Texas-born NHLers.... an odd little collection

1992 Topps All Star Brian Leetch

Picking this card out of a $4 hanger hockey re-pack got me to thinking. I knew Ranger legend Brian Leetch had been born down the coast from here in Corpus Christi, Texas. I figured the odds of another NHL player being native to the Lone Star State was pretty remote. I figured I had a collection of one.

But I was wrong. A quick check turned up this info on Hockey-Reference.com. Four other NHL guys are Texas natives so I decided that if I could find a cheap card of each of them I grab it and finish off a mini collection.

I found three of them from a dealer for 99 cents each with free shipping, the fourth came out of Canada so it cost a few dollars but for about $7/$8 I had the whole little group.

2013-2014 O-Pee-Chee Rookie Jon Rheault 

Jon Rheault is one of the three 'Hockey Sons of Texas' that is currently active (or has been recently). He played five games and took five shots in March of last year for the Florida Panthers. He played at Providence College and spent six seasons in Junior and minor league hockey before his call up last season. He signed to play in Germany this year and he is tweeting from over there. He was born in Arlington but grew up in New Hampshire. He mainly played last season in San Antonio(!) for the AHL Rampage.

2013-2014 Upper Deck Overtime Chris Brown

Chris Brown is currently a member of the Phoenix Coyotes. He played in a handful of games with them last season and has been active for a few this year while mostly playing for Portland of the AHL. He played for the US National Development Team and then for the University of Michigan. He was born in Flower Mound.

2013-2014 Upper Deck Series One Tyler Myers 

Tyler Myers is a defenseman for the Buffalo Sabres. This is his fifth season for the Sabres and he has 38 career goals and over 90 assists. He has a pair of career playoff goals and had five assists in the 2011 playoffs. He was born right here in Houston. I need to check into that story.

1975-1976 O-Pee-Chee Mike Christie

Defenseman Mike Christie was born in Big Spring which is a good long ride from civilization in west central Texas. I guess a player from out that way makes more sense than one from Houston. It gets pretty cold in that part of the state. But actually there is a story here. From Wikipedia:

He was the first native of Texas to play in the NHL although it was strictly a technicality as his father was a Canadian citizen working for an American oil company and he grew up in Canada.

He played for Denver University and broke into pro hockey with the Dallas Black Hawks in 1971. His NHL debut was with the California Golden Seals in 1974/75. This is his second year card. His rookie card for the previous season's OPC set uses the same photo.

Christie was raised in Alberta but he played for the US in the first Canada Cup competition in 1976. He played for seven seasons in the NFL, six of them as a regular. He didn't score much, just 15 goals, but he had over 100 assists. After two years in California he went with the as they moved east and he played for the Cleveland Barons (how many of you even knew Cleveland had an NHL team), the Colorado Rockies (now the NJ Devils) and briefly for the Vancouver Canucks as his career ended in 1981.

I thought it was pretty neat that I was able to add another Golden Seals card to my collection. Christie's OPC card is the only one with an interesting reverse so I'll post it. The bronze color makes the text hard to read, but it sure is unique.

So there you have it. All five Texas-born NHLers. A tiny personal collection about which nobody except me could care about. But stuff like this makes the hobby fun for me.

Poor Cal, Poor Me

I can't say I have terrible luck with statues and bobbleheads I pick up online. I've received quite a few in the last few years and most have been just fine. But there is the exception. And my 'bronze' replica statue of Cal Ripken is one exception.

This is part of the series of replicas of the Camden Yards bronze statues that were placed around the ballpark last season. The others honored Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Earl Weaver, Jim Palmer and Eddie Murray. And all of those were already in my collection. I waited to pick the Cal Jr. up because I just never saw one at a decent price for a Buy It Now and I lost every auction I bid on because they all went past the price I was willing to pay.

I finally hit one about a month ago and was looking forward to filling out my 'bronze Oriole' shelf. It arrived last week in the condition you see above. The seller really could use a few lessons in packaging. Nothing but the original box banging around inside a shipping box. You can see the results. And so it goes.

I contacted the seller and he apologized and very promptly issued a refund so I guess I'm lucky in that regard. He told me I could just toss the statue rather than send it back which only made sense. No need to cost either of us more $$ or hassle.

Right now my armless Cal is sitting under my desk. I suppose I could attempt a repair using Gorilla glue or something but I'm not that ambitious at the moment. If I can locate another Cal statue for a decent price this one will hit the trash in a hurry.

Here are my previous broken bobbles. Both of these sad stories, as related previously on this blog, have happy endings. Neither involves Gorilla glue.

1966 Topps Camilo Pascual

This is another bargain bin score from the card show late in January. My man Camilo poses in front of the third base dugout in Yankee Stadium. Three years prior to this card being issued I was witness to one of the strangest scenes I've encountered at a ball park. It involves Pascual, that park and that dugout. I have told this story over on my 1959 Topps blog but I thought it might be worth posting here for those who haven't seen it.

My Dad and I were at a Yankee Stadium doubleheader between the Twins and Yanks on July 28 of 1963. We were there for most Sunday games in those days. This one quickly became very different. Not because the Twins won beating 'Mr. Sunday start' Whitey Ford, but because of what happened in the bottom of the second inning with Pascual on the mound.

A group of Cuban Nationals including several women came over the railing near the Twins dugout and headed for the mound. They carried a Cuban flag and a banner (I had forgotten about the banner but I always remembered that flag). They wrapped the flag around Pascual before security had a chance to react.

It was fairly easy to verify the date of the game using Baseball Reference because I was able to quickly go through Twins-Yankee doubleheaders in New York in the early 60's. But I spent a lot of time off and on through the years trying to verify the details of the incident. I knew someone out there had to have a story or a picture or even just an off-hand reference to something so unusual. I considered writing to Pascual about that day but I didn't know how to find him.

Finally my Google searches yielded this page and I knew that someone else had remembered the incident. Then I got serious and dug though Google images until the picture above showed up on Corbis along with the original caption from the Bettman Archives:

Original caption: 7/29/1963-New York, NY: Anti-Castro Cubans wrap a Cuban flag and a banner calling for he liberation of Cuba around countryman Minnesota pitcher Camilio Pascual during the second inning of the first game of a double header with the Yankees 7/28. The demonstrators were led off the field by police. Pascal fled Cuba two years ago, abndoning[sic] all his property. He beat the Yankees, 5-1.

Date Photographed:   July 29, 1963

And that's how I unraveled the mystery of my nearly half-century old memories of Camilo Pascual and the Cuban flag. I don't collect his cards per se but I have a couple and they represent a fun experience I shared with my father.

To wrap up this post here is a picture I found of Pascual and Fidel Castro.

Red Man Tobacco Billy Pierce cards... got 'em all finally

1952 Red Man Billy Pierce

I'm perplexed by scanning technology (well, truth be told I'm perplexed by lots of things, like why anyone would eat creamed corn or watch the Pro Bowl, but those are separate topics).

I bring up scanners because these three Billy Pierce Red Man Tobacco cards I picked up on eBay have some real flaws. But my scanner tends to gloss them over. Oh, you can see the crease in the '52 card above but it's much more pronounced in hand. But the scans of my BALTIMORE Colt media guides make them look like someone took a chainsaw to 'em when in actuality they are just soooo damn pretty.

But anyway, back to the Pierce cards. I have had a 'saved search' for them on eBay for years. I didn't check it that often but when I did I found sadly miscut examples or overpriced graded and slabbed ones. A month or two ago I found a dealer who I bought from several times in the past was offering all three of the cards.

Each is flawed to some extent but none of them are butchered. And the total for all three shipped was about $17. That was hard to pass up.

1952 back

All three cards have the same image of Pierce with different tints and the '53 (see below) has a ballpark background. That one is by far the best of the bunch as far as condition goes. It has the 'tab' or 'stub' removed but that's of little consequence in my eyes. The lack of serious creases and the background make it my favorite of the three.

1953 Red Man Billy Pierce

1953 Back

1954 Red Man Billy Pierce

1954 Back

Super Bowl Sunday

I'm in a real party town today. My wife is running the New Orleans Marathon. I still wonder why they would schedule the race for today but here we are. Since I don't want my wife sitting in a car for a five hour trip back to Houston after she does the race we are staying over until Monday.

That means we will be trying to find a place to watch the game and enjoy some atmosphere in New Orleans. That's a little like saying I'm at the North Pole looking for snow. I really don't have a favorite today. That's usually the case in Super Bowls for me (unless of course the Cowboys are involved and in that case I root for the other team). I just want the game to be entertaining and I always hope my Buffalo wings come out tasty.

I don't have big Super Bowl parties but we do usually make it a family event. When my kids were young we would have fun decorating the living room with streamers and balloons in the teams' colors, making a 'Super Bowl cake' (it looked like a football field with the teams' mini helmets stuck in the icing of the 'end zones) and planning a junk food-laden menu.

It lost some of it's luster when my boys went off to college and couldn't always be here for the game. And obviously this year there will be no party at all. Which is a shame because for the first time in six years or so both my sons are living in Houston again after graduating.

The card at the top, a 1955 Bowman L. G. Dupre sort of ties all this together (I said 'sort of'... work with me here):

• Dupree was born in New Orleans. 
• He grew up  in Texas City, Texas, just a half hour down the road from my current home.
• He went to school at Baylor, not too awfully far from where one of my boys went (Texas State in San Marcos). 
• He began his career with my team, the BALTIMORE Colts. 
• He finished his career with the Dallas Cowboys. 
• He died in 2001 which was the year the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. 

It's damn near the circle of Super Bowl life, no?

Dupre's real name is Louis George but he was always known as L.G. and his nickname was 'Long Gone' which is really pretty cool. Just saying 'Long Gone Dupre' brings 1950's football to mind, even if you never lived it.

He never had as many as 400 yards in any of his seven NFL seasons. But he got two World Championship rings with the Colts. And he played in the epic 1958 game in which the Colts beat the New York Football Giants 23-17 in overtime. Dupre carried 11 times for 30 yards and caught two passes for seven more. One of his carries was for 11 yards, the first play of the winning OT drive engineered by Johnny U.

And that card. It came from a one dollar bin at the TriStar show. Love that classic straight-arm, ball tucked pose. And that period Colts' jumping colt logo is a classic. Although the franchise in Indiana uses it from time to time it always makes me think of the days of Johnny U. The card's back contains some old school football terminology. Nobody is listed as a 'halfback' anymore and the 'T-formation' is ::ahem:: long gone. You better watch out for the 'Spinner from Double Wing' that's diagrammed on the bottom, though. I think Peyton Manning still calls that one from time to time.

Two more BALTIMORE Colts from my collection. Both cards from the NFL Championship season of 1959:

Long Gone Dupree, again

and Hall of Fame DE Gino Marchetti, with the two bar facemask no less.

BALTIMORE Colt Guides....two steps closer (and a bonus!)

The day after I posted about adding a '55 Baltimore Colt Press Guide to my collection I won an auction for five Baltimore Colt guides, two of which filled gaping holes in my wantlist.

I won all five for a grand total of $102 shipped. Considering that the other guides from that era that I've picked up average $60 - $65 apiece I think I made out pretty well. The best part is that the guides are in remarkable condition. I do mean remarkable. They all look like they were put away when they were originally received and barely looked at. The covers are all clean and almost crease-free. The inside pages barely have a hint of the yellowing that is pretty much expected in publications like this. My scans can hardly do them justice.

The three dupes I got, the '59 '60 and '62, are all upgrades for those I already owned. I'll sell the three I'm replacing and if I can average $30 each I will have picked up the two new-to-me guides for next to nothing. Now I lack only the '56 and '77 (edit: I won a '56 today, hey!!) for a complete run of guides in the 'modern era' of the Baltimore Colts.

Bargain Bin Beauties

At the TriStar show I spent the bulk of my time (and a little bit of cash) rummaging through bargain bins not looking for anything in particular. In fact I spent so much time bent over tables that I wound up with a sore back on the way home. I picked up some baseball and football stuff to send off to other bloggers and various things which may or may not be 'blog worthy'. We'll see.

Most of the boxes I went through were at least semi-organized. I didn't hit up any of the 'dump a crap load of crap into a 3200-count box lid' tables. They can be fun but I didn't see any as I didn't make it all the way around the show this time.

One guy had a pretty substantial non-sports box. I wouldn't have messed with it normally but I had gotten a chair at that table and I wasn't ready to give it up quite yet. The box was within reach so I rifled through it for grins. The usual Batman, flags 'o' the world, Charlie's Angels and ships and planes cards were in there. And there were some movie star cards that caught my eye. 

I've shown some Greer Garson items from my collection previously. She has a mysterious aura about her that I find attractive. The card I found is a 1953 Topps Who-Z-At #55 Greer Garson. It's part of an 80 card set that I wasn't familiar with but it has some big names. The cards are pretty reasonable, even in nice shape. The one I found is about as far from 'nice shape' as you can get. But that doesn't mean all that much to me. The fun of finding a Greer Garson card in a bargain bin and getting it for about a quarter topped off an already productive day.

Here is a look at what the card looks like in premium condition, scan is courtesy of Google and the 'net. 

The other card from this set that I picked up was this one. Cyd Charisse was a dancer turned actress (think Mary Tyler Moore). I don't know much about her but then again, what's to know? Even the awful condition of the card can't hide her incredible looks.

Late edit... I found the original picture that this card is based on.

Wow.