I don't go after vintage football very often, but I like the '74 set a lot and found a very cheap lot that nobody else bid on. I needed about half the cards in the lot, several dozen additions.
Some fun posed and action photos to highlight. The weirdest and most fun is the card of Browns DT Jerry Sherk. I'm guessing he's the guy toward the bottom of the pile but not totally sure.
Lots of dupes to trade!
A few availables from this set too.
Bought a couple of cheap lots of older cards that both were delivered yesterday.
Starting off with a nice big lot of '54 Topps. It's getting nearly impossible to find decently priced lots of older Topps cards these days. I was able to snag this one because they were trimmed down to "standard" card size. I'm OK with any condition, though I must trimming like this sometimes annoys me a little when flipping through my cards. Still, all of these will fit well into my set.
Topps lots are hard but interesting older oddballs are still getable at good prices. These are 1949 Eureka Stamps. I guess not everyone considers these cards but I do. Great photos at a time when other cards just had paintings.
Playing career, in brief: Bill Buckner put up some excellent numbers over a 22-year MLB career. The NL batting champion in 1980, he hit .289 with 2,715 hits, 498 doubles, 174 HR, 1,208 RBI and 183 SB. Of course, despite all that success he's known for one bad play . . .
Post-playing career, in brief: After his playing career Buckner worked in real estate and was a minor league coach. He died in 2019.
My collection: I have 71 of his cards, from 1970 to 1990. I would be interested in trading for 1971 Topps #529.
Great scoreboard shot!
Here's Tigers righty Pat Dobson . . .
There, that's better. This is one of two instances of a card being corrected by Domino's. The first card features Jon Warden, who has is own card in the set.
Dobson had several good seasons, the kind of talent who was always good enough for other teams to be interested in, but not quite good enough for his own team to insist on holding on to. He was traded five times in his 11 seasons, despite winning 20 games for the Orioles in 1971 and 19 games for the Yankees in 1974. He had initially come up with the Tigers as a reliever, making three relief appearances in the 1968 World Series. Overall in 414 games for six teams over 11 seasons, Dobson went 122-129 with a 3.54 ERA. After his playing career he was a pitching coach and scout. He died of leukemia in 2006.
I have 15 of his cards, from 1968 to 1978. I would be interested in trading for 1967 Topps #526.
Last time was a 5-0 shutout for gum. Will this be closer?
Bergman was acquired by the Tigers toward the end of spring training, and played in 120 games as the team's primary first baseman, though in the playoffs Darrell Evans started most games at 1B with Bergman coming in late for defense. He hit .273 with 7 HR and 44 RBI over the season.
Bergman had a long career as a part-time player for the Yankees, Astros, Giants and especially the Tigers, for whom he played in 9 of his 17 seasons. In only four of those seasons did he have over 200 at-bats, and he topped 300 just once. Overall in 1,349 games he hit .258 with 54 HR and 289 RBI. After his playing career Bergman went into a career in banking. He was also active in the Joe Niekro Foundation's efforts to raise awareness of brain aneurysms. He died of cancer in 2015.
Last time Topps won a 9-0 shutout. Will this be closer?
I always have mixed feelings about Fidrych. All of the stories and the footage are so much fun, that I feel jealous of those old enough to have experienced his brief career firsthand. He was the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young runner-up in 1976, going 19-9 with a league leading 2.34 ERA. After his electrifying 1976 season, injuries ruined his career. He pitched in 31 games in 1976, and only 27 more games afterward. Overall in 58 games, he went 29-19 with a 3.10 ERA. Fidrych’s antics, including talking to the ball and manicuring the mound, were legendary. Every account of his personality suggests that the antics weren’t an act, that Fidrych was the real deal, a goofy regular guy who made friends everywhere he went. He worked at a local diner in his native Massachusetts and also worked as a contractor. He died in a freak accident while repairing a truck in 2009.
Last time 1987 squeaked by with a 5-3 win. Will this be a different outcome?
Frank Viola doesn't get quite as good a background as Whitey Ford did, having to make do with just a fan in a bright blue shirt. He didn't have quite as good a career was Whitey Ford, either, but he did have several dominant seasons. Viola grew up in East Meadow, Long Island, one town over from where I grew up. He won 16+ games for five straight seasons for the Twins in the 1980s, winning the World Series MVP in 1987 and the AL Cy Young in 1988. Traded to the Mets the next year, he won 20 games for them in 1990. Overall in 421 games, Viola went 176-150 with 1,844 strikeouts and a 3.76 ERA. Since his playing career Viola has been a minor league coach for many years, primarily in the Mets organization. Like many Long Islanders, Viola moved south, and is currently living in North Carolina where he is the pitching coach for the High Point Rockers.
The last card in the set, and the series. This was a fun one to research and write.
On August 8, 1972, the Yankees made news on the field in their big series with the first place Tigers. Horton opened the scoring with an RBI single off of Fritz Peterson, but in a back-and-forth game the Yankees won it, breaking open a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the eighth highlighted by a go-ahead sac fly by rookie sparkplug Celerino Sanchez, and an insurance run via Ron Swoboda's third hit of the day. The win moved the Yankees to just three games back of Detroit.
The Yankees also made news off the field, signing a 30-year lease with the City of New York that called for extensive renovations to Yankee Stadium, renovations which would require the Yankees to play the '74 and '75 seasons at Shea Stadium. In other news, the Madison Square Garden Corporation, owner of the Knicks and Rangers, threatened to move those teams out of New York if they did not get their own deal with the city. And in politics, the Democratic National Committee nominated Sargent Shriver as the new running mate for Presidential candidate George McGovern. Shriver was the committee's seventh choice to replace Thomas Eagleton, McGovern's original running mate, who bowed out after reports that he had received electroshock treatment for depression in the 1960s.
Very similar photos of Horton were used for his 1973 Topps card . . .
The back: 1980 was by far Oglivie's best season, with 1982 the only other year he topped 30 HR and/or 100 RBI.
The man: A philosophy enthusiast, Oglivie was generally considered one of the smartest men in the majors during his playing days. He was a hitting coach for several teams but appears to now be retired.
My collection: I have 41 of his cards, from 1973 to 1987. I would be interested in trading for 1972 Topps #761.
Got a surprise holiday package from The Best Bubble. Lots of fun cards and non-cards in there!
Starting off with the cards. Highlights include a Steve Kemp autograph, a TCMA card of Joe Pactwa, who never made the majors, a couple of 80's reprints of '50s cards, and two Don Mattingly oddballs!
The inside tells you wear you could buy a ticket throughout the NYC area, including calling Yankee Stadium at CY. 3-6000.
There were also these really cool scrapbook-like index cards chronicling the career of Elston Howard. It looks like they may have been started sometime in the mid-1960s and the owner kept with it over the years, or perhaps they just used some old materials they had access to later on. Bob - if you have more info on these, would love to know the backstory!
There seemed to be an order, starting with this card with a great action photo of Howard, a photocopy of the Yankees logo, and Howard's head cut off of a 1962 Topps league leaders card!
The next "page" has a cutout of a newspaper article of Howard in his Red Sox uniform. Howard was traded to the Red Sox in August of 1967 and was a key factor in them winning a surprise pennant that year.
The back of that card has cutouts of Howard from several other team photos. Finishing off with a photocopy of Howard's 1958 Topps card.
Robin Fuson pitched ten seasons in the minor leagues, mostly in the Indians and Red Sox organizations. In 228 games he went 91-74 with a 3.79 ERA. After his baseball career ended he was a coach in the A's organization, then went to law school and became a prosecuting attorney. In 2018 he was elected as a Circuit Court Judge in Florida's 13th Judicial Circuit, a position he still holds. He kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.
"Regarding my Pawtucket card, I had been sent back down from big league, spring training, being the last guy reassigned and I wasn’t happy. So early in the season to kinda mess with my manager Rac Slider, who was a sticker for the rules I shaved half of my mustache off. I grew a mustache in college in the 70s and maintained that mustache my entire career up until 1985 when I shaved half of it. That happened to be the same day they were taking the pictures for our baseball cards and I didn’t want to look completely insane so I shaved the other half off. So there was no mustache in that picture.
My first card in 1978, they listed me as an infielder. I guess technically that’s correct since I stood in the middle of the field.
I was in AAA with Cleveland three separate times, once with Seattle and twice with Boston. Out of all of those chances I was in the city at the time of the baseball card shoots only once, that being Pawtucket.
My favorite card is probably the Buffalo card from 1983. Buffalo has a long history of some of the greatest players wearing that uniform and the stadium was War Memorial, the Rockpile, which had its own history. And the movie The Natural was filmed that summer as well.
I don’t collect cards, but I have two Tom Seaver baseball cards because he was my idol."
Thanks!
Playing career, in brief: First baseman Walt Alston was signed by the Carinals to a minor league contract in 1935, and in 1936 played well enough to earn a brief promotion to the major leagues. He played in one game, made an error, and struck out in his only plate appearance. He spent years in the minors trying to make his way back to the majors, but never did as a player. In 1940 he became a player manager, a role he continued in the Cardinals, and later Dodger organizations, through 1946.
Post-playing career, in brief: Alston kept managing in the Dodgers' system until 1954, when he replaced the popular Charlie Dressen. Alston won over skeptics by winning 92 games in his first season, then bringing the Dodgers their first world championship the next year. It was the first of four championships and seven pennants for Alston's Dodgers, cementing him as one of the most successful managers of his era. He retired at the end of the 1976 season, and died of a heart attack in 1984.
My collection: In my own spreadsheet I only track playing-days cards of players, and Alston never got a card during his playing days. Looking at his "managing days" cards, I have 18 from 1960 to 1976, and would be interested in trading for 1956 Topps #8 and 1972 Topps #749.
At 27 Desbrosses Street in Tribeca, is a sign that looks really old, and is still pretty old. Mayon Crating & Shipping opened in 1977, when this was still an industrial area, and closed in the early 1990s as the neighborhood shifted to high-end residential apartments.
An eBay seller called cards-fan was selling some really cool old singles with low opening bids and I actually won a couple that nobody bid on. After the auctions were over he told me that he had an extra of one of the other cards I had bid on, and he threw that in two. Three for the price of two - for 1947 Tip Top Bread cards! Really generous for a really cool, and really old, oddball set. Anything before not only Topps but Bowman too is really cool to me.
Mattingly was pretty intense even as a 4th grader in 1971.
Comer was a rookie backup outfielder on the 1968 Tigers, hitting .125 with 1 HR and 3 RBI in 48 games. He was drafted by the Pilots and had his only full season with them in 1969. Overall in 316 games over 5 seasons for the Tigers, Pilots/Brewers and Senators, Comer hit .229 with 16 HR and 67 RBI. After his MLB days he had a long career as a high school baseball coach. He died in 2023.
I have two of his playing-days cards, 1969 and 1970 Topps. I would be interested in trading for 1970 MLB PhotoStamps #NNO.
Last time was a 7-1 win for burgers. Will this one be luckier for gum?
Mostly a reliever in his career, 1984 was Berenguer's only season where he was primarily a starter. In 27 starts he went 11-10 with a 3.48 ERA. He did not pitch in the postseason. Berenguer was a talented but erratic pitcher for several teams before landing with the Tigers in 1983. Famed pitching coach Roger Craig taught Berenguer the split-fingered fastball and he used it with considerable success as a starter for the Tigers and a reliever for the Giants, Twins and Braves. Overall, in 490 games (95 starts) over a 15-year career, he went 67-62 with 32 saves and a 3.90 ERA. Berenguer was known as "Pancho Villa" during his playing days due to his resemblance to the Mexican revolutionary. He most recent job was selling cars at Lincoln of Bloomington, near Minneapolis.
Last time there was a 5-5 tie. I'm guessing there will be a winner here.
A lifetime .303 hitter, Oliver hit over .300 for nine straight seasons, from 1976 to 1984. He was a seven-time all-star, and hit 219 HR over his eighteen year career, reaching 20 twice. He retired after the 1985 season after no-one signed him, which he claims was due to collusion. He has said that if allowed to sign with another team, he would have gotten 3000 hits and would thus have made the Hall of Fame. However, in 1986 he was going to be 39 years old, was 257 hits away from 3000, and had only 197 in the previous two years. So his odds of getting to 3000 if he signed somewhere in 1986 were still quite slim. He is now a licensed minister and the Chairman of Deacons at Beulah Baptist Church in his hometown of Portsmouth, OH.
Last time there was a 5-5 tie! Will there be a winner this time?
Mike Young steps into the batters box at Memorial Stadium. Young was a power-hitting outfielder for the Orioles who hit 45 HR over his first two seasons, 1984 and 1985. However, a series of injuries robbed him of his effectiveness and he was unable to live up to his early career success. Overall in 635 games, mostly for Baltimore, he hit .247 with 72 HR and 235 RBI. After his career he worked for Abbott Vascular, was a personal trainer, and started a foundation to battle obesity. He died of a heart attack in 2023.
It's been several weeks since my last roundup post . . .
Two '53 Milwaukee Braves from Greg Henthorn, OBC. Check out the signs behind Murray Wall that say Murray and Wall.
