More '64 Topps Beauties

While looking through my 1964 Topps cards for the Harvey Haddix card to post to Flikr, I found these gems. I really need to go through this set every so often to remind me what a truly wonderful set it is.

#143 Bubba Phillips
This card has so much of what is great about old Topps cards. The ubiquitous Yankee Stadium background. The airbrushed batting helmet. The wad of tobacco big enough to choke a mule. The journeyman utility player staring down the end of his career and smiling in defiance. Plus the dude's name is Bubba. Bubba Bubba Bubba Bubba!

#341 Jim Roland
Whoa. Like, um, hey. Whooooa. Oh well, what the heck, it's the 60's. You have to expect these things from lefty relievers.
I was so certain I had unconsciously stolen this line from The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book I had to pull out my copy to make sure. Amazingly, Jim's not in there. Of course the "Bubba Bubba Bubba" thing is swiped from there, but I consciously stole that.

#353 Wally Moon
Wally Moon's unibrow beat out both Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks for the Rookie of the Year award in 1954. 10 years later, the skills have diminished, but the eyebrows flourish. Wally is featured prominently in the lyrics to Rockin' Ritchie Ray's Baseball Card Lover song. This however is not a good thing, as Rockin' Richie is apparently trying to get in bed with either the real or cardboard version of Wally. I'm not sure which option is more horrifying.

#430 Juan Pizarro
Thanks to Sealab 2021, I can no longer look at a card of Juan Pizzaro without hearing Turtleface screaming "Pizzaro! I love you, Pizarro!"Juan's got more chaw squirreled away in his cheek than Bubba, if that's even possible.

#448 Cookie Rojas
True story: during one of Cookie's first spring training games for Philadelphia, his hat and glove turned sentient and ganged up on the young infielder. If not for his quick thinking and an act of selfless bravery by his glasses, he would have surely been eaten and the world would have been deprived of the five time all star, manager and broadcaster.

#488 Yankees Rookie Stars
Speaking of Turtleface, poor Pete Mikkelsen was an effective relief pitcher in the late 60's and early 70's who threw a forkball. Unfortunately one of those forkballs was deposited in the bleachers by Tim McCarver to win game 5 of the '64 World Series. Every time you see a smug McCarver watch yet another replay of the homer during a Fox broadcast, remember Pete paid for this sin with one of the most ridiculous looking rookie cards ever.