Tony Horton and the best day ever!

I've always been fascinated by Tony Horton's story. I could never understand how a guy with his talent could be so troubled. But over time I've come to learn more about depression and mental illness and his career is easier to put into perspective.

He never had a Topps card, just some regional and food issues and such. Bob Lemke, who's blog is one of my absolute must reads, does custom cards and took on the task of filling in some missing Topps Horton cards. You can see them here on this post from a couple of weeks back. He did three and all are outstanding. I had a few other Lemke creations already eyeballed and the Horton addition caused me to pull the trigger. I chose the '1970' version because it shows him as I remember him, as an Indian in Yankee Stadium. My cards arrived this week and they are as nice as I expected.

The other Lemke cards are of Baltimore Colts and they make a nice 'supplement' to my Colts' Project. I'll blog them as part of my wrap-up to that deal. Meanwhile, check out the back of the Horton, quality stuff.

But back to Tony Horton himself. I may have written this story before but I don't see it in this blog's archive so it was probably a comment on someone else's. He plays a central role in what is my all-time favorite day at a ballpark.

Back in 1970 I'd just graduated from high school and was about to move to Houston and head off to college. I went with my best friend to what we thought was going to be a routine mid-week doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. The Indians were in town and since I'd inherited my father's love for two-for-one ballgames we headed to the Bronx.

Knocking around Manhattan, grabbing the #4 line uptown, visiting Manny's Baseball Land and then that games themselves, well that was a great time every time. But June 24, 1970 was going to be extra special.

We always sat somewhere down near third base in the lower stands since we'd made 'friends' with an usher who usually got us a nice view for the price of our grandstand ticket and a small tip. And that day it was especially nice to have the view from behind the Indians' dugout.

Several things came together to make that day more than just a long day at the ballpark. In the first game we got to watch Sam McDowell handle the Yankees pretty easily and that was neat because we were fans of the Indian's ace.

It was fun watching McDowell work but what happened in the ninth is what made the game memorable. Yankee reliever Steve Hamilton had been playing around with a 'bloop' pitch he called the 'Folly Floater'. Facing Tony Horton to lead off the Indians' ninth he threw a floater that was fouled back. Horton asked for another one, Hamilton obliged and it was fouled off to the left and Thurman Munson made a nice play to snag it. Horton dropped to his knees as he approached his dugout and crawled the rest of the way to the steps. I'd never seen anything like that before.

Here is the 1969 Topps Hamilton I picked up at the card show two weeks ago. It's uses the same photo as his '64 Topps card.

This video (sometimes I just love YouTube!) is of that very at bat with Phil Rizzuto calling the action. My buddy and I are likely visible in that grainy crowd behind the dugout. No way to tell.

The second game of the double header was nuttier than the first! Bobby Murcer, who had homered in the bottom of the ninth in the first game hit three more in the second one for a what I believe was a record-tying four homers in four consecutive official at bats. He managed to draw a walk in the middle of them.

And we witnessed the best baseball fight I've seen in person. In the top of the fifth with the Indians leading 2-1 and one man out Vada Pinson singles, goes to second on a ground out and then, when Stan Bahnsen uncorks a wild pitch, tries to score all the way from second. Bahnsen, covering home tags Pinson out with has glove to the face and Pinson came up swinging. Everyone piled out onto the field and lots of shoving and bear-hugging ensued. The haymaker from Pinson is one of the few really good punches I've ever see land in a baseball fight. I remember that we were surprised Bahnsen was back on the mound for the sixth. Pinson, btw, got tossed.

Not long after that some chump in the upper deck tossed a large firecracker, probably a 'cherry bomb', onto the field and it landed near home plate. I remember Ray Fosse jumping about as high as a catcher could jump when the thing exploded nearby. I've read since then that he was burned by the thing but I really don't remember that. I just remember the Yankee PA guy, Bob Sheppard warning the fans that the game would end if any more objects were thrown onto the field.

Two other notes on this game.....while digging for newspaper accounts of the game I discovered that the 1971 Vada Pinson card has a photo taken during Game One that day. It shows Pinson being tagged out at home by Munson when he tried to score on a fly out, ending the eighth inning. Oh, the irony.....

...And I recently came across a web page for long time major league reliever Lindy McDaniel. He was a member of the Yankees in 1970 when these games and another great game, one played in Baltimore between the Yanks and Orioles occurred.  He signs through the mail so I sent him a card and asked him if he had some memories of that summer. I'll post that when he returns it.

Games People Play

I wish I had back all the hours I spent playing sports (mostly baseball) board games. What you see above are the games I still have on a shelf high up in a closet at home.My game of choice, as you can probably tell, was Strat-O-Matic. From my first purchase of the game in 1967 until I finally put it away in the mid-80s I wasted more time playing Strat than I care to remember. But it sure was fun.

The box in the lower right, the one with the stickers on it, is more or less my original Strat game. Through the years I purchased a couple of replacements but I kept (and kept repairing) the top cover of the original box.

Here is my view of baseball as I knew it for almost 20 years:

That playing field with all the glued-on pics is original as well. I had a cardboard 'platform on the right where the stacks of teams are now but other than that, it hasn't changed. I saved a piece of the original box bottom, that's the 'Hot Corner' taped to the right front of it.

The Strat box at the top of the picture is one of many 'replacement' games I bought and that box know holds spare charts, game cards, playing pieces and scoresheets. The white Strat box is my 2011 50th Anniversary edition. It's a replica of the original 1961 edition. I haven't played it.

I played 'season' after 'season' with a six teams playing 80 game schedule. My teams I used were almost always American League clubs. The Orioles were always included of course The other teams were usually the Red Sox, White Sox, Tigers, Senators and Twins. If you look at the charts in the pic you can see that over time I felt I knew more about the game than the folks in Glen Head, NY and I modified them somewhat. The one on the left was my 'Injury Chart' which covered thing like rain delays (I would go get a soda if that occurred), rain outs, ejections and injuries to defensive players. That wasn't something found in the actual game.

I always played the basic version, I couldn't be bothered with the advanced or super advanced versions. Mostly I played to accumulate stats. They were kept by hand and calculated with a slide rule. That's the object you see below. Only the more senior of you will remember them.

(Note: that photo and most of the others below are from the internet)

After a few years of that I wanted more accurate numbers and discovered the Sporting News Averages Book which contained page after page of charts which allowed you to find batting averages and ERAs. Eventually I got a pocket calculator and life was perfect.

Strat wasn't my first game though. When I was about ten I got a copy of Cadaco's All Star Baseball, the famous game with the spinner and player disks. It's the game that started me down the path of board gaming.

A bit later it was Challenge the Yankees. Game play was pretty basic and the players available were pretty limited. I only wish I still had the player cards. They can pull in big bucks nowadays. I played this one a lot with my Dad. He was always the Yankees, I as always the All Stars.

When I got my first desktop computer I thought I'd try computer baseball. APBA's version made by Miller and Associates for DOS (youngsters should look "DOS" up) was the most popular at the time. I found it boring and cumbersome. I hated not having those player cards and dice in my hands. Here is a screenshot from the net:

Then I gave Earl Weaver Baseball a shot. It was more of an arcade game. I bet I played it twice.

About five years ago I came across a copy of a book written about the Star-O-Matic game company (it's much better than it sounds LOL) and I got the game playing itch once again. 

But I knew I didn't have the time for setting up a dice based game so I did a bit of homework and read really good things about Diamond Mind Baseball. It was pretty costly but I really enjoyed it. I've been on a break from it for about a year but I played 15 'seasons' in the four years I have owned it. I have hundreds of teams and I even 'homebrewed' a few. I'll get back to it one of these days.

I've owned and played a few other sports-related board games over the years. My dorm buddies got caught up in Oscar Robertson Basketball one semester. We skipped a lot of classes for this one.

I had All-Pro Football which was a combination of checkers and football strategy. I remember it but I don't think I played it very often.

Up top in the original picture you see Strat-O-Matic Football. I think I played it with my Dad once. The box is beaten up by time (and repaired using pieces of Strat baseball boxes) but the game parts are pristine. I don't even remember buying the APBA Football game. I'm sure it's never been opened. And that Pursue The Pennant game box is untouched. The game parts are still wrapped as they were when I bought it. I was attracted by the hype but about the time I bought it my game playing interest was evaporating.

Finally here is my own Strat-O-Matic card. You sent them some cash and your 'stats' and info and you got back a card to put yourself into the game. I bought it for fun. I never used in in my 'league'. I'd pretty much quit playing by the time I bought it. I only 'enhanced' my running ability. In no way was I a 1-14. 1-9 would have been more like it.

More Cheap Cards (from the Hotel Show)

Continuing to post a few of the cards I picked up last Saturday at the hotel meeting room card show. Total cost=$12 plus gas, tolls (yes, tolls) and lunch. Total take=30 cards, give or take.

Fred Talbot and Joe Schultz played prominent roles in Jim Bouton's groundbreaking book, Ball Four. I got that book as a graduation present from my best friend's family. Hard to believe that'll be 45 years ago this summer. Seems like yesterday.

I pulled the Talbot because I like those old A's uni's so much. I like the road grays as much as, or maybe more than, the gold ones. Good stuff.

But a couple of cards later I saw the Schultz. I'm not sure why I made the instant Ball Four connection but I did. BTW... Ball Four is almost required reading for baseball fans. I know some call it the best baseball book ever. I wouldn't agree with that but it's certainly right up there among them. Bouton seems to update the book every time he has five minutes and a cup of coffee, I believe it's up to Version 10 or so now.

1975 Topps Mike Newlin. This one made me stop as I was shuffling through the stack. My goodness. I remember him but I don't remember him looking that much like a caveman. Newlin was with the Rockets when they came to Houston in 1971 and I saw a ton of games since they were playing on the UH campus. He was a loose cannon on the court. And off the court as well. I was playing in a softball league one summer and Newlin along with Houston Oilers center Carl Mauck and a few other local pros he was friends with were on a team in that league. One night they were playing the game before ours and Newlin barrel-rolled into second base (who the hell slides in slo-pitch softball?!?!) and broke the other team's infielder's leg.

I don't collect Robin Yount but I know a few guys that do. I snagged this because I have never seen a Gardner's card and it's a Hall of Famer on vintage oddball for a quarter. If you want it, say so.


I only bought one or two football cards. For one thing I'm knee deep in Baltimore Colts cards at the moment and for another I'm trying to be more baseball-centric with my Spring Training trip coming up.

But Joe Morrison was one of my father's favorites. Seeing this card brought back memories of listening to Giants' games with my old man. Marty Glickman was a fabulous broadcaster.

I'd forgotten about these Kelloggs' Rold Gold* old timers. Most of the set was in one of the boxes at the show. Looks like Walter Johnson is warming up in Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. So it's a time-traveling Hall of Famer card. Cool.

*=Credit to Mark Hoyle for pointing out the Johnson was possibly a Rold Gold card from 1970. Kelloggs' reissued the set in 1972 under their own banner.

This is a Brooks Robinson Rawlings card of some sort, probably a glove promo card that came attached to a Brooksie model. Finest in the Field. And he was.

The back makes it known in no uncertain terms that this is a 'Promotional Replica' and it contains 'No Gold Content'. I'm glad they did that because for a few seconds I thought I'd struck gold. Meh.

Lastly, another oddball food issue. A Cap'n Crunch Cal Ripken. I've never tried Cap'n Crunch. I'm not sure why. Not sure why I bought this card either. It's the least interesting of them all, at least to me.

Monday Morning Quarterback #51 Joe Ferguson 1984 Topps

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard. 

NFL Info: Joe Ferguson was a third round pick by the Bills in 1973 out of Arkansas. He has handed the Bills starting job from Day One and held it for twelve years. He took them to the playoffs three times but only once made it past the first round. It would remain for Jim Kelly to get the Bills to the Super Bowl. Ferguson left Buffalo in 1985 and spent five more seasons as a back-up in three other towns. He currently works in real estate in Arkansas.

Fantasy Impact: I had Joe Ferguson in 1983 and I stuck him into my lineup midway though the year after a couple of other guys sputtered. He did very well but outside of Eric Dickerson the rest of my team was awful and I went 6-7-1.

The Card: I'll give Topps credit, they were moving away from the conservative designs of the previous decade by 1984. I can't think of a previous football set that had the 'tilted' orientation given the '84 Topps football cards. Not the world's best color combo but it's sure stands out. The back is standard stuff, full of stats vital details and a cartoon. That green number is tough to read though. I'd hate to have to sort a case of these.

Old Time Card Show

I spent some time yesterday at a small hotel card show north of Houston. There used to be at least one every weekend somewhere in town back when card shows (and card shops) were really popular. Free admission, one small meeting room (used to be a ballroom or large meeting room back in the day), a dozen or so dealers and a lot of cheap vintage. And trust me, cheap vintage (of all kinds) was easily the most prevalent collectible in the room. Dime, quarter, fifty cent and/or dollar boxes were on about every table.

I've got about an hour's worth of uninterrupted standing and bending in me these days so that's about how much time I spent there. I ended up spending about twelve bucks and came home with 25 or 30  cards. I had no want list so I just picked out cards that struck my fancy. That may not be as satisfying as finding a 'white whale' in a dime box but it is a lot of fun nonetheless.

First up, a 1967 Frank Howard. I can't look at a Hondo card and not be reminded of my Strat-O-Matic game playing days. His 1969 Stat card was just astounding. He just tore up my replay league with it. 

1965 Masanori Murakami/Dick Estelle rookie. I already have this card but it's one of my favorite Topps cards ever, for reasons I've blogged about previously. The Japanese native is the draw here but Estele has a backstory, too.

It's a scuffed up copy but I couldn't pass it up, even as a dupe.

1979 Willie McCovey. For a quarter? Done deal! McCovey just has an aura. Willie Mays was the Giant you couldn't hardly take your eyes off of. But when you did it was usually to follow the flight of a huge McCovey blast.

1963 Fleer Tom Cheney. I have this idea in the back of my mind that someday I'll seriously chase this set. I don't think anything caused as much of a stir in the St. Mary's School playground in the early 60s as the appearance of the 1963 Fleer packs (that cookie though!) at drug stores in Nutley, NJ. 

I have the Orioles and the Phillies in the set, the Koufax and a couple of others. Yes, I used to like the Phils and I bought the Fleer Phillies in a wave of nostalgia years ago. When I find a '63 Fleer card cheap I'm going to pick it up

1956 Topps Calvin Coolidge. The other night I found a copy of his biography on the 'last chance' rolling cart at Barnes & Nobles. Even with about a half dozen unread books waiting on my book shelves I bought it. This will make a neat bookmark for it. (Tell me you don't do that yourself.)

There was a fairly nice stack of these things on the dealers table, I should have bought more. Maybe I will next month. I have the Lincoln, the Teddy Roosevelt and the LBJ (that one is from the '72 re-issue). So this one is my third card from the '56 set.  The show runs regularly and it appeared to me that the dealers were all regulars. So they will still be around. 

Here's the book, by the way. It got some good reviews. As a 'fan' of the presidency and it's history I'm ashamed to say I know almost nothing about Coolidge, but that'll change once I get around to reading it. 

Here is my wacky card pick-up of the day. It's from the 1966 AB&C Battle Cards set. This is a re-issue of the Topps set of the previous year with a few additional cards tacked on. AB&C did a lot of sets in England,mostly 'soccer' ones and they had ties to Topps. Lots of their footie sets were based on Topps baseball designs.

The set shows 'scenes' from World War II. Why there is a Revolutionary War era soldier gracing the back is a mystery to me. Again, the dealer had a handful of these but I just picked up one. I chose this one because, well, there's a torch carrying Nazi and a leggy blonde damsel-in-distress. My 14-year-old inner self from 1966 made the choice!

I have never heard of this set but here is how Dean's Cards describes it (you can see the checklist there as well):

The original Battle set produced by Topps in 1965 contained 66 cards depicting various battles from World War II.  One year later, A &BC Ltd, an English company, produced a replica set of the Topps issue.  The most notable difference is that the English version consists of 73 cards instead of 66.  The additional seven cards depict leaders and fighters from World War II, including President Roosevelt, General Eisenhowever [sic], the US Marines, the Nazi Army, and several others.  Card #73, the last card in the set, is a checklist card.

I have a bunch of other cards from the show but this is enough for today. 

Baltimore Colts Card History Pt.7 The mid 70s

In the early 70s I was neck deep into college life and I had taken a few years off from paying attention to football cards. But with the '74 set I am now beginning to see cards I remembered picking up when they were fresh. I remember finding packs at the Eckerds' (now CVS) Pharmacy near my apartment. 

I never had many of them and none of the ones I did have survived to be seen here. Quite a few of the mid-70s cards I have now came from fellow collectors and bloggers like Mark Hoyle and Joe Shlabotnik. That makes these cards even better. 

1974 Topps #172 Cotton Speyrer

1974 Topps

Sort of a subtle but clever design for the Topps set in 1974. The player is framed with a goal post and the players names were below the cross bar. Each team had a unique color combo for the team name box. And of course, we are in the middle of the 'no license' period in which Topps had to airbrush out any official team logos. They could use the team nickname though, unlike the current situation with Panini baseball that only allows the city. Topps was now fully engaged with large football sets with 500+ cards. The Colts had as many as 22 cards not including 'specials' in these sets.

There were no special cards in the set as far as I can tell other than an All-Pro subset of which the Colts had none. Parker Brothers had some sort of NFL-based game this year and it included about 50 cards based on the '74 Topps set. Some of these had completely different pictures as the Topps regular version, some were identical except for slightly different copyright lines. The Colts had one player in that set, Don McCauley whose card had the same photo.

1974 Topps #524 Bert Jones

The Colts are shown with a mixture of portraits and posed action shots with a training camp or practice field background. All the Colts had vertically oriented cards but there were a handful of horizontal ones scattered through the set.

1974 Topps #197 Tom Drougas

That is except for the one game action photo used for George Hunt.

1974 Topps #482 George Hunt 

The blue and yellow backs on dark cardboard are crowded with stats, a bio, a cartoon and a box containing a 'football game' play.

The team checklists were available by mail as a set. I don't know if they were also in packs or not but I doubt it. 

Interestingly the backs were printed in a different color than the regular cards. The colors resemble but don't match any of the Topps sets of the middle of the decade that I came across. I'm sure they match something and were produced as part of some other set's print run. This is where you find the 'rules' for the game plays shown on the back of the regular cards.

Other than the Parker Brothers game cards I don't know of any inserts, food issues or oddballs that had Baltimore Colts included.


1975 Topps

There is a bit more variety in the photos of the 1975 set. Sideline 'candid' shots appeared and portraits with a blue background were there, too. Others seem to be just shots taken in previous camps and holdovers from 1974. There were no horizontal player cards that I see in the set except for the leaders and All Pro cards. The Colts had no All Pros. And a few players were shown in actual game 'action' shots but again, no Colts.

The design isn't exactly inspiring but it has a charm that has had me thinking about collecting the set. It looks better in a binder than it does flipping through a stack of them. That helmet though!

The Colts got red and yellow as a theme, some other teams had crazier ones. The Oilers were stuck with orange and purple.

1975 Topps #247 Raymond Chester

1975 Topps #329 Bruce "I did Shakespeare in college" Laird

1974 Topps #301 Tim "I played Little League ball with Commishbob" Berra

The backs are different than what came before from Topps. The 'tilted' elements gave them a sort of 3D feel. The info about how the player landed with his club is new as well.

There are two subsets that included a Colt. Lydell Mitchell got a Highlights card.

1975 Topps #456 Lydell Mitchell 1974 Highlights

And he was the AFC receptions leader so he made that card as well. On a side note it's interesting how few receptions could get you on a leaders card in 1975.

1974 Topps #3 Receiving Leaders w/Lydell Mitchell

There are no inserts or other off the wall sets that involve any Colts that I know of. The widely distributed checklists were not team specific but more along the line of the standard Topps 'checklist by series'. But there was also a set of team checklist cards that were available only through the mail. Those babies are hard to find. I'm not chasing it since it's not an item that was available in packs or any other easy way.

They look like this in uncut form (not my photo, taken from an auction site):

I can't blog the '75 Colts without showing my favorite of the bunch,....

1975 Topps # 476 Dan Dickel

1976 Topps

Topps went pretty straightforward with the '76 design. A big football contained the team name and the position and players name were next to that. The colors used varied by team as they did each year of these 70s Topps sets. Maybe it's just my diminishing ability to pay attention to detail but these 70s Topps sets all seem to run together. I know because I inserted the '75 Dickel card into this '76 part of the post and hadn't noticed it until I was labeling them. Sigh.

The Leaders cards are horizontal, the rest vertical. A new subset of Record Breakers appeared but there were no Colts involved.

1976 Topps #53 Mike Barnes

1976 Topps #410 George Kunz

George Kunz along with two other Colts got the All Pro designation on their card. 

There was a good representation of the hair styles of the times on Colts cards in 1976. Mike Barnes (just above) was pretty shaggy. Some of the better examples follow.....

1976 Topps #351 Glenn Doughty

Doughty with the standard issue Afro.

1976 Topps #525 Bert Jones

The long wavy look for Bert Jones, the Ruston Rifle.

1976 Topps #92 Dan Dickel

Love the Dan Dickel 'look'. I wore my hair like this. Now I wish I had some of it back.

1976 Topps #503 Fred Cook

Fred Cook had a bad ass 'fro. And he should because he was one bad ass player. But as a person, he was a prince. Still is I suppose.

1976 Topps #193 Roger Carr

But leave it to the Louisiana cowboy, 'Sad' Roger Carr to spot the military look.

The backs were pretty well laid out, done in red and blue. Nothing special about what they contained. The quiz box had a cartoon and most contained a random question not specific to the player.

The quiz box on some of the cards asks you to ID a player who appears on a card among that team's players. The answer is given on the back of the checklist card (see below).

This year the checklists were were back to being numbered and issued in the packs. The reverse had the team leaders for the previous few seasons.

But the offer to order all of the checklists was there on the back, too. And the line between the 'boxes' on the back solves the 'Mystery Colt" quiz. It's John Dutton, #130.

1976 Topps #202 NFL Receiving Leaders w/Lydell Mitchell

The receiving leaders card had to squeeze in three players because Lydell Mitchell and Reggie Rucker tied for the AFC lead with 60 catches each. That card had some serious Afro hair styles going on!

After a couple of yaers that lacked inserts/oddballs 1976 had several. The most prominent were put out by the company that actually held the NFL license and was able to use full team names and logos. Good old Fleer didn't need any airbrush artists in '76.

1976 Fleer Team Action Sticker/Cards

These 'cards' were actually stickers and you could peel the fronts off and put them on your school binder. Fleer issued these things continuously through at least 1983 which is where I end this Baltimore Colts Project. The fabulous Fleer Sticker Project Blog contains way more info than I need to present here.

Fleer could show the logos and helmets as noted, but using the names of the players was not allowed (NFLPA held the rights to those) so the cards have a very generic 'feel'.

The pattern for these things varied very little over the years. There were two 'team action' cards and one for each Super Bowl. Even the numbering on these was consistent with only the addition of expansion teams (Falcons and Saints) pushed the numbering along. I have roughly half of the Fleer cards for '76-'83.

And also from Fleer there were various and sundry 'cloth' stickers. Check-listing these things is a difficult task. Again, the Fleer Sticker Project blog delves into them and once I've completed the standard cards I'll attempt to figure out what I have. I am pretty certain that this one is from 1976.

The sticker next to a regular card to show the size.

There were a couple of three food issues in 1976 that had Colts or Colt related cards. The Wonder Bread issues ran for three years but the only Baltimore Colt appeared in '76. I have more info on these and the companion/twin Holson Bread cards in this post from early this year.

Finally the makers of Popsicle products put these credit card-style cards into retail boxes. They are made out of thin plastic. One of each team with the Giants having a logo variation as well. Not hard to find these and they come pretty inexpensively. Obviously the license used was similar to the Fleer one and no player names are used.

Lydell Mitchell also appears on a '76 Crane Potato Chips 'disc'. These should be familiar to collectors of oddball baseball items of this era. They were distributed under several company sponsors in baseball versions while football had a couple as well. This is an internet picture. I have one of these on order and it's waaaay overdue. I'll replace this with my scan when it arrives.

The mid-70s Colts cards are fun if a bit subdued. Only the period's hair styles really jump out at you. And at least for the Colts' cards there are no expensive cards at all. "Every Colt a common!" would be a good title for this post.

Finally, this isn't a Colt card but hey, it's an awesome '76 football card being awesome!