BLACK FRIDAY COMC PICKUPS - PART 43: TEAM SET GET

WE'RE NOT DONE WITH TEAM SET BUILDING YET. I AM AT THAT POINT IN MY COLLECTING JOURNEY WHERE MOST OF THE CARDS LEFT FOR VINTAGE TEAM SETS ARE HALL OF FAMERS, HIGH NUMBERS, AND HALL OF FAMER HIGH NUMBERS. SINCE I BLEW MY BUDGET ON THE LAST CARD I HAD TO LOOK HARD TO FIND A SUPER CHEAP CARD TO KNOCK OUT A LINE ON MY WANTLIST. THANK GOODNESS FOR CARDS IN POOR CONDITION

1965 TOPPS FRANK BOLLING

ANOTHER FIFTY CENT PICKUP ADDS A CARD TO MY 1965 TEAM SET. THERE AREN'T MANY EASY PICKUPS ANYMORE FOR MY VINTAGE TEAM SET COLLECTION. AT THE TIME OF THIS PURCHASE I NEEDED TWENTY-FOUR CARDS TO COMPLETE MY 60S TOPPS TEAM SET RUN AND SEVEN ARE HANKS AND TWELVE ARE HIGH NUMBER CARDS. FRANK HERE WAS BY FAR THE CHEAPEST OPTION I FOUND. AND MAYBE THE CHEAPEST ONE I'LL EVER FIND AGAIN. THE THREE CARDS I STILL NEED FOR THE 60S SETS I'M MOST LIKELY TO FIND A BARGAIN ON ARE:

1961 BOB "HAWK" TAYLOR - THIS IS A WEIRD ONE, IT'S NOT A ROOKIE CARD BUT IT HAS A ROOKIE STAR LOGO ON IT SO IT DOESN'T GET ADDED TO CHEAPO BARGAIN BINS MUCH

1963 DENNIS MENKE - A SECOND YEAR CARD FOR DENNIS AND HIS FIRST SOLO CARD BUT, I MEAN, IT'S DENNIS MENKE. I WON'T FIND ONE FOR FIFTY CENTS BUT I CAN SURELY FIND A CHEAP ONE

1963 DEL CRANDALL - DEL'S AN ALL STAR AND HAS AN ARGUMENT FOR BEING THE BEST CATCHER IN FRANCHISE HISTORY BUT DOESN'T COMMAND STAR PRICES. THIS CARD IS FROM THE SEMI-HIGH SIXTH SERIES THAT IS ACTUALLY SCARCER THAN THE HIGH NUMBERS BUT PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT FACT

ALL THE REST ARE AARON, ROOKIES, HIGH NUMBERS OR HIGH NUMBER ROOKIES 😭

OH, AND BILLY MARTIN. ONE OF THESE DAYS I JUST NEED TO BITE THE BULLET AND THROW A FEW BUCKS AT THAT CARD

FRANK CAME TO MILWAUKEE THROUGH A TRADE FOR BILL BRUTON AND WAS AN ALL-STAR IN 1961 AND 1962. HIS BROTHER MILT WAS A SHORTSTOP AND GOT TO PLAY A SEASON WITH HIS BROTHER WHEN HE WAS TRADED TO DETROIT IN 1958. FRANK HIT A GRAND SLAM OFF OF SANDY KOUFAX IN 1965 AND PLAYED ONE SEASON IN ATLANTA. THIS CARD IS BEAT ALL TO HELL BUT IT LOOKS MUCH BETTER IN THE BINDER THAN AN EMPTY POCKET. IF A NICER ONE COMES ALONG I'LL JUST SLIDE THIS ONE OVER TO THE 65 SET BINDER. WITH THIS CARD I'M DOWN TO ONLY NEEDING AN AARON CARD TO COMPLETE THE 1965 TEAM SET AND I ALREADY HAVE ONE OF THE MANY REPRINTS OF THAT ONE FILLING OUT THE PAGE. MY 1966 TEAM SET HAS A CHROME AARON IN IT AND IT LOOKS GREAT. I FEEL VERY FORTUNATE THAT I CAN FILL OUT SO MANY POCKETS IN THE BINDER THIS WAY, I'LL NEVER FIND A CHEAP REPLACEMENT FOR A 1967 CHI CHI OLIVO 

Quickie LCS post

I shoulda been in bed 15 minutes ago, I have to be up again in less than 6 hours and I'm gonna be busy pretty much all day tomorrow. May as well write a post! On Saturday I went to the Braves' Open House at Turner Field with my son. I took a ton of crappy pics with my cell phone that I'm trying to get organized so I can share them this week. Opening Day's almost here! Gotta get ready! But I am most certainly not ready, so here's a few cards I picked up at the card shop before we went to the Ted instead. Here are the cards in the order I found them:

Hank's last card as a Brave in well loved condition. I needed this for both my main and team sets so I'll pick these suckas up all the live long day. This one cost a buck. Remember all those lottery tickets you bought last week? You could have bought this for the price of one of them tickets.

I have made it very clear that I am All In on J-Hey whether he ends up being the second coming of Willie McCovey or Brad Komminsk Part Deux. Even if he flops completely my extensive Michael Vick collection is assurance that I will still look upon my Heyward cards with fondness no matter what happens. This means I will gladly overpay for weird incomprehensible parallels in sets I despise as long as it has Jason on the front. Can you tell what the heck parallel this is? You get a +1 on your Card Nerdiness stat if you know!

I didn't think to bring my card lists with me so I scrounged the '65 box was hoping to find some cheap cards that I might not have. This .45 cost .50 so I snagged it and hoped for the best. I already had it. Not a total loss though, it could be the start of a Colt collection.

After the '65s I muddled through the '66s just because. The '66 high numbers are a colossal pain in the rump for a team collector. I still have not found that goddamn Chi Chi Olivo card anywhere for under $30. What is the deal with Chi Chi Olivo??? While passing up yet another Chi Chi card, I stumbled upon this one here. I had no idea this was even in the set and it sure wasn't ever on my '66 needs list. Good 'ol Topps and their Multi-team rookie cards. They didn't even know what to put in the team banner on the top left corner and just left it blank. 1966 Topps is a pretty bootleg design to begin with and this card might be the bootleggiest. If it weren't for that Braves cap, I'd swear this was an unlicensed card.

Ya knew there'd be a pony. Ya had to know. I practically telegraphed it with the Colt card up above. Two reasons I bought this card: I thought I needed it for my Goodwin set (I didn't) and the purple highlights in Smarty's mane make him look like Twilight Sparkle's brother.

Ok last one for today. I will always pick up an original Star Wars sticker out of a 50 cents box. ALWAYS. Especially if it is an X-wing. I need another one of these stickers so I can stick this one to my car.

There was one other thing I picked up, but I'm gonna save that for a video. Nope, it's not a wax pack either. You'l just have to be patient.

1965 Topps Al Downing

Here's the last of the '65s mainly because it's the last card in the set.

Al is mostly known for giving up Hank Aaron's 715th home run today, but he was a pretty solid pitcher for the Yankees and Dodgers. Check out the strikeout line on his '64 stats below, those 217 strikeouts led the league. He would go on to be an All-star in 1967 and win 20 games for the Dodgers in 1971.

But I'm still having a major mental block writing about baseball cards so here's Big Al Downing (no relation) playing Mr. Jones live in 2004.



Aw yeah, this is real country right here.

1965 Topps More Twins Rookie Stars

Oh wait, this blog is about baseball cards, right? (and the occasional pony I guess). Guess I better post one, eh? Card, not pony.

Joe Nossek, Dick Reese and John Sevcik. Of these people, I know nothing. To the Googles!

Joe bounced around the league for 6 years, then coached in the bigs for twenty more years after that. His nickname was "Coffee and Juice". Remember that the next time you complain that there are no more good nicknames in baseball anymore.

Dick apparently goes by Rich which is why I didn't find his B-R page until his fifth page of Google results. Rich is obviously not a Dead Milkmen fan. Rick was originally signed by the tiger, then drafted by the Twins in the expansion draft, he then played 9 years with he Twins, the Tigers purchased his contract for the 1973 season and the Twins snatched him back up after Detroit released him in August. Dich's best season was in 1969 when he hit 16 dingers and batted .322.

John Sevcik played 12 games for the Twins in 1965. He went on to be an executive at the Jim Beam company, which is almost as good as being a professional baseball player. While his picture looks more like a painting than a photograph, there is another John Sevcik that actually does paintings. I don't think he did a painting for this card though. Also, ever since The Googles became self-aware and realized I was doing art now my ads and searches have been chock full of art and artists. Thus, John Sevcik the Artist was results #1 and #2 on my search while John Sevcik the Catcher was #3 and #4. I love Big Brother.

Also the Great 1965 Topps Project has done all these posts way better than me, so you should go check it out.

1965 Topps AL Rookie Stars

By the time they got to the high series, Topps had so many rookie stars they couldn't fit 'em all on the team rookie cards. Here's a AL rookie Stars card featuring Darold Knowles, lefty reliever who pitched 16 years for 6 different teams. Seven if you choose to differentiate the Washington Senators and Texas Rangers.

Richie Scheinblum had almost as many uniform numbers as Darold as he bounced around to six different teams in his eight-year career.

Don Buschhorn pitched in 12 games for the Athletics as a 19 year old and never pitched in the majors again. The year before he was in A-ball. The year after he was in Double-A, and would not advance higher. A team would never EVER bring up a 19 year old kid from A-ball to the bigs in one year nowadays, would they? They'd at least make a token effort to rush him through at least Double-A first. I've seen a couple of kids in the '60s brought up for a cup of coffee when they were a teenager never to be seen in the majors again while looking up these players. I really want to know what the deal with these cases was now. Was it a bonus thing? Did the kid catch the GM in a bar with some floozy? Did they not really know about/care about prospect development back then? Have baseball talent evaluators turned into a bunch of over analytical stat-obsessed weenies who demand that prospects are just so before they can play in the bigs due to complicated roster rules and arbitration time clocks? Of course the average age on my favorite team if you drop Huddy, Chipper and Uggla is about 22 and a half, so maybe at least in my neck of the woods the kids are getting to play like in the '60s.

1965 Topps Astros Rookies

ROOKIES, ROOKIES EVERYWHERE

WITH STARS ON THEIR HATS

A British artist, a go-cart drag racer, and a kid who struck out 4 times in 4 at bats, was traded to the Braves and never heard from again.

(note - links for Coombs and McClure may not be a 100% accurate summary of their baseball careers)

1965 Topps Cubs Rookies

This picture of Glenn Beckert looks like it could be the first known photograph of Slenderman. Just slap a black suit and some tentacles on him and you're set.

Doesn't help that Roberto Pena's nickname was 'baby'.

Yes, I automatically associate Cubs with nightmarish terrors. Doesn't everyone?

1965 Topps White Sox Rookies

I know nothing about Greg Bollo or Bob Locker, although it looks like Bob had a pretty darn good career as a reliever.

I do know that due to my infatuation with Dr. Demento every time I see a name that rhymes with Dan Blocker I get this song stuck in my head for 47 days.

So I'm good 'till April thanks to Bob Locker, Dan Blocker, Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts.

(seriously, don't click on that video)
(that way lies madness)
(probably should have put this bit first)

1965 Topps More Angels Rookies

You can tell it's the end of the season and Topps just wants to get the set over and done with when they start cramming in extra rookies on their Rookie Stars cards.

This one has three rooks instead of two and is set up like their League Leader cards. Marcelino Lopez is the Angels' rookie leader. He gets a yellow background instead of a blue sky!

Marcelino actually was a Rookie Star as he won 14 games for the Halos in 1965 and won a spot on the Topps Rookie Cup team. Sadly, he fell off the map after that and only won 16 more games the rest of his career. Rudy May is actually the star of the card, going on to win 152 games with the Angels, Yankees Orioles and Expos.

Phil Roof doesn't even belong on the list as he already had a rookie card in the 1963 set. I know because he played two games for the Milwaukee Braves to start his career and I need that dang card for my team set.

1965 Topps Yankees Team

"But I have to charge $50 for it, that's an original Mickey Mantle card!"

"It's a team card."

"But look! HE'S RIGHT THERE"

(yes i have had this conversation before)

1965 Topps Indians Rookies

Ever notice that vintage Topps cards seem to have an awful lot of airbrushed logos on hats? Ever wanted to know how artists were able to transform almost any hat into any other hat? Or why they were never able to pull this off with the uniforms? Ever wanted to know if there was a special photography trick they used to facilitate such transmogrifications? Check out Ralph Gagliano's headgear for a look behind the scenes:

The baseball cap version of a green screen. Or possibly the original prototype of a trucker's hat. Topps didn't worry about their trade secrets getting out with this card since it was a high number and no one ever bought those things anyway. Not like they had any competition to steal their secrets anyway...

Now ya know. And knowing is half the battle.

1965 Topps Angels Rookies

So is is Los Angeles Angels... or California Angels... or Anaheim Angels... Ana Ng Angels maybe?

The world may never know...

So what did these guys ever do? Tom caught Nolan's 3rd no-hitter. Pat may or may not be related to Joe.

(ok, so I got nothin') 
(I've made it abundantly clear I'm in a blogger funk right now)

1965 Topps Elston Howard

You know what ya dumb Veteran's Committee? DON'T put Elston Howard in the Hall of Fame.

It's nice to have one superstar vintage Yankee player to collect that DOESN'T cost an arm and a leg to acquire.

See those stats? See his MVP season in 1963? Oh yeah, Elston was an MVP. He was also a great defensive catcher. He also integrated the Yankees. Oh, but he doesn't really have the stats to go into the Hall of Fame. Maybe because he had to play in the Negro Leagues for three years. And didn't make his MLB debut until he was 26. And was stuck behind Yogi once he hit the bigs. AND served two years in Korea.

OoooOOOOooooohhhh... but he don't have the StaaaAAAAaaaats....

BECAUSE THE HALL OF FAME IS ABOUT NOTHING BUT STATS

HE ALSO INVENTED THE BATTING DONUT FOR PETE'S SAKE

PUT HIM IN THA HALL OF FAME YOU LOUSY VOTING BASTARDS

(sorry the Pinkie Pie episode got me feeling all joyful and smiling this morning so I had to go on a crazed rant real quick to balance out the force)

1965 Topps Twins Rookie Stars

Jay Ward, of course, is the man who created Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Don't believe me, look it up!

(ok, maybe they were related)

1965 Topps John Roseboro

Have I made a joking reference to the time when Juan Marichal beat the crap out of poor Johnny Roseboro  with a baseball bat yet?

I have? Forty-seven times?

Well ok then.

1965 Topps Tigers Rookie Stars

Ray Oyler rookie card reminds me it's about time to pull out my copy of Ball Four again.

1965 Topps Jim Katt

It's KAAT, Topps, KAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!

Much better.

Sakes Alive, Sixty-Five

AAAAH. Now I have Blogger's Block! To go along with all the other blocks I have. Time to lean on the trade posts. I got a small pile of '65 Topps from reader James. They were inside a small snap case with a Red Sox Nation logo on it. Also: Duct Tape "Vintage Cards" label. I like James already. These '65s are basically in exchange for a '56 Jackie Jenson and a Tony Conigliaro sketch card. One that I haven't started yet because I'm allergic to Acrylic Paint right now. Every time I get near them I look at ponies online for 7 hours straight. I am not entirely unhappy with this malady. I really need to get the ol' easel out again though so I'm going to post '65s non-stop until I finish up some paintings. Or until I run out of '65s and feel shame. Wait, I have Pinkie Pie at the top of my blog. I have no shame. Here's card #1 from the 1965 Topps set courtesy James for you to look at while I figure out how I'm supposed to feel.

Should be a Hall of Famer, Is a Hall of Famer, and I'd put him in the Hall of Fame. Elston integrated the Yankees for Pete's sake. In fact put everyone who integrated a team in the Hall!  Yes, this means I am officially pushing for Pumpsie Green's candidacy. No more ridiculous than having Bowie Kuhn in and Marvin Miller out... Pumpsie in the Hall!!!

Another good thing about Elston, if it weren't for him Mickey Mantle would be on this card and it would cost $50 in this condition. My favorite thing about these old League Leader cards is that they fo fifty players deep! Yeah, there's some Hall of Famers in there (HOWARD!) but you also see the Boog Powells and Tony Conigliaros and Moose Skowrons and Jim Fregosis and Rocky Colavitos and Vic Davalillos and Zoillo Versalles and Don Werts and Norm Cashes and Doogie Howsers and Jerry Lumpes and Joe Pepitomes and Jim Gentiles and Tom Treshes. If Topps did leader cards like this today (Which they might, I haven't really looked at one from this year yet) #50 on the list would be Brett Gardner at .259 which is one point over the league average. Hmmmm... Baseball-Reference.com is our baseball cards now isn't it? Needs more creases.

Joy of an Incomplete Page

You guys voted in the poll over to the right and managed to pick out some pretty good sets to work on. I'm guessing there's a lot of 1971 Topps fans out there, or at least a bunch of people collecting it with a bunch of doubles.The '63 set is also nice, I'm looking forward to 2012 Heritage. The series binder is maxed out at five sets now, here's a mostly completed page from each:

This page is technically complete since I have Joe Adcock in my Braves team set binder. I would have posted a different page had I realized that sooner.

The '63 set ain't gonna be easy. This page is missing Pedro Ramos and the Buc Blasters combo card - featuring some guy named Clemente.

Tony Gonzalez is the last card for this page. This series shouldn't be too hard to knock out if I put some effort into it. The only stars left besides the league leaders cards are Robin Roberts, Jim Kaat and Frank Howard.

The dreaded Thurman Munson Series... 132 cards and stars out the buttocks. This page is easily completeable with Ron Klimkowski however.

Ok, this is only one of two sheets in my 1972 Topps series 1 set that is actually missing a card. It's a doozy though. I just checked online and I can complete this series for under ten bucks. Why the hell am I buying new wax again!?!?

So what do you think? I've got one completed series under my belt, how many more can I do by the end of the year?

Random checklistness from the draft folder

I have absolutely no time for anything today so here's some crap from the draft folder that never got published.

Checklists! Marked checklists! Checklists with little white and blue flags on a red background which is as close as you're going to get for a 4th of July post from me today! Yes, here are two 1st series checklists from 1965 Topps.

Two checklists, exactly the same except for the markings. If the dude from checklist #2 had traded with the guy from checklist #1, he might have completed the series. Of course guy #1 might have been a dick about it and demanded a Willie McCovey for that Moose Skowron to complete the series even though dude #2 specifically stated the McCovey was off the table. Now dude #2 forever has an unfinished series because of that damn McCovey. The markings aren't the only thing different about these cards, can you spot it?

Ah, the old C.Cannizzaro/Cannizzaro variation! No name Thomas it aint, but a variation is a variation. I'm not sure why Topps felt the need to drop the C to give the card number some breathing room, or even why they didn't just put chris at card #58 so there would be plenty of room to stretch out but they did and they didn't so here we are. Picked these up at the June show for the low, low price of a buck a pop. Yeah, I passed up a $44 '53 Yogi but just had to get these.

Y'all enjoy the holiday, I'll be working while the wife and kids go out to a parade and fireworks with the grandparents.

In other words, PEACE AND QUIET.

 ALL. DAY. LONG.

God Bless America!