Cake or gum? 1977 Don Sutton

RIP Darrell Jackson, who shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog in 2013.

Last time, there was a 3-3 tie. Will there be a winner here? 

Both photos look like they were taken at the same time and place. Hostess has a portrait, while Topps has him starting his windup. Both avoided a shot of him Suttoning.

Don Sutton was an amazing model of consistency in his long major league career, winning at least 11 games in 21 of his 23 major league seasons. A four-time All-Star, he was the Dodgers' ace in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. He signed with the Astros after the 1980 season and remained effective for several teams well into his 40s. He pitched in four World Series, on the losing side each time, pitching well in '74 and '77 and poorly in '78 and '82. Overall in 774 games he went 324-256 with a 3.26 ERA. His 3,574 strikeouts are seventh all-time. Sutton was a longtime broadcaster, mostly for the Braves. He died of cancer in 2021.

1981 Topps Roger Erickson

 

The front: A fun card with lots going on in the background, including a couple of Twins who appear to be adjusting their equipment.

The back: Erickson's pickoff record was broken in 1990 by Mark Guthrie, who recorded 11.

Playing career: Erickson came up with the Twins as a 21-year-old rookie in 1978 and went 14-13 with a 3.96 ERA. However, injuries prevented him from sustaining that success. In 135 games for the Twins and Yankees from 1978 to 1983, he went 35-53 with a 4.13 ERA. He attempted a comeback with the Cardinals in 1989 and pitched well in AAA, but did not return to the major leagues.

Post-playing career: After his playing career he was involved in a variety of business pursuits, several of them related to baseball instruction. He is now retired. He shared his thoughts on baseball cards with this blog in 2015.

My collection: I have 12 of his cards, from 1979 to 1990. I would be interested in trading for 1982 Topps Traded #30.
 

1976 SSPC Von Joshua

 

The card, in brief: Joshua wore #19 with the Giants, as can be seen on his bat knob. '75 was his first season with the Giants after five years with the Dodgers, where he wore #12. The back of the card has an error, it says his uniform number with the Giants was #12. (The actual #12 was teammate Gary Thomasson, who is correctly listed as #12 on his card.)

Playing career, in brief: Joshua was a big prospect for the Dodgers who never came close to living up to his potential with the team. He had a little more success with the Giants and Brewers, but did not stay with either team for long. Overall in 822 games, he hit .273 with 30 HR, 184 RBI and 55 SB.

Post-playing career, in brief: Joshua had a long career as a minor league hitting coach for the Dodgers and Cubs, managed the Taiwan national baseball team from 2014-2017, and is now a youth baseball coach in Michigan.

My collection: I have nine of his cards, from 1971 to 1980. I would be interested in trading for 1976 Kelloggs #39. 

1986 Renata Galasso Mattingly Puzzle #1

The last nine cards in the Galasso Mattingly are puzzle back cards. I've already shared the finished puzzle in this post.

Here's the first front of a puzzle-back card.

The blue padding makes it look like he's in a school gym. Perhaps he is.
 

Cards from Sir Nailhead

Another great trade with SirNailhead. I sent him some cards for three of his frankensets, and he sent me these fun cards, a nice find in a wet mailbox after an unexpectedly long day. The envelope was soaked, as was the layer of cereal cardboard, but the plastic pages kept the cards warm and dry.

Starting with some long hacker trucks from the '58 set. I'm guessing Frank Baumannn and his penciled-in braces was a holdover from Nailhead's trashed frankenset. 

Some newer cards, but only just barely. R.C. and Ray make a nice pair.

Some newer cards too! A terrific sample card of Don Mattingly; a shiny insert card of one of my favorite current Yankees, Giancarlo Stanton, and the bizarre pairing of Dick Allen and Luke Voit.

 

Wallet Card at Scheff's Work Clothes

In last week's wallet card photo, I noted that there was a painted sign on the side of the car dealership-turned-movie theater-turned office building. Here is that sign, which if you zoom in, has the word "clothes" still visible on the lower right. That sign was for Scheff's Work Clothes, which was next door to the old Nassau Garage, in the space occupied by the Total Wireless and it's neighbors in the photo.

In the pavement at the entrance to one of the stores, you can still see the sign for Scheff's, which moved out of this location in 1978.

Here is a photo of this location in 1960. As you can see, the word "clothes" is the same. However, when you look at the current sign, the large word ends with an N, so it's not Scheff's. The business that owned Scheff's was called Carlson-Scheff's, but I'm not sure that's Carlson either. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out what store came after Scheff's, but I'm guessing that store may have painted over "Scheff's" but kept "clothes".

 

 

Henthorn of plenty

Greg Henthorn of OBC is always very generous in what he sends around. This little seven-card PWE had plenty to write about.

There's a 1962 Babe Ruth card, that's always awesome. I guess there was a lot of interest in Ruth as Roger Maris had just broken his record. The '65 checklist is interesting; somehow the card's owner had almost every card after 371 but none before it. Some horizontal cards of Grady Hatton and Clay Dalrymple, each of whom spent a dozen years in the majors. And a '51 Topps card is always a treat. Cliff Chambers didn't have an illustrious career but he did pitch a no-hitter in 1951.

The two combo cards proved to be the most interesting though, as I researched the players on them. Starting with the Astros card, Alonzo "Candy" Harris had one major league at bat, and then seems to have disappeared. Aaron Pointer is a lot more prominent. Not because his career was longer - 40 games over three seasons. Not even because his four younger sisters became a world famous singing group. After his baseball career (which included three seasons in Japan), Pointer started refereeing high school football games in Tacoma, WA. In 1978, Pointer moved up to the college ranks, becoming the PAC-10's first Black referee. In 1987, Pointer made it to the NFL, and he served 17 seasons as an NFL referee. Highlights including refereeing a game where his sisters sang the national anthem, and a preseason game where his son Deron Pointer, attempting to make the Indianapolis Colts as a wide receiver, made his first catch. He served on the Tacoma Parks Commission board for over 20 years, retiring as Commissioner in 2024.

On the Mets card, there's Ron Locke, who pitched one season with the Mets, and continued to play competitive baseball and softball in his native Rhode Island his adopted home of Florida for decades. Steve Dillon was personally more interesting to me. Dillon pitched in only three major league games, one of which was the first night game at Shea Stadium. I saw he was a New Yorker which always piques my interest so I researched him further. After his baseball career, Dillon, who grew up in the Bronx, became an NYPD officer, and later his son did as well. That son is now the head of security at Citi Field, where his father threw out the first pitch on Old Timers Day in 2022. In the course of my research, I noticed where Dillon is living now. I looked up the address, and according to Google Maps, he lives 0.7 miles away from me. In fact I have probably walked past his house many times. I'm certainly not creepy enough to knock on the door an 83-year-old man and show him an old baseball card, but it's pretty cool that a former MLB player lives so close.
 

1988 Domino's Mickey Stanley

 

A tightly-cropped posed photo with no background; not one of the more interesting photos in the set.

The 25-year-old Stanley had his first full season in 1968, hitting .259 with 11 HR and 60 RBI. He won his first of four Gold Gloves as a centerfielder, but famously moved to shortstop during the stretch run and World Series to replace the struggling Ray Oyler, a move that worked well for Detroit. Stanley played 15 years in the majors, all for the Tigers. He had a little power but low average and speed. In 1,516 games he hit .248 with 117 HR and 500 RBI. After his playing career he worked in commercial real estate, though he is now retired.

I have 21 of his cards, from 1966 to 1979. I would be interested in trading for 1971 Topps #524. 

Burgers or gum? Milt Wilcox

Last time there was a 5-5 tie. Who will win this matchup, the final one in the set? 

The blogger voters have been remarkably divided on these sets - of the previous 21 matchups, nine were won by burgers, nine were won by gum, and three were ties!

Like Stuart who inspired this series, I've not been voting myself to keep impartiality. Personally, I tend to like the Topps cards more in these matchups due to the variety, but it's a lot of fun to see the different reasons people pick one card over the other. Hopefully now that we're at the end, Stuart will weigh in on his preferences!

As is typical for these matchups, Wendy's has a portrait shot in Spring Training, while Topps snapped a photo during game action at Tiger Stadium.

Milt Wilcox came up with the Reds in September of 1970 and pitched well enough - 3-2, 2.42 ERA in five games - to make the postseason roster. That October he won Game 3 of the NLCS, but lost Game 2 of the World Series. Over the next five seasons he pitched for three teams without fully living up to his potential. After a disappointing 1976 season with the Cubs AAA team, he was released, and his career looked like it was over. That offseason, at his doctor's suggestion, he took up bowling to strengthen his arm. Wilcox credited that for his success when he signed with the Tigers and was back in the majors after two years. Rejuvenated at the age of 27, Wilcox quickly became a mainstay in the Tigers rotation, with seven straight seasons of double-digit wins. In 1984, he went 6-0 to start the season, tailed off a bit to finish at 17-8, but came up big in the postseason, winning Game 3 of the NLCS and Game 3 of the World Series. He had shoulder surgery after the season, however, and would win just one more major league game over the course of the next two seasons. Overall, in 394 games over parts of 16 seasons, Wilcox went 119-113 with a 4.07 ERA. For the past 20 years, with his son Brian, he has been the owner and MC for Ultimate Air Dogs, billed as the "premier dock jumping organization in the country". These are competitions where dogs jump off docks and do various tricks for large crowds.

With only 22 cards in the set, including the manager, who got left out? Looking at the World Series roster, the omissions were Doug Baker, Howard Johnson, Ruppert Jones and Dave Rozema. Johnson, Jones and Rozema were with new teams in 1985. Doug Baker was actually with the Tigers in April of 1985, but spent most of the season back in AA.
 

Scrapbook pages from an America long ago

I haven't gone into the 1930s scrapbook in a while, but I wanted to do something to commemorate this special day. I decided there must be something relevant in that scrapbook Johnny sent me a while ago, the one that was put together a few years after America's 150th. Most of the scrapbook is focused on family members or popular culture (how American!) but I did find a page that fit close enough. 

This page was actually detached and loose, I'm not sure why. It seems to be from 1935, a few years later than the pages I've shown previously.

 Not just America, but America in color!

Well, colorized, anyway. I'm not sure tanks had pink treads in the 1930s. I guess that was AI coloring 90 years ago. This color spread from the Sunday Mirror shows how America was preparing for the "next war", which was only a few years away. (Note that these were pasted over some ledger entries from 1927). It's easy to forget now, in the relatively peaceful 21st Century, how much an upcoming "next war" seemed inevitable for the generations coming after the two World Wars.

A little more variety, but still plenty of Americana, on this side. Starting off with more tanks on top, and then a clipping from the February 14, 1935 Jacksonville Journal - Last Photo of the Navy's Ill-Fated Dirigible. The USS Macon was one of two rigid airships that the US Navy launched in 1933. The USS Akron crashed soon after, killing 73. The Macon lasted longer, though weather conditions made operating the massive, delicate vehicle difficult. It was based in Sunnyvale, CA, but was stationed for a while in Opa-Locka, FL in 1934, perhaps explaining why it was of interest to the scrapbooker. It returned to Sunnyvale later in 1934 and crashed off Monterey Bay in 1935, this time losing only two men, largely due to the use of life jackets after the first disaster. 

Finally, some magazine cutouts, or maybe some kind of stamps, showing images of American vacation spots, mostly in the West. It's a nice example of how much our country has expanded since the initial vision 250 years ago.