Finished my 1972 Topps set

When I was young, I dreamed of collecting a vintage set, the 1979 Topps set.  It was hard to find a bunch of old cards then so I only got about 10% through.  When I resumed collecting a couple years ago, instead of making good on that progress, I just bought a complete 1979 Topps set for not too much money.  I did pursue the dream, though, by starting a 1972 Topps set.  And now I'm done.  I don't have every single card with me, though, because a bunch are in my COMC order.  I put in to have it shipped back in July, and in the current environment, they say that means that I'll get it in mid-October.  But, I do own them all, even if I can't hold them all in my hands right now.  For now the ones I have with me are in a couple of boxes.  I think eventually I'll get them situated into a new binder.

Pat Corrales In Action.

Pat Corrales In Action card back: Tom Seaver.

The last of the high numbers are these five, which came to me via eBay.  They're a good bunch to show to illustrate this post about completing the set.  I have a clear early memory of Pat Corrales from the 1983 Topps set as the Phillies manager.  I knew the Phillies won the pennant in 1983 and assumed that it was with Corrales.  But he had been fired at some point, and Paul "the Pope" Owens took them to the World Series instead.  Wikipedia tells me that Corrales is the only manager to ever be fired in first place, although the Phils' record at the time was only 43-42.

One of the reasons I've decided to put the set in a binder is to be able to see the puzzle backs of the in-action cards.  I think it was Greg from The Collective Mind (if not, sorry) who said that while you use 9-card pages for most of the set, a good way to see the puzzle cards is sideways in 8-card sheets, so that the puzzle is assembled.  This bit of Tom Seaver seen here can serve as a sort of tribute to the recently departed as I don't especially have interesting cards of him to make into a post of their own.

Bobby Murcer.

Donn Clendenon.

This Bobby Murcer is card 699, putting his in-action card in the honor position of number 700.  That strikes me as a little odd because it would seem like he was a big deal, but I've actually barely heard of him.  Wikipedia tells me that he was touted as "the next Mickey Mantle" back in the day.  He had a decent enough career, being a five-time All-Star, but all that ended a bit before my time, and like I said, growing up in the 80s I never heard much about him.  Then we have Donn Clendenon, who is more familiar to me because he was a longtime Pirate.  He missed out on the Pirate championships in 1960 and 1971 since his years with the team were 1961-1968, but he was part of the Miracle Mets in 1969.

Jose Pagan In Action.

Jim Kaat.

Then we have Bucco Jose Pagan (In Action), and Jim Kaat.  I wouldn't have been surprised if Kaat were in the Hall of Fame, but instead he's someone that people can write articles about, debating whether he should be in the Hall of Fame.  He had a long career spanning from the late 50s to the 80s, and he makes an appearance in my binder with a very beat up 1978 Topps card with the Phillies.  Part of why I picked the 1972 set as the new object of my dream of collecting a vintage set was to commemorate the Pirates winning the 1971 World Series.  Jose Pagan drove in the deciding run in Game 7, so he's a perfect card to feature here at the end.

So that's a complete set in the books.  That leaves me working on my 1955 Bowman set; I have 250/320 cards for that, so only 70 to go.  I don't expect to pick up another vintage set project -- I've toyed with the idea of 1959 Topps or 1967 Topps, but I think they'd be too hard to finish out.  Maybe I'll reconsider one day.  In any case, thanks for reading!

Update: Just after posting, I looked at other recent blog posts and saw that Night Owl had written two days before about the 1972 Topps Set club.  Total coincidence.

Book Post: Electric October

The book Electric October came out in 2017, and I think I've seen at least a couple of cardblog posts about it.  A friend gifted me a copy for my birthday either last year or maybe the year before, and in our lockdown (or maybe a bit after lockdown was relaxed) I found the time to read it.  The book focuses on 6 lives, at it says.  What it calls the most exciting World Series, that of 1947, came down to some key moments from some less famous, or not famous at all, baseball folks.

1940 Play Ball Bucky Harris.

Bucky Harris card back.

It's hard to make the case that the 6 lives are all people who otherwise wouldn't be known for much, as the book tries to make out, since one of them is a Hall-of-Famer.  Bucky Harris certainly isn't the most famous Hall-of-Famer, but still people may well have heard of him.  He won the World Series twice as manager, bringing the Washington Senators their first title in 1924, and then winning the 1947 series with the Yankees.  His Senators also lost the World Series to the Pirates in 1925.  I mentioned the other day when I showed my 1940 Play Ball Hans Lobert card that I would be showing another from that set soon, and here it is.  This is my third card from the set with one more (Carl Hubbell) on the way.  I'm tempted to get more as I think it's a beautiful set, but it's surely an extremely foolish endeavor to think about getting all of them.  I might stop at the four I have.

The Wiz Snuffy Stirnweiss.

The Wiz Snuffy Stirnweiss card back.

Another of the main players was 1945 AL batting champ Snuffy Stirnweiss.  According to the book, Stirnweiss had a chip on his shoulder about having won the batting title when many players were doing military service.  I chose to represent him with this The Wiz Yankees of the 50s card; I have a couple other of these Wiz cards, both of John Candelaria (for his time with the Mets and with the Yankees in the 80s).  Stirnweiss died in a tragic train accident in the late 50s.

1970 Fleer Laughlin World Series Al Gionfriddo.

Fleer Laughlin card back.

Another of the players was "little guy" Al Gionfriddo of the Dodgers.  He is best known for a catch which may have robbed Joe DiMaggio of a home run in the World Series.  Gionfriddo never played in the majors again after that World Series.  This is my first Laughlin card, although I do have some later Fleer Laughlin sticker backs (I guess they can be considered cards, but to me they're stickers); it's a welcome addition to my collection.

1960 Topps Cookie Lavagetto.

Cookie Lavagetto card back.

Another of the prominent figures in the story of the 1947 World Series is Brooklyn player Cookie Lavagetto.  Part of the story of the book is how some players are welcome to stay around after their playing days are over while others aren't.  Lavagetto was a popular guy and went on to be a big-league manager, shown here with the Senators.

Of the six main characters of the book, I haven't mentioned Yankees pitcher Bill Bevens yet.  I didn't find any cards I liked of him (some of the cards had his name misspelled, which I don't like).  Bevens is shown as a contrast to Lavagetto in that he would have liked to keep working in baseball but was never offered anything after that 1947 World Series.  The final character is Dodgers manager Burt Shotton.  I bought a card of him from the Target All-Time Dodgers set, but it's in my COMC shipment that won't be arriving until at least October.  I'm happy to get the Target Dodgers represented in my collection.

Overall, while I enjoyed the book I also don't especially recommend it.  It's quite well-written and the author makes a good narrative crafted around Harris, Shotton, Lavagetto, Gionfriddo, Stirnweiss, and Bevens, but in the end it's just a story of a World Series between two teams that I don't especially care for.  The later Dodger championship teams would be of much more interest to me, and some Yankee losses might be more up my alley.  But a story about the Yankees winning yet another World Series can only be made so compelling to me.

Thanks for reading!  I'm really on a roll, having made three posts in three days after 4+ months off from blogging.

A few Seattle Pilots

One thing I've done in the past couple of years is that I've gotten some bygone teams into my collection.  I've posted before about buying a few Philadelphia Athletics and a few Colt .45s cards.  Today we have a couple Seattle Pilots.

Pacific Legends Diego Segui.

I didn't think that I had any Seattle Pilots in my original collection (when I was collecting up until 1994), but it turns out that was wrong.  I didn't have any from when the Pilots were actually playing, but I did have this Pacific Legends card of Diego Segui.  I find the Pacific Legends checklist a bit mystifying, with then-current players like Tony Fernandez included, and here Diego Segui, as well as any number of Hall-of-Famers and multi-All-Stars.  Segui does have one notable achievement in being the 1970 AL ERA leader.  Otherwise he had a 92-111 record with a 3.81 ERA from 1962 through 1977.  A decent and long career, but I don't know that I'd call him a legend.

1969 Topps Tommy Davis.

 The Segui card is stored with most of my other Pacific Legends.  Then I bought (a while ago now, but am just blogging about it) a couple of more interesting Seattle Pilots cards.  This Tommy Davis will go in my main binder alongside other cards representing bygone teams.  Davis is the kind of player I love, with a long career with many accomplishments but not necessarily so famous, and not Cooperstown-level.  A good guy to go in the binder for the Pilots.

Kellogg's Tommy Harper.

 Then I got this Tommy Harper to go with an expanded selection of Kellogg's cards I picked up.  I mentioned before I would be showing a bunch of these Kellogg's cards but then I took a blogging hiatus instead.  In any case it's good to have the Pilots represented there.  I did show another Tommy Harper card with the Pilots some time ago, when I picked up a few old Topps Supers:

1970 Topps Super Tommy Harper.

I don't have much more to say about these.  I have just about all the reasonably modern teams in my binder with at least one card.  I say "just about all" because there is a St. Louis Browns card in my COMC shipment that will go in the binder once it arrives, which they tell me will be in October.

That's all for now.  I'll continue to try to catch up on some of my planned posts.  Thanks for reading!

More on the 1987 World Series: Gwynn, Molitor, Palmer, and McCarver?

I hope everyone is staying well.  My family is all doing ok so far, and we're quite thankful for that.  I've lost some momentum as to what I posted about last time, which is making my way through the 1987 World Series on YouTube.  I'm towards the end of Game 4 right now, but haven't watched any for a couple of days.  I guess it's more interesting for me when the Twins are winning, so I'll have to slog through the rest of Game 4 and then Game 5 before I get the part I like.
Anyway, I thought I'd show a few cards of guys who are showing up in the series.  You might think it's odd that I've got Tony Gwynn and Paul Molitor here, then.  But they're a noticeable part of the broadcast.  Every time there's a new pitcher, the network puts on Gwynn (if it's a Cardinal) or Molitor (if it's a Twin, since the Brewers were in the AL back then) to give their views of the pitcher's style, strengths, and weaknesses.  Of course they were both great hitters, but they also did a great job of the task at hand.
Then we have two retired players, who were two of the three broadcasters for ABC, joined by Al Michaels.  They had a chat at one point about pitchers that use personal catchers, which is something McCarver knows about first-hand, being at one time Steve Carlton's personal catcher.
Speaking of Carlton, he's someone you don't see in the World Series, although he was there.  Carlton was a shadow of his former self at that point but still in the majors, and was on the Twins roster.  The story is that he made the trip to the White House with the Twins but was identified in a photo as a Secret Service agent. 
And, I'll throw in this card of Carlton and Palmer, together with Dave Goltz (a Twin, which seems appropriate for this post) and longtime Royal Dennis Leonard.  Carlton led the NL with 23 wins, then Tom Seaver was second in the majors with 21.  Four NL pitchers, John Candelaria, Bob Forsch, Tommy John, and Rick Reuschel, tied the three AL leaders with 20 wins each.

That's it for this post -- thanks for reading!  Best wishes to you all and your families to stay safe and healthy.

Closing in on my 1972 Topps set

Only nine cards left!  I am currently at 778 cards out of 787 for my 1972 Topps set; the remaining nine cards are all high numbers, naturally.  I won't list out the ones I need here because I don't want anyone sending me any cards -- I want to finish on my own.

Steve Garvey.

Jim Kaat In Action.

This feels really great; I always wanted to collect a vintage set.  Back circa 1990 I was working on a 1979 set and didn't get far.  With everyone focused on buying and selling the junk cards of the day and it being pre-internet, it was harder to come across large quantities of older cards.  So now it's easier, and I've done it (almost!).  While I'm sure it's easier, it's still taken me more than two years.

I was at about 40 cards needed recently, and then got to this point by putting some money into both COMC and eBay on Black Friday.  These two cards, Steve Garvey and an In Action card of Jim Kaat, arrived in the mail from an eBay seller yesterday.  I don't have definite plans as to when to knock out the last 9 cards, but I think I'll probably do it in January or February.

Thanks for reading!

Coming attractions: I love the 70's

About a week and a half ago, I made a short post saying that I would be posting a bunch of Sportflics soon.  And having posted that helps me to remember to work through the Sportflics I wanted to post, which I have now started.  In that same spirit, here's a brief post about a bunch of 70's awesomeness that I'll be posting soon.

John Candelaria.

Willie Stargell.

Pete Rose t-shirt offer.

I've said that I'm winding down my collecting, and that remains true.  I'm down to fewer than 40 cards for my 1972 Topps set, and then I don't plan to get much more than the 1955 Bowman set that I'm working on.  But earlier this year I splurged on a box of 70's goodness from COMC, buying more than 100 various Hostess and Kellogg's cards and MSA discs.  Technically a few of the Kellogg's cards are from the 80's, but still.  Pictured above are the only unpunched Pepsi discs that I bought, featuring two important Buccos of the 70's, John Candelaria and Willie Stargell.  In a dozen or so posts coming up, I plan to show all of this great stuff.

I've actually already been posting some other 70's stuff I got as part of the effort, but which are not Kellogg's, Hostess, or MSA.  The items and posts which you could say were surreptitiously part of this series are: 13 1977 Topps cards,  11 1977 Topps cards, some 1977 Padres schedule cards, the 1978 Topps Phillies team set, cards of Danny Murtaugh, Bob Boone, Hank Aaron, and Reggie Smith, and a 1976 Topps Dick Allen card.  Of course there's other 70's stuff that I post, but I don't think it was all consciously in this vein.

Thanks for reading!

13 more 1977 Topps pickups

I posted once before that I was considering getting a 1977 Topps set, but decided against it.  But when I was browsing eBay for such things, I saw a bunch of the cards in the binder, mainly of minor stars, and thought they looked great.  So I decided to pick up a bunch of the cards, mainly of minor stars, or at least players that I have a mild interest in.  That previous post showed the first round of this effort.  Here are 13 more; some of these are for my main binder and some will go in a box.  There will be a handful more which are still to arrive.

Bake McBride.

Greg Luzinski.

These two guys were 2/3 of the starting outfield in the 1980 Phillies.  McBride was a former Rookie of the Year with the Cardinals, and was injury-prone but did well with the Phillies for a few years.  Luzinski was the Phils' number two slugger behind Mike Schmidt, although Luzinski did even lead the majors in RBI in 1975 and had more RBI than Schmidt for several years.

Rich Gossage.

Davey Lopes.

I said these are mostly minor stars; Gossage, of course, was a premier reliever and made the Hall of Fame.  Lopes feels to me also a bit more notable than most of the players here.  My first memory of Lopes was his 1987 Topps record breaker cards, for bases stolen at the age of 40.

Tommy Harper.

Alex Johnson.

Tommy Harper was a member of the Seattle Pilots, and was a two-time stolen base champ.  He's in the Red Sox Hall of Fame, despite only playing three seasons with them.  Alex Johnson was the 1970 AL batting champion.  He had some trouble in California, involving run-ins with teammates and management, multiple fines, and grievances filed by the players' union.  Johnson and Harper were actually almost traded for each other, but for those problems.

Willie Davis.

Jerry Mumphrey.

Willie Davis was near the end of his career here; after 1976 with the Padres, he played a bit in Japan, and then finished out his career in 1979 with the Angels.  Davis was part of the 1963 and 1965 Dodgers championship teams, and was a two-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner with them.  For some reason I have Jerry Mumphrey's 1980 Topps card burned into my memory; here he is a couple of years earlier.  Mumphrey played with the Cardinals, Padres, Yankees, Astros, and Cubs from 1974 through 1988, making the 1984 NL All-Star team with the Astros.

Jerry Royster.

Lee Lacy.

Jerry Royster played with the Dodgers, Braves, Padres, White Sox, Yankees, and Braves again from 1973 through 1988.  He appeared in the top 10 of several categories (runs, triples, stolen bases) in the late 70s.  Lee Lacy was on the Pirates' 1979 championship team.  He set a record with the Dodgers by hitting home runs in three consecutive pinch hit appearances; Del Unser later tied the record and got a record breaker card in the 1980 Topps set.

George Hendrick.

Garry Templeton.

I've posted about George Hendrick a number of times, and what I always say is that I don't think I ever noticed him until Night Owl's excellent post about him.  Hendrick was a four-time All-Star, a two-time World Series champ, and a two-time Silver Slugger winner.  Like Jerry Royster, Garry Templeton here is sporting the Topps All-Star Rookie trophy.  Templeton was a three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger winner, and is in the Padres Hall of Fame.

Maury Wills.

Finally, as in the 1987 set ten years later, we have a Turn Back the Clock card to when Maury Wills stole 104 bases in 1962.  Unlike the 1987 version, they didn't attempt to show an old card, so they didn't have to mock up a Topps Maury Wills card.

Like I said, there are a few more 1977 cards coming, but I think I've got just about all the ones I'm interested in.  Thanks for reading!

Five from 1971 Topps

Some time ago, I posted four 1971 Topps that I picked up (Willie Mays, Curt Flood, Manny Sanguillen, and Steve Carlton).  That was just the first half of my effort to bolster my 1971 Topps cards in my binder.  Here we have the others, starting with Bobby Bonds.
I love the 1971 design including the card back (even if they had to give up all the lines of stats).  So I wanted a few more (I already had several from my original period of collecting in the 80s/90s), and the only question was who to get.  There are several spots in my collection now that when I wanted to pick up a few cards from a set, I picked Bobby Bonds: I posted the 1980 Burger King yesterday, and his 1977 Topps a while ago.  There's at least one more that I haven't posted yet.  I read an article about Barry Bonds once that described him as being born into baseball royalty -- I wouldn't describe Bobby Bonds as baseball royalty, but he's the kind of player I love, putting up solid numbers over a long time, even if he didn't end up at Hall of Fame levels.  
Then we have Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks.  I didn't manage to pick up any good cards of Ernie Banks in the 80s/90s; it looks like maybe I only had his Baseball Immortals and a Collect-a-Book.  It looks like I didn't post it but I did get a 1960 All-Star card of his, and now this 1971 Topps.  I did have a couple good Hank Aaron cards from back in the day, from towards the end of his career.  It's always good to have more of him, and this is slightly earlier than those others I had.
I posted a 1976 Topps Reggie Smith the other day that I said wasn't destined for my main binder.  The reason for that is that I have the 1971 Topps, showing him with the Red Sox, a team I associate him with more.  And I already had a bunch of Thurman Munson cards, but this 1971, with the great action shot and rookie trophy, is the best of his, I think.

Thanks for reading!