Oddball Rusty Staub Items

I've been trying to fill in a few inexpensive gaps in my player collections recently. I had found a TCMA Cardinals card on eBay but I hate buying something for a few nickels and spending twice as much on shipping. So I dug through the dealer's listings and came up with enough Staub items to make the buy worthwhile.

Nothing earth-shattering here. Just a few oddballs and a Topps that I already had but I may need to fill a set chase hole at some point.

By far my favorite piece is the team-issued, signed postcard above. The seller called it a J.D. McCarthy/team issue. It has a blank back which lends credence to the theory that it was team issued. Most of the McCarthys that he provided to players had a postcard back and a small name box on the front.

Next up is a 1978 Whiffle Ball disc. The MLBPA got a lot of mileage out of the license for this design. EDIT...looks very much like the WB disc photo is the same as the postcard.

1969 Milton Bradley game card. Not much to these. that photo of Rusty looks like something that was taken while he was in high school. Pull out the dice and lets play!

Here is a 1991 WIZ Entertainment Center card which was part of a Shea Stadium promotion that ran that year. Apparently, all 450 players who had been with the team up to that point were part of this. They were issued in perforated sheets of 10 cards each.

The WIZ is long gone as a retail outlet. You can read about it here. A couple of sites discuss the reference to it in a Seinfeld episode.

Finally, we have a 1968 Topps Staub. I had one already but there may come a time (way, waaaaaay down the road) that I turn my stack of '68s into a set. It's one of my least favorite Topps sets so I doubt it'll be any time soon. Dig Rusty's flaming red hair!

He was coming off one of his best seasons. The '67 club was the first Astros team I was familiar with and it remains my favorite. Looks like I need to take a closer look at my PCs and update the checklists. It's not like I don't have the time.

All Dressed Up And...

...nothing to buy.

Next Saturday morning I'll head across Houston to hit the hotel card show. My want list will consist of just one card, the Topps '71 football Joe Greene rookie. One card. I can't remember the last time I haven't printed out multiple sheets of names and card numbers to carry to the show.

Oh, sure. I have multiple needs for my 1960 Leaf and '61 Topps stamp chases. But both of those have reached the point where what I'm lacking is so elusive that I don't need to print new copies. Not to mention the fact that the chances that one of the dealers at the small show having something on the lists are remote.

So why am I going? Well, it's a card show. And I really enjoy talking sports and the hobby with the friends I've made among the dealers. And, despite not wanting to tackle a new set now, I do have a hobby goal or two. I've decided to fill out a couple of my player collections.

I'm going to do a few players at a time. And I won't attempt to be a 'completist' in the fashion of my Billy Pierce collection. I'm going to finish off each player's career-era regular cards and inserts and whatever oddballs fall into my lap.

I'm going to dig into Johnny Callison, Elston Howard, and Dennis Martinez first. All of them have cards in my set binders already but, as with Pierce, I am going to have separate player binders. But enough talk. I actually began my jump into this last week at the previous show. I came away with some Callisons and an Elston Howard card that were mostly upgrades to the ones I already had.

The Phillies were the first NL team I took an interest in and Johnny Callison was my favorite Phils player. My best friend and his father were 'NL guys' and went to a lot of games at Shea and I frequently got to tag along. There's no way to know but I wonder if the picture used on his '66 Topps card was taken on a day we were there.


The '67 set keeps calling out to me. I resist. Callison got a nice Spring Training photo here.

Don't know about the '69. Not enough evidence.

By the early 70s, Callison was a Yankee and I was knee-deep in college stuff and no longer cared all that much.

EDIT: Jon's comment below reminded me that this is an O-Pee-Chee Callison. It was mixed in with a dealer's Topps '73s and for a second got me thinking I had found a bargain. He was selling the cards for 50 cents each and the Topps Callison is short-printed and commands a premium for the most part. Here is the back ('73 backs are fun!) plus a Bob Moose OPC that was in there as well. My Moose collection is pretty much complete, btw.)

/EDIT

I nabbed this '66 Ellie Howard knowing I already had one but it was so nice I figured it would be better than the one I owned. I was right.

Meanwhile, I'm cleaning up the checklists I've had for each of them and actually bindering everything. Once these guys are far enough along the way I'll tackle a couple of others. On my list are Paul Blair, Rusty Staub and some guys from other sports, Connie Hawkins and Rod Gilbert.

This little, low-stress project will give me a reason to continue to go to the small card shows. If I can get organized in the next month I should be able to take care of a lot of my list at the TriStar show in February. We'll see.

Collection Status...Part Two

Last week I posted about my progress with my primary set projects. I'll take a little time today to focus on the rest of what I'm working on these days. Public Service Announcement: Slabbed cards in this post will be freed as long as I have a binder page that will fix properly. (That's a PSA..get it? PSA? The grading company. Hell, never mind)

Player Collections, etc.  Nothing new on the Billy Pierce front. I add some oddball items from time to time but the 'White Whales', like his '59 Bazooka card, remain beyond the range of my harpoon.  I do grab vintage of him from cheap card boxes at shows. I just think I hate seeing him in quarter boxes, so undignified! LOL

My PC/Orioles Stars binder has fallen into disrepair lately. That'll get re-done in the next few months. Meanwhile, I discover fun stuff like this Dennis Martinez card by reading other blogs (thanks, Fuji!). It was pretty cheap on eBay and it just showed up.

Likewise, my University of Houston alum cards were put up in a box when I turned my hobby room into a nursery! After all these years I will re-binder them and fill in some gaps, next year probably.

Small/Oddball Sets I recently came across a box I had put away that continued a load of stuff like small Orioles sets, TCMA team sets, 1980s era Kmart and similar 33-card boxed sets, etc, etc. Some of those need to be bindered, many will just get broken up into teams and sent to fellow bloggers. Some will get burned in the fire pit.

Houston Aeros Over the last few years I've pulled this one on and off the 'back burner' of my collecting. Aeros games were fun, cheap entertainment back in the day. My friends and I made it to lots of them, particularly at the old Sam Houston Coliseum in downtown Houston.

A few years ago I decided to collect their team sets from the few companies making WHA cards back then. I already owned the Howe cards so finding the rest wasn't hard. I have all the base Aeros cards from the various O-Pee-Chee sets. I have a couple of the Quaker Oats cards and a few of the 75/76 team issued set. Those latter two sets are very tough.

I also add a few 'retro' set Aeros when I come across them cheap, mostly Gordie Howe cards on which he is shown with Houston.

More hockey...once I finish going through my boxes of stuff and sort out the Rangers I have I may try to finish some team sets.

Non-Sports Cards This covers so much that I will break it down, mostly for my benefit. I think I need to re-assess where I'm going with these. 😏

Batman I have the three original Topps 1966 Batman sets, red, blue and black bat. There are dozens of modern Batman sets and I have a handful. I made it a point to buy the boxed sets that were associated with the first Batman movies. I am nearing 50 Batman sketch cards. Every few months I'll remember to check for cheap sketch cards on eBay. I added this one for a few bucks some time back. I have no current 'goals' when it comes to my Batman collecting.

More or less related to this... my Civil War News set has long been finished. Once in a while I find an upgrade. Topps continues to add to the Mars Attacks franchise. I have several of the reprint/update/continuation sets from this franchise. 


Presidents I finished off a couple of JFK sets in the past two years and am currently working on the '64 Topps LBJ/Goldwater set. I have exactly half of the 66 cards and little hope of finishing it anytime soon. They don't pop up often for sale/auction online.

My vintage Topps/Bowman presidents cards are in a small box, unorganized. That needs fixing. I also have several oddball sets of Presidents/famous historical figures which need bindering. My hodgepodge of oddball & modern presidential cards (Panini, European etc) also needs sorting.

Entertainment My pursuit of the Topps Soupy Sales set has been very slow. Once I found that each card has different possible backs (Topps flipped the sheets in the middle of the press run apparently) I backed off. I need to figure out what I have and what I need which is tough with the cards being unnumbered and the backs being unrelated to the fronts. Ugh.

I continue to add actress and actor cards, from the old tobacco sets thru 'fan' sets of the 50s and 60s. I bought a small lot of Exhibit cards of actresses recently. There is no goal or checklist for this stuff. I just pick up what I like when I find it at reasonable prices.

I came across some boxes of Stranger Things 1 & 2 packs really cheap. My wife and I really enjoy that series, so I bought the boxes. They are under my desk, waiting for a rainy day. 

Baltimore Colts Collection  I still lack some Fleer Super Bowl cards but those are not a priority. I do come across oddball and retro cards here and there.

I have a lot of new postcards and publications but I'm sticking mainly to cards with this post. Those will have to wait for another day.

Bob Moose PC

I've seen a lot of major league games through the years but only one no-hitter. That came September 20, 1969 at Shea Stadium when the Pirates' Bob Moose slammed the door (at least for a day) on the Mets' pennant express. That game was the last loss the Mets suffered at home that year as the rolled to the World Championship.

I became a Bob Moose fan that day and while collecting his cards has never been a huge priority I did have a page with a couple of them in one of my binders. I recently thought that since his cards are all very cheap I'd finish out my PC, at least with his regular Topps cards.  COMC provided most of these.

That's his '68 rookie card up top. I don't know about anyone else but those cheesy Pirates caps with their logo on a patch always made us wonder how team could be so cheap. I mean out little league caps had logo patches! Moose's cardmate, Bob Robertson looked like he was going to have a big career as a slugging firstbaseman. He hit 53 homers in his first two seasons as a regular in Pittsburgh but while he played for about a decade in all he never again approached those numbers.

The rest of the Moose collection starting with 1969 through 1972:

The 1969 is my favorite as it pictures him as I always remember him, in that sleeveless Bucco gear. The later Pirate unis bring back too many bad memories of Orioles World Series defeats.

'73 & '74......hardly looks like the same guy in these two cards. I saw Moose beat the Astros in August of '74 at the Astrodome. He had a pair of wins that season in Houston and I saw the second one. I only recall which of the two I saw because I had just moved into an apartment close enough to the Dome that I could walk there. I'd had my fill of dorm life after a couple of years and getting an apartment was a big move for me.

This is the '73 O-Pee-Chee version. Looks the same on the front.

Here are the backs of the two versions. OPC on the right. They had to ditch the stylized font to squeeze in the bilingual text in the cartoon.

I have both the '75 regular and mini cards.

This 1976 card is the last one Topps issued of Bob Moose. Not long after the '76 season, on his 29th birthday, Moose died in a car wreck while headed to a golf outing at Bill Mazeroski's course in Ohio.

Moose was also featured as the Pirates' rep in the 1970 comic booklet insert.

The last cartoon panel references his '69 no-hitter.

Here is his 1976 SSPC card. And yes, Joe Shlabotnik, it's taken at Shea. I recall those ugly plywood(?) panels they installed behind some of the seating sections. Plus, I can spot one of the Big Apple's Finest behind Moose.

The best part of having a Bob Moose PC is that his cards are cheap and easy to chase. You can find acceptable copies of all of them for around a buck or less. There are a handful of regional issues out there, a couple of which I put lowball bids on from time to time. No hurry on those.