Moose and his friends

I always picture Moose Skowron in a Yankee uniform, sometimes as a White Sox but not ever as a Senator. But here he is on his '64 Topps Giants card. He just arrived with these four of his friends to bring my number of missing cards in this set to five.

Granted those five include four real stars, Clemente, Mantle, Mays and Aaron. Dick Stuart is the fifth of the group. But those cards are not really expensive. It's just a matter of me digging around the net to find acceptable examples at decent prices. I'll knock it off this summer.

Meanwhile here is the rest of the group fo short prints that came with the Moose.

Bucs' ace Bob Friend rocking what looks to be the rubber windbreaker under his jersey. Back then guys actually showed up at Spring Training needing to get in shape.

Elston Howard. He was likely my first in-person autograph. I told that story over on my 1959 Topps blog.

Wayne Causey was an Oriole signee and played parts of three seasons with them. He had a couple of pretty solid season with the Athletics in '63-'64.

Galen Cisco was coming off a 15 loss season when this '64 was issued and he went on to lose 19 that year. But his numbers show he pitched better than his record. He never won more than seven games in a season but he learned enough about the game to coach in the majors for 30 years. He has two sons and a grandson who played pro ball.

A pair of '58 Topps All Star cards

The 1958 Topps All Star card  of Jackie Jensen combines two things I've become a fan of... the 1958 Topps All Star cards and Jackie Jensen! Jensen is, as I have gone on about a few times previously, an interesting and much under appreciated player. He had all the tools needed for stardom but his career was undermined by his 'inner' demons.... anxiety, self-doubt and fear of flying.

My interest in the '58 All Star cards I think goes back to the fact that the '58 set was the first one I remember seeing. Living in Jericho on Long Island at the time I had a friend, a girl who lived down the street, who had a stack of them. They must have made a huge impression on me because I can still recall looking through them on my back porch with her.

Many years later I set out to collect as much of the set as I could at card shows and then on eBay but there came a point where I just lost interest. The set just didn't grab me as some later ones, the '59 and '60 for example, did. But out of the aborted collecting campaign came the one subset that did interest me, these All Star cards. I'm closing in on completing it.

Below is the Bob Friend which I snapped up along with the Jensen. Friend was three time NL All Star and among other accomplishments he became the first pitcher to win his leagues ERA title while pitching for a last place club. He did that in 1955. He led the NL in wins in 1958.

Bob's son, Bob Friend Jr., was a golfer on a couple of the PGA tours and is currently an analyst for Sirius Radio's PGA Tour Network among other golf related activities.