Wood vs. Wood #145

Only five votes last time, with 1962 squeaking ahead with a 3-2 triumph. Will we get more votes this time?

Barry Latman poses in foul territory in what I am pretty sure is Yankee Stadium. Sure looks like a lot of foul territory back then, with a wide warning track. Barry Latman originally came up with the White Sox, helping them win a pennant in 1959 going 8-5 with a 3.75 ERA. He was traded to Cleveland after the season and was coming off a career year when this card was printed, going 13-5 with a 4.02 ERA. However, he had sub-.500 seasons for Cleveland and the Angels the next three seasons, was converted to a reliever and hung on through 1967. In 344 games he went 59-68 with 16 saves and a 3.91 ERA. After his career he worked in the furniture business and was a construction superintendent. He died in 2019.

Charlie Kerfeld winds up in a spring training game in Florida. He was also coming off of a career year when this card was printed, going 11-2 with 7 saves and a 2.59 ERA for the Astros. He was best known for his personality, not his pitching talent, making headlines for humorous quotes and outfits. His 1987 salary, to match his uniform #37, was $110,037 and 37 boxes of orange Jell-O. He struggled mightily in '87, was sent down to the minors and fought with his manager. He briefly reappeared in the majors in 1990 with both the Astros and Phillies, but once again could not recapture the 1986 magic. In 123 major league games he went 18-9 with 9 saves and a 4.20 ERA. He later matured enough to be a successful minor league manager himself, and is currently a scout for the Phillies, a role he has held for many years.

Expanded baseball cards

This was something I had done for a few cards for a previous post. One commenter mentioned that I should turn it into a series, and I had been considering that myself. If you'd like to see this as a series, let me know in the comments. If I don't get much response, I'll get the message and won't make it a series.

Basically, it's a new way to look at certain cards of which I have many copies. Sometimes the cropping or background are just right that aligning the cards in a certain way gives a 3-D effect, or appears to widen the view, or just otherwise makes an interesting change to the photograph.

Starting with some cards from 1988 Topps, partially because the design has gotten alot of love lately with the 2023 release, and partly because I happened to have my box of cards from this set easily at hand.

I've had this card for 35 years but never noticed the background before. Is that a candy bar, maybe Butterfinger?

Big centerfield fence at Anaheim Stadium.

Spiderman.

Long batting cage.

Big stairway.

Extra-long bat.

Extremely long bat.

Not as long a bat, but I really like this photo of Carter.

Another big star at the time.

Toronto dugout.

Long green dugout (spring training?)

I love the cropping of this photo, you don't get wide shots like these anymore. Had to do something with it.

Lots of empty seats.

Different kind of 3D effect.

Four trees.

Big crowd behind Bryn.

Yellow dugout roof in Oakland.

 

Made my own quarter lot

An ebay seller called jlssports69 had a ton of penny auction on single cards. I bid a quarter on probably 100 vintage cards, hoping I would sneak through and win one or two auctions. Somehow, I actually won 22 vintage cards for a quarter or less each.

1958/1959. I bid on two Stu Millers and ended up winning them both. Turns out I had Jerry Staley too. So they are both available for trade.

1960/1961/1965. Ruben Amaro was trimmed, which is how a '65 high number snuck through, I guess.

Nine new additions for the 1962 set!

Select-a-size cards from Night Owl

I sent Night Owl a few of his 1979 Topps football needs recently, and he sent me back a very nice return package of mostly vintage cards of all sizes.

Starting off with the non-standard-size cards. Some '75 minis, a 1974 Kellogg of Catfish Hunter, and a 1971 Topps Giants Wes Parker. I really like the giant cards, the photography comes alive more in the larger format, even on a simple photo like Parker's (which should be a 1970 card, as the photo is from 1969 with the 100th anniversary patch).

Some regulation-size vintage. The Furillo is posed but is still a great lot. And there are still Bill Wetmore cards finding their way to me!

These were some very generous additions. Four 1970 Topps needs - three Hall of Famers and a high-number.

Some modern needs too. The foil on the 1995 Leaf cards catches the light quite nicely.

Vintage equipment: 1964 Topps

I was excited to finally land a '64 Curt Flood a while back, not just because it is a famously-hoarded card, but because the big bold FLOOD on his glove would make it a great card for this series.

Flood is not in the Hall of Fame, and neither is Frank Malzone, though he did have a fine career with six All-Star appearances. He was Boston's #11, but is holding bat #8, which of course belonged to Carl Yastrzemski, who was enjoying a breakout season on his way to a long Hall-of-Fame career.

While that card had a non-HOFer with a HOFers bat, the opposite is the case on this 1964 Topps Giants card. Harmon Killebrew, #3 on the Twins for 17 seasons, is holding the bat of #29, Wally Post. Post had had several good seasons for the Reds in the 1950s, and was at the tail end of his career with Minnesota in 1963.

 

TCDB trade: ComposerMike

Nice little TCDB trade with ComposerMike. We did a four-for-four vintage trade, and he surprised me with a couple of modern extras. One of the vintage cards I had already, but mistakenly had it on my wantlist. I also had one of the moderns, and I put them both away before I remembered to take a photo for the blog. Here are the new-to-me cards:

Very Mets heavy, including the surprise throw-in which I thought at first was a 2023 Topps card, but is actually a 2018 Bowman. Kind of a similar layout minus the second photo. The Bobby Bonds rookie is a nice high-number addition, but the big card of course is the 1969 Deckle Edge Willie Mays!

Wallet card with some very old streetlamp remnants

Across the street from the ~200-year-old mile marker in Inwood, Manhattan, is a remnant of a 150-year-old gaslamp. These streetlamps were installed in the 1860s and most were replaced beginning in 1913. This one on 211th street was converted to a street sign for many decades after, which is why it has survived the test of time.

While that lamp is no longer functional, this lamp on Wooster Street in Soho is; it is believed to be the last remaining wall-mounted public street lamp in Manhattan, probably dating back to the 1930s.
 

1981 Topps: Biff Pocoroba

 

The front: Simple headshot at spring training.

The back: The only other MLB Biff, 1930s Reds pitcher Wysong, was actually named Harlan.

The player: Pocoroba played in parts of ten seasons for the Braves as a catcher, mostly a backup. He did make the All Star team in 1978 as an injury replacement for Johnny Bench. Overall in 596 games he hit .257 with 21 HR and 172 RBI.

The man: After his playing career, he worked in his family's sausage business in Atlanta. He died in 2020 at the age of 66.

My collection: I have 17 of his cards, from 1976 to 1984. I would be interested in trading for 1978 Hostess #99.

Instant PC for $1

This isn't something I would do a lot, but there were a lot of shiny cards, so I figured it would be a fun thing to do. I won an auction of 15 Jesus Sanchez cards for just over a dollar. I think someone hoarded his cards two years ago after a fairly big rookie season, but he struggled a lot last year, so the seller realized they weren't going to make big $$$ on these. An anonymously named anonymous player on an anonymous team, Sanchez is an outfielder with some power but not much else. Maybe he'll end up as a Yankee at some point.

I don't think I've ever had so many parallels of the same card. I don't even have the base 2021 Topps card, but I now have the blue border, the Chrome (with two dupes), the cracked ice Chrome, the Chrome refractor, and the purple Chrome refractor. There were also two base Stadium Clubs and a red foil Stadium Club.

Some variety here with a Bowman insert, an A&G chrome, a 1986 chrome, a Panini, and a Heritage.

Two wins, two captains

I won back-to-back contests at Johnny's Trading Spot. Johnny sent me two PWEs worth that must have come out of the "M" box. Most of these were beloved former Yankee captains, Thurman Munson and Don Mattingly.

Here are the Munson's. I needed three of them, including the fantastic shiny one which is my favorite of these cards.

Many Mattinglys. I needed three, including those two '85 Donruss Highlights. I don't have nearly as many of those as I do '86 and '87, so they were great to add.

Continuing the M theme with these Johnnies from Johnny. Two cards of Mize with the Yankees, one with the NY Giants. Finally, one other NY Giant, George Kelly. I often get modern NY Giants cards from other bloggers because they look like Yankees cards. I'm not a team collector, so I'm happy to get them.

TCDB trade: 88gibby

The other 50-card package I received from an extremely nice trader was from a Dodgers fan with the appropriate handle 88gibby. He sent me a terrific package of mostly vintage card needs.

Starting with the oldest cards, four 1960s and a 1961, highlighted by that AL Kings card. Nellie Fox is in the Hall of Fame, but at the time this card came out Harvey Kuenn was probably the bigger star.

Lots of 1962 needs! Some of these will be in future Wood vs. Wood posts.

Four from the mid-60s.

Five from 1968, including some high numbers. The A's color combination looks so unusual in that team photo.

Three from 1971. Steve Hamilton certainly had a unique autograph.

Three 1972s, including one big-name! I'd always admired that McCovey card from afar. I used to think he was following-through on a swing, though I now realize he is in a throwing motion. I chose this card because it was only graded as "good" which to me means the card has serious problems, and figured the seller would let it go for not much. While it's a little more creased than it appears in the photo, it's a lot more than "good" for me.

Some 1970s oddballs! The great view on Gene Tenace's card is my favorite. It's a 1975 card, but with the old Yankee Stadium location the photo can't have been later than 1973.

Finally, a few modern cards. Three HOFers that I still needed from 1986 Sportflics.

TCDB Trade: Ymmat

I got two packages yesterday from TCDB traders, which had a lot of common with each other. Each had enough cards to be worth their own post: in fact, they had exactly 50 cards each. Also, both traders were extremely nice and sent some great cards. 

Ymmat (whose name is not Tammy) sent me a really nice mix of vintage and modern cards. 

Starting off with the vintage, three sharp '57s, with a great Yankee Stadium shot on Milt Graff's card. And a 1964 need as well, which is great even if it's a Met.

I try not to go after people's star vintage cards unless they label them as off-condition. These were labeled "good". Each one has a tiny letter T written on the back. These are certainly a lot better than "good" in my eyes.

Moving on to modern. I'm really enjoying finding oddball cards on people's trade lists. Cliff Johnson does not normally make an all-time greats card, that's a fun one. The Red Sox Coca-Cola card is a great one too.

Here are some fantastic Broders I'd never seen before. TCDB calls them the 1989 Sun Rays set. You know Gregg Jefferies was the biggest thing in 1989 when he not only gets two cards in the set, but he's the only one of these three whose name was spelled correctly. (And there were a lot of Greg Jeffries mentions back in the day, so that's kind of impressive.)

Right after posting this I noticed something else cool - check out Bam Bam's bat knob!

I'm also really enjoying the old BCM and SCD magazine cards. The Angels got some good photos on these cards.

Some more random oddballs. Jay Howell does not usually get on Highlights cards so that was another fun one. And somewhere between 1982 and 1990, the Red Sox switched from Coke to Pepsi.

A few more minor league cards with great photos (not all of them got in the picture if you are counting). That Pete Alonso subway card is a nice one too, I like any NYC-themed cards.

Adding to the variety, I also picked out a few 1975 football cards with fun backgrounds, including a couple of Jets at Hofstra training camp.