When we moved from Brooklyn to the middle of Long Island in December 1971, it was like landing on the moon. I was nine years old, with long curly hair and a David Crosbyesque fringe jacket. The kids in my school were more Leave It to Beaver than Mod Squad.
The stores were different too. There was a drive through place to get your milk and groceries (Dairy Barn). In Canarsie, we had Bill’s Superette, a truck that would drive down East 82nd Street with similar goods. Instead of the local candy store, there were 7-Eleven Stores. And Slurpees. Many many Slurpees, the official drink of the Gods.
There are few things on Earth as delicious as a Coca Cola Slurpee, but, starting in 1972, the icy drink game was dramatically upped. Slurpee cups had baseball players!
I was going to be drinking a lot of Slurpees anyway, but now there was something new to collect. The players were beautifully, and colorfully, drawn. Well worth keeping after the last straw full. I was so hooked on Slurpee cups that my Grandfather would buy me empty ones. Thanks to the benevolent staff at the Lake Grove store, I was allowed to go behind the counter and go through the sleeve of cups, picking out the ones I needed. I don’t know if they charged less, or the same, for empties, but it worked for my Grandfather, and for me. At a quarter either way, it was manageable.
I’ve transported stacks of Slurpee cups to every place I’ve lived in the last 50 years, but only recently did I come across these lovely photo checklists. Now I can work on these 60 cup sets.
1972 Checklist
1973 Checklist
The 1972 cups have back bios set to the left in one solid paragraph. The 1973s have a more centered look. This is important to know since the checklists have a lot of overlap. There are some great distinctions – Willie Mays has Giants (1972) and Mets (1973) versions. Others can only be distinguished by the backs.
The 20 Hall of Famer cups are not as nice. Weird, really. Like the 1963 Bazooka All Time Greats, they portray HOFers when they were old. Nothing more appealing to the kids than a desiccated Lefty Grove. 7-Eleven liked them enough to put out a radio ad.
Decrepit Lefty Grove
I’ve learned a few things as I start investing the cups I need. Thankfully, sold listings on eBay indicate that the common guys are pretty cheap, two for a dollar at times. Even big names don’t go for very much.
What I don’t know is whether there’s a lurking short print out there. I tend to think not, but I’d hate to get stuck paying a ton for a 1973 Ellie Rodriguez cup.
This feels like a good project. I never dreamed I’d have complete runs of Slurpee cups, but it seems attainable. Not as much fun as drinking a Slurpee, but close, very close.
Our collecting habits are almost certainly influenced by time and place, and my own certainly are. The players I collect were primarily active in the 1980s and 1990s, the team I collect was on top of the baseball world in 1986 with their spring training site moving about two miles away from my house, and, with my formative collecting years being the late 1980s and early 1990s, I find having a single card producing company with a full MLB license maddening.
At some point, probably in the early 2000s, I began collecting “cards” of players from the area in which I grew up. “Cards” is in parentheses because I have other items of the non-card variety, including Starting Lineup figures for the few who had them as well as other assorted card-like items. While the definition of a card varies by individual, my own definition of a “card” is broad.
Port St. Lucie was small when I lived there – the title of the post shows how much the area codes changed due to population growth over the span of about 15 years. There was not actually a high school in the city of Port St. Lucie until 1989 (I was in the second class that could possibly have attended the school all four years) – so I branched out a little into the rest of St. Lucie County as well as neighboring Martin and Indian River counties. But despite its size there were a few players who made it to the show.
The most famous player from the area is almost certainly Rick Ankiel. A highly touted pitching prospect who likely would have gone higher in the draft if he didn’t have Scott Boras as his agent, he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting to Rafael Furcal then proceeded to struggle with control against the Braves and Mets in the playoffs. He of course made it back to the majors as an outfielder, which, according to his book, may not have happened had he not had Boras as his agent. It’s that story which likely elevates him to the most famous player from the area.
Charles Johnson went to Fort Pierce Westwood and was drafted in the first round twice – once out of high school and once out of the University of Miami. I believe his dad was the baseball coach at Westwood for many years. He is probably the best player (at least according to WAR) to come out of the area, or at least he was until Michael Brantley came along. Again, there are dividing lines for a collection – I don’t collect Brantley because I had left the area before he became a local player. He was in the right place just at the wrong time. Brantley’s time in that area did overlap perhaps an even more famous individual from the area – you may have seen Megan Fox in a movie or two.
There are other players from the area, more minor players in the history of the game. Ed Hearn, who was born in Stuart and went to Fort Pierce Central, was a favorite of my best friend’s mom. He also happened to play for the 1986 Mets, which is good enough for me. Like Charles Johnson, Terry McGriff is a catcher out of Westwood and is actually Charles Johnson’s uncle. He’s also a cousin to Fred McGriff (who I also collect in a limited fashion though that has nothing to do with location – it has everything to do with time). A friend of mine in elementary school got Terry McGriff’s autograph when Terry visited my friend’s elementary school. Eventually that card ended up in my collection through a trade of some sort.
Danny Klassen, who went to John Carroll High School, is the closest in age to me, and while I didn’t play baseball with him (I was on the north side of Port St. Lucie and played at Sportsman’s Park; he was playing on the south side at Lyngate Park) I know many people who played on teams with him in Little League and Legion Ball. I believe he has a World Series ring with his time on the Diamondbacks. Wonderful Terrific Monds was a player I didn’t know much about, but (1) a good friend of mine’s parents couldn’t stop talking about how good he was and (2) his name is awesome. He never made it to the majors, but he has minor league cards and a handful of cards from mainstream sets due to being in the minors at the right time (a prospect in the early 1990s).
I should probably have a Jon Coutlangus collection, but alas, I think he was a year too late. At one point I identified Joe Randa as the best MLB player to attend Indian River Community College (which is now Indian River State College), so I started a Randa collection, though I don’t remember much about his IRCC career.
The more prominent players (Ankiel, Johnson, and Randa) have some game-used and autographed cards; most have parallel cards in one product or another. Okay, Ankiel has over 100 different autographed cards and over 50 memorabilia cards according to Beckett; he was a hot prospect at a time when there were multiple fully-licensed producers. He’s also popular enough that he has autographed cards in recent Topps issues, well after his retirement from baseball. Hearn, McGriff, Monds, and Klassen only have a handful (or what I would call a handful – less than 75) of cards. It’s usually easier to find the rarer cards of the bigger names because sellers will list them, with the cards of the less popular players coming up occasionally.
While the cards of these players aren’t going to set records at an auction or allow me to buy an island, the collection provides a tie to my formative baseball playing and baseball card collecting years. For me, those types of connections are why I collect.
Before I get into the “3rd Inning”, I would like to thank everyone for the awesome comments, and taking the time to read the introductory post. I’m happy you all enjoyed, and staying on for the ride!
In the first post (1st Inning), I explained briefly how tough it was to locate some of the 86 players due to the fact that some had no MLB card (16 total). The “3rd Inning” will focus on my journey to find these players. Most of the cards and memorabilia from this post are not graded and/or authenticated yet, I’m currently in the process (maybe I’ll get them back from PSA sometime next year!).
Marshall Bridges 1978 TCMA “The 1960’s” Washington Senators / 1992 The Wiz New York Yankees “Yankees of the 60’s”. I could not find any graded card, memorabilia, or autographs of Marshall. I came across these two cards and decided to grab both. TCMA cards were pretty popular, and the Wiz card I hadn’t seen before doing my research. I did not know Bridges played for the Yankees, but he had a pretty good year for them in 1962 (8-4 3.14 era). He played in MLB for 7 seasons, with four different teams. Marshall pitched for the Memphis Red Sox in the Negro American League.
🐐fact: Bridges was shot in the leg by a 21 year-old married woman in a bar during Spring Training of 1963.
Robert Wilson 1990 Target Brooklyn Dodgers. Wilson had 5 at bats with the Dodgers in 1958, recorded one hit (as a pinch-hitter). Finding anything on Wilson was really tough due to his short stint in MLB. I did find a 1957 Montreal Royals autographed team ball, but it was way out of my price range. The Target card was issued as a “100th Anniversary”, and featured 1,095 players from all eras of the Dodgers franchise. Not the coolest one in the project, but there wasn’t much to choose from.
🐐fact: Wilson played on the 1947 Newark Eagles (53-42-1) with Monte Irvin, and Larry Doby. He batted .308 in 39 games.
Charlie Peete 1955-1956 Omaha Cardinals Team Photo. This guys stuff is super hard to find. I spent hours researching him. I love these old Minor League team photos, I really enjoy collecting them. Peete was a good lefty hitting outfielder. He played in the Negro Leagues for the Indianapolis Clowns. The Cardinals signed Peete in 1954. He tore up the Piedmont League batting .311 17 HR and was named to the All-Star team. In ’56 he led AAA batting .350 with 16 HR and 63 RBI for the Omaha Cardinals. Charlie had 52 at bats for St. Louis in ’56, the only year he would appear in MLB.
🐐fact: Peete had a very sad ending to his life. He passed away in the prime of his career, the very young age of 27. He was playing Winter ball in Venezuela when he and his family were killed in a plane crash.
Pat Scantlebury Original Type 1 Photo. Pat had me searching the web like a mad man! One day I received an eBay alert and there it was, a beautiful original photo of Scantlebury. It’s from 1951, around the time he was pitching for his native country of Panama in the 1951 Caribbean Series. It’s a wonderful candid shot of Pat. He appeared in only one MLB season, playing for the Reds in 1956 (Frank Robinson’s rookie year). Pat played for the New York Cubans of the Negro League from 1944-1948.
🐐fact: Scantlebury and Hall of Famer Rod Carew are the only two MLB players born in Gatun, Panama. Like many from that era, Pat took 8 years off his age before joining organized baseball. In 2012 he was elected into the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame.
Roberto Vargas Autographed Photo. This is a beautiful photo of Vargas as a member of the 1955 Milwaukee Braves (His only year in MLB). Vargas was a right-handed pitcher, he played in the Negro Leagues for the Chicago American Giants, and the Memphis Red Sox.
🐐fact: Vargas was one of the first group of Puerto Rican ball players who appeared in MLB. His first appearance was April 17, 1955, the same day Roberto Clemente made his with the Pirates.
William Greason Signed Photo & Letter. What’s really cool about this one is I purchased the signed photo from an estate sale. The gentleman’s son who sold it to me, said his Dad would write letters to people he respected and looked up to. Mr. Greason was kind enough to send a signed photo back. I was able to acquire the original letter he sent, as well as the stamped envelope William sent to him from his Birmingham area residence. As you can see on the photo he signed it, “Rev”, Bill as most call him is a Baptist minister. He served our great country, in World War II. 66th Supply Platoon, an all-black unit, and took part in the Battle of Iwo Jima. After the war he played in the Negro Leagues for the Birmingham Black Barons, where he was a teammate of Willie Mays. Greason played one year in MLB with the 1954 Cardinals.
🐐fact: Mr. Greason is a living legend, and an American hero. I believe he’s the oldest living player from the Negro Leagues. He turned 96 last September!
Connie Johnson PSA Authenticated Autographed Index Cards. I wanted to mix in some autographs with the collection so I went this route for Johnson. Connie was a 6’ 4” right-handed pitcher. He pitched 3 years with the White Sox and 3 with the Orioles. He finished his MLB career with a respectable 40-39 record to go along with a 3.44 era. Johnson played for the Kansas City Monarchs at the age of 17. Won back to back Negro League World Series titles with the Monarchs playing with the great Satchel Paige.
🐐fact: “The most I made in a year playing baseball was $15,000. Players today make more in one day than I made in my entire career. But, I wouldn’t change a thing. We had a good time. We had a ball.” – Connie Johnson
Sam Hairston, Ray Neil, Jim Cohen 1991 Retort Negro League Legends PSA Authenticated Autograph. Sam was a tough one to come by. He only played in 7 MLB games, in 1951 with the White Sox. When I came across the card I bought it immediately. The original photo was from the 1948 East-West Classic, standing in the middle of his two Indianapolis Clowns teammates, Ray Neil, and hard-throwing pitcher Jim “Fireball” Cohen. Hairston played for the Birmingham Black Barons before being traded to the Clowns. Sam had an extensive career in the minors, hitting .304 for his career. After his playing career, we went on to the have a successful career as a pro scout.
🐐fact: Sam was a patriarch of a three-generation big-league family. His son, Jerry Hairston Sr. had a 14-year career in MLB. and Jerry’s son, Jerry Jr. played 16 years. When you count John Hairston, and then Scott, that’s 5 players from one family playing in MLB. What an amazing family of ballplayers!
Luis Marquez 1983 Fritsch – 1953 Boston/Milwaukee Braves. Luis was a tough find. I had to go with the ’83 30th anniversary set. It’s a pretty cool set with some good players marking 30 years from when the Braves moved from Boston. The set features Hall of Famers, Eddie Matthews, and Warren Spahn. Luis was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. He played 68 games in MLB, for the Braves, Cubs, and Pirates. He spent his early years in the Negro League with the New York Black Yankees, Baltimore Elite Giants, and the Homestead Grays.
🐐fact: Marquez was a speedy outfielder, who could hit, run, and possessed a strong arm in the field. He is the only Puerto Rican with batting titles in the Negro League, Puerto Rican baseball, and Organized baseball (AAA).
Willard Brown 2020 Dreams Fulfilled Negro Leagues Legends. I searched high and far for anything regarding Mr. Brown. I came across a reprint team photo of the 1947 St. Louis Browns team, but that didn’t do it for me since I wanted to have original content of each player. Brown played only one year in MLB (1947), at the age of 32 he had 67 plate appearances for the Browns. Since there wasn’t much out there I went with a card from the “Dreams Fulfilled” set. Graig Kreindler is a phenomenal artist who paints baseball players like I’ve never seen anyone before. His paintings of Negro League players are in the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Graig did the original art for this set, so being that I know Graig and appreciate his work, I thought having a card from this set would be super cool.
🐐fact: Brown was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. The great Buck O’Neil called him, “The most natural ballplayer I ever saw”. Josh Gibson named him, “Home Run Brown”. A speedy outfielder, Brown hit over .340 for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1942 and 1943. The next two years he served our country in World War II. He was among those 5,000 ships that crossed the English Channel during the D-Day Invasion of 1944.
James “Buster” “Buzz” Clarkson 1986 Fritsch Negro League Stars / 1951 Milwaukee Brewers Player Panel Card. Clarkson didn’t make it to MLB until he was 37 years of age. Played in 14 games, as an infielder and pinch-hitter for the Boston Braves in 1952. He started professional baseball with the Pittsburgh Crawfords of the Negro Leagues at 23 years old, and finished his career with the Des Moines Bruins of the Western League at 41. Clarkson was another one that had me searching and searching, actually I’m still searching. That is what makes this project very unique, I’m always down a rabbit hole looking for more.
🐐fact: Clarkson was well known during his time playing in Puerto Rico. He won a few Caribbean Series championships with the well-known Santurce Crabbers. As a member of the Crabbers, he played alongside two future legends, Willie Mays, and Roberto Clemente.
Milt Smith 2000 Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research (1957 Cardinals) and 1956 PCL Seattle Rainers Team Photo. Milt Smith was also a tough find. He played in MLB season for only one year, 1955 with the Reds (36 games). He did have an extensive Minor League career which lasted 10 years with various organizations. He broke into professional baseball with the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro Leagues. The Rainers team photo is an original and pretty rare, this one is black and white, but most of the time these old Minor League team photos are bright with colors, laid out with awesome fonts, and classic uniforms, the older the better!
🐐fact: Milt had his best Minor League season in 1955 with the PCL San Diego Padres hitting .338, prompting his call-up by the Cincinnati Reds.
Vibert “Webbo” Clarke 1957 Minneapolis Millers Program and 1947 Cleveland Buckeyes Negro League Retort Card (1992). Mr. Clarke was a Panamanian born left-handed pitcher who appeared in 7 games for the Washington Senators in 1955. He spent time with Cleveland Buckeyes and the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro Leagues. He was only 18 years of age when he made his first appearance with the Buckeyes. I did a lot of research on Clarke, and found the the Minneapolis Millers program on eBay. It’s in really good condition, and shows him on the roster page (even though they spelled his name “Vibret” incorrectly. On the Buckeyes card, Clarke is pictured in the second row, first on the left.
🐐fact: During his time with the 1957 Minneapolis Millers, he was a teammate of a then 19 year-old phenom named Orlando Cepeda (see program).
Sandy Amoros 8×10 1955 World Series Autographed Photo (COA). I chose this wonderful photo because of the significance of such an amazing play in World Series history. The Amoros catch on a Yogi Berra fly ball in Game 7 of the 1955 World Series helped secure the Brooklyn Dodgers a championship over the rival Yankees. Amoros had just come into the game to replace Junior Gilliam, who moved to second base to take Don Zimmer’s spot after he was pinch-hit for. Sandy was a lefty, so if a righty was playing LF, that ball falls in. Amoros made a play that would never be forgotten in baseball history, he fired that ball into Pee Wee Reese who doubled off McDougald at 1B.
🐐fact: Amoros was born in Cuba, he stood 5’ 7” and blessed with superior speed. He had a solid MLB career, 7 years with the Dodgers, and one with the Tigers. Sandy played for the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues. He was elected to the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978.
Hank Aaron 1975 Topps (’74 Highlights) PSA 6. I purchased this card a week before the great Henry Aaron passed away. I wanted to use this card for my project because of the significance of breaking Babe Ruth’s HR record. Notice the card number is #1, Hank will always be number one in my HR record book. Hank started his professional career in the Negro Leagues with the Indianapolis Clowns. 18 years-old, scrawny, and hitting cross-handed back then (yes, cross-handed!!). In 1952 he led the Negro American League in average, a decent .467. Hank went on to accomplish nothing but greatness, on and off the field. We’ll miss you Hank!
🐐fact: “The only man I idolize more than myself.” – Muhammed Ali on Hank Aaron.
Well thats all for now folks, I hope you enjoyed the “3rd Inning”. We’re headed to the 5th, see you soon!
I spent last weekend reading the new Andrew Maraniss book “Singled Out,” which tells the story of Dodgers/Athletics outfielder Glenn Burke (SABR bio forthcoming). Of course, Burke was much more than the player suggested by his stat line, as the book’s cover reminds us. He is of historical and cultural importance for two firsts, one of which has become ubiquitous in the sport and another that remains largely invisible.
I won’t use this space to retell Burke’s story, though I will offer that Andrew’s book does an excellent job adding detail and humanity to what many fans might know only at the level of a basic plotline. Rather, I’ll focus on collecting.
I’m probably like many of you in that the more I learn about a particular player the more I want to add some of their cards to my collection. (I’ve avoided Jane Leavy’s outstanding Babe Ruth book thus far for just this reason!) What then are the “must have” Glenn Burke cards and collectibles out there?
Owing to the brevity of Glenn’s MLB career, he has only two Topps cards from his playing days, one with the Dodgers and one with the A’s.
For some collectors, that right there would be the end of the line. Others might add Burke’s 1979 O-Pee-Chee card, whose front differs from the Topps issue only by the company logo featured on the baseball.
As a huge fan of all things Aronstein (even his kid!), I also consider the 1978 SSPC Glenn Burke a must-have. (Unlike the 1976 SSPC set, these cards were only found as “All Star Gallery” magazine inserts and appear a bit less plentiful.)
Andrew’s book devotes quite a bit of time to Glenn’s journey through the minors, including one heckuva brawl that broke out between Glenn’s Waterbury Dodgers and the Quebec Carnavals. What better way to memorialize the incident, in which Glenn played a starring role, than with Glenn’s 1975 TCMA “pre-rookie” card?
Counting the OPC, we’re now up to five cards in all, or just over half a plastic sheet. To expand our card collecting further, we’ll need to look at Burke’s post-career cardboard.
Thanks to the tour de force known as the 1990 Target Dodgers set (more than 1000 cards in all!), we can add this card to our Burke page.
While other collectors might add it to their lists, I’m neither compulsive nor completist enough to bother with Burke’s 2016 Topps “Buyback,” which is simply his 1979 Topps card stamped with a red 65th anniversary emblem.
Beyond these catalogued releases, Mike Noren included Burke in his 2020 Gummy Arts set. The card fills a gap in Burke’s Topps run by utilizing the 1977 flagship design and furthermore memorializes Burke’s place in “high five” history (though readers of Andrew’s book will recognize that its image is not the first Burke/Baker high five).
I, myself, have added to the world of Glenn Burke collectibles, sending my own “card art” to fellow Burke fans.
Perhaps we will even see one of the Topps Project70 artists produce a Glenn Burke card before set’s end. Definitely at least a few of the artists are pretty big Dodger fans.
Either way, the universe of Glenn Burke baseball cards remains extremely limited at present. On the other hand, why stop at cards? There were three other items I ran across in Andrew’s book that I believe are worthwhile items for Burke collectors.
The first is this Dodger yearbook from 1981, whose cover features a Baker/ Garvey high five in place of Burke/Baker but nonetheless speaks to the rapid spread and ascension of the high five across the sporting world, if not society at large.
Another collectible in magazine form is the October 1982 “Inside Sports” that featured Burke’s coming out story, “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.”
A final Burke collectible is one I never would have known about if not for Andrew’s book. As a nine-year-old kid in 1961, Glenn sang backup on the Limeliters album “Through Children’s Eyes,” released by RCA Victor in 1962. I wouldn’t be my life, but I believe Burke is the first kid in the row second from the top.
At the moment, give or take autographs that could potentially adorn all but the most recent of these items and excluding truly unique items, I’ll call this the almost full set of Glenn Burke collectibles.
A final category I find intriguing and perhaps undervalued is ticket stubs, in which case the following items would likely be of greatest interest.
First high five (and first MLB HR) – October 2, 1977 Astros at Dodgers
Pride Night feat. ceremonial first pitch from brother Sydney Burke – June 17, 2015 Padres at A’s
It also wouldn’t surprise me to see the Dodgers, A’s, or the Bobblehead Hall of Fame issue a Glenn Burke bobblehead one of these days. And in the meantime, there’s always Patrick’s Custom Painting, who fashioned this Starting Lineup figure for “Hall of Very Good” podcast co-host Lou Olsen and has applied his talents to bobbleheads as well.
One of the underappreciated, yet voluminous, touchstones of the 1980’s – early 1990’s card boom (I try to resist “Junk Wax Era,” because there are a ton of wonderful cards that, though small in value, are high in aesthetics, i.e., not junk) was the mini-boxed set. If you had a chain store, you likely had a self-branded set, 33, maybe 44, cards in size. Ames had 20 Home Runs/20 Stolen Bases, Revco had Hottest Stars, KMart had AL and NL MVPs and many other titles. If I were so inclined to research how many of these sets there were, I’d be wading my way through stacks and stacks of them. I am not so inclined.
I can say, with some assurance, that Woolworth put out sets from 1985 – 1991, all made by Topps, all called Baseball Highlights (except the first two years, All-Time Record Holders and Super Stars, respectively), all 33 cards (except ATRH, which has 44).
I picked up the 1990 set (sans gum) for a buck at Yastrzemski Sports in Cooperstown, and it’s a glossy beaut.
The checklist is made up of players you’d expect to find circa 1990 – MVPs, Cy Young winners, ROYs and post-season heroes, but also MLBers who hit some milestones. It’s always swell to see a new Dewey Evans card.
As you’d expect, the set is overloaded with A’s and Giants, and that’s fine, but the highlights, for me, are in the Fisk, Murray, and Ryan cards. Especially that Murray card!
The tail end of the set is a run of World Series cards. Not a lot in the way of highlights, unless you’re an A’s fan, but excellent cards. Check out that Kevin Mitchell one. (I still believe that if there hadn’t been an earthquake, the Giants would have put up a better fight. That the A’s could go Stewart and Moore, then Stewart and Moore again after a long layoff, helped Oakland. The Giants may have had a hard time with Bob Welch, but I liked their chances against Storm Davis.)
The backs are simple, clear and uncluttered.
Granted, these boxes tend to blend into each other in checklist and shine. They’re not made of ticky tacky, but they do kinda all look the same. Still, I’m up to find more, but only at a dollar a piece. I do have my limits.
I am currently curating an exhibition at Queens College, in Flushing, which will be on display throughout February and March. While I don’t yet have a title for my little experiment (the show marks the first time I have ever done such a thing), the theme of the event centers on the history of baseball in New York City, from its inception to the present day, told through art and artifacts. I am indebted to a number of individuals who are either loaning me pieces from their private collections, or are submitting original work to help me craft the story I am trying to tell.
The gorgeous artwork of Jesse Loving at Ars Longa
Of course, baseball cards are a part of the event. I have long known that I wanted Jesse Loving, creator of the beautiful Ars Longa cards, to be a part of this. Although he had gone on a bit of a hiatus, he kindly agreed to fire up the engines again and is providing me with roughly 80 cards that cover the game in the Big Apple from William Wheaton and Doc Adams, to Rube Marquard and Casey Stengel, a span of roughly eighty years. I am giddy at the idea of creating a wall of his lush, vibrant images, and eagerly await the arrival of the package.
With one or two exceptions, I was intending for Jesse’s work to be the only cards in the show. There are lots of ways to tell the history of the game that have nothing to do with our favorite hobby and I wanted the beautiful creations of Ars Longa to exist in a vacuum. Then, I learned last week that one of the individuals who was contributing some truly exciting pieces from the 19th Century had decided to withdraw from the exhibition. I had to come up with something to fill the holes on the walls of the gallery left by his exit.
I am not a fine artist, nor do I have a particularly extensive collection of artifacts and memorabilia laying about. So, what to do? While the pieces I lost were from the 19th Century, I actually have some of Jesse’s cards, as well as uniforms and equipment loaned to me by Eric Miklich, that are already assisting me in telling that part of the story. I also have quite a few items that represent the Golden Age of baseball in New York, the halcyon days of Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. What the show was really lacking was a nod to the more modern incarnation of the game. The best way for me to benefit my show, and fill the unexpected void, was to focus on that gap.
That’s when it struck me that, while I don’t really have a lot of personal memorabilia at hand, there was a way I could tackle my problem at very little expense. Any exhibit on the history of New York City, (especially one taking place in the most ethnically diverse borough, on a campus that hears over 110 languages spoken every single day) needs to explore the beautiful multiculturalism that makes this City what it is. That was when I came up with my plan, a work I am calling, “If They Can Make it There.”
In the long history of professional baseball, there have been men who were born in over fifty countries besides the United States that have made the incredible and unlikely journey to the Major Leagues. While the Dominican Republic and Venezuela have provided an outsized portion of these ballplayers, countries as far-flung as Belize, the Czech Republic and Australia have also chipped in. Many of those foreign-born athletes got their professional starts in New York City. In fact, twenty-one different countries, not counting the U.S. and its territories, have generated players who made their Major League debut with the Yankees or the Mets. My plan to fill in my unexpected vacancy is to honor these men, and what better way to do it than through the beauty of baseball cards.
I am putting together a collection of these itinerant dreamers which will feature each of them in the uniform of either the Yankees or the Mets. Why just those teams and not also the Giants, Dodgers, and the multiple early squads? Two reasons. The first I already mentioned. The goal was to try and examine the impact of the game in the present day. By focusing on just the Yankees and Mets, it reinforces that point by design. The other reason is economics. Now, I can complete this set, mostly, with inexpensive cards from the last thirty or forty years.
Beyond the player appearing in a New York uniform, I decided to lay down a few other guidelines to make this creation have a little more form, and not just be a random mishmash of cards thrown up on the wall. First of all, no reprints. While the exhibition will feature some reproductions (uniforms, mostly), I have been trying to limit their influence all along. No need to further water down this project by including “fake” versions of the cards. Besides, very few of the cards I needed were particularly valuable, so why resort to knock-offs? I also wanted, if at all possible, for the card to have been issued at the time the player was employed by that team.
Jim Cockman’s .105 average may explain why the 1905 season was his lone chance at the big leagues.
This is not always feasible. A number of players who fit this criteria, including cups of coffee like Jim Cockman (born in Canada) and Harry Kingman (China), both of whom made brief appearances with the Yankees years before Jacob Ruppert signed Babe Ruth, never had any card issued, nonetheless one of them wearing the proper uniform. There are even holes for more durable players from recent years, like Stan Javier (Dominican Republic), who enjoyed a seventeen-year career that ended in 2001. During his first big league season, in 1984, he appeared in seven early-season games for the Yankees before being shipped back to Nashville and Columbus for more seasoning. He would later appear on the roster of seven other major league teams, but he never played another game for the Yankees. The Trading Card Database claims he has 289 cards out there, but none of them were issued in 1984 or ’85 featuring Javier in pinstripes.
There are missing pieces of the puzzle for the Mets, too. Utility man José Moreno (Dominican Republic) and shortstop Brian Ostrosser (Canada) never got a card of themselves in blue and orange, at least not while actively playing for the team. I have decided that in their cases, as well as that of Javier, to bend the rules and use one of the cards that came with the sets issued by the NYC-based appliance retailer, The Wiz, in the early nineties. While most of the hundreds who appear in this ubiquitous set were no longer active members of the roster at the time the cards were issued, at least they are dressed properly. I am also considering getting an Aceo Art card of Frank Estrada (Mexico), whose two lifetime plate appearances were insufficient to ever make Topps take notice.
The sets issued by The Wiz were originally released in 15-card sheets.
Most of the collection, though, will be the real deal. There are cards from almost all of the big name publishers of the modern era, including Topps, Bowman, Fleer and Donruss. There will be plenty of Junk Era wax, as well as the slick chromes that have come to represent the current state of the industry. The bulk of the exhibit will include roughly 130 cards (purchased via COMC or already in my collection) that cost me a combined total of $45.76. Most exciting to me, however, is that there will be a small handful of pre-war cards thrown in there, too. I decided to reward my clever thriftiness by investing in some slightly pricier goodies.
Arndt Jorgens played for the Yankees his entire career, serving as Bill Dickey’s backup.
I’ve already picked up a 1934 Goudey Arndt Jorgens (Norway), a 1934-36 Diamond Stars George Selkirk (Canada), and a 1911 T205 Jimmy Austin (United Kingdom). I also have my eye on two T206s, a Jack Quinn (Slovakia) and a Russ Ford (Canada). Assuming the Ebay gods favor me and I get the latter two, they will represent the first cards I’ve owned from that hobby-defining set. These bits of old paper not only give the exhibit a little more gravitas as a whole, but when it’s all over I will have some gems to add to my personal collection.
The exhibit also gives me a chance to show off a little bit of my beloved collection of Cubans who made the leap to the majors. There have been eight Cubans who began their major league career as Yankees, most recently Amauri Sanit in 2011. The Mets have birthed the careers of four citizens of the forbidden island, the most notable of which was Rey Ordoñez. While Ordoñez was famously weak at the plate, rarely hitting more than a single home run in a season, he was a defensive mastermind at shortstop in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, when the Amazin’s had one of the most exciting infields in baseball history. His partner in the middle of the diamond, Edgardo Alfonzo (Venezuela), will also be featured.
The players mentioned here really are just the tip of the iceberg. The exhibit will also include some of the brightest stars of today, including Gleyber Torres (Venezuela) and Miguel Andujar (Dominican Republic). Ron Gardenhire (Germany) makes an appearance, as do the Mastuis (Japan), Hideki and the less-successful Kazuo. There is even one Hall of Famer who is featured, buried in the dozens of other more obscure names. The quickest among you will figure out who that is almost instantly. The rest of you, well, I guess you’ll just have to stop by the college and find out. My currently unnamed exhibition opens February 18. I hope to see you there.
Only in Cooperstown can you go into a baseball card store and find inexpensive genuine autographed cards. Baseball Nostalgia, right next to Doubleday Field, is a frequent haunt of mine. They’ve been around for 40 years, were once the flagship of TCMA, and remain as the depository of awesome things. They have rows and rows of autographed cards, not only big stars but nobodies. Maybe nobodies is unfair; let’s say non-stars.
Last year I bought a handful of signed cards, but in the little pile of goodies were a few photos (Jim Bibby, Buddy Bradford) circa 1974 and a postcard of Jack Brohamer from 1975. Why would anybody buy a signed Jack Brohamer postcard? Readers of this blog know the answer to that.
The Brohamer card is pretty sweet and, as I was researching for a new book proposal, I stumbled on the fact that Ken Berry (outfielder, not F Troop star) finished his career on the Indians. I didn’t recall that, Googled, and came across the one card of Berry in brilliant mid-‘70’s Cleveland garb. It was from the same postcard set as the Brohamer! It took time, but I finally got the full set last week, shipped in sheets.
I grabbed an album off the shelf that would be appropriate housing for this set. It’s an album of misfit cards – oddball sets, different shapes and sizes, in 2-pocket, 4-pocket and 9-pocket sheets. Besides the 1975 Cleveland Indians set (here’s a photo of one page, not with Brohamer but with Ed Crosby, Frank Duffy, John Ellis and Oscar Gamble, for Dan Epstein), the other sets are:
1963 Pepsi-Cola Tulsa Oilers
12 panels, 2 cards per panel, 24 cards with a big loop above to hang on bottle tops – what more could you ask! The Pepper Martin card is the coolest, but for my card collecting age group (I’m 54), a minor league set with Jim Beauchamp, Tom Hilgendorf, Chuck Taylor and some batboys, is hard to resist. It’s not a very pricey set, I have no idea when I got it and how much I paid, but it’s way cool.
1966 East Hills Pirates
There are a few great regional sets featuring the Pirates of the 1960’s – KDKA, Grenier Tires and East Hills. Produced and distributed by a big mall outside Pittsburgh, the East Hills set is very nice and essential for Al McBean completists. Sure, Clemente and Stargell are the highlights, but every Bucco picture is a gem. There’s something about Matty Alou that fascinates me. He seems a bit like an alien, if an alien could hit .342.
1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops
Not odd in size, the Nu-Card cards are odd in content. Contemporary quasi-achievements are sprinkled amongst all-time moments. Was Roy Sievers’ 1957 American League Home Run title equivalent to Lou Gehrig’s streak or Willie Mays’ 1954 World Series catch? If you’ve got an 80 card set to fill, you bet it is!
1966 St. Petersburg Cardinals
A bit larger than regular postcards (they peek out above a regular 4-pocket sleeve), this 20 card set was put out by Foremost Milk. Of course, nothing screams hot summer in Florida more than a glass of milk. Sparky Anderson’s card is the key, and here he is. You can’t tell me this dude was only 32 at the time.
There’s something about these sets that resonate with me – there’s a romantic vision I have of suburban Pittsburgh 10-year olds bugging their Mom to take them to East Hills for a Gene Michael card, or some kid deciding to buy a pack of Nu-Cards instead of Topps and insisting that Nu-Cards were better. The very idea of seeing shelves of Pepsi bottles with Tulsa Oiler card hanging from the necks makes me light-headed.
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 