HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! (Social Distancing Version)

Tax day has been pushed back to at least July 15th this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.  However, that didn't stop my best client, my Mom, from paying for her tax services in advance and in full.  As has been the tradition in recent years, she took it upon herself to wipe out my Ten Most Wanted list from my sidebar as payment for preparing her tax returns.  The payment received does not come close to matching the value of the services rendered, but she insists on overpaying and I'm certainly not complaining.

These Most Wanted lists are getting more difficult to populate as I've slowly accumulated most of the Phillies cards from the Bowman and Topps sets of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.  The cards remaining on my want lists from those sets are mostly high priced cards I'll eventually track down one at a time.  Here's a look at the cards from my Mom and an update on where I stand with completing some landmark Phillies team sets.

1952 Topps #187 Bob Miller and #281 Tommy Brown - This might be it for a little while in terms of progress on my 1952 Topps Phillies team set.  The remaining cards I need are all from the high number series, meaning they're all somewhat pricey.  As of this writing, I need four more cards for a complete 1952 Topps Phillies team set.

1953 Topps #22 Howie Fox - This card completes the 9-card 1953 Topps Phillies team set for me.  I still have Johnny Lindell (#230) on my want list, as Lindell appears in the set with the Pirates but he played in 1953 with the Phillies.


1956 Topps #7 Ron Negray and #60 Mayo Smith - I always feel a little selfish adding second versions of these cards to my collection.  My Dad and I collected the entire 1956 Topps set together, and now I'm adding second copies of the Phillies cards from the set to my 1950s Phillies binder.  I'm four cards away from completing a Phillies team set (for the second time).  I'm pretty sure these Negray and Smith cards are in better shape than the cards in our actual 1956 Topps set.

1957 Topps #332 Bob Bowman - This completes my 27-card Phillies team set from the 1957 Topps set.  I've never been a big fan of the 1957 Topps set, but these cards look incredible together.

1966 Topps #595 Larry Jackson - With the addition of this card, I'm one card away from completing this Phillies team set as well.  I'm down to needing only the Roger Craig card (#543) which is one of the pricier Phillies cards from the 1966 Topps set.  (I tracked down the elusive Grant Jackson Rookie Stars card a few years ago.)

1967 Topps #244 N.L. Home Run Leaders - This might be my favorite card out of this lot.  Featuring two Hall of Famers with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, and someone who should be in the Hall of Fame - Dick Allen.  I still need to track down the high-number Rookie Stars card of Gary Sutherland to complete my 1967 Topps Phillies team set.

1970 Topps #539 Doyle/Bowa and #654 Oscar Gamble - These two cards close out my 1970 Topps Phillies team set.  Larry Bowa looks so young here.


Finally, I've scheduled this post to publish on my Mom's birthday.  I'm eternally grateful for her health, her humor, her good spirits and her constant encouragement.  I can't wait to celebrate properly when everything gets back to normal.  Happy birthday Mom!

Another Package from Alan: Searching for Freddie Andrews

A few weeks back, I featured the first Phillies baseball card for Larry File as fellow collector Alan had been kind enough to send me a care package of autographed Phillies photos, including the rare photo of File used for my card.  Since then, Alan has been busy putting together a second care package, with even more autographed Phillies photos along with cards from various 1960s Phillies picture packs and a hard to find 1967 Phillies Safe Driving Jim Bunning card.

It's a blast to get a package like this in the mail, and with a busy week at work I wanted to wait until the weekend to take the time and enjoy each item Alan sent.

There were 21 different cards from various 5 x 7 Phillies picture pack sets in the package, and an extra card signed by Ray Semproch.  Sorting through the cards, I realized I had complete sets of the 1961 Jay Publishing picture pack (12 cards) along with 9 of the 12 cards from the 1958 Jay Publishing set.  The autographed Semproch photo is from the 1959 set.  I've been slowly adding these picture pack Phillies issues from the '50s and '60s and it's probably time for me to put together a true want list of what I still need to track down.

There was also a few version of a cool photo of former Phillies manager Danny Ozark, both signed, and taken during an Old-Timers Game at some point in the late 1980s in Arlington.

But the few pieces that puzzled me were the signed photos of short-time former Phillie Freddie Andrews, apparently clipped from a magazine article.  Andrews appeared in 16 games for the 1976 and 1977 Phillies, and his sole Phillies baseball card can be found within the 1977 team-issued photo card set.  I wanted to figure out the source of these signed magazine pages sent by Alan.  I came up empty while searching the Sports Illustrated online archive, and I searched every possible combination of words and names found within the article on the back of the pages but I still couldn't identify the source.

I finally Googled this sentence from the article, "In the spring of '72 Freddie Andrews learned to hate the Continuous Motion Program," and I immediately got a hit for the March 1974 issue of Boys' Life magazine.  Andrews was featured on the cover of that issue, and I'd recommend reading the entire article which I've linked here.  The article is written by former big leauge pitcher Jim Brosnan and it recounts a spring day in March 1973 on a minor league field at the Carpenter Complex in Clearwater, Florida, along with Andrews' rise through the Phillies farm system.  The article is dotted with names every Phillies fan will recognize, including farm director Dallas Green, general manager Paul Owens, Reading Phillies manager Bunning and coaches Wally Moses and Ruben Amaro.

Alan sent two copies of page 9 of the magazine along with the cover photo from page 8, with all three pages signed by Andrews.  Andrews would spend the entire 1973 season with the Reading Phillies team, where he'd hit .227 over 110 games.  He'd bounce back with a successful 1974 season, earning him a promotion to Triple-A Toledo.  And while he wasn't with the Phillies for long, I'm happy to add these pieces to my 1970s Phillies binder.

Thanks again Alan for the great package!

1958 Philadelphia Phillies Picture Pack

My father-in-law is doing his best to keep busy during his retirement, and one of his many projects has been to diligently clean out closets, desks and other storage spaces around his house.  So far, I've been the beneficiary of some really cool baseball and Phillies finds as a result of his clean-ups, including the cards I'm displaying in this post.  At first, I wasn't sure what these were, but with a little research I've determined that this is the complete 1958 Jays Publishing Phillies team set.  There are 12 photos in total and they've been protected all these years in a brown envelope advertising "Twelve Phillies Photos" for just 25¢.  The photos are 5" x 7" with blank backs.

The Standard Catalog lumps all 681 versions of these photos, issued between 1958 and 1965, into one massive listing.  Beckett separates the photos by year and by team, and I found a great resource here with the Phillies checklists for each of the sets from 1958 through 1965.  The only thing that threw me off a little is that the images I found on the internet when doing a search for "Jays Publishing Phillies," contain the full team name, listed on the fronts of the photos as "Philadelphia Phillies."  These photos omit the city and just list the team name.  That being said, I'm still fairly confident these are the 1958 Jays Publishing Phillies photos.

(UPDATE (2/16/12):  Please see the first comment below from Matthew, a/k/a 14,000 Phillies, for the correct identification of this set.)

So many, many thanks to my father-in-law for adding these to my collection and here's hoping he continues to clean and find cool Phillies stuff!