PWE from Mark Hoyle

Mark Hoyle's mail-outs are truly like Forrest Gump's 'box of chocolates'... you never know what you're gonna get. But it's always fun.

Mark delivers an eclectic mix of old and new and almost always includes at least one really neat oddball item. One of his packages arrived late in the week and as always it was fun to open. The 1969 Johnny Callison stamp fills a need in my Callison checklist. Callison was never a superstar but he was a solid pro and four time All Star for the Phillies back when they were 'my team' in the N.L.

Chico Salmon was a handyman for the Indians and Orioles in the 60s and early 70s. He played on the three AL pennant winning Orioles clubs of that era and got a hit in the 1970 Series. It was his only Seres at bat for the Birds and he will forever have a 1.000 World Series batting average. His SABR bio is a fun read.

This is his Milton Bradley game card from 1969. I posted some of my other cards from that game last year. This Salmon card is new. I have a signed Salmon postcard somewhere that I need to dig up.

Creepy Card Alert!!!

How about this Action Packed Alex Ochoa? These AP cards are embossed and scanning it makes it look like he's wearing eyeliner, doesn't it? Looks like Ru Paul with a ball glove.

This is the back of the card but it could just as easily be the front. And probably should have been!

Mark also sent along some newer Orioles, some vintage and semi-vintage Orioles and a nice hoops surprise!

'72 Cro Crowley. He was a better situational hitter than he was a hitting coach.

I like this Fleer set more than I probably should. At one point I had it in a binder. Yup, that guy was me. I cannibalized it to reuse the pages.

This is my favorite Adam Jones card. He's a throwback guy on a throwback card. He signed more autographs during the spring games I attended than any other player.

And here is the hoops card. A 1975-76 All Star Rick Barry. He was sort of a prickly guy but boy, could he play the game. In this season he led the NBA in FT percemtage for the fourth time. He did it six times in all. I remember trying to imitate his unique free throw technique in intramural hoops Didn't work as well for me as it did for him!

I believe that's Mike Riordan that he's guarding in that pic on the card. Funny, I recognize a rather obscure 70s Bullet player from the 70s but outside of the bearded Hardin guy on the Rockets and Lebron James I wouldn't know a current NBAer if I met one.

Anyway, a big thanks goes out to Mark for the cards. Always, always appreciated. And Mark, I'm still on the look out for a Galen Cisco Topps Giant!!

I almost forgot...here is a shot of Barry's FT style, and as a bonus, a look at one of the greatest unis ever! Smooth!

Sometimes it's the little things

I've mentioned my previous obsession with collecting postcards issued by the Orioles in days gone by. Recalling those days is one reason I never will criticize anyone else's collecting habits. 

The Orioles have issued postcards since their days in St. Louis. Through the late 1960s the cards were black and white, sometimes with a 'postcard' back, sometimes blank backed. I got my first one sent to me by Brooks Robinson when I wrote to him with my first 'fan letter' to any athlete about 1966 or '67. I bought a full 'team set' at Memorial Stadium around 1975 and that's what got me hooked. I'd write to the team each year and get a price list and order 8x10s and a set of postcards. Most of the cards would be the same as those issued in the previous season with new players added. Sometimes a new card for an established player would be included.

That what really started my in depth collecting habits. Over time I became obsessed with finding every postcard of every player and every variation... and brother were there variations! For example look at the Chico Salmon card at the top and compare it to the one below. His name is not only no longer in (f'd up) quotes but the font size has changed. 

The same sort of thing applies to the two Elrod Hendricks postcards below. And notice how the pictures are cropped ever so slightly differently. You can see it if you look at the piping on his collar. I cataloged all those differences. I used to use a small ruler to measure the distance between the picture and the name. 

It didn't help that a collector out in San Francisco who specialized in team issued postcards (particularly Orioles postcards) issued a thick bound 'checklist' with photocopied examples, updating it every couple of years. There were also guys like Dan Even who traveled the card show circuit selling player postcards. More than once I bought huge stacks of Oriole postcards from him blindly hoping that when I got home and sifted through them I'd find more variations or, even better, completely new cards for my collection. 

Poking around my binders and boxes of Orioles postcards is a lot of fun. I made pencil notations on the back of some with the date of issue if I could determine it. For example both of the large letter examples above I figured to be 1971 cards. I have no idea if that's correct or how I came to that conclusion. In later years I decided that marking the cards was a bad idea so I went with adhesive stickers on the four pocket pages I kept them in. Yesterday, as I flipped through one binder all these little white dots, the now detached stickers, floated out onto the table. Time to start over!