Cake or gum? 1977 Mark Belanger

Last time it was a big 8-0 shutout for gum. Will cake get on the board here?

Two photos from the same shoot. Do you prefer bat or no bat?

Mark Belanger is considered one of the greatest fielding shortstops of all time. He was Baltimore’s regular shortstop from 1968 to 1980, replacing Hall-of-Famer Luis Aparacio and replaced by Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken. He was an eight-time Gold Glove winner and was a regular in the lineup despite being a very weak hitter. In only three of the 13 seasons he was Baltimore’s regular shortstop did he hit as high as .230, and he had only 389 RBI in over 2000 major league games. After his career he had a leadership role in the MLB Players Association, supporting Donald Fehr. A notorious chain-smoker, he died of lung cancer in 1998.

Roundup and a request

My kids each got a couple of the Harry Potter chocolate frogs that come with a card inside. My son was disappointed that he got two of the same card. I couldn't easily find any Harry Potter cards to trade on TCDB. Any chance any readers have any extra Harry Potter cards? Would want just one to keep the delicate balance between kids. This one is available for trade:

It's been well over a month since my last roundup post. Here's what's come in since then . . . 

An '80 Burger King and a '70 scratchoff. Steve Sankner, OBC. 

Seven '62 stamps, including two HOFers. Jim Craig, OBC.

Two great trades with threegreatgirls, TCDB, netted me some vintage plus some '86 Donruss oddballs.

There were some occasional eBay pickups over the past month. A big name from the '71 OPC set!

I kind of goofed here, overpaid a bit for these because I thought I needed Robin Roberts. Most of these are available for trade.

A rough '71 lot with some high numbers. I only needed the top four, the rest are available.

'64 Hank Aaron from eBay! Great card for a good price.

Three beautiful 1962 high numbers. Bob D'Angelo, OBC.

Paul Stenshoel, OBC, sends a Philley whose sometimes a Phillie, but not here.

Some more stars from the early days of O-Pee-Chee. A four card lot with a duplicate '70 Steve Carlton, available for trade. eBay.

This was last month's Time Travel Trade with Diamond Jesters!

The Number 5 Type Collection blog, by OBC's Spike Glidden, was giving away some team sets. Nobody wanted the Rangers and there were some interesting magazine cards in there. These were the cards I needed from those cards. Looks like he's still got Astros and White Sox lots available.

Jonathan Jeans, OBC, sends the square root of '64.

Ernie Banks took a licking but kept on ticking! ebay.

Dan Williams of OBC sent a nice mix of Topps from different years.

This oddball with no explanation was under $0.25 on eBay. Looked it up, it appears to have been part of a photoset that would be given away at Three Rivers Stadium on the special days where you could go on the field, take a photo with the player and get an autograph. This counts as a card to me!

TJ Valacak sent a star-filled oddball bunch. He's OBC and TCDB (where he goes by tjv815).

Yankee98, TCDB, sent two '58s, a '62 high number, and the Don Mattingly card that completes my 1987 Fleer Baseball's Best set.

Probably the hardest to get League Leaders card of the era, even harder than any with Mantle. The pen marks kept it in my price range.

Finally, a big vintage trade from DLeister of TCDB. While not as old as some of these others, it feels really good knocking off the last few semi-highs, and a few highs, from 1968, 1970 . . . 

1971 and 1972! Pretty much just high numbers remaining from 1970-1972 after this trade.

 

Wallet Card at McNeice

On my last wallet card post, Fuji mentioned that he likes when the business name is embedded in the ground. I do too. This one is in a commercial office building in West Hempstead. Unfortunately, I could not find anything about who or what McNeice was. Nice sign, though.

 

New from '52

I picked up a couple of cheap lots of '52 Topps from eBay. I've been willing to pay a couple bucks a card for this set.

This was a two card lot featuring Walt Dropo and Frank Hiller. Card Boredom did some research on the Hiller card and determined the photo was probably taken when Hiller was a Yankee. #9 behind Hiller is probably 5-time All-Star Charlie "King Kong" Keller, a Yankees fan favorite.

Another great set of cards - future Yankee manager Clyde King, Ralph Branca on the first card after his infamous pitch to Bobby Thomson, and Gus Zernial's card celebrating his record six home runs in three games, one of the greatest cards of the era.

The back of the King card is fun, too. Kids would often "update" the card by writing the new team name on the card. This kid cut out Boston Red Sox, possibly from a newspaper, and carefully taped it over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Funnily enough, King was never a Red Sox. He was traded to the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1953, and probably the owner confused the Redlegs and Red Sox.

 

1981 Topps Jim Spencer

 The front: Spencer is shaking hands with one Yankee while talking to another, what looks like after a home run. The Yankee on the right looks like Graig Nettles. This lines up with June 21, 1980, a day game against Oakland. Spencer's 3-run home run off of Mike Norris in the first inning scored Graig Nettles and Reggie Jackson. That is probably on-deck hitter Joe Lefebvre who hand Spencer is shaking. The home plate ump is Bill Haller. The Yankees won the game, 5-3. In previous posts I've noted that both Norris and Nettles have photos that look like they came from this game.

The back: Over a decade in the majors prevented room for a blurb.

The player: Jim Spencer played fifteen seasons in the major leagues for five teams. He won Gold Gloves with the Angels and White Sox, was an All Star with the Rangers, and won a World Series with the Yankees. Overall in 1,553 games he hit .250 with 146 HR and 599 RBI.

The man: After his playing career he worked in  restaurant and real estate business, and was a baseball coach at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He died of a heart attack in 2002. 

My collection: I have 31 of his cards, from 1970 to 1982. I would be interested in trading for 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamps #NNO.

1976 SSPC Gary Matthews

 

The card, in brief: Not much to comment on, but a cool photo of the Sarge at night.

Playing career, in brief: Matthews was the Rookie of the Year in 1973, hitting .300 with 12 HR, 58 RBI and 17 SB. He went on to a very solid 16-year major league career for five teams. In 2,033 games he hit .281 with 234 HR, 978 RBI and 183 SB.

Post-playing career, in brief: Matthews was a coach and an announcer for several teams, but is now retired.

My collection: I have 50 of his cards, from 1973 to 1988. I would be interested in trading for 1976 Hostess #142.

1986 Renata Galasso Mattingly Puzzle #2

 

Good action photo here, except for Mattingly's face in shadow. The pinstripe design of the card works really well here. The dugout and ground are tilted - Mattingly was probably crouched a little more in this photo, and the photo was tilted to make him look more straight up-and-down. Topps used to do that sometimes.

1988 Domino's Dick Tracewski

 

Pretty simple photo for Tracewski. This cards reminds me of the "shadow shots" series Johnny used to do.

Tracewski was a good fielding, light hitting backup shortstop for the Dodgers and Tigers in the 1960s. Though he only played six full seasons (1963 - 1968), he was on the World Series winner in three of those. 1968 was his last full season as a major leaguer, hitting .156 with 4 HR and 15 RBI. He retired during the 1969 season and immediately joined the Tigers' coaching staff, where he stayed through 1995, picking up another World Series ring in '84. Overall in 614 major league games he hit .213 with 8 HR and 90 RBI.

I have six of his cards, from 1964 to 1969. I would be interested in trading for 1968 Topps #488. 

Wood vs. Wood #346

 Last time it was a 6-2 win for '87. Who will win this time?

There's a lot to see on Jack Kralick's card. It's spring training but there's bunting hanging from the roof. There are two bald men in street clothes standing on the field, examining a piece of paper. And Kralick is wearing the patch commemorating the Twins' first season in Minnesota. Kralick had a good rookie season with the Senators in 1960 and was even better with the Twins in 1961. That season Kralick went 13-11 with a 3.61 ERA, with 137 strikeouts in 242 innings. A nice season, but nowhere near as good as Cy Young winner Whitey Ford, who went 25-4 with 209 strikeouts in 242 innings. Ford was better than Kralick in advanced statistical categories as well - FIP, H9, HR9. And yet it was Kralick who led the AL in WAR, 6.0 to 3.7. Sabermetric blogger Phil Birnbaum used this example in a post to point out how WAR greatly exaggerates park factors and team defense in pitcher WAR. What's even weirder is Kralick's 1962 numbers are almost identical to his 1961 numbers, and yet his WAR plummeted from 6.0 to 2.1. Makes no sense! In 1963 Kralick was traded to Cleveland, for whom he had a couple more good season, but was basically done as a major league pitcher at the age of 30, retiring in 1967 to sell insurance. Kralick worked a variety of jobs over the next 20 years, eventually moving to a small fishing village in Mexico, where he lived for the next 24 years, passing away in 2012 at the age of 77.

Shawon Dunston has a much simpler photo, with just the cinder block wall of the dugout visible in his portrait shot. The son of an NYC taxi driver, Dunston grew up in East New York, Brooklyn. Dunston played 18 seasons in the major leagues for six teams, including 12 seasons with the Cubs. Known for his very strong arm at shortstop, he had good speed and decent power. Overall in 1,814 games, he hit .269 with 150 HR, 668 RBI and 212 SB. He has kept a low profile since his retirement, aside from some youth coaching and appearances for the Cubs.

Eureka! Golden!

I was able to pick up a cheap lot of vintage baseball stamps on eBay.

13 stamps from the 1955 Golden Stamps Dodgers. Lots of great vintage photos but it's tough to beat coach Jake Pitler holding three baseballs in his hand. 

Two more, which I had already and so are available for trade. Hopefully one of the Dodger fans or vintage collectors can use these.

23 needs from the 1949 Eureka Stamps set! So much fun to get cards from the first half of the 20th century. OK, stamps, but still - these are older than rock 'n roll. Largely Dodgers but also Giants, Phillies, and one Boston Brave. Richie Ashburn, Bobby Thomson, Don Newcombe, even Dodgers manager Burt Shotton in his street clothes.

There were actually six stamps I had already - three Dodgers, two Phillies and Giants manager Leo Durocher. Hopefully these will find a new home soon too.