Showing posts with label Brooks Robinson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brooks Robinson. Show all posts

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Some Pretty '67s


I'm at an odd spot with my 1967s. I'm past the point of no return, as it were. I've made a couple of decent-sized 'lot' purchases which kind of commits me to the set. But I'm not yet to the point where I'm trolling COMC and eBay to begin filling in slots. In fact, I don't really know what slots I have open.

I don't collect McCovey cards per se, but I sure do enjoy onwing some. The one up top is one of my favorites. A great portrait shot.  The '67 set is so clean.



 Jim "I'm not in the Hall of Fame you dummy' Kaat looked like a high schooler himself. And he did for another 20 years.


We moved from New Jersey to Houston (for the first time) in the summer of '67. It's hard to believe now, but the house my folks bought was just about at the western edge of Houston civilization. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot between us and San Antonio. But we were close to a shopping center where there was a brand new supermarket and an Eckert's (now CVS). Both sold cards and I bought plenty of them since I didn't know a soul and had nothing else to do but continue to build my '67 collection. Lord knows it was too damn hot to do anything outside.

Another lefty, Whitey Ford. If I had a buck for every time I saw him pitch at Yankee Stadium...I'd probably have thirty bucks. At least.


Don Drysdale. here's a fun fact...from Opening Day right up through the month of June in 1968 Drysdale made 18 starts. Only once in those 18 starts did he allow more than two earned runs. Once. 'Year of the Pitcher' or not, that is damned impressive. And of course, that run included his stretch of six consecutive shutouts.


Joe Nuxhall, former 14 15-year-old big leaguer, and wearer of the short-sleeved rubber sweat top.


Rico Carty who kept his wallet in the back pocket of his baseball pants because he didn't trust banks fo the clubhouse safe. At least according to Jim Bouton in Ball Four.


And last but certainly not least, one of the big cards from the high number series...#600 Brooks Robinson. I really love this card. I own one that's slabbed as well as this one which will go in the set binder. I used to have a couple more of this but at one point while I was at college my brothers, and some cousins who were visiting decided to make a 'scrapbook' of Orioles cards and cut them up into their component pieces (name, photo, team name, etc) and glue them into spiral notebooks. Lucky me.

I also sent one to the first person I got to know when I joined the hobby community online. He was an Orioles fan in Australia and I sent him a box of Orioles cards, maybe 100 or more. I never heard back from him. He never again responded to my messages. I wasn't looking for something in return or even a thanks, but to just ghost me was pretty weird. I hope he enjoyed the cards.


I'll commit to this set with some energy once I clear off some of the projects that are sitting on my desk right now. One of those projects, something I've wanted to tackle for maybe three decades, is finally coming to fruition. I'm saving that for another post.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Brooks Robinson Print


My friend Mike McKay sent along this super nice 8x10 art print of Brooks Robinson recently. He won it on eBay and sent it to me because, well, because that's the kind of guy he is. And I'm most appreciative.

The print is just begging for a signature. That's why I am holding off on putting it in one of my frames for the time being. Brooks was here in Houston at the TriStar show in February. I didn't want to stand in line for his autograph at the time but had I had something interesting to get signed I might have. I know Brooks gets lots of mail but I may send this along to him. He's getting up there and has had some health issues and I don't know how many more chances I'll have.

As an alternative plan, I have some other signed items that I could turn into a cut signature to mount with the print. I'll come up with something or other because I want to get this on my wall here in my office/hobby room.

If you're reading this Mike...thanks much. I hope your family is well. Stay smart and stay safe. That goes for everyone out there in the hobby blogosphere.

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Wrapping One Show, Ready For Another

With about a week to go until the Houston TriStar Winter Show, I thought I'd finish posting my meager takings from the last hotel show I attended.

First up, a handful of oddball Rusty Staub cards. I'm buying Rusty stuff without a checklist which is a little like driving around at night with your lights off...you rely a lot on memory.

Swell Gum:


Pacific:


TCMA (from the 12-card All-Time Expos set.
But I was positive that those were new to me.

Unlike this Charles Bender 1913 National Game card. I have a really nice one that is in a slab that I blogged previously. This one was a cheapie. You can never have too many of these, right?



'77 Topps Cloth Sticker Lee May:



I found a small stack of these things and bought a few to pass on to some other bloggers. I didn't realize that I already had one of these. Jim Palmer is the other Orioles guy in the set. I wanted to find a Staub but no luck.

Billy Pierce 1959 Baseball Thrills subset card. I had this one but used it for my '59 build.


1987 Fleer Akeem Olajuwon sticker card. Yes, he was Akeem before he was Hakeem. I have some funny Olajuwon stories from his days at UH but I'll save them for when I have a cool piece to show with them. All I'll say now is that if he crashes a soccer game you are playing in... don't get in the way of one of his shots.



I haven't shown much (anything?) of the '61 Fleer football set. Most because nobody would read it. But I'm almost done with it and I wasn't even half trying. As with the Houston college player photo I had on here recently, this pic has the UH practice fields as the location and the surrounding neighborhood as the background.


'87 Donruss Murray. Part of the bunch of Murray cards that I was gifted at the show. I always liked this design. This is probably the last set that I paid attention to before I lost interest in the hobby a few years later.


1960 Lenny Moore. I had this in my Colts collection but I just love this card. One of these days I might try to chase this set.



Finally a pair of Arm & Hammer Orioles cards from the 1930s. I'm shown the backs in XL so they can be read.







The TriStar show is next weekend. Brooks Robinson is a guest on Sunday. I may take my son to reprise this shot from 20ish years ago:


 Brooks and Brooks!


Sunday, November 3, 2019

In the Nick of time

Just last week I was bemoaning the fact that I hadn't added anything to my PCs in quite some time. Then came a completely unexpected and very neat surprise.

These custom cards came to me from Nick Vossbrink who is both a Twitter friend and blogger of many interests, particularly baseball and photography.


These are great, yes? I really like the team-oriented colors and terrific photos Nick used on these. That 'ump view' shot of BP throwing a Spring Training pitch is amazing. It just came up someplace recently, Twitter maybe? I'm sure Nick has the story. It's got a 'Life Magazine: Baseball Is Back!' vibe to it.

And here is Brooks...


That's a classic photo from the 1970 Series.

Nick gave these the full career stat-back treatment which I appreciate even if I have come to need a magnifying glass on my desk in my old age.

And then there was this:


1981-style Oddjob! Toshiyuki 'Harold' Sakata was the Hawaiian-born actor who played one of the most memorable roles in any Bond movie as Goldfinger's henchman/manservant. Sakata packed a lot of living into his 62 years. He was an Olympic weight-lifter (Silver medal winner for the USA in 1948), pro wrestler and actor.

Pretty darn clever of Nick to use the '81 card design that features hats as Oddjob's bowler was his 'calling card' as it were. This makes a really fun addition to my actor/actress binder. If you aren't a Bond aficionado check out this clip which sums up Oddjob's role pretty well.


Many thanks to Nick for these fun customs.

Monday, October 21, 2019

1973 Topps Kickoff



As noted in my last post, I'm far enough along with my '74 and '57 sets that I can start to deal with what is likely my last set build for a while.

As has occurred a few times before, this one sort of fell into my lap via a starter lot that I couldn't pass up. Prior to coming across that box, I'd never really given any thought to collecting it other than in a general, 'I'd like to do more 70s sets' kind of way.

1973 was an interesting year in America, more interesting than the '73 Topps design for sure. Secretariat, the GOAT of racehorses, won the Triple Crown. George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees. LBJ passed away. Spiro Agnew resigned as Veep. The Orioles won the AL East but someone else won the World Series, I forget who it was. ;-) The World Trade Center and the Sears Tower opened in NYC and Chicago, respectively. The Watergate hearing began. And OJ Simpson ran for 2000 yards, the first NFLer to do so.


The box (unlike that damn 1974 starter pile) had about 300 cards in it, and (hooray!) no dupes.  It included many star cards and overall the cards were in nice shape. It's probably the first starter lot I've bought which lacked any cards that immediately said: "upgrade me!".

Factoring in the Orioles team set I already had plus some stars I've picked up though the years I'm at 341 of 660 cards, about 52%. When I was done sorting and check listing I wound up with about 25 dupes, almost all were stars and Orioles. All the cards in this post are part of my stack of dupes and some are a bit rough around the edges, literally.


The only 'high ticket' card is, of course, the Mike Schmidt rookie. But I've been lucky in the past in finding reasonably priced  star/rookie cards and hopefully the Schmidt won't be the exception.


There is also a set of unnumbered team checklists almost identical to those that were issued in 1974. They are cheap and easy to find.


There are a few 'errors/variations' in the set, different coloring for some managers/coaches cards and 'broken' black borders around the photos on a few others. Nothing that sounds like it needs to be included in my binder.


That Mike Marshall card is interesting in that he had been with the Expos since 1970 and yet Topps airbrushed a photo of him in a Tigers uni. His days with Detroit ended when he was drafted by the expansion Pilots in October of 1968. So the photo is from spring training of '68 at best.


This is one of my favorite Boog Powell cards. Classic Powell swing on a bright Baltimore day with batboy Jay Mazzone in the background.


Like the Bob Moose card, this Lindy McDaniel is a dupe because I casually collect their cards. He was in his 19th season in the bigs and his 160+ innings were the second-most of his career.

I've put my '73 want list over in the right-side column. If you can help me out let me know. I'm sure we can work something out!

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Tribute to an old friend


I got word yesterday (belatedly, I'm afraid) of the passing of Mary Alice Fee, 'Miss Fee' as she was known to family and friends. She had turned 100 last fall and I'd known her most of my life. I met her when she was my aunt's next door neighbor in Baltimore nearly 60 years ago. She looked after my cousins (and me and my siblings when we visited) and was a dear friend to my aunt through the years.

I was always close to my aunt and cousins, and she was essentially part of the family. She was funny and kind and was an Orioles fan of the first order. She knew her baseball despite never attending a game in person. Her thing was following the Birds on the radio. She had lost her sight in recent years but she still enjoyed the games. She had opinions on the state of the team and was never afraid to voice them.

In her honor I'm posting a signed IP 1975 Brooks Robinson TCMA/SSPC from the Superstars set. I came across it and a couple other related Orioles signed cards while digging through my old hobby storage boxes the other evening.

A love for Brooks Robinson was another thing Miss Fee and I shared.



These next three are from the SSPC set.



This final pic is Miss Fee and myself at Amicci's in Baltimore's Little Italy during a trip about ten years ago. RIP Miss Fee 💔


Friday, July 26, 2019

Taking One (or two) For The Team...plus St. Louis

I really don't like buying stadium giveaways but sometimes you just have to hold your nose (with one hand) and pull the trigger with the other. Case in point:


The Orioles had a Brooks Robinson bobblehead giveaway recently and my son Brooks, while not a collector, does have a few Brooks related items that he displays in his office at work. Since the giveaway almost fell on his (and his brother's) birthday I figured one of these would make a neat gift.

Of course, I needed one for myself as well 😇 so I pulled the trigger twice. They both arrived within a couple of days of the July 19th giveaway and mine is now displayed here.


I mentioned in my last post that we had traveled to St. Louis to help my best friend celebrate a milestone birthday. We had last visited a few summers back as we passed thru on our way to Chicago but this time we had five days to enjoy one of my favorite cities.


Here are another couple of pix of the vintage baseball game that was in progress under the Gateway Arch on Saturday morning. One of the younger players spotted my wife's Astros shirt and came over to talk. He was a Houstonian working in the area.


STL is a great town for food and a trip isn't complete without a stop (or two) at some of the wonderful Italian spots on The Hill.


We took in a lot of the sights during our stay but I'll (mostly) stick with the baseball highlights for this post. I do need to mention that I can testify to St. Louis being home to some nice brewpubs. We hit our share.



My first time in St. Louis had come in 1974. I dug up the photos I had from that trip and here is a bit of now-and-then that span exactly 45 years.


Took the above pic from the steps of the Old Courthouse near the Arch last week. Below is a shot from nearly the same spot in July of 1974.


It was a bit misty on Monday thanks to the outskirts of TS Barry but the trip to the top of the Arch was fun anyway. One of our group bailed out when he saw the size of the elevator 'cars' that get you to the top. I will admit I wasn't so sure about going up either. I hadn't remembered that claustrophobic ride from 1974.

The view in 2019:



Almost the same view in 1974:


After a couple of near misses thru the last few years, I was determined to get to a game in Busch Stadium. The weather was fickle and I had my doubts but it turned out fine. Sam and I 36 years, one month after he was the best man at our wedding. Oh, and Gibson.



Yes, I'm wearing a Cardinals cap. The things you do for friends, amiright?.

Busch is a really sweet stadium. The upper deck seems waaaay up there. The pics don't convey that as clearly as being there. I think they went 'up' rather that 'back' to gain enough seating given the smallish footprint they had to work with. In any case, it's a great place to enjoy a game. The mist stopped and the sies cleared after a couple of innings and the night turned out great.


My only quibble might be that the scoreboards are a bit much. Lots of stuff up there.


My wife and I had some really great seats.



But mid-game we headed out to join all the rest of the group in the bleachers. Postgame fireworks for a nifty Cardinals win.



If you've never visited St. Louis you're missing out on one of America's great cities. I'm looking forward to returning.