1943 Ranger Hockey Program

July in Houston is ridiculously hot and humid but helping to cool things off for me was picking up this 1943 Rangers game program. I just love the cover's artwork. Even the 'helpful' addition of the year written on the player's shoulder can't ruin it for me.

I wasn't really expecting much on the inside pages given what I've seen of programs from that era. Turned out to be more interesting that I thought it would be. 1943 was wartime and nearly every page in the program reflects that. Even the cigarette ads had a patriotic bent. Check this one out. It ran on the inside of the cover.

The table of contents page is below. The program is from a November 6, 1943 game against the Chicago Black Hawks at the old Madison Square Garden. Chicago won 4-3 sending the Rangers to a 0-4 mark for the season. The Blueshirts wouldn't win until mid-December and would finish the season 6-39-5.

The president of MSG is shown in his uniform. John Kilpatrick was an interesting and accomplished guy. He served in both World Wars and was inducted to both the NHL and College Football Halls of Fame (he played at Yale).

Frank Boucher was a long time Ranger player who was their coach in 1943. The story below mentions the possibility of him playing again during the current season. He actually did play in 15 games and scored four goals. He was 41 years old at the time having begun his playing career in 1916!

This is the gameday insert with lineups and a few ads. My Dad had an impressive collection of Botany ties back in the day. I claimed a few after he passed away.

the flip side of the insert includes this sepia picture of Rangers' captain, Ott Heller. He was the only guy to play on both the Rangers 1933 and 1940 Stanley Cup teams.  

As you'd expect there are some stat pages in the program. The '42-'43 Rangers also were terrible though not as bad as they were in 1943.

This next page is pretty interesting. Instructions on what to do in case of an air raid alert, a remarkable Phillip Morris ad and part of the two page 'Buy War Bonds' spread. 

Seagram's did their part for the war effort reminding one and all of the need to keep their mouths shut.

The back cover has another military-themed cigarette ad. This one features the beautiful Betty Grable ("Nice Gams!") for Chesterfields.

All in all a pretty nice addition to my publication collection.

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

BY FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS

These are the saddest of possible words: 

      “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” 

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, 

      Tinker and Evers and Chance. 

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, 

      Making a Giant hit into a double— 

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: 

      “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

OK, until this morning those were 'the saddest of all possible words.' But today I figured we were close enough to the season opener that I should check the Orioles' website for news of their 2018 publications. Every year for the past several they have started selling the O's yearbook, media guide and magazine right about Opening Day. Easy as pie..order, wait, enjoy. I have every Orioles' media guide except the very first one, from 1954. I have every yearbook (they skipped a few years here and there) and at least one scorecard from every Orioles season and postseason series since '54. 

Publications..from the Orioles, Baltimore Colts, New York Rangers and others... are my very favorite collectible. I'd give up every card I have before I'd sacrifice my pub collection. Which is why I was very disappointed when the Orioles publication page showed me this:

In case you can't read it the gist of it is no more media guides will be available to the fans in paper form. Oh sure, we can download a file version but that's not the same thing. I can't hold a file in my hand. I realize that everything in the media guide is available somewhere online but grabbing that big, fat usually orange book off the shelf to find Adam Jones's career homer totals against the Tigers was very satisfying. 

I also realize that last year's guide has everything I need except last year's numbers but that's not the point. My guides are lined up in two shelves of my hobby room. Not having a 2018 guide is going to annoy me. The fact that media guys get one makes it even worse. Guides will be out there and I want one dammit!

Joe Shlabotnik pointed out via Twitter the fact that there were years that the guide wasn't readily available and I was still able to land one. That's true but that doesn't mean the 2018s will show up on eBay anytime soon. I may have to wait years for some reporter's widow to sell off the guy's hoard. It's depressing.

For the record, I was given many of the guides from the Orioles' early years by my uncle who had connections to the team back then. In the late 70s/early 80s I would call or write the club's pr department and beg for one. One lady actually remembered me from year to year as 'that fan in Texas'. Some years they sold them along with the usual pennants and team postcards via mailorder. I've saved a bunch of the forms I got back from my calls and letters. The rest, mostly the expensive ones I was missing from the mid-50s, I bought on eBay.

Yes, I'm probably overreacting to all this but it sure feels like a big piece of my hobby enjoyment is over. Yup, my gonfalon bubble has been pricked. Oh well.

Since I hate publishing a post without some sort of memorabilia here are my T206s of the "Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance".  

Sweet cards, yes?

Project Post inspired by Night Owl

A week ago Night Owl posted about his various hobby projects and that post spurred quite a few other bloggers to do the same. I'm kind of late to the party as usual. I had a very similar post in the works for awhile so NO's entry got me to dust it off and revise it for posting today.

My MO is to be working on a 'primary' project (likely a vintage set) while having others churning in the background. Those secondary ones are usually just my long term PC searches. That's pretty much where I am at the moment. Truth be told though I'm spending most of my time on a project that isn't directly hobby related but certainly will effect my collecting. More about that at the bottom. First things first.

Here is my primary project right now:

1970/71 Topps Basketball

I'm enjoying the ride on this one. It's challenging without being impossible. I'm in need of 32 cards to complete the 175 card set. Plus I'd like to nab the Checklist Two variation. I've got the biggest names knocked off, at least in terms of their regular cards. I need a few All Star cards and some second tier stars. The rest of what I lack are mostly short-printed common players.

I was happy to pick up a very nice Wilt Chamberlain last week. It was significantly less expensive than other examples in similar shape. Patience pays off.

In the same transaction I grabbed these two. The Championship Series cards which land at the end of the checklist command a premium about equal to a semi-star card. May be because NY and LA stars appear on the fronts.

My secondary, ongoing projects:

T206 Baltimore Players

Here's a word to the wise: If you get your checklists from the 1977 edition of the Sports Collector's Bible you are likely going to end up disappointed.  Trust me on this. Years ago I wrote down six cards from Bert Sugar's book into my wantlist thinking they were the Baltimore Orioles represented in the iconic T206 set. Over the course of a few years after I began looking I was able to acquire all six. Turns out that there were nine! I only found this out recently. Luckily none of the three Orioles I was missing were stars or otherwise hard to find.

This card of Sammy Strang is one of the 'missing' three. I picked it up not long ago on eBay. Strang had played 10 major league seasons, mostly with the Giants. He played on their championship 1905 squad and got one at bat in the World series against the Athletics. He led the NL in On Base Percentage in 1906. He finished his career with three seasons in Baltimore with the Eastern League Orioles. He played both the infield and outfield. After his playing days Strang, whose father was a baseball executive, served during World War I and later was a minor league manager and coached baseball at West Point and Georgia Tech.

I hope to complete this small group of cigarette cards in the next few months.

Player Collections

I always look to add to my player collections. I have too many of them for sure and only a few are really being actively pursued but I get a lot of satisfaction from building them. 

My Billy Pierce collection is at a point where the last pieces are going to take some time. There are only a couple of vintage pieces open on my checklist. One is his 1959 Topps Venezuelan #156 Ace Hurlers card that he shares with Robin Roberts. The other is his 1959 Bazooka card. It's an SP and doesn't show up often and when it does it is out of my price range. The other things I look for are 'one offs' and oddballs like ballpark pins and team issued postcards. These things are difficult to checklist and may not even exist. I find press photos all the time but I just don't buy every one that comes along. Outside of those two cards I mentioned I figure my Pierce collection is complete. Of course there are also cards issued post career by Topps and other companies. I collect them as well but do so without a lot of effort or zeal. The ones from Topps use the same photo over and over (sound familiar to you Koufax collectors?) and the differences are just silly in my eyes.

This card, the 2011 Topps 1952 Black Diamond Pierce autograph card, is an example of that sort of thing. It's probably the most costly of the lot and I shouldn't have picked it up but whatcha gonna do? I don't know how collectors who chase some of the more popular players deal with stuff like this. 

A couple of years ago I read Chief Bender's biography and found him to be a fascinating baseball figure. Since then I've tried to collect his cards. Obviously many of them are very pricey and will never find their way into my collection but combing through eBay for bargains is fun. Right now I have about a half dozen vintage Bender cards. This 1940 Play Ball was issued after his career was over obviously but it's still a great card.

Other player collections...Elston Howard, Johnny Callison, Bob Moose, Juan Pizzaro, Connie Hawkins, numerous Orioles and Baltimore Colts players and several more are all checklisted to one extent or another. I poke around at card shows and online and add things that I come across but none are complete nor am I confident that my checklists are even accurate. That's a long term project.

After ignoring many of these collections for awhile I checked a few of my eBay saved searches recently and found this Bob Moose ARCO collectible. It's an 8x10 photo and I like that the back mentions his no-hitter that I witnessed at Shea Stadium in 1969.

The Baltimore Colts

As with Billy Pierce I don't have much in the way of vintage mainstream cards to find for my ongoing Colts collection. Just a few of the Fleer Super Bowl cards and a Topps premium/insert or two remain. In the meantime I pick up the stray modern card of Baltimore Colt players and oddball pieces that turn up here and there. I had this this on the front bumper of my '64  Malibu SS back when I was tooling around campus back in the 70s. That is until a cop stopped me and informed me that I needed to put my state-issued plate back on or get a ticket. I since lost the Colts plate but found came across it in my garage a year or two ago. It now sits proudly on my office wall.

Non-Sports Sketch cards

I've set this aside for the time being. Every few weeks I check eBay for Batman and Mars Attacks sketch cards but not much has surfaced that looks nice (and affordable enough) to go after. I won't call these 'complete' but I am satisfied with what I currently have. The same can be said for my pins and postcards. I'm in a holding pattern at the moment. 

Publications

I've finished my goals for the most part. I have a straight run of Orioles yearbooks and media guides from 1954 through today with the exception of the '54 and '56 guides. I collect game programs but have never worried about having one from each year. Maybe one day I'll see if I'm close to a full run. I'm pretty sure I am. My Baltimore Colts media guide collection is complete. As with the Orioles I dabble in game programs but don't have very many. I have spent some time working on my New York Rangers publications lately. I have about half of their Blue Book/media guide run that they began in the early 60s. I'll never finish it but filling in the gaps in my 80s and 90s shelves is cheap enough.

Fantasy Sports Collection

I have been running a fantasy football league for college friends and some new arrivals since 1980. I've been playing fantasy baseball in multiple leagues for about the last seven years. Every player I've ever 'owned' on all those teams is represented in my fantasy baseball or football binders. Sometimes I've had to make my own custom cards, sometimes I've bought custom ones on the net. But the vast majority are actual cards and my goal is to have as many different sets represented as possible.

The only current cards I seek out are those of my players. This '18 Heritage card of Alex Colome came in my only pack of this year's Topps I've bought. It will push out his '17 Topps card since I have a bunch of those in my baseball binder.

Over on the football side I'm always looking for cards of players who are now represented by those custom cards. A real card, even a throwback always bumps a custom. But I doubt I'll see Elton Veals or Kyle Mackey for example in a Donruss or Score set anytime soon.

With this year's baseball draft coming up in a couple of weeks I'll be back in the market for singles of my players. I wish I had the internal fortitude to wait until the season was over and nab each one in a single transaction on COMC. Not happening I'm afraid. I'm too anal. I need a card of the guy I picked up on waivers NOW! The good thing is I've stockpiled a 400 count box of current players so hopefully that'll cover most of my players.

My next project:

1962 Topps(?)

I told myself I wouldn't take on another vintage Topps baseball chase after I finished the 1970 set. And I'm not sure I really will. But the itch is still there. I recently picked up a small '62 Topps lot. through a collector I know via an online forum. The cards are in 'collectible' condition (for me that's VG or better) and came pretty cheaply.

Even in my weaker moments when I was thinking about a new project I hadn't really considered the '62 set as a goal. It's not terribly popular (but that might make it more easily obtainable). Plus I was leaning towards 'bookending' my '59-'60 run with either the '57 or '61 set if and when I did give in to my urge. I also considered doing the '1966 set to commemorate the Orioles first title.

If I do take on the '62 set I have a decent head-start. I have the Orioles of course, some stars and dupes of guys in my PCs. Plus I have the starter lot now. Darrell at the hotel card show has plenty of these in his bargain bins and always cuts me a good deal. My secret weapon though might be my friend Bobby who has a boatload of all the early '60s sets and could probably be persuaded to sell me some dupes. His cards are in remarkable condition.

There is no urgency to this one. A vintage set chase is a big commitment in terms of cash and time. I still might back out. 

My over-riding and most urgent project

Organization and re-claiming space!!

I mentioned above that I've run a fantasy football league for almost four decades. This fall we will play our 39th season. For most of that time I printed and saved all sorts of statistical stuff. Sometimes it was for or five pages a week or more. That's not counting draft and transaction histories, rosters etc. And until about 2007 or so I produced, printed and mailed a weekly newsletter to all the owners. And I've kept every single scrap of it in binders. Those binders took up multiple shelves and I had more sitting in the top of my closet. I finally decided enough was enough.

A few weeks after I retired in December I began a long term project to get rid of it all. I pulled all the binders, culled out the multiple copies of some stat sheets I kept and began a huge scanning project. I'm turning the whole mess into digital format. I tried out different .pdf freeware programs and have settled on a good one. Each season's paperwork is going to become a single file. It's slow going but I'm making headway. I have ten seasons of paper scanned, saved digitally and then tossed in the recycling bin. I have other seasons through 2004 in manila folders under my desk and ready to scan. It's amazing what reducing a dozen 3" and 4'' binders to one thumb drive and one remaining binder will do for your shelf space.

That space and those binders will be put to good use. All my PCs and sets currently in boxes will be put in sheets and bindered. That is something that is long overdue. I also plan to combine the digital files that all this fantasy stuff has generated since we went fully online in 2008 into single .pdf files. My goal is to finish this all by the end of the year.

That's it for my hobby project update. Apologies if you fell asleep halfway through and hit your head on the keyboard.

'58 All Star Program

I thought that the 1958 All Star Game program I bought at the recent TriStar show was worth a closer look. I'm just going to post some highlights rather than very page. I don't want anyone nodding off while I indulge my love for old publications!

As with so many of these types of vintage items the cover is the best thing about it. I have a hunch that the player/ump illustration was based on a photo. I tried to find the original picture via Google and Getty Images with no luck. Of course it likely wasn't originally a shot of an Oriole player sliding to tracking it down was a dead end from the start.

The covers shown were scanned but the inside pages are pics I took. I learned the hard way that pressing these vintage paper pieces onto a scanner platen is a mistake. 

Commish Ford Frick welcomes us to the '58 ASG with an inspirational message. I hadn't realized that this was the 25th annual game. There was no ASG in 1945. '58 was the last of the 'one game' All Star breaks for awhile. From 1959 thru 1961 they played two each year.

The old ads in these can be a hoot. Check out the one for Alan Ameche's place. I could go for a Powerhouse burger myself right about now.

The longest feature on the book was this article on the first ASG.

Cameos of the managers. They had faced off in the '57 World Series and would do so again that fall.

Bob Maisel was a legend in Baltimore baseball writing. His father Fritz was a player for the Yankees and Browns.

Unlike modern programs the ones back in the day were published locally and very close to the game. That meant you would find the actual elected squads pictured. The AL lineup had a local guy, Gus Triandos.

The original owner of the program kept score! It wasn't as hard to score an ASG back them. Managers didn't feel the need to sub in every player available.  It's hard to see in the pic but the scorer listed Al Kaline as entering the game for the NL(!) in the 9th. I thought it was just his/her quirky way of noting subs but you can see that Lee Walls was entered correctly.

BTW...if you check the entry for this game on Baseball Reference you'll see that Haney only used three position players from his bench.

This NL starting group was pretty stout! In all there were 9 future Hall of Famers in the starting lineups.

All the reserves got a photo included on a page similar to this one. Hey, I spy Billy Pierce!

This is a nice way to fill a page. "Hall of Fame Candidates" indeed!

Some of the NL reserves. Spahnie got the start making him the 9th Hall guy.

Old fashioned line scores and batteries from the previous 24 ASGs bring up the rear of the program.

Check out the Rolex featured in the Stieff Company ad. Only $125 for a Rolie! Plus the band of course. I'm from Baltimore but I don't remember the Stieff Company being a big thing. Seems it was.

And finally the back cover presented by Gunther Beer! Now Gunther I remember. Their ad was on top of the old scoreboard at Memorial Stadium. The company is long gone but the brewery was made into a fancy apartment building.

Ernie Harwell was in his fifth year as an Orioles broadcaster. He moved on to the Tigers after the 1959 season. Herb Carnel was in his second season as Harwell's partner. He stayed through the beginning of Chuck Thompson's time as lead man in the Orioles booth.

In addition to this '58 program I picked up yhe '93 issue. I may post that soon. Much bigger and fancier but it can't compare to the '58 in nostalgic charm.

The Best Thing About Card Shows....

...is enjoying them with friends, both old and new. I hit up the TriStar show here in Houston this past weekend. I thought it was one of the better shows they've had in awhile. That may be because there didn't seem to be the huge autograph lines that I've encountered in the past. Mostly I think it was the quality of the dealers in attendance.

And I mentioned friends. I met up with Bru who pens the entertaining Remember The Astrodome blog. Great guy and I enjoyed talking collections as we walked. If you check his latest blog entries you'll see he did pretty well at the show. Local collectors like him had a real bonanza of Astros 'stuff'' to drool over. Winning a title does that. I'd like to hit a Baltimore area show one day. I'd probably go broke.

I also bumped into one of oldest friends. Bobby has by far the best collection of vintage cards I've ever seen. He's considering selling off a chuck of it and it was fun to watch the dealers go bug-eyed when he showed them what he had in his case.

As for me..well this was one of those rare shows that I left without having bought a single baseball card. But I did end up with this:

I've had this 1958 All Star program on my want list for many years. I never seemed to be able to find on in decent condition with a price tag I could live with. One of the show dealers had a terrific variety of vintage publications, and what a display it was. I paid dearly for this but he also had a '93 ASG program so I made him an offer on the pair. He accepted without counter-offering which makes me think I could have gone lower but it was worth the cost.

Both programs came with ticket stubs from the games. Pretty good selling point!

I'm going to do a separate post on the '58 program so I'll save the details for that one. But there was more at the show than just programs.....

Bro surprised me with a sweet 8x10 of Milt Pappas. My collection of Orioles photos needs to see the light of day so Bru's gift (he got it in a lot of pics at an estate sale) inspired me to snag a box of binder pages for them. One of my retirement projects is to organize my photos. I love the fact that this one was taken at Yankee Stadium where I saw so many Orioles games as a kid. That's Herm Starrette in the background.

Next to the programs my biggest purchase was a stack of '70/'71 Topps basketball cards. One dealer had multiples of most every common and some SPs in wonderful condition. His prices were reasonable so I knocked about 50 cards from my wantlist.

It's a weird and wonderful set full of odd poses, reversed jerseys,dopey expressions and tons of color. I love it. I'll just post a handful here.

Jim Barnes as an Olympic gold medal winner with the US team in 1964 and led an interesting if somewhat tragic life.

He bounced around the NBA and carried with him the nickname of 'Bad News'. I love that Topps used it for his cartoon in this set.

Here's a closer look:

Nate Thurmond may be the most overlooked star in NBA history. He could flat out play. When I was coaching my sons in youth basketball one of the opposing coaches came over after a game and said "Your big boy rebounds like Nate Thurmond!" When he said that I knew the guy knew his hoops.

This is one crazy card though. 

Gus Johnson was a fun guy to watch. He played for the Bullets when I was a fan of the club and would fly down the key and rattle the rim with slams. He was like Connie Hawkins with a bit less 'flash'.

And again Topps did a great job with the cartoon.

Behold! "Gus has a gold tooth."

Topps also threw in actual un-retouched photos like this one. Like I said, a weird set!

I also came one card closer to finishing off my 1972 Icee Bear NBA set. The Hawk looking very badass.

My last purchase was a spur of the moment thing. One of the bigger private signing outfits always has a large table at TriStar shows and sometimes sells off excess merchandise at good prices. I have a rather tattered copy of the actual SI cover but I wanted this Big E signed photo-copy for the UH wall in my home office.

I like the big card shows but they are hard on my hip and back. I'm looking forward to the upcoming small hotel shows. I'm sure I won't leave the next one of those without at least one baseball card!