phungo2008

CTB: 1994 Ted Williams #112 Toni Stone

In this edition of Covering The Bases (CTB) we are discussing one of the few cards that have been produced of Toni Stone, subject of the February 9th Google Doodle.

1994 Ted Williams #112 Toni Stone

There are not many Toni Stone Cards, This is from the 1994 Ted Williams Set. The picture is one of the most commonly used photos of Stone, and also serves as the anchor image for the Google doodle.

The photo overlays another image of Toni Stone – this one is a 1954 publicity photo of her with the Kansas City Monarchs.

Likely an appeal to show the feminine side of Toni Stone, the Monarchs photographed her applying makeup.

B-Side

The flipside of the card gives a synopsis of Stone’s career concluding with a line summarizing her NAL stats.

1994 Ted Williams

The 1994 Ted Williams is a 162 historical card set largely composed of Hall of Famers and prospects, including a minor league Derek Jeter.

In a nod to Williams Hall of Fame speech advocating for the induction of Negro League players the set contains a 17-card subset of Negro Leaguers, produced with the assistance of noted author and historian Phil Dixon:

While all the players listed are highlights of the set, some names that jump out at me beyond Stone include Bud Fowler, Double Duty Radcliffe, and Leon Day.

Cards On Stage

in 2019 Team Phungo got to see the stage play “Toni Stone” loosely based on the life of Stone. There was a small but well curated exhibit in the lobby, among the items displayed was today’s card:

It was displayed in a glass case like a T206 Wagner. All cards should get this treatment!!

Here is an installation view of the case with a couple of pennants that represent Stone’s Career.

Baseball Cards also factored into the script of “Toni Stone.”

I believe the card Stone (portrayed by April Matthis) is looking at is 1934 Goudey #61 Lou Gehrig – although I am guessing this is a reprint or prop card.

I have no guesses on the other cards. If there is a card sleuth out there they can try and see more in this montage from the play – The cards show up shortly after the 35 second mark.

Editor’s note: Also shown are 1941 Play Ball cards of Arky Vaughan and Mel Ott as well as a 1935 Diamond Stars Hank Greenberg.

There you go, Today’s covering the bases takes us from Toni Stone to Ted Williams to Lou Gehrig.

Monique Wray

Google documents background on many of their doodles which includes information on the artist. The Toni Stone doodle was created by illustrator/ animator Monique Wray.

In the interview Wray had a couple of key observations:

Q. Why was this topic meaningful to you personally?

A: Toni was a trailblazer, a Black woman doing things she’s not expected to do, whether the world likes it or not, speaks to me.

Q. What message do you hope people take away from your Doodle?

A: Inspiration to persevere. Toni played with men, a lot of whom did not want her there. But almost every photo I see of her, she has a massive smile. She lived her life through adversity and did what she wanted to do.

The interview also contains a display of Wrays sketches for the doodle.

The Google synopsis includes a link for more info at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Sources and Links

CTB: 1997 Topps #13 Derek Jeter (with guest Chris Snopek)

Covering the Bases (CTB) is a feature where we take a deep dive into a single card. With his Cooperstown Hall of Fame induction imminent we are taking a look at Derek Jeter’s 1997 Topps Card.

1997 Topps #13 Derek Jeter

Folks that folllow our columns likely suspect the draw of this card to me is the rookie cup. Derek Jeter was the 1996 AL Rookie of the year and the star of the years Topps All-Star Rookie Squad. Although I must mention that the 1996 AL Rookie WAR leader was not Jeter…

Jose Rosado was also snubbed for the All-Star Rookie squad in favor of reliever Billy Wagner, who received a grand total of ZERO ROY (NL) votes. Rosado spent the entirety of his five year MLB career with the Royals. He made a pair all-star teams including sharing the field with Jeter in 1999.

1997 Topps

The 1997T is simple and functional. My only complaint is that the player position is not present on the card front.

One thing I do like is that the card borders are league specific, AL Players are in red while the Senior Circuit is green

1997 Topps #177 Todd Hollandsworth

Jeter’s NL rookie of the year counterpart was Todd Hollandsworth, here with the green NL Border. I am pretty sure that the league borders is a nod to the red and green books of the past.

At some point I had a couple of green books, but they appear to have escaped from the phungo museum. Unfortunately Red/Green books ceased publication in 2008.

Also noticed the change in orientation, Most 1997T are in portrait format like Hollandsworth.

Guess the Game

When possible Guess the Game is a prominent tenet of a CTB feature, and today’s Derek Jeter card is indeed traceable. However it is the guest Chris Snopek that is the key to the research.

Prior to the issuance of this card in 1997 Snopek played four games at Yankee Stadium, May 4-5 and August 6-7 1996. It appears that in only one of those games is there a play at 2nd base involving Snopek and Jeter. The play occurred in the 6th inning the game that occurred on May the 4th (Star Wars Day!). This is the front end of an inning ending 4-6-3 double play induced by Bob Wickman.

The twin killing may have quelled the Chicago rally, but in the end the White Sox won the game 11-5 .

It was Derek Jeter’s 41st career game. A double in the 6th inning was his 35th career hit. 3430 more hits would follow. Defensively the play on the card was among the 4 assists and 2 putouts recorded by Jeter.

The games big star was the White Sox Harold Baines, who collected 5 RBIs despite not entering the game until the 8th inning. His big blow was a 9th inning grand slam off of Jim Mecir.

But wait there’s more…

1997 Topps #137 Chis Snopek

Chris Snopek’s 1997T is a sort of Jeter mirror. It is also a keystone play at Yankee Stadium. Only this play features the White Sox on defense.

Quickly we can tell it is not the same game, note on this card Snopek is sleeveless while on the Jeter offering he is wearing an undershirt

The game was played on May 5th 1996, Snopek was playing career game 32. In the game he tallied his 7th career double and scored the White Sox lone run.

We also notice this image features Yankees star Bernie Williams on an attempted steal of 2nd base…

Safe or Out

This play appears to have occurred during the 7th inning of game on an attempted steal by Bernie Williams.

On the play Bernie Williams was…

SAFE!

He next went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a sacrifice fly by Joe Girardi. Nice trip around the diamond for Bernie, The Yankees went on to win the game 7-1.

Flip

1997 Topps #13 Derek Jeter

Returning to our original subject, On the card back we now see Jeter’s position prominently at the top, also kudos to Topps for making the card # large enough to be read easily.

The card back element that jumps out me most is the text. Here we are at the beginning of Jeter’s career and he is already being compared to Don Mattingly. This is an incredible legacy to approach and Amazingly not only does Jeter carry the torch of “Most Popular Yankee”, I think most folks would agree he surpassed Mattingly.

Sources and Links

Lifetime Topps Project

Sports Collectors Daily

Baseball-ref

amazon

ebay

Phungo 1996 Topps All-Star Rookie Team

Phungo Derek Jeter Index

Covering the Bases: 1986 Topps #85 Tony Perez (w/ guest Eric Davis)

To me the best baseball cards tell a story. One of those cards is Topps final offering for Tony Perez.

1986 Topps #85 Tony Perez

The story here is obvious, The featured player is Tony Perez one of the key members to the 1970s era Big Red Machine which won a pair of World Championships. He is greeted at the plate by teammate Eric Davis whose promising career is just beginning. Davis would go on to be a key member of the Reds next World Championship in 1990. The scene is a torch passing between the franchises two most recent championship squads.

Clearing the Bases

CTB is a feature where we take a deep dive into a single card. Since this Photo appears to be game footage one of the fun directions to go is “Guess the Game”.

Couple of easily discerned facts on this image. We need a game in the Perez/Davis crossover, Both players are wearing their road greys, and they appear to be celebrating a Perez Home Run.

Checking Baseball-Ref we find Tony Perez and Eric Davis were teammates for two seasons 1984-85. During that time Tony hit 8 of his 379 career Home Runs. However of those eight only TWO were hit on the road. May 21 1985 at Wrigley Field and October 6th 1985 at Dodger Stadium.

Checking the boxes of those two games is easy enough, May 21 was a Reds 5-2 victory over the Cubs. Perez Home Run was a solo shot off starter Ray Fotenot in the fourth inning. And the on-Deck Hitter was (…Drum Roll…) Eric Davis!

So we have a candidate, but we must check box #2

October 6 1985, Another W for the Reds 6-5 vs the Dodgers. In this game Tony Homered in the 3rd inning – also a solo shot. We check who is on-deck and find….. Nick Esasky! No Eric Davis. In Fact Davis was nowhere near the circle as he batted earlier that inning. Interestingly he had also homered – two batters in front of Perez.

There you have it, the game featured on Hall of Famer Tony Perez’s final card was a Reds 5-2 Win over the Cuibs at Wrigley Field in a game played on May 21 1985.

But Wait there’s more

The 1985 Reds season was chronicled by the prolific author Pete Rose who has “written” roughly a dozen autobiographies. “Countdown to Cobb” is Rose’s account of the season in which he broke Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record. In addition to being a player Rose was also the teams manager. On the field he played first base in a platoon with, You got it, today’s hero Tony Perez.

And fortunately Perez’s Home Run was significant enough to make Rose’s 1985 Diary.

It’s only three sentences in two short paragraphs but it gives us some background into the Home Run featured on Perez’s final card. Despite being in pursuit of the All-Time hit record, and being a Switch-Hitter Rose often sat himself versus Left Handed pitching.

Fortunately for Perez, Rose and the Reds starting Perez paid off and baseball fans who enjoy digging into the minutia of trading cards have another card with a story to collect.

This concludes this edition of Covering the Bases, thanks for humoring me while we played guess the game and took a deep dive into a single baseball card.

Sources Links

Baseball-Reference

Countdown to Cobb (Pete Rose/Hal Bodley)

Phungo Tony Perez HOF Index

Covering the Bases: 1989 Topps #156 Dave Gallagher

In this edition of “Covering the Bases” we are discussing the 1989 Topps All-Star Rookie cup card dedicated to outfielder Dave Gallagher.

The chief reason I chose to cover Gallagher here is that he recently discussed his Topps All-Star Rookie Cup on Twitter – spoiler alert, I was a little bummed with his feedback.

1989 Topps #156

Lets open by discussing the card which is Gallagher’s Topps debut. A couple of observations:

1) This appears to be a Spring Training shot – note the chain link fence and treeline beyond Gallagher’s left shoulder.

2) In 1988 Chicago sported their uniform numbers on the front of the left pant leg, It is mostly obscured by the “White Sox” script on the card but you can still make out what is the top of Gallagher’s #17 here.

3) Gallagher is apparently holding some sort of BP bat. At first I thought Gallagher was using a bat sleeve – but 1988 seems sort of early historically. Looking closer I think what we are dealing with here is Bat Tape. I am guessing that the idea is to extend the life of a BP bat, perhaps the tape also acts as a visual cue to help a batter to target the sweet spot.

1988 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup

Of course the reason team Phungo took an interest in this card is that it falls under the umbrella of our obsession with Topps All-Star Rookie Cards. This past September SABR Member Brian Frank had posted via twitter a snapshot of the card on Gallagher’s 59th birthday. Gallagher acknowledged the posting noting the day is also his Wedding Anniversary. I later jumped on the thread posing the following question:

I wanted to hear that Dave Gallagher was a big fan of baseball cards, has a collection that he considers very special and that getting a Trophy from Topps Chewing Gum Co was the highlight of his playing career.

Well, that wasn’t the answer I received. Gallagher’s reply was sobering and quite prudent.

THROWN OUT!

As a Topps All-Star Rookie Cup obsessive I was momentarily crushed. But it makes sense, I am sure there have been several dozen trophies that a player like Dave Gallagher has accumulated in a 20 year professional career. Keeping them all likely borders on hoarding. And his point of maintaining a separation of career and home also seems wise.

More Gallagher Cards

While researching Dave Gallagher cards I came across his 1989 Topps Big card

1989 Topps Big #310 Dave Gallagher

Which is a fine card but what really interested me was something on the back

1989 Topps Big #310 Dave Gallagher (b-side)

Check out the middle panel on the cartoon. It is not a Baseball Card Patent but Dave Gallagher does have a Baseball related Patent. His invention is known as the “Stride Tutor” or according to the Patent Office “Apparatus for improving the hitting technique of baseball players.” It is essentially a set of foot cuffs (with a longer plastic chain) that are designed to train a batter to make a consistent stride in their swing. The device was written up in a 1989 Sports Illustrated article.

Gallagher’s patent application is pretty interesting citing SIX Hall of Famers: Johnny Bench, Mel Ott, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, and Joe Torre plus Pete Rose and Hitting Guru Charlie Lau.

There you have it, Covering all the Bases on a single (well two) Topps card leads you to the US Patent Office and Joe DiMaggio.

Sources and Links

Trading Card DB

baseball-ref

Twitter @DaveGallagher22

HERD Chronicles (SABR Brian Frank)

Phungo 1989 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup index

Google Patents

COMC Check Out My Cards

Sports Illustrated (1989 May 22 pg 81)

High Heat Stats

1960 Topps #321 Ron Fairly (1938-2019)

Why does the death Ron Fairly warrant a card obit? For starters he was a Major Leaguer for over 2 decades and a semi-star that I remember from my youth.

Secondly he was a SABR member remembered fondly by a couple of our fellow SABR Card Collectors.

Finally as a collector Fairly means something to the staff at Phungo HQ because he is a member of the inaugural Topps Rookie All-Star (TRAS) class. As you may know the Rookie Cup cards are one of my favorite collections and Fairly was one of the outfielders selected for the 1959 season which was honored in 1960 Topps.

There are 10 cards in the original subset which opens with Willie McCovey at #316 and runs through #325 Jim O’Toole. This makes Ron Fairly’s #321 the sixth All-Star Rookie Cup ever produced.

Outside of McCovey the two most notable players on the team are likely Fairly and Jim Perry.

The Topps Rookie All-Star Cup Team (Sporting News 1960 Apr 20)

Willie McCovey is on the left followed Pumpsie Green, Jim Baxes, Joe Koppe, Bob Allison, Ron Fairly (directly above Tasby inset) , John Romano and Jim Perry. Willie Tasby and Jim O’Toole who could not make the outing are shown in an inset bottom left.

This is a picture from a New York City banquet Topps held to honor award winners. For a more in depth discussion of the banquet (1963) click here.

The 1959 All-Star Rookie Cup team has had a tough year. Starting with Willie McCovey’s death almost exactly a year ago the class has lost four members in the last 12 months. John Romano (February 2019), Pumpsie Green in July and now Ron Fairly.

This leaves Willie Tasby (86) and Jim Perry who turned 84 the day Fairly passed as the last two living members of the original All-Star Rookie Cup team.

Flip

I want to open the discussion of the card back to the Fairly’s vitals at the top of the card. His DOB is listed as July 12 1938. Therefore Ron Fairly was just 20 years old when the 1959 season commenced and 21 when he was named to the rookie cup team.

Moving on to the text, it opens by mentioning Fairly’s election to the TRAS team and rolls into his pre-MLB experience. Then we get to the cartoon.

“Ron Led USC to the National Championship”

Well I checked into it and yes he did. He was a member of the 1958 USC Trojans that won the College World Series. The final game was an 8-7 extra inning victory over the Missouri Tigers.

The 1958 CWS concluded on June 19th, less than three months later Ron Fairly made his major league debut with the LA Dodgers on September 9th.

1958 USC Trojans College World Series Champs (Western Canada Baseball)

Ron Fairly can be found in the front row four from the right. Checking the names one can find a Hall of Famer in that back row. Executive HOF Pat Gillick, architect of the 2008 World Championship Phillies. Turns out Gillick was a pitcher for the 1958 Trojans and teammate of today’s card hero Ron Fairly.

Sources and Links

Baseball-Ref

Western Canada Baseball

Topps Baseball Card db

The Sporting News

Phungo 1959 Topps Rookie All-Star Index

Covering the Bases: 2018 Topps #US79

“Covering the Bases” is the title I am giving to my columns dedicated to a single card – which is most of my postings. Today’s deep dive is on a recent card that features an image I think we will see a lot this week.

IMG_20191012_101539

2018 Topps #US79 A Game for Everyone: Altuve & Judge

This picture is one that most baseball fans are familiar with even if they don’t follow the Astros or Yankees. Fortunately for collectors Topps recorded the image on cardboard. I say recorded because for the last 60+ years Topps has served as an unofficial record/history of the game and its players. There are base cards, subsets, inserts, leaders, record breakers, highlights, All-Stars and more. Each card is a photographic record of the game’s history which is accompanied by a back side that contains stats, demographic info, and if we are lucky a fun fact or two.

This is an All-Star card, however I also see it as a Multi-Player. I consider the multi-player cards a “hidden subset”. Lot of sets have them, but they are typically not sequential and rarely listed in any sort of checklist form.

These are nice to showcase any time we find the two players paired for some reason. That is the case this week when Altuve and Judge are featured players on the two teams facing each other in the ALCS.

The Topps copy team also came up with a perfect title for this card “A Game for Everyone.” This is the “size doesn’t matter” card. Baseball-Reference lists Jose Altuve at 5′ 6″ and 165 lbs. while Aaron Judge is at 6’7″ 282 lbs. The difference in height is over a foot, weight over 100 lbs.

Game Dating

It was pretty easy to find this picture in Getty Images. The information accompanying the photo gives us the date of May 30 2018. A game the Yankees won 5-3, Altuve and Judge each went 2-4, with only Judge factoring in the scoring collecting the go-ahead run in the 5th.

Aaron Judge was on 2nd base twice in the game once in the first and again in the fifth. Judging by the fact that the outfield seating appears pretty filled in, I suspect that this picture was taken in the first.

The Photo was shot by Erick W. Rasco who has done a lot of work for Sports Illustrated including a famous cover of a lot of other “photographers” witnessing the American Pharaoh winning the Triple Crown.

I have tracked a few dozen game dated cards, An index of these cards can be found here.

Sources and Links

Baseball-Ref

Getty Images

Sports Illustrated Archive

Erick W Rasco

Phungo Index of Game Dated Cards

1976 Topps #441 Gary Carter

There are nearly to six decades of Topps All-Star Rookie Cup awards which means there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 cards in the history of the subset.

This raises the question why among all these cards does Gary Carter get the honor of his own posting on the SABR Baseball Card Blog. Well there are many reasons, but lets start with he is a Hall of Famer and…..well, I enjoy over-analyzing cards.

Over-Analysis Part 1: the Card

1976 Topps #441 Gary Carter

We have a fine photo of young Gary Carter in a classic baseball card pose. The distinctive characteristic of 1976 Topps is the position illustration seen here on the bottom left. It is a nice accent to the sets otherwise minimalist approach. On the cards other lower corner we find the reason we are here, the All-Star Rookie Cup icon. This is the second iteration of the cup, just a cup, no top hat and no batter atop that hat.

As we look a little closer the card there are a few other things I found interesting.

2) Game Dated Card?

Yes I think we have enough info here to give a time & place for this photo.

Fortunately for us the Expos wore their numbers on the front of their uniform in this era. Notice that Carter is not wearing the familiar #8, which he donned for most of his career and was later retired by the Expos/Nationals. According to Baseball-Ref for a brief period as a September call up in 1974 Gary Carter wore #57 – which looks to be the number we have here. Looking at the background on the photo it appears we are at Wrigley Field.

Turning to Carter’s 1974 Game Logs we find that he played three games across two days in Chicago. There first was the latter game of a double header on September 24th which the Expos won 11-2. The following day featured yet another double header which the Expos swept 7-1, 3-2. There is plenty of fascinating things to find in those boxes but for our limited time and space it is most important that we note that our hero went 4 for 11 with a triple and 3 RBIs in the three victories. In the last game Carter made one of his 132 appearances in Right Field (who knew). Across both double headers the 90+ Loss 1974 Cubs would draw less than 5000 fans COMBINED.

I have one dilemma with the game dating. The field is set up for batting practice. I can’t imagine the Expos had BP on the day of a double header. Perhaps these pictures are from Monday September 23 prior to a postponed game that lead to the consecutive double headers. Regardless the evidence points to one of three dates for the Photo September 23, 24 or 25 of 1974.

3) The Trophy

By Trophy I mean the real trophy not the icon on the card

Yep thanks to Heritage Auctions we have an image of a real life Topps All-Star Rookie Cup Trophy. To me this is a big deal outside of Carter’s trophy, I have only seen images of a few others Dick Allen, Tony Oliva, and Tommy Harper. Never seen one in the wild.

The Gary Carter Cup sold in November of 2016 for just under $1,800. According to the Heritage Auction website the owner of the trophy is entertaining offers for the trophy.

3b) But wait there is another Trophy!!

Topps also gives out a AAA version of the award.

And in 1974 Gary Carter won that award as well.

4) Flip

No over-analysis of a card is complete without flipping the card over.

Check the cartoon here which discusses the defense of the 1964 Orioles. Apparently this is a positive superlative. I was to lazy to confirm that the 95 errors was a record for fewest by at team (at the time), However I will note that in 1964 the second best team was the Yankees who committed 109.

This leads us to a brief point about baseball changing. In 2018 the MLB average for errors for a team was 93. That is 2 miscues less than the number that Orioles led the league with in 1964. The league average was 142 in 1964.

5) Gary Carter the collector

Finally one of my favorite fun facts about Gary Carter is he was also a card collector. As fans we learned this from a different card:

Check out the latter cartoon. I am thinking of putting this in the banner to my Twitter Feed.

If you don’t believe Topps we also have this photographic evidence.

Check out all those binders!!

And yes He is holding the card that is the subject of our posting:

Gary Carter will always be the Kid.

Sources and Links

Baseball-Ref

Heritage Auctions

Getty Images

Phungo 1976 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup index

Phungo Gary Carter Index

The Topps Archive

Of Myths and Men (pt 1)

I have really enjoyed perusing SABR’s Eight Myths Out Series. Jacob Pomrenke and the rest of the many historians involved have done terrific work and it is a tribute to what a bright and meticulous team can accomplish.

The title of the project is a nod to the book and subsequent film “Eight Men Out”. As a promotion for the movie a trading card set was produced. It is a fun 110 card set that I enjoy because it falls at the intersection of two of my hobbies, baseball and film.

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #5 The Black Sox Scandal

Since the eight myths are responses to ideas introduced in “Eight Men Out” the book and further propagated by the film several of the cards are also connected to these myths.

Today we will look at some of the myth cards. I envision this as a three column series covering four myths in each of the first two postings followed by a non-myth set summary/highlights closer.

Myth #1 Comiskey as Scrooge

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #80 Charles A Comiskey

Myth #1 is covered on card #80 – if this was a Topps set it would be a Hero Number! OK, maybe a low-level star number. While this is a nice era appropriate profile picture of Comiskey when we flip the card over we start talking Scrooge…

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #80 Charles A Comiskey (back)

The text opens discussing Comiskey’s Hall of Fame credentials but things turn in paragraph 3. “Tightfisted” and “Dollar-Pinching” are the two adjectives used to describer Comiskey. The card also mentions Dickey Kerr who is discussed in one of the further reading bullets for Myth 8.

Myth #2 The Cicotte “Bonus”

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #6 Eddie Cicotte 29-7 in 1919

I love the statistical reference which is given as the sub-line on this card. The 29-7 record of Cicotte is a subtle / not-so-subtle nod to the 30 wins that the pitcher did not achieve in 1919. There are 110 cards in this set and this is the ONLY one that has stats on the front.

Interestingly…

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #6 Eddie Cicotte 29-7 in 1919 (b-side)

The back of the card does not mention the benching of Cicotte at all.

Myth #3 Gamblers Initiated the Fix

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #19 The Key is Cicotte

Cicotte is mentioned by name on our myth #3 card as well, but it features gamblers “Sleepy” Bill Burns and Billy Maharg. Turns out the card (book and film) has the facts reversed. It was Eddie Cicotte along with Chick Gandil that approached the gamblers.

Myth #4 The Hitman: “Harry F.”

1988 Orion Pictures Eight Men Out #60 Lefty is Threatened

For legal reasons Eliot Asinof created a fictional character, Hitman “Harry F.”. According to “Eight Men Out” the hitman threatened Lefty Williams. The mythical threat is mentioned on card #60 above.

Once again I urge you to check out “Eight Myths Out” to further understand the facts/myths involved, I have only touched upon each bullet here as a connection with the related card.

This concludes part one of our series dedicated to Eight Men/Myths Out. Hopefully in the next week or so we will cover the bottom half of the myths.

Sources and Links

SABR: Eight Myths Out

Baseball-Ref

Imdb

Eight Men Out set index (Phungo)

SABR48 Gets a Baseball Card

For the second consecutive year the official SABR convention baseball game (June 22, at PNC Park) was awarded a Topps Now card. A year ago Topps honored Jacob deGrom for the 2017 SABR47 game, and you can read our posting on that game here.

For SABR folks fortunate enough to go to Pittsburgh this past summer you may remember that the game was a pitcher’s duel between the Diamondbacks and Pirates. This did not go unnoticed by Topps

2018 ToppsNow #355 Nova Corbin SABR A

2018 ToppsNow #355

The card features both starting pitchers in a game that went into the 11th inning scoreless. The combined line for the two pitchers was 15 innings pitched, 6 hits, no walks, and 20 strikeouts. While the card does honor an MLB record – the record is in the opinion of Team Phungo a bit dubious. Mostly because of the volume of caveats involved.

7+Scoreless IP AND

8+ Ks AND

NO BBs AND

Less than 3 Hits

… For each starting pitcher

Talk to a probability nerd and that is something like EIGHT conditions that need to be met – no wonder it is the first time it ever happened. With this in mind, rather than research previous comparable games I will simply summarize each of the starts featured in the dual photo on the card.

Ivan Nova’s 8 innings, 3 Hits and 0 runs were all season superlatives for the veteran starter. His game score of 84 was also a personal best for 2018. It was one of two starts where Nova went 8 scoreless and did not get the win. The Pirates had a similar game on April 26 against Detroit which they won 1-0 on a walk-off home run by Corey Dickerson.

The Diamondbacks’ Patrick Corbin had a breakout season in 2018 which resulted in the southpaw placing 5th in the Cy Young voting. During his June 22nd outing he matched a career high with 12 strikeouts. By games score (83) the start ranked in the top 3 for Corbin in 2018.

The Topps Now card features photos of both pitchers, a description of the record in the text at the bottom, and the date of the game.

2018 ToppsNow #355 Nova Corbin SABR B

2018 ToppsNow #355 (b-side)

The back of the card goes into a little more depth on the game including the 2-1 final score and also mentions Ketel Marte, who recorded the game winning hit for the Diamondbacks.

Circulation

ToppsNow cards are only available for a limited time and have limited print runs. There were 169 copies of this particular card that were released. Topps created five cards for games played on June 22, 2018 and this card finished in the middle of that group:

353 Nelson Cruz – Seattle Mariners : 2 HRs, 7 RBI in 4-Hit Offensive Outburst (print run=161)
354 Franklin Barreto – Oakland Athletics : Pair of 3-Run HRs Power Win in 6-RBI Performance (print run=137)
355 Ivan Nova, Patrick Corbin : Starters Set MLB Record with 7+ Scoreless IP, 8+ Ks, 0 BBs, and Less than 3 Hits Each (print run=169)
356 Jesus Aguilar – Milwaukee Brewers : 1st HR Ends No-No, 2nd Powers Walk-Off Win (print run=199)
357 Manny Machado – Baltimore Orioles : Go-Ahead, 2-Run HR in the 15th Inning Fuels Victory (print run=173)

The biggest shocker here is that 2019 Free Agent darling Manny Machado warranted only 4 more copies than Nova/Corbin.

Snapshots

Both images used on the card were taken by Pittsburgh based freelance photographer Justin Berl. Both pictures reside with Getty Images: Ivan Nova Patrick Corbin. It is kind of impressive that Berl got both shots as they are taken from different sides of the diamond.

Sources and Links

SABR Baseball Cards Committee (2017 Game)

Phungo Game Dated Cards Index

The Andy Warhol Triple Play “Pete Rose” (1985) Extra Innings

Last month I gave a presentation titled “The Andy Warhol Triple Play” at the SABR48 conference in Pittsburgh. The name refers to the three major baseball artworks that Warhol painted during his prolific career.

Most importantly for members and fans of this blog the idea to research this topic began with a baseball card.

Or more accurately a silkscreen based off of a baseball card design.

When I saw this image the geography synapses somehow connected Warhol to Pittsburgh and continued to SABR48 which was held at the home of the Pirates. I then vaguely recalled seeing “Tom Seaver” (1977) at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown a few years prior and started wondering about Warhol & Baseball.

I quickly found that Kristin Spangenberg of the Cincinnati Art Museum had previously curated an exhibit of Warhol’s baseball art in 2015 to coincide with the city hosting the MLB All-Star Game. It tuned out there was a third Warhol painting simply titled “Baseball”. All of the sudden I had an idea: Three Baseball Paintings + Andy Warhol = Andy Warhol’s Triple Play.

I have chronicled each of the pieces separately on my own blog Phungo. Here are links to the related pieces

Baseball – Roger Maris? (1962)

Tom Seaver (1977)

Pete Rose (1985)

Extra Innings

Twenty minutes may seem like a long time to talk about anything but when it comes to baseball most of us can drone on for hours. This was the case with the Andy Warhol baseball paintings and myself. I ended up cutting about 100 slides down to a few dozen, and I had to race to get through those.

When this happens something inevitably has to get dumped. This includes some very good stuff – after doing the research and living with the subject for a while it is similar to seeing a favorite player get released.

I am referring to this leftover information as “Extra Innings”. I have written columns on these missed subjects over at Phungo. So far postings have discussed the original photo Andy Warhol used for “Pete Rose”, A few of Andy’s Tom Seaver Polaroids, and the various flavors of the “Tom Seaver” portrait.

For various reasons I ended up purging the best Pete Rose anecdote.

Originally there was supposed to be a Pete Rose sitting, similar to what Andy Warhol did with Tom Seaver. Unfortunately in 1985 both Andy and Pete were pretty busy – and to be honest, I don’t think Rose was much of a sitter.

Warhol agreed to do the portrait from a series of photographs.

Andy got the pictures and he was perplexed. He called Carl Solway, the man who had commissioned the artwork with a question:

“In some photos he has the bat on his left shoulder and in some photos he has the bat on his right shoulder, and I am wondering why that is,”

Solway told Warhol “It’s because he’s a switch-hitter”

What happened next was described by SI scrbe Kostya Kennedy in “Pete Rose: An American Dilemma”

When Carl Solway related the story to me he mentioned that after finding out that “Switch-Hitter” was a baseball term the artist became significantly more interested in the project.

Kostya Kennedy used this story to promote his book in various forums and you can see him discuss the anecdote on Seth Meyers show if you have hulu.

#WarholBaseball

I plan to do more Extra Innings postings in the future. Most of the columns will appear at Phungo, but I expect to author the trading card related items here. From time to time I will Tweet items under #WarholBaseball.

Acknowledgements

I have always had a significant fear of public speaking – I am perfectly comfortable in a social setting, but yeah never had a desire to speak in front of a roomful of people … until I joined SABR and saw some great presentations.

I then realized I wanted to contribute something to the community.

I would like to thank the Connie Mack Chapter for putting up with my various presentations over the last couple of years, they got to see the raw minor league me. Also I would like to thank the facilitators at the SABR conference. In my case it was Bob Sproule, these folks are great for calming the nerves of any novice presenters like myself.

If you’re a true amateur as I am, I recommend trying out a Speech/Communications group. I joined Toastmasters in advance of going to Pittsburgh. I only went to perhaps a dozen meetings prior to going to #SABR48 but the experience was very valuable.

Sources and Links

Andy Warhol Index at Phungo

Baseball – Roger Maris? (1962)

Tom Seaver (1977)

Pete Rose (1985)

Pete Rose: An American Dilemma – Kostya Kennedy

Carl Solway: e-Mail interview

CityBeat – various issues

Cincinnati Art Museum

#SABR48 Warhol Triple-Play audio

#SABR48 Warhol Triple-Play slides