TCMA The 60s Set Series II (Pt 2)

I need to apologize for these photo laden TCMA posts. I have a hard time narrowing down the cards I think are scan/post worthy. So many fun ones...and quite a few 'dogs' as well. I really believe that's part of the attraction of these things.

Anyway here are some more from the TCMA Stars of the 60s Series II set. Recapping...it's a 188 card 'extension' of the 1978 Series I offering. It has lots of posed action and portrait shots like the original but adds some group/multi-player cards, game highlight cards (which I dubbed "TCMA Now") and some action photos. There is also a nine card subset of big leaguers of varying career success levels in their minor league uniforms.

Some of the better action shots are seen on horizontal cards.

Jose Tartabull in the yellow and green of the KC A's.. He's the father of a major leaguer, Danny Tartabull and the guy who won a big game for the Red Sox in August of 1967. Tartabull caught a fly with one out and Chicago's Ken Berry on third in the bottom of the ninth. His throw to Ellie Howard nailed Ken Berry at home and the game was over. That 1967 AL race was something else.

Dick Egan pitched in 70 games for the Tigers, Angels and Dodgers. In his career he allowed 13 homers. Not a single one came with his team behind on the scoreboard. I have no idea what that signifies but I found it interesting.

Bob Moose, a guy I collect. I saw his no hitter at Shea in 1969.

Yup, Teddy Ballgame gets a card in this one. He retired after the 1960 season so technically he qualifies as a 60s star. Hey, if you have a nice shot of Ted Williams in the batting cage in Sarasota  you use it. Ted gets a nice one paragraph career wrapup on the back.

Like the previous editions this TCMA release is comprised mostly of portraits. They run the gamut from mundane and/or poorly shot to damn near artistic. I've scanned some of interest for inclusion here. Such as this gem:

Rick Reichardt was an accomplished baseball and football star at the University of Wisconsin and the bidding war for his services led to the baseball draft being instituted. He hit the first homer in Anaheim Stadium according to Wikipedia.

I've never really gotten used to seeing Lou Brock as a Cub. Nice pic though.

It's a pensive Duke of Flatbush with the Mets at the Polo Grounds in 1962.

Len 'Boom Boom' Boehmer He had a cup of coffee with the Reds after a long minor league career and then got about a hundred at bats with the 1969 Yankees. He rented a house that summer in Nutley, New Jersey which was where I grew up and isn't much of a hike to the Bronx. I was living down the Shore by then but when I visited friends in Nutley we attempted to find Len in my old neighborhood. We were unsuccessful.

I think this is a sweet shot of Ron Fairly. That first baseman's mitt looks huge!

Billy McCool is here for two reasons. First. I always thought that was a fun name. And second there is some sort of wheeled vehicle on the field with him. Tractor? Motorcycle? Dunno.

If I drew up a list of big league pitchers I'd hate to face on the mound Don Wilson would be fairly high on it. He could bring it and he had a touch of Don Drysdale in him. Four years ago I posted this with another Wilson card:

"......when we moved to Houston and went to games in the Dome it seemed like Don Wilson was always the Astros' starter. He was a 'take no prisoners' kind of bad azz dude. His no-hitter in May of 1969 against the Reds came a day after Don Maloney had no-hit the Astros. Knowing Wilson the general assumption was he getting some revenge for the previous night's humiliation. But in this great game story from the Houston Chronicle it's clear that Wilson carried much more than that into the game."

Bo Belinsky...sorry for the lopsided scan. His New York Times obit is an interesting read. Bo got a lot of press for a lot of off the field notoriety.

Who else but Don Mossi?  Mossi pitched his last minor league season in 1953 in Tulsa. His manager was Joe Schultz.

Wally Bunker whose Rawlings glove I grew up using. I'm thinking of having it refurbished.

A nice shot of Richie Allen sporting the 'windbreaker under the jersey' look. If you think he's Hall of Fame worthy I won't argue with you.

Paul Blair wearing the number that Eddie Murray made famous in Baltimore. PB wore it in 1964 and 1965 before switching to #6.

Nelson Mathews played 157 games in center field for the A's in 1964. He hit .239 with 14 dingers and 60 ribbies. He led the league in whiffs as well. Why am I having a hard time even remembering him. Or the sharp uni the A's wore in 1962?

Bobby Shantz during his brief stint with the Houston Colt 45s in early 1962. Even at 92 he remains one of the surest TTM signers around. I oughta send him this card. It would look nice signed.

TCMA had some really nice portrait shots in their files. This one of Jim Bunning at Yankee Stadium is terrific.

Tim McCarver...batting practice shot. There are a handful of these in the set. I liked McCarver a lot more as a player than I did as a TV color man.

Bud Harrelson and Al Weis in one of those simulated infield action pics that you usually associate with the 1950s.

Tommy McCraw. I just like this card. The powder blue Sox uni is nice. McCraw made the last out and got the last hit for the Washington Senators. And while his one year playing for Ted Williams wasn't very productive he always credited Ted for teaching him the 'mental aspect' of hitting.

Larry Burright was a Dodger signee who was dealt to the Mets for the 1963 season. He got about a hundred at bats and was shipped to the minors before losing the 2nd base job to Ron Hunt. His nickname was 'Possum'. How does a kid from California end up with that name?

Wally Moon was Rookie of the Year in 1954 with the Cardinals, went on to win a Gold Glove, make two NL All Star teams and finish as high as fourth in MVP voting.

Don Hoak, another '1957 Topps-esque' card. the more I look at it the more I get a 1961 Topps vibe out of it.

The great Billy Williams. Can a Hall of Famer be 'underrated'? Maybe. Or maybe Williams was just a quiet guy who we never really think about these days.

Roy White. Whenever I see him I remember the great catch my father and I saw Frank Robinson make at Yankee Stadium in June of 1966. He robbed White of a game winning homer as he fell over the short right field railing. Ralph Houk got tossed out of the second game of the DH that evening during the lineup card exchange because he was giving the umps hell over the call. Houk could really pitch a fit when he needed to.

Joe Moock. I included this card because I'd never heard of the guy. He was a September call up in 1967. I'd moved to Houston (first time) in August of that year so I just missed him when I was going to Shea that summer. In the minors in 1966 he had 191 hits including 23 homers and 130 RBI. Never did anything approaching that before or after. In 1998 Steve Rushin of SI wrote The Ballad of Joe Moock about the Mets never-ending search for a good third baseman.

So that's a look at the third piece of the TCMA Stars sets. I received 6 of the final minor league cards I was lacking yesterday. When the last one arrives I'll scan them and post them. All I need to do now is page these things up in a binder. It's been fun.

Steppin' on Joe's toes

I kicked around the idea of collecting the 1976 SSPC set for a long time. As with other sets I had the Orioles and a few other assorted cards. About six months ago I found one on eBay at a reasonable price and picked it up.

If you follow Joe Shlabotnik's The Shlabotnik Report (and you should) you know that he has had an ongoing series of posts featuring this wonderful oddball set. That's one reason that until now I haven't bothered to do anything with my cards other than shuffle through them. Posting them feels a little like putting up pictures of someone else's kids. However....

....now that I've finished the 1970 Topps chase I decided to binder this one and do at least this one post based on it. BTW...if you are not familiar with the story behind this privately produced set you should check out this brief but thorough introduction to it.

I'm posting some random SSPCs here today. I had about 20 scanned but several lost their border in the scanning process and I hate posting those. Two terrific ballplayers from the Orioles segment of the set kick off the scans, Don Baylor and Paul Blair. The cards are grouped together by team with a few exceptions. The last 50 or cards are made up of managers, coaches, the checklists, stray players from teams grouped elsewhere, things like that.

George Brett had had a fine rookie season in 1974 but he exploded in 1975 and this card, released with this set following that season would have been one of the most coveted had these actually been in circulation.

Pete Rose. I was hoping that the Brooks Robinson card would have scanned better but whatcha gonna do?

Brian Downing. As I recall he had a really wierd batting stance...or maybe I'm confusing him with someone else.

Dusty Baker looking very young.

My set came with both the error 'Noland' Ryan and the corrected version. These 'combo' cards are the fronts of the seven checklist cards. There are a couple of other 'errors' which are players whose pictures were mixed up.

Joe Ferguson with his epic 'stache.

Woody Fryman has hijacked the groundskeeper's cart.

The back of Duke Snider's card lists him as 'Hitting Instructor' and mentions his additional role as a broadcaster in Montreal.

Luis Tiant looking a bit perplexed.

The backs look like this.

That's a quick look at a dozen of the 630 cards in this quirky masterpiece. I'm about to put it in pages and I can't wait to see how it looks.

This brief SSPC interlude is over...I now return the 'rights' to blogging these babies to Joe.

Paul Blair

Today in Baltimore Orioles fans are taking matters into their own hands and holding an unofficial 'Paul Blair Day' at Camden Yards. People will be displaying homemade 'We Love Paul Blair' signs. That's so 'Baltimore'.

Blair played for the O's back when every season seemed to be a good season and he played with class and flair. His ability to field the centerfield expanse in Memorial Stadium is a great memory for fans who were lucky enough to see him play. Maybe Willie Mays was better, maybe they were equals. But just being in that sentence says a lot about Blair. 

The best endorsement I can make of Blair is that my father, a DiMaggio fan who also saw Mantle and Mays in their prime, used to sing Blair's praises whenever we'd see him play.

Blair passed away over this past winter which was a pretty sad one overall for the team. Also lost were part owner Tom Clancy and most tragic of all, Orioles director of public relations Monica Pence Barlow died of cancer at age of only 36.

Like many people I had hopes that the team would wear a memorial patch for Blair but when that didn't happen some media types and Orioles fans began a grassroots campaign to set up a night of celebration of Blair's career. It's going to happen tonite against the Yankees. Here are a couple of stories about it.

My little tiny tribute is a Paul Blair scan barrage. RIP, Motor Mouth.