Showing posts with label Roger Maris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roger Maris. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2019

Great Plains Greats set

I bought the Chief Bender card out of the 1975-76 Great Plains Greats set a month or so ago at one of the hotel card shows. Oddball sets can be fun and I got curious about the set and dug around online. I found a "complete" set cheap and bought it on a whim. It's full of Hall of Fame players and other big names. All the pics used are black and white.

Here's that Bender:
 

The seller (and a lot of other online sellers) list the set at 24 cards. But that's not technically correct. Hence the quotation marks around 'complete' in the first paragraph.

But first here is a look at some of the cards that I received. They come in groups of eight with each group in a different color, both front, and back. The artwork that is printed behind the players' name is different for each color as well.



The Allie Reynolds and Bob Feller appear to be different shades of blue but I think that's just a quirk of the printing process.


Carl Hubbell, star of the 1934 All-Star Game.


Walter Johnson and Dave Bancroft. Two very serious guys.




The green group has three of my favorite photos in it. Yogi, Cool Papa Bell, and Roger Maris.





The backs have a few brief essentials and a write-up, brief stats and an ad for the set's sponsor, Sheraton Hotels. Each color group has a different Sheraton. The back colors are a variation of the fronts..the red cards have purple-ish reverse accents.


Green fronts got a darker shade on the back...


Blue fronts got a lighter shade...



One eBay seller says the cards were distributed mostly in Iowa. But the Sheraton hotels listed in the ads were in Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas, so who knows? These cards are larger than standard modern cards which will make storing them a problem. They are only a whisper wider than the pre-57 cards from Topps so I may try using the 8-pocket pages. Here's one with a standard card for comparison.



I mentioned that sets are usually listed as complete at 24 but there were two groups of nine cards each that were also distributed which brings the total to 42 players. The additional 18 cards were not Sheraton sponsored but carry an ad for NU SASH windows, a company that now seems to be active across the MidWest.

There are also some that I have found with a promo blurb for the Great Plains Sports Collectors Association. I can't find any reference to that group now and I'm also unsure of which cards carried the back promoting it. I'm fairly certain it was the last two (highest numbered) groups but that's just a guess. That grouping also contains the Mickey Mantle card. I might dig around on eBay and COMC and try to puzzle it all out but I'm not sure it's a big deal.

Here is the 42 card checklist. I've coded them in the colors that are found on the front.

1 Bob Feller             
2 Carl Hubbell             
3 Jocko Conlan             
4 Hal Trosky             
5 Allie Reynolds            
6 Burleigh Grimes            
7 Jake Beckley            
8 Al Simmons  
         
9 Paul Waner            
10 Chief Bender            
11 Fred Clarke            
12 Jim Bottomley            
13 Dave Bancroft            
14 Bing Miller            
15 Walter Johnson            
16 Grover Alexander  
          
17 Bob Johnson            
18 Roger Maris  
 
        
19 Ken Keltner            
20 Red Faber            
21 Cool Papa Bell            
22 Yogi Berra            
23 Fred Lindstrom            
24 Ray Schalk              

25 Lloyd Waner            
26 John Hopp            
27 Mel Harder            
28 Dutch Leonard            
29 Bob O'Farrell            
30 Cap Anson            
31 Dazzy Vance            
32 Red Schoendienst            
33 George Pipgras
          
34 Harvey Kuenn            
35 Red Ruffing            
36 Roy Sievers            
37 Ken Boyer            
38 Al Smith            
39 Casey Stengel            
40 Bob Gibson
41 Mickey Mantle
42 Denny McLain


There are also two unnumbered checklists that cover only the #s 1-24. They can be found in either red or blue.

Here (scan from TCD) is what the checklists look like. The back had a 'Buy the set' coupon:





And from COMC and The Trading Card Database comes scans for the alternate(?) backs. I found a couple with the club promo...


....but mostly I see them with the NU SASH advertising back.


If I could find the #25-42 cards as a group I might be inclined to go after them but as singles, with the Mantle going for $10 or so, I'll pass for now.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

I took the plunge

I've been neglecting this little space for a bit but that doesn't mean I've been inactive hobby-wise. Quite the contrary.



At the September monthly card show, I saw a binder of 1961 commons my friend Darryl had behind his table that I hadn't noticed before. I poked through it and saw that there were about 240ish cards, a nice starter set. Darryl being Darryl said he'd give me a really good deal on it and soon I was headed home with my latest vintage chase project. One I had considered but hadn't really committed to until that morning.

Soon after that, I found a chunk of 61s on eBay for a 'can't pass this up' price and I grabbed them knowing that I'd end up with some dupes. On the flip side, the eBay cards looked (and indeed turned out to be) in really nice condition and many of the dupes were just fine as upgrades over those in the binder.

I hadn't really touched it until we returned from vacation late in October and then I dug in. It took me a couple of days to pull the cards from the sheets, sort and collate them and make a want list. I also pulled the '61s I had in my PCs. Unlike a lot of collectors, I don't duplicate cards across various collections except for a few special collections like Billy Pierce, Brooks Robinson, and a few others. It took me another day to track down the '61 Orioles cards I already had. That's a long story with interesting results that I'll save for a separate post.

Last Saturday I took my want list and killed off another 100 or so from my list plus some stars from a collection Darryl had recently picked up. I'm really happy with how this thing is coming along. I have some great memories of these cards. There are some sweet ones among the cards I have in the binder so far. Like the great Wally Moon card that I put up top. Here are a few more:


Roger Maris carries a pwemium, especially a '61 Maris. I have to balance cost and quality. This was a reasonable one that had flaws, but flaws I can live with. The scan makes the creases look worse than they do in the binder page. A low number common might be an upgrade candidate if it carried these scars, but not a Maris.

I dug Chuck Estrada back in his days as an Oriole and loved this card. That trophy!!


League Leader cards with mantle...ouch. Mantle and Maris BOTH? Yikes. I hate paying the price but whatcha gonna do? What I do is buy one with a crease through Rocco C.'s ear.


These next three come from PCs. I had already put the MVP subset together long ago. That took care of a bunch of stars. And I had a seperate Jensen so that one transferred over to this binder.


I had three of this Wes Covington card. This baby elevates the '61 set all by itself. One of the best cards Topps has done.

My Johnny Callison collection was somewhere south of complete so using this '61 in the set binder isn't a big deal. It's another great card though. Maybe not 'Covington great', but great. Nice look at Connie Mack Stadium here.



Roy Face in LA's Memorial Coliseum.



 Here's an oversized look at the back of Callison's card. Full stats (or what passed for full stats back then), three cartoons, a blurb on cards of players with not a lot of stats and, of course, the player's 'vitals'. Couldn't ask for more.



 The manager's cards more or less borrowed the color scheme from the 1960 rookie cards.


Another PC card on permanent loan. Mudcat!!


Another top hat trophy rookie. I had three copies of this Tommy Davis. I can't say why. He seems to show up in cheap vintage boxes and I always bite. At least now one will be put to good use. TD's off-centeredness is very typical of 1961s. Doesn't bother me in the slightest. The only time I even consider it is if I am choosing between two cards for a binder slot. If the corners are equal then I'll use the one with better centering.


Last time I checked I was over 80% complete with the set. If you happen to have any 61s in a box under your bed that you can spare check out my want list at this link or over on the right-hand sidebar.

This chase is going to slow waaaay down as I get into the high numbers. Those can be silly expensive. I'll need patience and lots of luck to finish this one out without killing off my entire hobby budget.

Friday, June 29, 2018

#9 Dream

Daniel, over on his It's Like Having My Own Card Shop blog, is having a contest to celebrate nine years of blogging. He has asked other bloggers to enter by concocting a nine card post, theme TBD. That sounded easy enough to complete and a post of cards I've scanned/blogged of players who wore the number 9 popped to mind. I haven't gone through the other entries so it's highly possible that this isn't the only such entry but so be it.

Anyway...here they are. (I wanted to hit the Big Four sports but a basketball entry eluded me. Outside of Bob Pettit (look him up, kids) I can't even think of a hoopster who wore that number much less find a scan of a card of one so I went with the other sports.) These are in no particular order other than this is how I came across them.

Roger Maris came to mind quickly and I was going to use the card from Topps' 1961 MVP subset but that scan was awful. I considered his 1959 card but he wore #3 with the Athletics so I went with my third choice. The 1960 All-Star cards have grown on me since I built the set.


In my mind the #9 in baseball means Ted Williams. His '58 All-Star card is likely the first career-era Teddy Ballgame card I owned as an adult collector.


Here is a Dexter Press postcard of my favorite #9 Orioles player, Don Buford. He was an underrated member of the great Orioles teams of 1969-71. These DP postcards (anything by Dexter Press actually) are things of beauty.


Reggie Jackson wore #9 in his brief Orioles stint. Here he is, my least favorite Oriole wearing their worst uni combo on a modern Topps card.


Moving on to football we find "Two Minute" Tommy Kramer, the pride of San Antonio, Texas. He was my first 'stud' fantasy football player.


Jim McMahon on a Pro Set wearing a Chargers uniform. This looks wrong.


I'm a huge fan of Philly Gum football cards. This is the 1967 Sonny Jurgensen.  If you don't know much about him you could do worse than spend some time checking out this NFL Films feature. He was a great one.


And now on to hockey for a pair of cards.

Adam Graves has his #9 in the Madison Square Garden rafters. We are currently working on plans for a fall trip to the East Coast and at least one Rangers game in on the agenda. I can't wait.


And finally Mr. Hockey. Nowadays you can't read a sports-related article in print or online without some clown throwing the 'G.O.A.T.' label on somebody. Just know this.....if someone uses it in reference to Gordie they are correct.



So there are my nine cards, all of players who wore that number. Congrats to Daniel on his milestone. Nine years of blogging is something to celebrate for sure.

And what better way to wrap up this contest entry than with my favorite John Lennon song. The same song that inspired the title of this post.










Saturday, November 25, 2017

Things I've been doing...



...instead of posting blog entries:

1) Breaking in my work replacement coach. I'm closing that door on December 20.
2) Trying to make heads or tails out of Medicare/health insurance options. This is all complicated by the fact that my current insurance changes on December 1 and then I change insurance on Jan 1. So within a span of 32 days I'm under three different plans.
3) Working on my 1964 Philadelphia Gum set. I'm now down to eight cards, see the sidebar.
4) Opening envelopes. I'm behind on acknowledging a few big fat gifts from fellow bloggers. That will be rectified asap.
5) Hitting the hotel card show. That's where the '62 Roger Maris and Art Ditmar Post Cereal cards are from. Dirt cheap, well loved and perfect for my shoe box full of these things.
6) Tearing my hair out dealing with scanners. I bought a dedicated flatbed Canon scanner which I couldn't get to cooperate with me. Returned it for an Epson. Still struggling with settings. Sad.
7) Kicking back in New Orleans for football and fun. Ate far too many oysters, muffulettas and beignets. And consumed too much Abita. I think I'm coming around to N'awlins.
8) Helping my wife plan a graduation party for my future daughter-in-law. I didn't volunteer for this.
9) Putting my TCMA sets in pages. Helpful tip...when large complete card sets come to you in numerical order, don't jack with them on a cheap card table that could shift.
10) Holiday shopping. Easy this year. I only need to grab Astros championship gear for family members.

So there you have it. My list of excuses for going two weeks between entries.

BTW...I love that Maris card. Pretty neat how it documents his historic 1961 season. I very casually collect Maris and Ditmar. And I mean very casually...as in I'll pull them when going thru dealer boxes and then decide if I like the card enough to buy it.



The Ditmar states that he didn't allow a run in the 1960 Series. Here is a screen grab from his BR page. He was wrecked by the Pirates in the 1960 Series. He lost two games and had an ERA of over 21. What am I missing?


Sunday, October 8, 2017

TCMA The 60s Set Series II (Pt 1)

The weird and wonderful TCMA Stars of the 50s and 60s sets ended with the 1981 issue of a Series II for the 60's set. It picked up the numbering at #294 with nine minor league players (including a Sparky Anderson card) and ran through #482.

The 'Big Leaguers' begin with this Maris/Mantle beauty at #303.


There is no card numbered #319 but there were two #399s so the speculation is that one of those was mis-numbered. Makes sense. Here are the two cards involved:


The numbers on the backs are tough to read. Be forewarned of that if you have to sort these. LOL My 64 year old eyes were not happy!


Here is a better look. 


The 'set' I bought was minus the minor league cards. The eBay listing only mentioned that there were nine cards missing without further explanation. When it arrived and I saw what I needed I was afraid that the minor leaguers would be some sort of scarce short prints that would cost me dearly. Turns out only the Sparky Anderson card carried a premium. The rest were available for under a buck for the most part. A quick trip to COMC and SportsLots garnered me the nine I was lacking and that was that. 

The first of the minor leaguers that arrived at my door (the only ones so far) are these two guys from the Buffalo Bison, a Mets farm club in the 60s. Scanning them I noticed that the backs are printed upside down. Just another bit of quirkiness. 

This is infielder Cliff Cook. He played in parts of five seasons for the Reds and Mets.


Craig Anderson was an original Met who was picked up from the Cardinals in the expansion draft. He pitched in 50 games in 1962 for New York. He worked mainly out of the bullpen but did make 14 starts. Here's a weird fact. Out of the bullpen Anderson won both ends of a doubleheader against the Braves on May 12. He had won another game as a reliever six days earlier over the Phils. Those three wins in the span of less than a week were his only wins of the season. He lost 17 others as well as recording 6 blown saves.


The rest of the set is chocked full of the same type of goodies that the previous TCMA sets contained. There are however more action and multi-player cards then were seen in Series I of the 60s set. 

The multi-players cards come with one caveat, two actually. All except one feature photos of either the Yankees or Mets.

Fairly easy to name the players without looking at the back. Here is the outfield that the 1969 Series made famous... Jones, Agee and Swoboda. Bleep 'em all.


This next one is id'd as being from spring training of 1962. It features the Bombers from the 1961 team: Maris, Berra, Mantle, Howard, Skowron and Blanchard.


And they were not all 'players'. We get the photos of the two NY clubs that include the staffs. This Met's pic is actually a Dodgers reunion shot with Casey, Gil Hodges, Charlie Neal, etc. All of whom were one time Brooklyn Bums.


The Yankees coaching staff smiled for the camera. Well some of them did.


And the guys on these cards were not all star players either. Look kids, it's Ron Taylor and Don Shaw!


The oddball of the group is this one of the Cardinals brain trust. 


I'm a bit disappointed that the back makes no mention of what appears to be a t-shirt cannon prototype but is undoubtedly a ball launcher.


Also sneaking into the mix are some actual game action cards. 


This one of Roger Maris greeted at home plate has game details on the reverse. Here is an expanded view for easier reading. Does this remind anyone of a current phenomenon? Let's label this one as a TCMA Now card.  And note the pencil check marks. Some of the cards with more than one person shown have these marks. My guess is that someone tried to guess who was pictured and was checking their work.


Here's another TCMA Now card...Gil Hodges and Ed Vargo...


...with the action annotated...



Most of the 'in action' cards were simply regular cards without the gory details. The Hammer got an action photo as a regular card in the set....



As did Steve Whitaker....



Ditto for Cardinal Ray Washburn. He once told my then 9 and 11 year old younger brothers to "Go to hell!" as he jogged on the warning track pregame in the Astrodome. All they had done was call his name asking for an autograph. If I hadn't been there to witness it I wouldn't have believed it. He was an ass but he knew how to wear a uni. Nice stirrups.

And there are others which seem to be cards taken during spring practice or game warm-ups as well as a few that are hard to classify...


The Yankees' Stan Bahnsen

Senator pitcher Barry Moore. He was one of those 'his card was in every damn pack!' guys in the late 60s.


The Astros' Hector Torres got a spring training photo on his card. Torres couldn't hit a lick (career .216 average) but he used his fielding skills to carve out a nine year career in the majors. He's a baseball lifer and his current job is the hitting(!) coach of the Bowling Green Hot Rods. They are the Class 'A' Tampa farm club.



Casey Stengel got his own card. There are quite a few managers and coaches in this series. Below is Danny Murtaugh enjoying spring training life.


and Ed Lopat in the gold and green.


I have a lot more interesting cards scanned but I'll save those for the next installment. I'll end this one with one of my favorites in the set. 

This shot of Ted Savage would look perfectly at home on a 1957 Topps card wouldn't it? Great posed photo in front of an empty Polo Grounds third base grandstand.