at that trade I did discover that both Crouthers and Hairston played for Southern Illinois. I also now know that Hairston played for the Orioles for seven seasons and then for two teams for two seasons and five teams for one season. So there.

This is Annette Charles. I have no idea who she is or why she has a card and I don't care either. Plus she's rather unattractive in a Pat Nixon sort of way. 

Pinnacle Press Cal Ripken. Any Ripken is a good Ripken. That stance is #845 of the 1252 different ones that Cal used in his career.

And finally a 'laundry' card of Rafael Palmeiro. In August 2005 I was driving my family from NYC to Baltimore on our monumental East Coast vacation when the news broke that he'd been suspended for steroid use. When we attended the games at Camden Yards the sign congratulating him on 3000 hits was still up. But he wasn't playing.

Of the cards that I received as part of Chris' 'trade stack', this is my favorite:

It's a 2005 Upper Deck Classics Lyman Bostock. He was a talented young outfielder for the Twins and Angels who was shot an killed in 1978 in a case that was the result of Bostock being in that too familiar 'wrong place, wrong time'. He'd only played four seasons in the bigs when he died. If you are a fan of the powder blue double knit era, this is a card for you.

Here are a few others with quick observations:

I liked Frank Viola with the Twins. But wearing that terrible Met road uni with the shoulder stripes? Ugh. Still kind of a neat card. Looks like he's charging a bunt.

There is no way this guy hit 50 homers in one season. He's the bat boy. I don't believe he was juiced but I'm totally convinced the ball was. It was part of baseball's attempt to pull fans back into the game.

EDIT: The more I look at this card the more I'm convinced it actually IS the bat boy.

I don't know Kevin Foster but that's a screamin' Cubbie throwback, isn't it? 

Chris Sabo, without his goggles. He just looks weird like that.

 btw....THIS is Chris Sabo.

Cliff Floyd pulling a hammy, again. He does Sirius fantasy baseball radio shows. He's pretty good at it. Funny and insightful. Better than he was at staying healthy.