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Sunday, August 2, 2009

Mini Mall pt.6 - The '70s

All righty then. Other than the yootoob pack rip videos I may never get around to, this is the very last Mini Mall flea market binge post. I got a lot of traction out of twenty bucks! I saved the best for last, the vintage pickups. I've always got to pick up some cheep vintage stuff when I can. There's usually a box of older stuff when I go to the flea market and that day was no exception. Fifteen cents each or 8 for a buck. I got three stacks of eight cards for three folding Washingtons. You've seen the O-Pee-Chees, here are the Topps cards I picked up:

1970 Topps #75 Jim Kaat

283 wins, a .544 winning percentage, a 3.45 lifetime ERA, 2461 strikeouts, SIXTEEN STRAIGHT Gold Gloves, a World Series Championship and a lingtime broadcaster. Can we please give up this 300 win threshold nonsense and put him in the Hall already??

1971 Topps #177 Hal McRae

Forget the rant, Hal was a damn good player for nineteen years and has stuck around baseball as a manager and coach. HAl is most associated with the Royals, but here's an early card of him with the Reds.

1971 Topps #202 Reds Celebrate

WOOOOO! Reds go to the World Series! Ok so they got beat, their time would come.

1972 Topps #505 Mike Marshall

To me, Cy Young winner Marshall will always be the egghead pitcher in Ball Four who is always experimenting with his pitching strategy. Dr. Mike's mad scientist approach to pitching continues on in his revolutionary pitching technique that supposedly prevents injuries. I saw him demonstrate it on the MLB network several months ago and it looks pretty neat. Maybe some team will actually try it out one of these days...

1973 Topps #35 1972 ERA Leaders

WHAT THE HECK IS LEFTY DOING IN THE CHEAPO BOX.
If only Tiant had been sporting his trade mark Fu Manchu, this card would be worth a million dollars. THAT'S RIGHT, ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

1973 Topps #115 Ron Santo

Another guy who has been locked out of the Hall for no damn good reason. Maybe the Veteran's Committee will get it right this year. And maybe tiny winged versions of Joe Morgan and Tim McCarver will fly out of my butt and call a nationally televised baseball game in a lucid, intelligent and enjoyable fashion.

1975 Topps #255 Dwight Evans

One of these days Santo and Kaat will get into the Hall and I won't be able to bitch about how stupid the voters are for leaving them out anymore. That's when I can start bitching about Dewey being left out. PUT HIM IN ALREADY YA DAMN FASCISTS

1975 Topps #311 1874 ERA Leaders

Catfish and... Buzz Capra?? Sad thing is Buzz beat out Phil Niekro by only .10 for the ERA title. That title might have helped Knucksie in his Cy Young race with the afore mentioned Dr. Marshall.

1975 Topps #466 1974 World Series Final

TEH A'S DOOD IT!
Sadly, they wouldn't did it no more...
Well, not for another 15 years at least.

1975 Topps #618 1975 Rookie Pitchers

RICK RHODEN ROOKIE CARD WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Ok, I bought it for Easterly. I'm a hopeless Braves homer.

1977 Topps #95 Keith Hernandez

Keith is always rocking the exquisite 'stash, but here he is also showing off the most excellent '70s hair. Oddly this card has a weird blue tint to it. Look carefully at the border.

1978 Topps #2 Sparky Lyle

PURE RELIEF. That's what Sparky is. Just like finally getting to the front of the line to the urinal at the Bon Jovi concert after drinking those 5 pitchers of Pabst.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH RELIEEEEEEEEF
That's Sparky.

1978 Topps #412 NL Championships

WOOOOOOOOOOOO Dodgers beat the Phillies! I don't know who that batter is! Night Owl will tell me, this is a night card! Philles fans don't care because they won it all last year! Man I like going WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

1978 Topps George Foster

Last but not least. This card has his 1977 MVP season stats on the back with the 52 home run line. Remember when 50 home runs was a TON of 'em? Me neither, because everyone got juiced up in the 90's and hit homers like crazy and MLB and the union looked the other way and now they're all playing it off like it was the other guy's fault when in actuality it was a complete failure of the underlying system! So, how to fix this travesty?

PUT FOSTER IN THE HALL YOU BIG DUMMIES!

Along with Kaat and Santo and Blyleven and Murphy and Dawson and Minoso and O'Neil and Dewey and Hodges and Baines and John and Rosen and Reynolds and Tiant and Hernandez and McRae and Marshall and Lyle and Belle and Rhoden and Capra...

7 comments:

Matt Runyon said...

Nice haul for $3.

bailorg said...

I believe the batter in the 1978 NLCS card is Davey Lopes.

night owl said...

The batter in the '78 card is indeed Lopes. In fact, it's a photo of the first play of the game, Lopes grounding out to second base. It was, indeed, a night card selection. I'd link it, but I'm lazy on a Sunday morning.

Nice cards!

The Baseball Card Snob said...

I'm going to agree with bailorg.

An aside, I have a really nice silk cachet envelope set commemorating the 78 world series. I need Lopes auto to complete the set. All but one of the other 5 are signed (Munson, may he RIP).

Anyway Lopes was scheduled to be in Valley Forge PA at a show about 4 years ago. I drove 3 hours to get there, and he didn't show. He's on my sh*t list until I can get that auto.

Offy said...

I'm hugely biased when it comes to Dewey because he's my all-time favorite Sox player, but in my opinion if a player of that caliber doesn't make it into the Hall of Fame then what's the point.

He didn't have huge numbers, but back when Topps used to include Game Winning RBIs on the backs of cards, he always had a ton and he was the guy you wanted to see at the plate with the game on the line. His catch will always be my favorite moment of the '75 Series. He mastered the toughest right field in baseball and had a cannon for an arm. I'll always remember an All-Star game where Dewey threw a frozen rope to hold Ozzie Smith on third and all Ozzie could so was turn and tip his hat.

With Manny gone, I'm hoping that the Sox set things in motion to retire #24 next season. He's a class act and the way that he played embodies everything that's right about baseball.

/gush

David said...

It says the Reds are celebrating on the card but the celebrations seems quite lame and tepid. I'm sure they partied harder in the clubhouse.

gcrl said...

late to the party, but it is lopes.

i have often wondered if that bat boy on the a's ws card is mc hammer.

please hammer, don't hurt em!