'61 and Done

It started with a bindered lot of 250 cards or so that I grabbed at a hotel card show a few years ago. I really didn't know what I was getting into ("Hold my beer!" -'71 Topps) and it ended this past week with a couple of different deliveries.

The Jim Coates card above was the last purchase I made and closed out my want list. I ended up with a better card than the one I had been eyeing for not much more money. This (relatively) better-centered one was only a few dollars more than the one I had almost purchased. It still carried the 'Yankee Tax' that plagues most vintage card chasers. This one, the Bob Cerv and Rollie Sheldon cards in the high number series cost more than their non-Yankee cousins. Just a sad fact of a collector's life.

That Coates might have been the last one I needed to buy but it wasn't the last one to fill its spot in the binder. This one was...

Don Ferrarese's card came from a COMC buy I made earlier this spring but held off on shipping as is my habit. It only makes sense to me to wait until I have enough purchases to make the $4 shipping reasonable. The card (and his traveling companions arrived in yesterday's mail. I was pretty excited to slide this one into its slot. Card, Page, Set!

Ferrarese, now 89 years old, pitched for five clubs over eight seasons (including three for the Orioles) and won 19 games. His lasting legacy, though, is his charitable work including his foundation which provided scholarships to promising kids. Very nice.

He wears an obviously airbrushed cap in this photo. He was dealt to the Phils in April of 1961 and Topps had time to get his team correct even though they didn't get an updated pic. That's Yankee Stadium and he could be wearing White Sox, Indians, or even an Orioles uni.

Nice to have this thing behind me. I will do my 'upgrade census' at some point but I already know that there are not many that need to be included on that list. There are a few variations in several checklists but I'm not too concerned with them. Checklist variations fail the 'Would Bob have noticed in 1961' test.

Now it's time to start seriously dealing with the last 45 or so cards I need from the 1971 set. I may throw a party when that thing is done!

Three Yanks and a Buc

OK, that title is sort of weird. But it describes what I'm lacking in my 1961 Topps chase. The cards I need are:


531 Jim Coates- Yankees
541 Rollie Sheldon- Yankees
554 Pirates Team Card
563 Bob Cerv- Yankees


All are high numbers, obviously. The three players are Yankees and then there is the Pirates team card. The Yankee 'tax' is pretty strong. None of those players are stars. There were no formal 'short prints' in the high number series as far as I can tell. At least nobody describes them as such. But the grading services have population reports that show the number of each card submitted for grading and the Sheldon and Cerv seem scarce. The Pirates team card gets a 'defending champs tax' I guess but I'm not sure it should.

Bottom line...these are proving to be difficult to find (in acceptable condition) without busting my budget.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've reeled in the last All-Star card I needed, Willie Mays.

It's not a terrible card but that is a scuff on his cap and the corners are softer than my Texans' defensive schemes. But the price was right and it certainly fits into my 'acceptable' range for the set.

And it fills the final full page in the binder with a boatload of talent.

If my math is right the page represents: 102 All-Star selections (and I didn't count the twin ASG game years as two selections), 8 MVP trophies, 34 Gold Gloves, 5 Hall of Fame players, 2 Rookie of the Year selections (and a couple of runners-up), 15 World Series rings, 4 batting titles, an ERA title, a Cy Young Award, 412 pitching wins and 3219 homers.

And to get to this point these high numbers came my way in recent weeks. These were from COMC I think.

Bill Tuttle was rarely photographed without that large hunk of chewing tobacco in his cheek. Later in life, he paid a huge price as mouth and throat cancer took his life. He spent a good bit of his last years as an advocate against the use of chewing tobacco and dip.

There is a thread on Net54 about 'centeredness' (probably many threads) and one comment made was 'off-center cards give me the shakes'. 😏 I, on the other hand, have no problem with this Tuttle. It goes back to my feeling that "if it came out of a pack when I was 9-years-old I wouldn't have even paid any mind" attitude. The only thing that gives me pause is when a card shows some of the one next to it.  There's a Jim Coates on eBay cheap right now that has tempted me but the discount isn't big enough to get me to overlook that flaw.

Bob Hale was at the end of his career. He'd began as a first baseman for the Orioles in 1955 but mostly served as a pinch hitter for the Birds, Indians, and Yankees thru the 1961 season.

I really like this Felipe Alou card. He's in Seals Stadium. He really came into his own in 1961 as he hit .289 with 18 homers. The next year he made his first All-Star squad and helped the Giants make the Series.

This is the first official Twins team card. As noted on the front they were formerly the Senators and you can see that name on their unis if you look close. The new edition of the Senators, the expansion version, as well as their counterparts, the L.A. Angels, didn't get a team card in 1961.

"Buy the Card, Not the Holder"

Spend any amount of time on one of the card collectors forums and before too long you're likely to see the phrase I used as the title of this post.

"Buy the Card, Not the Holder" refers to purchasing graded cards and means just that...if you like how a card looks, and it's at a price that works, the hell with the grade it received. Here is an example using a card that brought me closer to finishing the '61 set.

The Ernie Banks All-Star card isn't cheap. I was able to pick this one up at a great price:

You can see it in the holder...graded as "Poor 1"

EDIT...Adding a shot of the reverse in the holder:

It looks better than that to me but then again, I don't grade cards for a living. In any case, Ernie is out of the plastic and in the binder. I'm  down to just these seven five cards:

531 Jim Coates
541 Rollie Sheldon
554 Pirates Team Card
563 Bob Cerv
579 Willie Mays AS

I'm going to go up to a big show in the Dallas area in April and hope to polish this thing off.

No Upgrade Needed!

Not long ago Shane, the Shoebox Legend himself, messaged me and asked if I'd be interested in a '61 Juan Marichal rookie which happened to be the last non-high number I lacked in that set. He warned me that it wasn't mint and there was some paper loss on the back. He'd picked it up at an antique store at a good price and thought I could use it until I found a better one.

Well, Shane has never looked through my vintage binders. 😁 If he had he'd have seen that a little back damage never stands between me and an open slot. And that's especially true when I'm down to just the most expensive open slot-fillers.

The Marichal card (and a few friends that came along for the ride) arrived Saturday and I'm happy to report that it's a fine fit in my 1961 set build. The damage is no big deal and the card is really in fine shape. I can think of several cards (I'm looking at you, 1960 Nellie Fox All-Star) that I have in sets with more significant issues than this sweet Marichal.

The fact that for my money (or maybe Shane's?) this is one of the cooler cards in the 1961 set.  Marichal always had a million dollar smile and it's shown off here.

I'm telling you if I had won this card 'flipping leaners' in the schoolyard at St. Mary's in Nutley N.J. in May of 1961 I'd have been thrilled.

 And Marichal finished off a binder page, a really nice binder page at that. He shares the top row with Hank Aaron and Dock Howser, the runner-up for AL RoY in 1961. The sweet Charlie Neal card is gravy.

It comes right before this one which I posted back in January.

Five Hall of Famers, three Rookie Star cards and that mis-numbered error Braves team card within 16 binder slots of each other.

Shane sent along some other cards as well. My most unlikely PC is Bobby Locke. I kicked that one off when I lucked into pulling a signed card in a Heritage pack a few years ago. After that, I added the few Topps cards that were available and some fun oddballs. I also had found a '68 buyback issued in 2015.

Packed with the Marichal were two more buybacks. I'm not sure which stamp was issued in which year but I'm sure I can find out easily enough.  Doh....this first one is a 2017.

This next one is stamped with the 75th-anniversary foil mark so Google tells me it's 2014.

Along with them were a few shiny Orioles. Cards are the only thing associated with the Orioles that does any shining lately.

Schoop will find a place in my fantasy player binder. This one boots out some plain jane Heritage card.

I miss JJ Hardy. And Chris Tillman is not on the Texas Rangers roster. Nor anyone else's as far as I can see. The two guys that came to the O's for Erik Beddard from Seattle in 2008, Tillman and Adam Jones, are without baseball work. Time marches on I guess.

Do I have to give up my Orioles fan club membership when I admit that I have no clue what Luis Matos did?

OK, Google to the rescue again...he played in Charm City for SEVEN SEASONS!! Who knew? Not me!

Soccer cards! Mbappé starred in the 2018 World Cup and plays professionally for Paris Saint-Germain. He's ridiculously talented. Paul Pogba, who did a Manny Machado-like reputation nose-dive over the past year, has had a nice resurgence under the new Man United manager. Thank God.

And this next card has a story, too. It was one of a pair that Shane used as a buffer on the outside of the stack he sent. Kind of like some eBay sellers will do. A 'bonus' with a job to do in a way. Well, this Kendrick went straight from the scanner to my fantasy football baseball (I had the fb one on my desk 😵) binder since I needed a card of him as an Angel to replace the (wrong team) Dodgers card that was in the binder. Yes, I am that anal when it comes to that collection.

Again, Shane...Thanks so much for the most generous trade package. It is appreciated.

You meet the best people in this hobby, yes?

1961 Topps Update, also Hank!!

Slowly but steadily I'm creeping up on the 1961 set. And I'm growing fonder of it every day. It's interesting in that it's sort of a 'transition' set in terms of my baseball memories. There are a lot of guys in the '58, '59, and even the '60 set (which I had a lot of as a kid) that were unfamiliar to me when I was acquiring the cards. The '62 set was one where I knew almost everyone on a card. The '61 is kind of in-between.

I'm at the point where knocking off needs is slow going. I'm at a little over 96% (566 of 587) but of the last 21 I need, 20 are high numbers. Those have been difficult. Not because they are hard to find, but because they are hard to find at a reasonable price. Some of them just seem to carry a premium for reasons I can't figure out. But I'll get it done. My goal is to finish before the end of the year.

Here is a look at the high numbers I nabbed off COMC earlier this year. It's just coincidental that all are pitchers. Not much to say about these other than they were all in pretty nice condition. '61s, in general, don't seem to show the wear that other sets from back in the day show.

Frank Baumann is wearing one of my favorite ball caps. I really like the S-O-X logo when it's got that red outline. Baumann, who split his career between the Red Sox and White Sox (with a few games with the Cubs to make it interesting), was the AL ERA leader in 1960.

Larry Jackson was a 5-time NL All-Star who led the league in wins in 1964. He was a politician and lobbyist in his native Idaho after baseball, once running for governor.

Barry Latman, according to Wikipedia, had to stop playing baseball for several years when he turned ten because his parents wanted him studying for his bar mitzvah. Indians had some sweet unis back then.

Don Cardwell was traded from the Phils to the Cubs on May 15, 1960. Two days later he pitched a no-hitter for the Cubs over the Cardinals.

Here's a guy who was new to me. Jim Archer had been an Orioles farm hand for years (I had no idea) before he was traded to the A's near Opening Day in '61. Topps had time to get his pic in KC gear for this last series card. He had a really nice rookie season in '61. He was among the top ten in several categories. He developed arm problems and had a brutal follow-up year in 1962 and was gone from the game soon after that. Like Larry Jackson, he dabbled in politics after he retired.

Bill Fischer was the guy who, as an off-season job, filled my Dad's car at the Flying A station on Flatbush Avenue while us kids sat in the backseat. OK, that's probably not true but I can see him doing that.

In truth, Fischer has a nine-year career with four clubs in the AL. He spent some time as a starter with the nats in the early 60s but did most of his work from the pen.

Saving the best for last....

Henry Aaron was the second to last star card I needed. I'm not counting the high number, Mays and Banks, All-Star cards.

That's Seals Stadium in San Francisco. Baseball unis don't get much better than those classic Braves' duds. Entering the '61 season Henry Aaron was 26 years old, just hitting his prime.  Just in case you were unaware...he's the all-time leader in RBIs and total bases. And in class.

Other than the two All-Stars the last star I need is Juan Marichal. The '61 is his rookie card, so you know how that goes. I have a handful of copies in an auction sniper bid group. Hopefully one of them falls to me.

The Pause That Refreshes

Taking a quick break at the halfway mark of my 10 things posts. I finished off this page in my 1961 binder over the weekend when the Yogi card arrived. An interesting (to me) page. Lots of yellow/red name/team blocks here. With a bit of blue and an orange outlier thrown in. Also lots of star power here with Kaline and Maz in addition to Berra who is at Yankee Stadium as is Turk Lown.

Lown was nearing the end of an 11-year career, mostly as a reliever and it was one of his better ones. Dick Ellsworth had a handful of very good seasons in a rollercoaster career. This pic was used again for his 1962 card.

I had never really associated the Ray Barker in this set with the 'Buddy' Barker on the Yankees when I lived up there in the late 60s. Same guy. He had a long minor league career and had a short stint with the Orioles in 1960 before re-appearing with the Yanks later in the decade. My original copy was extremely miscut so I recently upgraded it to this one.

Looks like Maz was photographed in Wrigley. Stobbs as well (he was with the Cards in '58 so it's possible). Stobbs pitched 15 seasons, mostly for the Red Sox and Senators. Coot Veal's name was always worth a second look as a kid. His real name is Orville Inman Veal.


The Braves team card is in the spot it would have been had Topps not messed up and mis-numbered it. They gave it #426 on the checklist but the back has #463 as does Jack Fisher's card. Sticking it in the 'correct' slot was a simple solution for me.

Those team card backs with pitchers W-L versus the other teams provided me with hours of entertainment. I'd wonder why Spahn could have such good results against the league but go 1-5 against the Pirates. Bob Buhl beat the Bucs four times but the rest of the staff could only win five? Then I'd probably remember that the Pirates won the pennant and I'd go look at the rest of the NL team cards I had to see how they fared against the champs. A great time to be a kid with your cards.

Set My Clemente Free!

Alternate title: "Set 'Em Free, Part II" 😉

Got home Monday night and found that I had this '61 Clemente waiting for me.

Since I had my needle-nose pliers and screwdriver still on my workbench from the morning's operations I figured I'd crack open this one quickly. The damned case never even made it into my house. Here is the result...

This is one of my favorite Clemente cards. Love a well-done portrait and this certainly qualifies. I've heard the stories about Topps (and writers, and Bob Prince) referring to him as 'Bob' and how he hated it but those may be apocryphal. Whatever the case, he was 'Bob' on this one.

One of the great sports-related blessings of my life is that I got to see Clemente play. He truly was electric. I've related the Bob Moose no-hitter story previously but I thought about it again recently when no-hitters came up on Twitter. Moose shut down the Mets in Shea Stadium late in the 1969 season and that's the only no-hitter I've witnessed in person.  Clemente's athleticism saved the glory for Moose with a great catch of Wayne Garrett's drive in the sixth. I found this on the SABR page dedicated to Moose's gem:

After pinch-hitter Jim Gosger struck out and Tommie Agee grounded to second, Wayne Garrett connected for the Mets’ first and only hard-hit ball. “When he hit the ball,” admitted Moose, “I thought it was gone, but then I saw the wind hold it up. I knew that if anybody could catch it, Roberto would.” Clemente raced to the warning track and made what (NY sportswriter Leonard) Koppett described as a “leaping catch” against the right-field wall to preserve the no-hitter.

I even found a grainy photo of Clemente against the fence after making the catch taken from a newscast shown on NY television years layer. It's funny the tricks that your mind will play. I've always remembered it as Clemente ending up in foul territory after a running catch. Obviously not so.

He also made the greatest throw I've ever seen in person in the first game I watched in the Astrodome way back in the summer of 1967 but that story will wait for another time.

Meanwhile, I'm one star card closer to finishing this 1961 set. I did some COMC shopping today and also got a message that someone on Net54 is generously sending me some mid-series 61's which now puts me 'just' 40 cards short.

EDIT: As I was slipping this into the binder late last night I saw that it completes a rather nice page:

In addition to Clemente, we see Ralph Terry who I saw pitch frequently for the Yanks and (ironically) was the Game 7 (and Game 4) loser in the 1960 World Series to Clemente's Bucs. There are no less than three rookie-award emblazoned cards. Bob Aspromonte and Winston Brown (who's capless photo and non-existent big league career drag down the whole thing) warranted stars but my man Chuck Estrada got that beauty of a card featuring the Top Hat trophy! Also seen is a nice shot of Ken Walters at Connie Mack, Reno Bertoia in one of the first cards depicting a Twin as a Twin, and Don Caldwell and Glen Hobbie on a Cubs special. Interesting that Topps recycled the 'Batter Bafflers' thing from a 1959 card featuring two equally middle-of-the-road Red Sox hurlers.

Finally, in the upper right slot is a sweet (but damaged) card of frequent NL All-Star Del Crandall. Somehow Del fell off my 'upgrade this' list that I took to the hotel card show on Saturday. I'm sure I saw a copy in Daryll's vintage boxes. Next time!

Let 'Em Breathe!

I picked up two more All-Stars for the 1961 set build. I almost always go after raw cards but sometimes you find a graded card at a reasonable price. My normal procedure is to let them stew in their cases for a few days and then throw a 'freedom party' out on my workbench.

Ever since I damaged a '59 Killebrew rookie with an overzealous screwdriver I've been more careful doing this. I did ding my '62 Willie Mays but overall I've had success. What I normally do is stick the label (I've learned it's called a 'flip') into the binder on the back side of the card.

This morning I went from this...

...to this...

...and finally to this...

Now that I look at the scans I think I'm going to pull the flips out of the binder pockets. Viewing three of them on a page is kind of annoying. #retiredguyproblems :-)

Progress report: I'm at 538 of the 587 cards in the '61 set (92% give or take). 34 of the cards I lack are high numbers including three All-Stars (Aparicio, Banks, Mays). Of the 15 lower series cards a couple are stars/rookies including the Marichal rookie. I'd also like to upgrade one card... I have a Mantle World Series Game 2 (card #307) which is trimmed.

I made the hotel show this past Saturday but I've pretty much exhausted the supply of  '61s that my friend Darryl had available. I picked up both of Bill Mazeroski's cards from him.

Overall I think I've made pretty decent progress on this thing. From time to time (particularly when looking at high number cards of lesser-known players) wonder how I could have let myself get into the chase for this. But it's been fun. I have a goal (a soft goal!) of finishing it this calendar year. We'll see.

1961 Topps Negative of Mel Harder (No, it's not)

I've made it plain in the past that my idea of collecting a set includes not only finding the cards but also adding some ancillary pieces. A wrapper, card variations, pack inserts, maybe a printing plate or something similar make the set more meaningful for me.

Topps Vault, who BTW, is now just another eBay seller, had this '1961' negative of Cubs coach and former All-Star Mel Harder up for bids. I threw a minimum bid on it and I won and figured I had a nice piece for my '61 build.

Wrong.

Had I done just five minutes I would have realized that this can't be from 1961 or been taken with the possible intent to use in that set. Mel Harder was coaching the Indians at that time and would remain with them for a couple more seasons. He coached on the Cubs staff in 1965!

I looked back at the original description of the eBay listing and Topps did use "Circa 1961". I guess they have a more liberal idea of what 'circa' means but whatever. Add to that the fact that Harder was only on the Cubs staff that one season. The Vault folks could have easily dated it correctly as a 1965 item.

No matter. It was my job to check before I bid and I failed. But looking a little deeper at Harder's background I found that he seems to be a very under-appreciated player. Over a  20 year career, all in Cleveland, he won 223 games which is one less than Catfish Hunter and Jim Bunning.

He received Hall of Fame consideration and his name pops up from time to time on lists of guys who should be in the Hall. In fact, he once received more than the required 75% of the votes from the old Veterans Committee but was denied induction because two other players received higher totals. The rules back then limited the number of that group's inductees to two.

Harder has plenty of cards from his playing days. Here is one that I have in my 1960 set. Obviously not this copy which I grabbed off the net.

The photo on that card was so similar to the color transparency that I thought it was the same one. I wondered if Harder had been a Cubs coach who Topps airbrushed into an Indians cap. That's what led me to look at his bio and how I discovered the real story.

Harder had a few other interesting moments in his career. He started the 1934 All-Star Game and pitched five scoreless innings. In fact, he pitched 19 AGS innings in his career and never allowed a run. In July of 1932, he was the Indians starter for their first ever game in Municipal Stadium. He returned to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in their final game there in  1993.

So I have an interesting piece from Topps files but I'm still looking for pieces to add to my 1961 build.

EDIT: I'm adding a phone pic of the negative and a card to show the relative size and shape. I flipped it because it is somewhat bowed and the reflection made it harder to see.

Project '61 Continues

I'm making steady progress in my quest to complete the 1961 Topps set. That'll slow to a crawl when I get to a certain point. That point being when I am down to the high numbers and especially those high number All-Star cards.

Meanwhile, I have knocked off some stars and semi-stars. I really wasn't planning to do updates here on my set build. That's why my Willie Mays card and Spahn All-Star are sitting in the binder unscanned.

But I snapped up a nice handful of cards off COMC a few weeks ago and when they showed up I was very impressed with the condition. These are beauties and my stupid scanner doesn't do them justice.  mostly it makes them look off-center by 'trimming' the borders. Oh, well, you will have to trust me on these.

Not much to say about them other than they are among the better cards in my binder now. The 61s I have are far nicer than my 71s. Oh, did I mention I'm working on that one? No want list just yet. I'll have a post coming soon though.

Good old underappreciated Richie Ashburn. 4-time NL hit leader, 4-time walk leader, 4-time OBP leader, and 5 times an All-Star. I'm guessing he'd have been a 'more time' All-Star if the NL hadn't been thigh deep in outfield superstars back then.

Whitey Ford. I posted his 1960 card over on that blog recently.

Two Braves, Mathews and Spahnnie. I'm trying to figure out what stadium that is on both cards. Wrigley?

I've said it a dozen times on this blog. Spahn cards are always fun. A series of oddly slanted elements, none at the same angle as any other. 

Clete Boyer. I have no recollection of him playing anywhere else besides third base.  But it looks like he played about a season's worth of shortstop early in his career.

Luis Aparicio. I absolutely love that Sox cap with the red bordered S-O-X logo. I have a couple.
 

Finally..here is the Cadillac of the '61 Topps cards. The highest dollar card I'll buy for the set. When I bust it out of the plastic prison I'll be extra careful not to ding it like I did my '62,Willie Mays. That was a hobby moment that nearly brought me to tears.

I figure that by the summer I'll be looking at tackling the last series of this thing. I've got quite a few other projects going in the meantime.