My First Exposure to Baseball Card Collecting

In my garage when I was a kid was this wooden toy truck my grandfather (a really handy guy!) made for my brothers and sisters and me. It was about 4 feet long and 1.5 feet high, and the back lifted up so as to “dump” stuff out of it. (Really, it was so big, we kids could ride in the back!)

Anyhow, one hot summer day, I was playing in there and found in the back of the truck a couple 1970 Topps baseball cards which I suppose my older brother must have bought and stored there in the truck. The only card I recall specifically was a nondescript portrait card of Chicago Cubs outfielder Al Spangler, who had had a few fair years earlier in his career w/ the old Houston Colt 45s. (See old pal Al’s stellar career stats here.) Oh, some dudes have it up in their ebay stores here.

Well, I admired that nothing card, turned it over and found the blurb and stats on the back, and I was hooked. I went to the 7/11 and bought my first cards. The cards had been in that toy truck for a while, so the first cards I bought were now the 1971 Topps baseball cards w/ the tough black borders. I was off and running!

Favorite Sports Cards

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I have been auctioning off my nifty little stack of 1972 Topps HI #s on Ebay. Check out my auctions:
Ebay auctions

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I’m working on putting together the 1971 Topps Football set. I need about 45 cards.

I need the following cards. No wrinkles unles they are short ones that can count as corner wear. Some border on all 4 sides on front. No writing or pinholes. Here are the ones I NEED:

8
10 20
27 41
72 89
106 118
135 136
137 142
144 150
156 157
158 168
171 180
184 185
186 188
193 194
196 199
200 204
211 214
215 216
217 222
232 240
242 244
254 258
260 261

I have the same to trade and lots of vintage cards. Would buy cheaply.

Favorite Sports Cards

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Here are the few sets I have owned at one time or another . . .

Baseball:
1964 Topps giants
1969 Topps
1970 Topps
1971 Topps
1972 Topps
1975 Topps
1976 Topps
1977 Topps
1990 Donruss

Football:
1969 Topps
1970 Topps
1971 Topps
1971 Topps coins
1972 Topps
1977 Topps
1978 Topps

1960′s complete sets

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The Washington Redskins was the team I loved to hate back in the seventies. When George Allen took over the Washington Redskins, he held the philosophy that said The future is now. Thus he acquired many veteran players to fill his roster, instead of waiting for the younger players to bloom.

And what a laundry list of old stars he got: Billy Kilmer, Marlin McKeever, Jack Pardee, Myron Pottios, Maxie Baughan, Diron Talbert, John Wilbur (yes, this list is thick with recycled Rams – George’s old team), Clifton “Sticks” McNeil, Boyd Dowler, Richie Petitbon, Alvin Haymond, Speedy Duncan & big Ron McDole.

The average age of his starters was 31, and his plan paid big dividends, as the Skins finished second in the East at 9-4-1 in 1971 and won the East & went to the Super Bowl only to lose to the unbeaten Dolphins the next year.

I admit, as a Dallas Cowboys fan, I hated George and the Redskins back then. George was just too prissy and too much like football’s Richard M. Nixon for my taste. Still, there was nothing like that rivalry back then, George matching wits with Tom Landry. Those two games between them each season were just nail-biters for me – wondering, among other things, would Larry Brown be able to be contained on the ground and Charley Taylor through the air? would Calvin Hill and rugged Walt Garrison be able to bust through the Redskins’ stingy defensive line?

Today, I would give anything to turn back the clock and have old George squatting down on the sideline, maniacally licking his thumbs the way he always did, so I could love to hate him just once more. Here’s to you, George Allen, and to your great Over-the-hill gang.

1971 Topps Redskins

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It’s guys like this that make today’s game unwatchable for a baseball purist like me. This prissy guy has always made me want to chuck up. Anyhow, that’s why I collect cards of the old-time guys, back when a homer meant something. Get ‘em by the lot !

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The cards I have been auctioning off on Ebay lately are:

1954 Bowman football

1967 Topps Baseball

1972 Topps baseball

1974 Topps Baseball

I auction a big-time premium superstar whenever I feel like it.

Slowly, slowly getting rid of all my cards because I need the money and space. Will later concentrate on amassing complete sets of some of my favorite years.

My auctions

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My choice for most dignified-looking card would have to be the 1971 Topps Errol Mann. Now, as a kicker, good old Errol never scored a touchdown; but if he did, just by looking at this card you can tell he would never have done an annoying endzone dance or showboated at all after his touchdown, like all those guys do today, as if it were their first time ever to score; Errol would have calmly, and with great dignity, merely handed the ball to the ref. Go, Errol! It’s never too late to make a comeback & join that 1000-point club – you are so close!

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Did you ever invent any games to play with your baseball cards or football cards? I invented a dumb game to play with football cards. It was called the Blubber Game. Here’s how it was played.

1. Divide all years of my Topps football cards into the 26 teams (yes, there were only 26 then)

2. For each of these 26 stacks, I amassed the heaviest 24-man squad I could (11 on offense, 11 on defense, a kicker & a punter)

3. I then did the above for the other 25 teams

4. Then I would choose two of these teams to “play” each other

5. This team’s center would be matched up against that team’s center; this team’s heaviest guard would be matched up against that team’s heaviest guard & the smaller guard against the smaller guard, etc., as represented below:

Packers:

C G G T T TE WR WR QB RB RB K P DT DT DE DE MLB LB LB CB CB S S

VS

Rams:

C G G T T TE WR WR QB RB RB K P DT DT DE DE MLB LB LB CB CB S S

The heaviest player would win each of the 24 face-offs (belly-offs?). In case of a tie, the taller player would win – the 1967 Topps Cotton Davidson was good to have for ties, because his height was erroneously listed as a lofty 6’10″!!! Whichever team had the most heaviest players would face another team of 24, until all teams but two were eliminated, & these final two teams would compete in the Super Belly Bowl, for the coveted Lardass trophy.

The biggest guys back then when I was doing this were guys like Buck Buchanan, Bubba Smith & Bob Brown; but having been to many sportscards shows, I had lots of cards of big guys from the past, like Ernie Ladd & Big Daddy Lipscomb, just to name two.

I know it was a goofy game to play, but I was a pretty goofy kid, & I’m sure I’m an even goofier adult . . .

Homebase

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What’s the naughtiest baseball card of all time? My choice would have to be the 1972 Topps Billy Martin card, in which Billy is casually shooting the finger as he grips the knob of the bat.

I’m sure he’s not intending that finger for you and me because, by the look on his face and in his eyes, he had probably worked up a big-time irritation for the photographer, just like he did way back when with his own pitcher Dave Boswell … or with Reggie Jackson … or with Jim Brewer … or with Clint Courtney, just to name four guys he tusselled with.

See the card here.

Are you aware of any other naughty cards? Leave a comment below.

Homebase

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So, what’s the biggest fall-off from year to year as to the appearance of Topps baseball cards issued in the 1960′s? In my opinion, it would have to be 1965 to 1966 Topps.

The 1965 Topps set was so primo and beautiful, an explosion of color. On the other hand were the 1966 Topps cards, with their pennants making a diagonal slash across the top corner, denoting the team. I was tempted to choose 1968 as the ugly duckling, what with its awful brown-yellow hatching that looked like hay scattered in a chicken coop, but there’s something extra awful about these 1966 Topps that I’m having trouble putting my finger on. . . .

Maybe it’s how some of the players are sopping wet with sweat, or maybe the way so many of them look like they just got out of rehab. It must be a combination of those two. I always try to put a positive spin on things, so I’ll try to think of 1966 Topps baseball cards as a celebration of bad baseball card design.

1965 Topps Baseball (the good)

1966 Topps Baseball (the ugly)

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I have been pondering on what is my favorite baseball card of all time . . .

Well, it’s the same as it has always been since I first laid eyes on it: the 1971 Topps #77 card of Mike Compton, who was an obscure catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Why do I like that particular card? Let me count the ways. First would be that the colors are great, with the green grass & the red of his Phillies uniform & the orange of the old catcher’s mitt with the deep pocket from which it seemed no ball could ever escape. I also like the squinting, just-awakened eyes of the catcher, & how he looks like he should probably be out plowing the back forty instead of being backstop for a big-league club.

Do you have a favorite card? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s that little jewel of a card right now . . .

Peek over my shoulder & spy

My Favorite Ebay Searches

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I have been lucky in my collecting in that people have always been generous with me about giving me cards. For instance, a couple of my older brother’s friends gave me some good stuff when I was a kid: 1969 Topps football cards (though Charlie C. liked to draw mustaches & beards on some of his cards); an inch-thick stack of 1964 Topps Giants cards loaded with Hall of Famers, many in duplicate, even quadruplicate; and a nice 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan rookie card, upon which Jerry Koosman plays eternal second fiddle to Nolan (sorry, Jerry!).

My real score was when a colleague of my dad’s at my dad’s office learned that I collected baseball & football cards. He gave my dad to give to me a stack of about 200 cards from the 1950, 1951, 1952 & 1953 Bowman baseball sets. Among these were Ted Williams & Stan Musial (the fate of which can be read in earlier blogs), a Whitey Ford rookie card, two 1950 Roy Campanella & many other superstars. I still have the vast majority of these cards.

Yes, I need to thank those people for their generosity. So, thank you – but you can’t have your cards back!

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It was at an old-timers game in the mid-1970′s at Arlington Stadium, then home of the hapless Texas Rangers. The old-timer teams were to be the old St. Louis Cardinals VS. old American League stars.

Before the game, many of the old-timers signed autographs. My family were seated some rows behind the first base dugout, so I had a good chance to get some signatures because guys were signing just below us.

I had seen a roster in the newspaper of the players who would be involved, so I had had the foresight to bring along some of my best cards, and had crammed them in a rigid plastic container.

Oh, there’s Stan Musial! I hurried down to where Stan stood signing, lots of kids reaching over the rail to him w/ their programs, etc. I reached into my plastic container & pulled out my boffo 1953 Bowman color card of Stan & eagerly held it out to him.

Reaching past my card to snag some other kid’s lousy 3×5 index card to sign, Stan wrecked my card with a clumsy elbow, leaving a permanent wrinkle. “CURSES!,” I thought, as I reeled back my arm and examined the card . . . which never got signed; nor was Stan ever aware of what he had so carelessly done.

Well, the evening wasn’t a total loss. Though I got none of my cards signed, for I was then shy of exposing any more of them to clumsy baseballers, I got many signatures on my program of old Cardinals & ALers. Also, Billy Martin, who may have been managing the Rangers at the time, took ground balls at second base and would, with tremendous coordination for a man his age, skim his glove up in the air and knock down line drives that were out of his reach, which I thought was quite cool.

Anyhow, I don’t hold any real, nagging grudge against Stan the Man; but I will say he sure had a funny way of wagging his rear end when he was at bat . . .

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When I was a teen, I stored my old baseball cards in plastic sheets into which you had to staple your cards (stapling around the cards, not through them).

Always wanting to do something different with my cards, one day I decided to take all my cards back out of the plastic sheets, to arrange them in teams, or by number, I don’t recall. I took scissors and smoothly trimmed the cards out of the sheets . . . until I got to my boffo 1950 Bowman Ted Williams card.

That card was one of some 150-200 cards a work colleague of my dad’s had given to me upon learning I collected baseball cards. Anyway, to my sorrow, I accidentally clipped off one of the corners of that big-time card. I recall my reaction decades ago – one of disbelief, and I could feel my face go red and the temperature rise in my face, and I sensed an overall breathlessness I can still conjure up in memory (similar to when your best girl dumps you). God, what a fool was/am I!

Here’s the card, which I still have (it’s so nice otherwise):

Doesn’t my camera suck?!

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It was a dark and stormy night.

It was an ebony and tempestuous eve.

I first met Dr. James Beckett, of Beckett sportscard Guides fame, in the 70s, long before he became a publishing mogul, when my parents used to take me to sportscards conventions in the Texas Metroplex area. I’m not sure about this, but I believe he sold baseball cards to help pay for his college expenses – and what a collection of choice old baseball cards he had!

Jim and I spoke only little because I was too busy thumbing through his cards, but he seemed real nice and was, I’m sure, glad to have me as a steady baseball cards buyer.

Another encounter . . . Years later I was watching the Family Feud gameshow, and one of the competing families was the Beckett family from, I think, Detroit. As the emcee introduced the family, there was a “Jim” Beckett among them; I thought: “Could that be the Jim Beckett I knew in Texas and who must now have relocated to Detroit?” Sure enough, his family members egged on the emcee to ask Jim what his hobby was, and Jim said that he collected baseball cards.

It’s a small world. Those were the good old days for a kid at a card show, with maybe twenty bucks to invest, and parents who encouraged his obsession.

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In my garage when I was a kid was this wooden toy truck my grandfather (a really handy guy!) made for my brothers and sisters and me. It was about 4 feet long and 1.5 feet high, and the back lifted up so as to “dump” stuff out of it. (Really, it was so big, we kids could ride in the back!)

Anyhow, one hot summer day, I was playing in there and found in the back of the truck a couple 1970 Topps baseball cards which I suppose my older brother must have bought and stored there in the truck. The only card I recall specifically was a nondescript portrait card of Chicago Cubs outfielder Al Spangler, who had had a few fair years earlier in his career w/ the old Houston Colt 45s. (See old pal Al’s stellar career stats here.) Oh, some dudes have it up in their ebay stores here.

Well, I admired that nothing card, turned it over and found the blurb and stats on the back, and I was hooked. I went to the 7/11 and bought my first cards. The cards had been in that toy truck for a while, so the first cards I bought were now the 1971 Topps baseball cards w/ the tough black borders. I was off and running!

Continue reading about First exposure to baseball cards »