#212 Ron Brand

If Ron Brand’s jersey piping looks a little black-and-gold, your eyes are not deceiving you. He was a Pirate before Houston nabbed him in the November 1964 Rule V draft. So it’s another case of Topps sleight-of-hand.Los Angeleno Ron Brand was signed b…

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The Angels batted .500 with this pair of prospects. Pitcher Bill Kelso was gone in three years, but outfielder Rick Reichardt became a power threat throughout the 1960s. There’s not much to say about their photos, so I’ll add that I like the dark word…

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Tonight we’re up close with Havana-born infielder Mike de la Hoz. As you might have guessed, his name is Spanish for “Mike of the Hoz”. Or not. My Spanish is a tad rusty. (It’s actually “of the sickle”.)Signed by the Indians in 1958, Mike hit at nearl…

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Dick Howser is modeling his batting stance, the form made him the first Florida State University alum to play in the major leagues. The Miami native and two-time All-American was signed by the Kansas City Athletics in 1958, and debuted with the club i…

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I wonder if the Twins led the major leagues in bespectacled players in 1964. So far I’ve covered Zoilo Versalles and Don Mincher, and I would go so far as to say that Rich Rollins’ horn-rimmed frames put him in the lead for most fashionable four-eyed …

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Hey kids, it’s time to play America’s Favorite Guessing Game, “Name That Background Teammate”! If you said that the player standing behind Dal Maxvill was Cardinals pitcher Barney Schultz, you’re probably correct! Of course, if you were also wondering…

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First things first: Merry Christmas to all my readers. Depending on your beliefs, I’d also like to wish you an enjoyable Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, and so forth. We’ve got another good one today, “Lou” Burdette, more commonly known as Lew. He’s the …

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Believe it or not, the next bunch of cards that I’m featuring came from Max - and there’s more where these came from! Today we’ve got another two-player rookie card, this one featuring the brightest of the young White Sox. Bruce Howard almost seems to…

Continue reading about #41 White Sox Rookie Stars: Bruce Howard and Marv Staehle »

I’ve finally made it to the last card of this batch from Ed, and it’s a pretty fine player. Vada Pinson has a nice big smile, even though part of his face is obscured on my version of this card. Let’s just pretend that some clouds are drifting by in f…

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Pitcher Jack Hamilton was the unwitting instigator of one of the most tragic on-field scenes in baseball history when he beaned Tony Conigliaro in 1967. Prior to that event, he was best known as a pitcher who struggled with his control, but had shown …

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Of all of the “altered” cards I have from 1965, indeed from all sets, this is one of the funniest. I’m guessing that some Phillies fan, or a fan in general who was just itching to have an up-to-date card, got a hold of Tito Francona during the portion…

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Back-to-back Dicks? It may sound like the punch line to a dirty joke, but that’s the way the cards are being dealt. Today’s special is second baseman Richard Larry Green, who spanned two very different eras as an Athletic. As you can see, he also has …

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It seems to me that Dick Ellsworth had an itch that he just had to scratch, right between his eyes. He scratched so hard and so long that he took the bridge of his own nose clean off! Despite this customized oddity, this is not the strangest card of t…

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“Yeah, I’m hatless”, Frank Baumann seems to say. “Big whoop. Wanna make somethin’ of it?” A quick check of the pitcher’s vitals shows that he has at least 40 pounds on me, so…no. I don’t want to make something of it. I’m trying to decipher the scraw…

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It’s a good thing that the hypnotic death glare of reliever Bob Humphreys is not fixed directly into the camera; otherwise, there is no telling how many impressionable children in the 1960s would have been mesmerized into becoming the Artful Dodgers t…

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This is an especially pensive shot of young utility player Tom Satriano, whose cap bill seems inordinately large; there’s a lot of red showing there. Maybe he’s worrying about whether he will hit enough to stay in the major leagues.Tom was a rapid ris…

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The sun must have been signing especially brightly for Derrell Griffith’s photo shoot, which would account for his nearly closed eyes. Or perhaps the photographer caught him blinking, and Topps used the photo anyway because they really liked his good-…

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Sorry for the slow-down in posting this week. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything, you know? Anyway, we’re still in the middle of a batch from Ed, and here’s beefy Alabamian Don Mincher. It’s somewhat surprising how ma…

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Here’s another breather in the form of a checklist. As you can see, someone filled in the boxes front and back in pencil, and then went back and erased the pencil…but only on the front. How odd. The featured stars in the second series are Hall of Fa…

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Utility player Pedro Gonzalez is in an abnormally deep crouch. It’s probably for the best that we can’t see his hands; this is a family blog. You may also notice that there’s a chunk of paper missing from the back of the card down below. This is a com…

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Outfielder Nelson Mathews is the first Athletics player I’ve posted in a while. He’s posed while wearing a batting helmet, a rare sight in this set. The #5 on his sleeve is front and center, one of the more distinctive features of the unique A’s unifo…

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You are face-to-face with the lantern-jawed Willie Smith, a versatile athlete from Alabama. He originally signed with the Tigers in 1960, and split his time between the pitchers’ mound and the outfield. He proved skilled at both, posting a 14-2 record…

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Check out the scowl on “Sudden” Sam McDowell’s face as he unleashes an imaginary fastball toward some unlucky hitter! To the best of my recollection, this is also the first card from the set in which you can pretty clearly identify another player in t…

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Check out the designer frames on veteran shortstop Roy McMillan! Though you surely wouldn’t hit a man with glasses, you’re obviously not a National League pitcher. Roy placed in the top ten in hit-by-pitch five times in the N.L. in his 16-year career….

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Here’s an interesting diversion from the base set. It also kicks off a batch of sixteen cards that I received from reader Ed, who gets his pick of my Orioles doubles just as soon as I have them all sorted. Younger collectors might not realize that Top…

Continue reading about #24 Embossed: Diego Segui »

We can all thank our lucky stars that Julio Gotay didn’t come along a few decades later than he did. As things stand, we’ve been spared the obnoxious spectacle of ESPN blowhard Chris Berman dubbing him Julio Gotay “It On the Mountain”. But I digress. …

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Ah, Vic Power, one of the greatest baseball names there ever was. Sure, his single-season high was 19 home runs, placing him behind such notable sluggers as Mike Bordick and Davey Johnson, but power is not just about four-base hits. It’s a lifestyle. …

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I am a big fan of this pose, which Topps photographers used to great effect for several managers (Sam Mele and Chuck Dressen among them) in this set. Really, it’s surprising that no one thought of it sooner. Pitchers posed in their windup or follow-th…

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Allow me to introduce you to reliever Hal Reniff, who was nicknamed “Porky” for what I feel are obvious reasons. What’s more, he has V.A.H. (Visible Armpit Hair) in the above photo. Despite this unfortunate picture, he was an effective reliever in the…

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Oh yeah, now we’re talking! When Rick offered me this card, he warned me that the condition was somewhat rough. Considering that it’s A) forty-three years old and B) Bob Freaking Gibson, I was more than happy to accept it.Bob was born Pack Gibson in O…

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Let’s talk about the robustly-eyebrowed, even more robustly-chinned John Tsitouris, shall we? After the in-depth profiles I’ve provided in recent entries, I’m a bit ashamed to admit that there’s a dearth of information readily available about today’s …

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I’m not sure what Bob Allison is looking at in this photo, but he seems perturbed by it. Maybe it’s Harmon Killebrew modeling his Lucille Ball costume for Ladies’ Day at the ballpark. Just try and get that image out of your head…Missourian Bob Allis…

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This happy camper is Dick Sisler. If the surname sounds familiar, it’s probably because his father was George Sisler, the Hall of Fame first baseman and .340 hitter. Baseball was truly a family affair, as Dick’s brother Dave was a big league pitcher f…

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Time marches on with Ron Hansen, whom the Orioles signed right out of high school in Nebraska. After a solid debut season in pro ball (.289, 84 RBI), the nineteen-year old had a shot to crack the Baltimore roster in 1957. Unfortunately, he slipped a d…

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On to the next batch of cards, a ten-spot that was donated by reader Rick, who collects vintage cards from the 1960s and 1970s and prefers graded. More power to him - it would be a boring hobby if everyone was interested in the same things! We haven’t…

Continue reading about #131 Johnny Keane »