Pennant Fever

My all-time favorite Topps design is 1965. The simple and colorful design is eye catching, but the waving pennant is the most appealing element. The gonfalon with a team logo is not unique to 1965. The design element was used for the managers subset in 1960. The fluttering pennant was placed at the top of the skippers’ cards. This would have been a far better design than the one used for the players’ cards.

Most of you are aware that Topps used a horizontal design for the players’ cards in 1960. The design featured a black and white “action” photo coupled with a color head shot. However, Topps decided vertical orientation was best for multi-player cards, coaches and the managers.

So, get ready to bark at the umpires, position the fielders, flash some signs, spit some tobacco juice and grab the bullpen phone. Here are the 16 gentleman who manned the dugouts at the start of the last pre-expansion season.

An interesting side note is the fact that eight of the photos used by Topps for the field generals are colorized shots from Jay Publishing. This company was the prime supplier of team issued photo packs.

• 

• 

Why not start with each league’s champions? Walt Alston looks like a jolly grandfather, even though he was only 49 years old. “Smokey” has the right to smile, having won the World Series in 1955 and 1959. “Señor” Al Lopez directs his “Go, Go Sox” from the steps of the dugout with a classic pointing pose.

• 

• 

• 

Next up are the 1960 champion skippers. The World Champion Pirates were led by the great Danny Murtaugh, who sports a batting helmet. Of course, when Branch Rickey was Pirates General Manager in the 1950s, he outfitted all players-including pitchers-with batting helmets in the field. The Casey Stengel card is his last as a Yankee.

The long and storied managerial careers of Stengel and Murtaugh are in stark contrast to that of Bob Elliott. 1960 was his only big-league gig, posting a 58-96 mark with the last place Athletics.

• 

• 

On August 3, 1960, one of the strangest trades in history was consummated between Detroit and Cleveland. The Tribe sent manager Joe Gordon to the motor city for manager Jimmy Dykes. This bizarre mid-season swap was engineered by the legendary wheeler-dealer, Frank “Trader” Lane, who was the Indians’ General Manager.

• 

• 

If you think that swap was weird, how about trading places with a broadcaster? Charlie Grimm returned to manage the Cubs in 1960. “Jolly Cholly” previously ran the show at Wrigley Field from 1932-38 and again from 1944-49. Seventeen games into the season, Grimm traded places with radio broadcaster Lou Boudreau! By the way based on the Cubs logo style and the zippered jersey, Charlie’s photo dates to 1948-49.

Seventeen games as manager is a short stint; however, it doesn’t compare with Eddie Sawyer resigning as Phillies manager after one game in 1960! Sawyer-who led the 1950 “Whiz Kids” to the pennant-was not as successful during his second go round as Philadelphia’s skipper. Two bad seasons in 1958-59 soured Sawyer on the Phillies’ prospects. After an opening day loss in Cincinnati, he left Crosley Field with these parting words: “I’m 49 years old and want to live to be 50.”

The winning manager of Sawyer’s last game was Seattle legend Fred Hutchinson, who took the helm of his third different major league team in 1959. “Hutch” would lead the 1961 Reds to the National League Pennant, Cincinnati’s first since 1940.

The man who replaced Hutchinson as Cardinals manager when he was fired in 1958 was Solly Hemus. He was not an overly successful pilot, but he has a very handsome card.

Like Hutchinson, “Tall” Paul Richards once managed the PCL Seattle Rainiers. He skippered the “Suds” in 1950, before manning the helms of the White Sox and Orioles. Richards would leave the Orioles after 1961 to become the first General Manager of the expansion Houston Colt ‘45s.

• 

• 

Speaking of expansion, both Bill Rigney and Cookie Lavagetto would be affected by the new squads added to the American League in 1961. After the 1960 season, the Giants fired Rigney. However, his stint in the unemployment line was short, as the American League’s new Los Angeles Angels hired Bill to guide the nascent “Halos.” Lavagetto would move with the Senators to Minnesota in 1961, and a new Senators team would replace the old in D.C.

Another former Senators manager, Chuck Dressen, won 105 games and the pennant for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1953. Two years later, he lost 101 games while managing Washington-thus demonstrating that silk purses can’t be made from a sow’s ears.

I saved my favorite card for last. Billy Jurges took over the helm of the Red Sox in mid-season 1959. This colorized photo is wonderful in many ways. I love that he is wearing a glove. The classic positioning behind the batting cage and players in the background add to setting. There is a good chance the photo was taken at Fenway. Alas, Jurges could not get much out of the aging Red Sox and was fired on June 8, 1960.

Now, it is time to: “Ruthlessly prick the gonfalon bubble/Knowing that Rigney’s Giant stint is in trouble/The futures of Sawyer and Grimm are weighty with trouble/And Gordon will be traded for Dykes.

Resources: The following SABR Bioproject biographies are all excellent.

• Eddie Sawyer by Ralph Berger and C. Paul Rogers, III
• Chuck Dressen by Mark Stewart
• Bob Elliott by John McMurray
• Billy Jurges by Paul Geisler, Jr.