A few weeks ago, my daughter walked downstairs and handed me a handful of baseball cards I had given her years ago. She had been using them for bookmarks, she confessed, and was ready to get them off her desk.
As I sifted through about 30 cards, scanning them front and back, I remembered something that had escaped me as I have become a more casual collector: You can sometimes learn a lot about a baseball player from his card, and it isn’t always about baseball.
A good example can be found on the back of Al Williams’ 1982 Donruss. Under “Career Highlights,” among the stats and facts, we learn that Al, a Minnesota Twins pitcher from 1980 to ‘84, “survived a Nicaraguan earthquake in ‘72 that destroyed half his house while he was sleeping.”
That line itself sent me Googling for more information about the earthquake. The 6.3 magnitude event struck near the capital city Managua about 30 minutes after midnight on December 23, 1972. Reports vary widely about how many people were killed, between 4,000 and 11,000. More than 20,000 were injured and 300,000-plus were left homeless.
(Baseball historians will be quick to note that Roberto Clemente was delivering aid to the victims of this earthquake when he died in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico.)
Al was 18 at the time of the earthquake. It was just a year after he began playing baseball.
The next line Donruss listed among the pitcher’s “Career Highlights,” said Al “fought 16 months with the guerilla forces against the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in ‘77-’78.” The next line tells us he “was the strikeout leader of the ill-fated Inter-American League in 1978.”
OK, that sentence seems a bit out of place. Let’s go back to Al fighting with guerilla forces.
According to an April 3, 1984, New York Times story, which quotes that year’s Minnesota Twins media guide, the Nicaraguan government would not grant Williams, then a minor leaguer for the Pittsburgh Pirates, a visa to leave the country to join his ball club in the United States in 1977, so “this prompted Al to sign up with the Sandinista National Liberation Front guerillas and he was engaged in jungle fighting against forces of Anastasio Somoza for the next 16 months.”
Times reporter Ira Berkow asked Al about those months of fighting and his “cloak and dagger” escape – that’s the way the Twins media guide phrased it – from his home country.
“That’s in the past,” Al replied, sitting in front of his locker. “I live for the future.”
Three years prior, the Times wrote about “Fearless Al Williams” for a section titled “Sports People.” There, Al spoke briefly about the time he spent fighting and away from baseball.
“I really missed baseball the two years I was out of it,” he said, “but, I wasn’t thinking about baseball all the time. “I was just trying to stay alive.”
Though a die-hard Dodger fan, I’ve always had a fondness for two lifelong Giants, Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell. How much fondness? At the risk of losing favor with the Great Dodger in the Sky, let’s just say I have more cards of each than I do Dodger legends like Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, and Jackie Robinson!
One flip through my “old cards” binder is enough to reveal that despite my allegiance to all things Dodger Blue, I’ve been sleeving with the enemy.
As I added my latest Hubbell to the collection, a 1941 Double Play in remarkably nice shape, I stopped to think about why it is I had such a connection to the Giants ace.
I think the allure goes way back to when nearly all of my knowledge of baseball history came from (and this will make me sound old!) books and radio.
I imagine Vin Scully mentioned Carl Hubbell once or twice in the games I’d listen to before bed starting around 1979, perhaps in conjunction with our own screwballer, Bobby Castillo, and I have no doubt King Carl came up even more as Fernando rose to prominence.
Dodgers “back-to-back” screwballers
As for books, I gravitated more toward cartoon-illustrated tomes with titles like “Baseball’s Zaniest Plays” (and still do!) than biography or serious analysis, a consequence being that I came to prize the 7-for-7 game or double no-hitter even more than the 500 home run hitter or 300 game winner. No surprise then that striking out five of the greatest hitters in baseball history–in a row!–would command my attention.
Of course, as is true with much in my life, there was a baseball card angle. At a card show around 1980, perhaps my very first, I rummaged through the “quarter box” and left with a 1961 Nu-Cards Baseball Scoops card immortalizing the Meal Ticket’s midsummer heroics.
Of course I had no idea it was from 1961. To ten-year-old me this card—bargain price be damned— had to be from 1934, or maybe 1935 at the very latest, which made this card my very first really old card of an all-time great. (In truth, that status still would have held had I known the card’s correct year.)
A few years later I was fortunate enough to receive a through the mail return from the Meal Ticket himself, though the card, like many from my early collecting days, did not survive the decades.
Fast forward nearly 40 years and my Hubbell collection included the glorious plastic sheet shown earlier, a 1935 Diamond Stars, and several pages of post-career cardboard: Fleer Baseball Greats, TCMA, Renata Galasso, Dick Perez, Conlon, etc.
1983 Renata Galasso #208
There were definitely other cards I wanted, but I had two things working against me. First off, my “best of” binder page looked so magnificent, I didn’t really want to tinker. Second, vintage Carl Hubbell cards weren’t exactly free. Fortunately, each of these problems had a solution.
If the collection grew a bit, I could borrow a Cigar Box display from one of my Dodger collections, however traitorous that sounds. As for cash, I came to the conclusion that supporting an Ott and Hubbell collection took me a bit outside my means and that selling some Ott cards would be an excellent way to generate some Hubbell money.
It was definitely painful to part with any beloved card of Master Melvin, but I knew I’d made the right decision when I was able to add this absolute dream card to my collection. Plus, Ott played for the Giants, so there’s that. 😃
Another big “hit” was Hubbell’s 1934 Goudey card, notably the year of his famous strikeout feat. (The “Sports Kings” card was likely also released in 1934, though the multi-sport Goudey set is nearly always referred to as a 1933 issue.)
I also decided I was long overdue in picking up some of the Meal Ticket’s early 1970s Laughlin cards.
The result is this wonderful Hubbell display, which sits atop my mantel.
Keen eyes might notice I’ve subbed in this homemade “Heavy J Studios” version of Hubbell’s Sport Kings card while the real one anchors a separate wall display.
I’ve also applied similar treatment (plus cut autograph—thanks, Sean!) to my 1984 Donruss Champions series featuring the glorious artwork of Dick Perez.
To an extent I suppose I’m now where I was almost a year ago, display full and wallet empty. The only difference is now I have exactly the Hubbell collection I’d always dreamed of. Still, I’ll highlight the cards most likely to sneak into my collection someday if the price or timing is just right.
STANDARD-ISH SIZE
In honor of Hubbell’s strikeout record, I’ll start with this group of five cards, any of which would bump the 2019 Panini Diamond Kings card out of my display.
1933 Goudey #234
I’m a sucker for 1933 Goudey, so this is an obvious want. However, it’s not quite a need. The image is the same as Hubbell’s 1934 Goudey card, and I already have both that and Hubbell’s other 1933 Goudey. Shoot, though. I do love red backgrounds.
1934 Batter Up
This card is attractive to me in a couple ways. The pose is tremendous, so there’s that. But there’s also the fact that I don’t have a single Batter Up card in my collection.
1941 Goudey(Blue)
There is so little to love about this set, but I do think the Hubbell is among its least terrible cards. Yet another set I have no cards of in my collection.
1943 M.P. & Company
Literally the exact same comment as above.
1974 Laughlin All-Star Game
I absolutely LOVE Laughlin cards, having grown up on the Fleer sticker backs of the early 1980s. I know a lot of collectors my age would go back to card shows of that era and buy up Mantle cards. Me, I’d scoop up all the 1970s Laughlin sets for two to three dollars a pop!
OVERSIZED
As much as I enjoy the larger pieces, they’re a challenge to display with my other cards. Still, I’m forced to at least call out two cards so spectacular I’d find a spot for them somehow.
1937 and 1938 Wheaties
* * * * *
How about you? What are your favorite cards of the Meal Ticket? Do your player collections include enemies from the rival team? Let me know in the comments, and happy collecting!
A FEW LESSONS
When “collecting them all” is a practical impossibility, building a player collection of personal favorites, perhaps restricted or otherwise influenced by display parameters, is a great way to go.
If displaying is an end goal, you might be surprised how much customs, modern, and art cards can enhance the overall look and obviously save a ton of cash.
Selling or trading all but a couple favorites of a player you collect is a great way to build up your collection of someone else. Not easy but no regrets!
RANDOM CARL HUBBELL TRIVIA
Hubbell’s feat of five consecutive All-Star Game strikeouts was matched in 1986 by fellow screwballer Fernando Valenzuela. However, the batters retired by Fernando (Mattingly, Ripken, Barfield, Whitaker, Higuera) don’t read quite the same as Ruth, Gehrig, Foxx, Simmons, Cronin).
Hall of Fame teammates Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell died exactly 3o years apart (November 21, 1958, and November 21, 1988) from injuries suffered in automobile accidents.
Born in Carthage, Missouri, King Carl won 18 games in 1929 but was outdone by namesake and fellow Show Me State native Edwin Hubble (Marshfield, MO) whose discovery of Hubble’s Law had profound implications for our understanding of the universe.
On May 2, 1993, an 18-year-old phenom hit his first major league home run for the Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants against Shingo Takatsu of the Yakult (Tokyo) Swallows. This was his first of 507 hit in two continents across three decades.
Hideki Matsui was that prospect that lived up to the hype. From his teenage years in amateur ball, he was touted as a future legend. Today, he is one of the best-known people in Japan and even has a museum honoring his accomplishments.
Hideki Matsui struggled early in his rookie season and was demoted to the minor leagues. His second home run was on August 22 upon his return. He didn’t miss another of his team’s games until May 2006 with the New York Yankees.
Each of his 507 home runs is commemorated in a special card set produced for NTV (Nippon TV) by Toho and then continued by Upper Deck and Topps. As a Yankees collector who wants to have everything, this set piqued my interest, for the 140 cards, one for each Yankees home run from 2003-2009. Angels, A’s, and Rays homers are represented also, along with one for each of his 332 home runs with the Yomiuri Giants.
Cards for his 1st, 200th, and 214th home runs
What I like most about these is that each has a unique picture- featuring the actual home run. What a contrast with the Topps Alex Rodriguez Road to 500 or the Barry Bonds 756 set! For milestone home runs the card was even more special. On the back Matsui tells the story of the home run, along with the date, the opposing team and pitcher.
The cards were sold by subscription starting in 1993. Subscribers were notified when a group of 5-10 or more were ready, usually two or three times per year. The cards sold for about 50c-$1 per card. There were also several albums offered for $10-15 each that held anywhere from one year to several years. Albums can be found for certain years, or by team. An album was even released for the Rays, where Matsui hit just two home runs!
The cards and albums were sold by NTV throughout the run, but because of licensing the manufacturers changed. Toho produced the cards from 1993-2002 coving his years in Japan. There were 332 cards representing each of his home runs in Japan. Upper Deck continued the collection through much of 2009, when Topps took over until Hideki’s retirement in 2012 after a stint with the Rays.
Matsui in America
But there’s more! There were additional Matsui cards offered to subscribers around special events. There were editions to honor postseason home runs. There were at least five folios with cards during his Yankees career. One in 2004 covers Hideki’s return to Japan with the Yankees for opening day. Also, there is a two-card collection for Matsui’s 55th (he wore number 55) home run in the USA, and another 17-card folio with a card for every Matsui hit in the 2009 World Series. A single bonus card welcomes back Matsui from the disabled list in 2006.
A few of the special event series
I purchased the main set and have enjoyed going through these albums reliving his career. They really bring out the passion that Japanese people have for baseball, and one of their greatest heroes, Hideki Matsui.
Special thanks to Jason Presley, an expert on Asian baseball cards.
Editor’s Note: This article was written by Bruce Markusen. You can find Bruce on Twitter at @markusen_s.
George Scott last played a major league game during the 1970s, but he is one of those players not likely to be forgotten anytime soon. One of his teams, the Red Sox have certainly not forgotten. They have announced that April 4 will be George “Boomer” Scott Night at Fenway Park.
Whether it was his unusual build and girth wrapped tightly in polyester, his colorful choice of neckware, or his own quirky use of the English language, Scott made an impression on anyone who followed the game in the 1960s and seventies. And it seems only fitting that an offbeat character like Scott would somehow produce one of the strangest baseball cards that the Topps Company has ever produced.
Fifty years ago, Topps produced a set of cards that was visually striking, filled with action, and replete with unusual camera angles. The simple design of the 1973 cards, which were hallmarked by a colored silhouette corresponding to the player’s primary position, allowed the photography plenty of space to breath. The use of both traditional horizontal framing and the contrasting landscape view made for variety within the set.
As much as vintage collectors have developed a strong liking for the 1973 set, some of the choices that Topps made in arranging the cards remain a source of mystery. In a general sense, the most obvious question is this: Why were so many action shots taken from so far away, in some cases seemingly hundreds of feet separating the camera from its target? And then there are more specific questions. For example, why does Steve Garvey’s card, which depicts him at the end of a home run trot, show us more of Dodgers teammate Wes Parker, who blocks part of Garvey’s face and body from our view?
Other questions persist. Why did Topps show Dick Green, an excellent defensive second baseman, booting a ball in a photo that was at least two years old? And why was Luis Alvarado’s action shot taken at such a low angle that we are given full view of the parking lot at the White Sox’ spring training ballpark in Sarasota? (If you look close enough, you can spot a 1972 Chevy in the lot.)
In some cases, the answers to these questions can be found in Topps’ inexperience at including action shots on its cards. The company had only begun the practice of featuring color action photography with its 1971 set. Topps also had a limited library of photographs, perhaps attributable to the relatively small number of photographers on the payroll. It appears that Topps so badly wanted to include as many action images as possible in its 1973 set that it sometimes settled for something less than ideal photographic art.
Of all the unusual 1973 Topps cards, the one that remains the most puzzling to me is the card issued for the aforementioned George Scott. We know that Scott, playing for the Brewers, is the featured player on the card. He is stretching to receive a throw at first base. We also can see clearly that Oakland’s Bert Campaneris is the player sliding feet-first into first base, trying to beat the tag from Scott. There is no mistaking the identity of those two players, though it does prompt us to ask why Campaneris appeared as the “other player” on so many 1973 Topps cards? (See the 1973 cards for Bob Oliver and Rich Hand as evidence of that.) The proliferation of Campaneris in 1973 Topps, however, is a question for another day.
No, the real mystery has to do with the background of this card. When you look at the outlines of Campaneris and Scott against the stands down the first base line at the Oakland Coliseum, something doesn’t look quite right. The photo doesn’t look natural; it appears to have been altered in some way. More specifically, it looks like Scott and Campaneris have been superimposed onto the ballpark stands in the background. In a similar way to the use of bluescreen technology in films, it appears that two different photos have been pasted together to create a surreal look for the Scott card.
If it seems unlikely that one photo has been superimposed over the other, take a second look at the fans seated in the stands. Under normal circumstances, the fans would be looking directly at first base, to see if Campaneris makes it back safely. But these fans are looking in a variety of directions, most of them observing right field or center field. These fans appear to be watching another game altogether, and certainly not the one in which Scott and Campaneris are involved.
So why exactly would Topps do this? What would be the point of making such a radical change to the card? Some card aficionados have told me that the background stands in the photograph are not from the Oakland Coliseum, where this game was played, but are actually from County Stadium in Milwaukee.
As one fan posted at The Hardball Times in 2011: “The background wall sure looks like Milwaukee’s County Stadium. The playing field looks like it could be from Oakland’s Alameda Stadium. (Looks like too much foul territory for Milwaukee.)
“The wall angle looks strange in relation to the playing field.
“When blown up it appears that there is a blue line along George Scott’s back like he was pasted on to the background picture.”
These are all reasonable points. But why would Topps do this? One theory is that Topps did not want to use a photograph that showed the many rows of empty seats at the Oakland ballpark, so they took a shot from a busier County Stadium to give the card a busier look.
It seems like an awful lot of work to obtain a relatively minor goal, but it’s the best explanation I’ve heard. Whatever the actual reason, which has likely gone to the grave with famed Topps executive Sy Berger, the card is certainly unusual in appearance. And that is most appropriate for a player like George Scott.
Long before he became a member of the Brewers, Scott came up in the Red Sox’ organization. It’s hard to believe in retrospect, but as a minor league player in 1963, Scott actually played 24 games at shortstop before finally being moved to the infield corners in ’64. It was also during Scott’s minor league days that he experienced one of the worst incidents of his career. One day, several of his teammates came to his hotel room dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan. They apparently intended it as a prank, but understandably, Scott took it otherwise.
In 1966, Scott attended spring training camp with the Red Sox. He surprised just about everyone by making the team and beating out Joe Foy for the starting third base job. (In an interesting twist, it was Foy who would eventually come up with the nickname of “Boomer” for his teammate.)
One week later, the Red Sox switched Scott to first base, where he would spend the majority of time that summer. For the season, Scott would hit 27 home runs and place third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
After the season, the Red Sox hired Dick Williams as their manager. Rather surprisingly, Williams announced that Scott would have to beat out another promising young hitter, Tony Horton, for the first base job. Rather than complain, Scott became determined to take a more intelligent approach at the plate. He outplayed Horton in the spring, winning the job once again. But his expanding waistline did become a concern for Williams, who benched him several times throughout the summer. (Williams also ordered two other Red Sox, Foy and pitcher Jose Santiago, to lose weight.) Though often listed at 205 pounds, Scott was much larger than that for most of his career, sometimes playing at 230 to 240 pounds.
Despite his battles with weight, Scott hit well. The so-called “sophomore jinx” had little effect on his performance, as he put up an OPS of .839. He also played first base with an agile grace that defied his size, winning the first of his eight Gold Gloves. Scott’s all-round play helped the Red Sox win the American League pennant in a harrowing race that came down to the final day of the season. The Red Sox then came within a game of winning the World Series against the more experienced Cardinals.
In 1968, Scott became one of the victims of the Year of the Pitcher. He started the season in a horrible slump and showed little improvement over the course of the summer. At one point, he lost the first base job to Hawk Harrelson, who was in the midst of a career season. Incredibly, Scott would finish the year with a .171 batting average and only three home runs in 124 games.
Scott then reported to winter ball, where he received the wisdom of his manager at Santurce, Frank Robinson. The future Hall of Famer worked with Scott on his mental approach to the game. Scott also sought out hitting advice from Roberto Clemente, a mainstay on the Santurce team.
Perhaps aided by the counsel of Clemente and Robinson, Scott played better in 1969, hitting 16 home runs while raising his average to .253. After another decent season in 1970, he bust out with 24 home runs, won his third Gold Glove, and even received some consideration in the American League MVP race.
Scott now seemed entrenched at first base. But then came the news of October 10. That day, the Red Sox announced a blockbuster trade, the deal sending sent Scott, pitchers Jim Lonborg and Ken Brett, and outfielders Billy Conigliaro and Joe Lahoud, and catcher Don Pavletich to Milwaukee for a return that included All-Star outfielder Tommy Harper and right-handers Lew Krausse and Marty Pattin.
In his first season with the Brewers, Scott made a good adjustment from Fenway Park to County Stadium. He hit 20 home runs and added the surprising dimension of speed to his game, stealing a career-best 16 bases in 1972.
With the Brewers, Scott became a recognizable sight around the American League. With his massive body draped in Milwaukee’s form-fitting uniform, Scott looked unusual to say the least. And then there was his decision to play first base while wearing a batting helmet, a habit that sprung from an incident in which road fans threw objects in his direction. That incident convinced Scott that he should wear a helmet, both at bat and in the field, for the rest of his career.
From 1972 to 1975, Scott emerged as a star in Milwaukee, while also becoming extraordinarily popular with the fan base. In 1975, he put together his best season, hitting a career-high 36 home runs and leading the league with 109 RBIs. Scott also led the league in total bases.
After a downturn in 1976, Scott clashed with Brewers general manager Jim Baumer and eventually requested a trade—which he received at the December Winter Meetings. The Brewers traded Scott and outfielder Bernie Carbo to the Red Sox for Cecil Cooper, a younger player who would take the Boomer’s place at first base.
Scott received a warm welcome from the fans in Boston. While a number of black players, like Reggie Smith and Tommy Harper, had struggled against racism in Boston (both from the city and the franchise), Scott seemed to receive better treatment. He also enjoyed a resurgence at the plate, hitting 33 home runs and slugging an even .500. With Scott deepening the middle of the Red Sox’ order, the team won 97 games while finishing second to the rival Yankees.
Given the size of the Boston media market, Scott became more well known as one of baseball’s most colorful characters. He showed off his own distinctive brand of the language; one of his favorite terms was the word, “taters,” his preferred name for home runs. He also gave a nickname to his first baseman’s mitt, calling it “Black Beauty.”
With his generally jovial nature, Scott became a favorite interview target of Boston writers and broadcaster. One day, a reporter asked him about the distinctive necklace that he wore during games; it featured an array of shells and beads. Scott told reporters that the necklace was made from “second basemen’s teeth.” That answer became Scott’s calling card for the rest of his career.
After a poor 1978 and a slow start to the 1979 season, Scott saw his second tenure in Boston come to an end. Two days before the June 15th trading deadline, the Red Sox traded him to the Royals for outfielder Tom Poquette.
Scott’s play did not improve in 1979. A slump in April and May dragged into June. And then on June 13, just two days before the trading deadline, the Red Sox parted ways. They sent Scott to the Kansas City Royals for outfielder Tom Poquette. Scott struggled at Kansas City’s spacious Kauffman Stadium. He hit only one home run for the Royals before being released in August.
After nearly two weeks of unemployment, Scott found a job with an unexpected team, the Yankees, who were playing out the string during a disappointing season. Scott hit well for the Yankees, putting up an OPS of .840. It seemed like Scott’s performance might earn him a return to the Yankees in 1980, but the team opted to sign another free agent, the younger Bob Watson, to take the role of right-handed hitting first baseman and DH.
In the meantime, the Rangers expressed interest in signing Scott and using him as a utilityman. Scott wanted no part of that, so he ended up settling for a contract in the Mexican League, where he became an offensive force over the next two season. He later became a player/manager, before becoming a fulltime manager at the minor league level.
Sadly, Scott’s health suffered in his later years. He put on a tremendous amount of weight, at one point tipping the scales at over 400 pounds. Diagnosed with diabetes, Scott’s health continued to decline. In 2013, he passed away at the age of 69.
I remember hearing the news of Scott’s death and how it seemed to remind me and other fans of just how much time had passed since the days of baseball in the 1970s. It was a colorful and rich time for the game, an era that in some ways was symbolized by a player like Scott. No one in the game looked like him, and no one talked like him.
George Scott was as unique and wonderfully offbeat as that 1973 Topps card.
On a sunny afternoon in January 1992, a line of fans stretched from inside the Huntington Beach High School gymnasium, out into the parking lot. That Saturday, the gymnasium was the scene of a sports card show. And though eight-time MLB All-Star and former National League Rookie of the Year, Darryl Strawberry, and the L.A. Raiderettes were on site attracting their own throngs of fans, those standing in the longest line were not waiting to meet them. Instead, their line snaked its way to a table, behind which sat 19-year old Marc Newfield, a baseball player who to that point had never played a game above AA. Newfield was a hometown kid who, just a couple years before, played basketball in this same gymnasium versus rival Huntington Beach High School as a member of the crosstown Marina High School Vikings varsity basketball squad.
It was during his time at Marina High School that Newfield established himself as a star baseball player, one of the most heavily scouted hitters in the nation. In June 1990, the Mariners selected Newfield in the first round of MLB Amateur Draft. As a 17-year-old, he tore up the Arizona Rookie League, clubbing a mammoth homerun (some said it went nearly 500 feet!) in his first professional game on his way to batting .313/.394/.495 with 6 HRs and being voted the league’s MVP. Then, as an 18-year-old in 1991 in the High-A Cal League, his first full-length season, Newfield continued to flourish. In 125 games, he hit .300/.391/.439 and was named a Cal League All-Star and the MVP of his San Bernardino Spirit.
But at this card show, organizers had hired Newfield to appear and sign autographs. After signing for two straight hours, he paused for a respite, observing “My hand’s killing me. All these people…I never expected anything like this. I don’t know what’s going on.” The painfully humble Newfield was bewildered by the gaggle of grown adults waiting in a lengthy line on a Saturday afternoon for his signature.[1]
Many of the dealers and collectors in attendance that day viewed Newfield as a commodity and believed his early professional success would help them make a buck. One vendor was selling his cards for $1.75 each and explained, “He’s $2.50 according to the book. Somebody else here is selling them for $3.50.” Another vendor was laminating Newfield’s cards, mounting them to small wood plaques, and selling the simple displays for $15. A Huntington Beach card shop proprietor on site that afternoon claimed to have 10,000 Newfield cards stocked away in his inventory, lecturing: “The idea is to buy his card cheap now and sell high when he’s made it.” He then held up a box, “There are 1,000 Marc Newfields in here. Hopefully, someday, this card will be worth $70 [similar in value to a Frank Thomas rookie card at that time], too. That’s $70 times 1,000.”[2]
As demonstrated at the January 1992 card show, Newfield’s first two professional seasons launched him into the stratosphere of the baseball card hobby. Baseball card manufacturers, too, wanted a piece of the teenager. At the end of the 1991 season, Upper Deck had scrambled to send a photographer to San Bernardino’s Fiscalini Field to snap shots of Newfield in a Seattle Mariners uniform in what was described as a “just in case session.” Upper Deck did not want to run into the same issue it had a couple years earlier when it did not have a photo of Ken Griffey, Jr. in a Mariners uniform and was forced to airbrush his San Bernardino Spirit hat a lighter shade of blue in order to include him in its 1989 set. Similarly, here Upper Deck wanted to account for all contingencies in the event that Newfield, like Griffey, leapfrogged higher levels in the Mariners minor league system and reached the big leagues in early 1992.[3]
That August 1991 day at Fiscalini Field, Upper Deck provided Newfield a #24 Mariners jersey to wear during the shoot. At the time, Newfield—who was more focused on his own season than the goings-on at the big-league level—had no idea that this #24 jersey with no name sewn on the back was that of Ken Griffey Jr. Even without the knowledge that this jersey was Griffey’s—and the added sense of pressure that such a comparison would inevitably stir in a teen—the modest Newfield, who at that point had not played higher than Class-A, was already uncomfortable being put on a pedestal. Lacking even the slightest hint of ego, he sheepishly confessed on the day of the Upper Deck shoot that though he was honored to be photographed and presented as a big-league talent, “It’s kind of embarrassing. It just seems like it’s not the right time.”[4]
Newfield had no idea that Upper Deck put him in a Griffey jersey.
That whole season, Newfield had done his best to navigate the attention thrown his way. He’d been an attraction at ballparks around the Cal League, signing for young fans. He didn’t mind doing this—it came with the territory. But he admitted getting irritated “when the same people ask for me to sign over and over again. They bring 10 cards one day and five the next.” Though this constant attention might have led some young athletes to develop an attitude or sense of entitlement, Newfield handled it like a professional well beyond his 18 years. Tommy Jones, his manager at San Bernardino, explained in 1991, “He’s handled the off-field pressures of the season very well: baseball-card companies, national magazines, TV, radio, all the media,” adding that Newfield never let the attention affect his play or his relationship with his teammates.[5]
Everybody in the baseball card hobby wanted a piece of Marc Newfield. In January 1992 Baseball Cards magazine named Newfield its “Hot Rookie” in a feature story. The Beckett Focus on Future Stars profiled Newfield twice—in August 1992 and April 1994. And Beckett Baseball Card Monthly showcased the young ballplayer, interviewing him for its April 1994 edition.
I was no different. I had my own Marc Newfield collection. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and by 1992 I was 7 years old and developing my own interest in baseball cards. When I acquired a Seattle Mariner, I put it in a special binder with other Mariners cards. I recently dug out that old Mariners binder and found six different Marc Newfield cards dating 1991 through 1993.
Two of those cards have always stood out to me, and I’ve long wondered the story of those cards and the player pictured in them. I ran an internet search for Marc Newfield and quickly discovered that since his professional baseball career ended in the late 1990s, the once-shy kid from Huntington Beach has, perhaps unsurprisingly, lived outside the public spotlight.
Fortunately though, after a little effort, I was recently able to track down Newfield and speak to him about his personal and professional journey, and of course, about his baseball cards. Like all of us, he’s grown up in the intervening three decades since these cards were issued. But he maintains a sharp memory of those early days of his pro baseball career. He’s also patient and generous with his time. The humble kid from the early 1990s maintains a low profile these days, and, consistent with the personality he showed as a teenage baseball star, he’s still eager to come through for others. It was a real pleasure discussing his cards, and as a result of those conversations, I’m now a bigger fan of his than when he was a hero of mine as a youngster.
The Favorites
Newfield in his Marina High School varsity uniform
The first card I’ve always loved is the 1991 Topps “#1 Draft Pick” (#529). It shows a 17-year old Newfield in his senior year of high school, wearing his Marina Vikings pinstripes. On one knee in a traditional amateur baseball pose, an aluminum bat leaning into his body, a Mizuno batting glove on his left hand, and stirrups showing from below mid-calf, Newfield displays the widest, most sincere smile ever featured on a professional baseball card. The obvious happiness in his face reminds me of the great joy that baseball has brought so many of us. Newfield told me that, indeed, the most fun he ever had on the diamond occurred, not during his ten professional seasons or when he was in the major leagues, but in high school. He specifically recalls the summer of 1989 following his junior year, when he was learning to play first base on a Mickey Mantle 16U team that won tournaments all over the nation before securing a National Championship at Waterbury, Connecticut. The reverse side of the card lists this accomplishment along with Newfield’s high school offensive statistics and many prep accolades, the sort of eye-popping achievements that explain the swarms of scouts in attendance at his high school games.
As a child, I did not understand why this Seattle Mariners baseball card did not show a player in a Mariners jersey. It made no sense. But it also made the card unique. None of the other cards in my collection had players wearing another team’s uniform. And back then, the card’s uniqueness made it stand out against others.
Just a couple of kids, waiting for a ride to the big leagues
Perhaps my favorite card, though, is the 1992 Upper Deck Top Prospect (#51) checklist. I liked it for the same reason as the 1991 Topps card: it was unique. Newfield is not even in a baseball uniform, but rather street clothes, looking like a teenager waiting for a bus. And here, the card shows two players, a second unique trait!
Newfield stands with Montreal Expos prospect Rondell White, and each has a team-issued duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Newfield sports a San Bernardino Spirit hat, and his oversized outfielder’s glove pokes out of his unzipped bag. But I’ve wondered: why doesn’t he have a bat in his bag the way White does?
The card shows the two young men standing in grass, seemingly along a road. Newfield pointed out that in the card, he is wearing two different shoes—I’d never observed this detail before. The grey shoe on his left foot is actually a medical boot. Following the 1991 season, he had undergone a surgery to try to correct a foot issue that had been bothering him for years and had become increasingly painful. He was recovering from that surgery when Upper Deck staged this photo. That surgery, however, did not alleviate the pain, and he was forced to undergo a much more invasive foot surgery in 1992 that cut short his season at AA Jacksonville.
White’s right hand rests on Newfield’s left shoulder, like a nurturing big brother. Interestingly, Newfield explained that he and Rondell White had no prior relationship—they were not friends, nor did they enjoy a personal connection. Upper Deck simply paired them together for this card. Nevertheless, the men gaze, together, into the dream-filled distance.
Behind them is a short wire rope fence, and a post rises over their heads with two signs attached. One sign points left toward Seattle; the other right to Montreal—with this signage, the photo should have been taken in central North America at a geographic point between those two big-league cities. But rather, Upper Deck had flown White out to Orange County, California, where Newfield lived in Huntington Beach and was recovering during the offseason. They staged the photo nearby, along California’s iconic Pacific Coast Highway.
Newfield has his own favorite cards from his playing days, though unlike me, he was never much of a baseball card collector growing up. Early in his career, he admitted that seeing himself on baseball cards was exciting and surreal, if not a little odd: “I’ll get a card, or my friends get the cards, and we kind of laugh because we all grew up together. It’s weird that one of us would be on a baseball card.” In 1994 he told Beckett magazine that his favorite of his cards was the 1994 Fleer Major League Prospects (#26), in which he is shown following through on a swing, in front of a Mariners logo.[6]
Newfield’s favorite card in 1994
But these days, his favorite card is the 1996 Select Team Nucleus (#22) that pictures Newfield, with Padres teammates Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti. He smiles and suggests how “ridiculous” it was that Select included him on a Team Nucleus card in 1996. After all, the Padres had acquired Newfield from the Mariners at the 1995 trade deadline, and he’d played just 21 games in a Padres uniform by the time the card was produced. But those 21 games represented the first time in Newfield’s young career in which he was afforded the opportunity to play every day and adjust to big league pitching without fear of imminent demotion or losing his place on the lineup card. And Newfield excelled, hitting .309/.333/.491 during that stretch. That late season performance in 1995 landed Newfield on this 1996 Team Nucleus card alongside first-ballot Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn—Mr. Padre himself—and Ken Caminiti, who would win the NL MVP after that 1996 season and eventually land in the Padres Hall of Fame. And though he still thinks the card is ridiculous, Newfield values this card because he was featured alongside two baseball legends. It is also not lost on him that, of the three ballplayers on the card, he’s the lone survivor.
Newfield’s all-time favorite card from his playing career
Though the vendors at the January 1992 Huntington Beach card show may be disappointed that Newfield’s cards won’t finance a lush retirement, I still enjoy flipping through my Marc Newfield collection and adding more to my growing set. Each card tells its own story. And now, after I’ve had the good fortune of meeting Marc Newfield and getting to better know the man pictured in the cards, they are more valuable to me than any others in my collection.
[1] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.
[2] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.
[3] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.
[4] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.
[5] Jim Callis, “On the Mark,” Baseball Cards, January 1992: 55.
[6] Matt Hayes, “Focus on Marc Newfield,” Beckett Focus on Future Stars, April 1994, No. 36: 20.
Keith Hernandez (L) and Frank Thomas (R) – 2022 Mets Old Timers Day
“I’m so thankful that my dad was able to go to Old Timers’ Day. “It meant the world to him to see his old teammates. I was thrilled with how the fans greeted him. I was so happy to see him in uniform again. We will treasure those memories forever.”
Maryanne Pacconi (Frank Thomas’s daughter)
Frank Thomas, who passed away at 93 on Monday, January 16th, was a bright spot on the 1962 Mets team that won only 40 games. Frank had one of his best seasons in 1962 smashing 34 home runs and driving in 94 runs.
Road Trip to Citi Field
In early July my daughter and I had a wonderful time visiting Frank at his home in Pittsburgh. We talked about his playing days and our families. During the visit several Casey Stengel stories came up during our conversation. One of them was about the time he hit two home runs in three consecutive games during the ’62 season. “When I hit my first home run to start the streak, I was wearing glasses with yellow lenses. It was a twilight game, and the yellow lenses made it look like it was daylight. I circled the bases and then sat back down in the dugout. Casey looked over at me and asked – Where did you get the glasses? I said the trainer gave them to me. Casey said – Tell him to order a gross of ‘em for the other players.”
Towards the end of our visit, Frank mentioned that he was going to be at the Mets Old Timers on August 27th. “It’s probably my last one,” he said. And then a big smile came across his face, and he added – “The Mets called me up and wanted my measurements. They are going to make me a uniform!”
I told Frank that I would be there, and after returning home from Pittsburgh, I bought two tickets for the game. This was going to be the first Mets Old Timers Day since 1994. The game was heavily promoted by the Mets organization and was a sellout.
I went to the Old Timers game with a high school buddy of mine – another baseball fanatic – who also lives near Boston.
We left early in the morning and got to the park in plenty of time to see Frank make his red-carpet entrance into the stadium along with the other former players. He was using his walker but moving at a brisk pace. I am certain that getting to the Old Timers game was a major effort for Frank since he had a bad fall prior to the event.
The Mets did a phenomenal job putting together the Old Timers game. Sixty-five former players and managers returned for the event. Joining Frank on the field from the 1962 team were Jay Hook, Craig Anderson, Ken MacKenzie, and Ed Kranepool.
Howie Rose, longtime radio broadcaster for the Mets, was the master of ceremonies and introduced each player before the game. The pre-game festivities also included retiring Willie Mays’ number 24.
It was obvious that the former players who had come back for the event had a great time. On the field I saw lots of laughing, high fives, hugs, and pictures being taken. The program stated that each Old Timer received a ring with their name on one side and the number 60, representing the team’s 60th anniversary on the other side. That was a nice touch.
Mets Cards of Frank Thomas Issued by Topps
Topps issued cards of Frank for each year he played for the Mets.
The Mets being an expansion team in 1962 created a problem for Topps. They could not get pictures of players in their proper uniforms and meet production schedules. As a result, Topps used a picture of Frank without a cap and wearing a Cubs uniform for his 1962 card – #7. Topps used a similar solution for just about all of the other Mets players with cards in the 1962 set. The exception being the Al Jackson card – #464 – which was a late production run 6th Series card.
1962 Topps Card #7
The 1963 card of Frank – #495 – is my personal favorite. I have always liked the design of these cards and the photographer took a nice color head and shoulders shot of Frank for the main image on the card.
1963 Topps Card #495
The batting stance picture used on his 1964 card – #345 – is similar to the batting stance pictures on his 1957 Topps card – #140 and his 1960 Topps card – #95.
If there was a Hall of Fame for major league ball players that signed Through The Mail (TTM), Frank would be in it.
In his autobiography Frank recalled his youth and stated: “I’d wait outside of the clubhouse after games and try to meet the players and get their autographs. Many guys would walk right by us kids with no acknowledgement whatsoever. It was very disappointing to see. That’s one of the reasons that I made a point to ALWAYS sign autographs as I left the clubhouse. I didn’t want some young fan’s recollection of me to be that I walked right past home as he held out his autograph book for me to sign.”
Since 2019 Frank and I had been communicating on regular basis, primarily by mail. Frank was old school. He did not text and he did not have a computer. I would bang out a letter on my computer, and Frank would respond back with a handwritten letter. He would answer my baseball questions in his letters and give me updates on his health and his children. The nominal fee that he asked for signing baseball cards went to two charities: – Camp Happy Days-Kids Kicking Cancer and Courageous Kidz. I gladly contributed to his charities and sent him cards that spanned his career to sign. I always received the cards back promptly – beautifully signed – along with a thank you note.
Letters from Frank were signed…
Frank Thomas
The Original One
1951- 1966
I always got a kick out of that.
Apparently, anyone that contributed to his charities made the Christmas card mailing list. To my amazement, I received my first custom Christmas card from Frank in 2019.
2022 Christmas Card from Frank Thomas
Through baseball card collecting, I had the opportunity and privilege to become friends with Frank Thomas. I will miss him.
Planning a Return Trip to Citi Field
My two teams have always been the Red Sox and the Pirates; however the whole experience on August 27th really left quite an impression on me and has turned me into a Mets fan too.
This article was written by Bruce Markusen. You can find Bruce on Twitter at @markusen_s.
There’s little doubt that Nate Colbert enjoyed his 76 years on this earth. Colbert, who died earlier this month, always seemed happy. And he loved to smile. Evidence of that can be found on his 1969 Topps card, where he flashes a full and uncontrolled smile for the cameraman. Although Colbert was still an unproven player at the time the photograph was taken, his card seems to reflect his sheer happiness over simply being in the major leagues.
Aside from his extreme and ever-present smile, something else stands out about Colbert’s 1969 Topps card. He is not wearing a cap, not for the team that first signed him (the St. Louis Cardinals), not for his previous team (the Houston Astros), or his new team (the San Diego Padres). The decision to have players pose capless was a common technique used by Topps at the time. In the event that a player changed teams over the course of the winter or during spring training, the capless photographs maintained a more generic appearance. With the capless pose, Topps could easily crop the photo so as to eliminate the name or logo of the old team on the jersey.
In the case of Colbert, other factors were at play. As an expansion team, the Padres had yet to play a game, which would have theoretically limited Topps’ opportunities for an updated photograph showing Colbert wearing his new team’s colors. More pertinently, in a development involving all major league players in 1969, a lingering dispute between Topps and the MLB Players Association caused havoc with the production of baseball cards. Unhappy with the paltry compensation given to players for the rights to use their images on cards, Marvin Miller had instructed players to refuse posing for photographs in 1968, both during spring training and the regular season. That explains why so many of the cards in the 1969 Topps set feature photographs that are two or three years old (or even older). Those photos often depict traded or otherwise relocated players without caps, or sometimes show them from angles that obscure the logos of their old teams.
In contrast, Colbert would appear on Topps cards in his full Padres regalia from 1970 to 1974. By 1970, the union had negotiated a new and far more favorable deal with Topps, allowing the card company to resume its business of taking updated photographs. Of that series of Colbert cards, the most memorable is the 1973 version, which once again gives us a smiling Colbert. Even more noticeable is Colbert’s uniform, the Padres’ all-yellow uniforms that they first introduced in 1972.
Those duds, arguably the gaudiest uniforms of an outlandish era, may have been ugly, but as Colbert pointed out during a 2008 visit to the Hall of Fame, he looked at that uniform with a philosophical approach. “The yellow ones, which were called ‘Mission Gold’—I don’t know where they got that name from—when I first put them on, I felt really embarrassed. But I looked at it like, this is the major leagues; this is the uniform I was required to wear,” said Colbert. “I took a lot of ribbing, especially from the Reds and Pirates players. Even my mother used to tease me. She said I looked like a caution light that was stuck.”
While Colbert would become most associated with the Padres’ yellow-and-brown look, his career path could have gone far differently; he might very well have worn the more conservative cap and uniform of the New York Yankees. As an amateur free agent in 1964, the year before the major league draft came into being, Colbert was pursued aggressively by the Yankees. They had promised to exceed any offers given to him by any other team, but ultimately Colbert chose to go elsewhere.
If the Yankees had signed Colbert, they presumably would have brought him to the majors by the late 1960s. That would have been good timing for a struggling franchise filled with aging players and prospects who were not up the standards of the organization during its glory years. In particular, the Yankees had an unstable situation at first base. The retirement of Mickey Mantle at the start of spring training in 1969 forced the Yankees to switch Joe Pepitone from the outfield to first base. But Pepitone himself would depart after the 1969 season, via a trade with Colbert’s old team, the Astros.
From 1970 to 1973, the Yankees struggled to find anyone capable of giving them the ideal power expected from a first baseman. Role players like Danny Cater, Johnny Ellis, and Mike Hegan, the oft-injured Ron Blomberg, and an aging Felipe Alou took turns playing the position. Blomberg was the best hitter of the group, but injuries curtailed his production, while his poor defensive play made him a better fit at DH starting in 1973. Even if healthy, it’s doubtful that Blomberg would have matched the production of Colbert. A young Colbert would have supplied some much-needed right-handed power to a Yankees lineup that leaned heavily to the left.
But Colbert-to-the-Yankees never happened. He briefly considered the Yankees’ offer before choosing to sign with his hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals. That was Colbert’s dream; he had always wanted to play for the same team as one of his boyhood heroes, Stan Musial. Unfortunately, the Cardinals did not think Colbert was ready to succeed Bill White at first base and had no room for him in left field (where Lou Brock resided). After the 1965 season, the Cardinals left Colbert unprotected in the Rule Five draft.
The Astros jumped in and picked up Colbert, who by the requirements of Rule Five had to stay on the major league roster the entire season or be offered back to the Cardinals. In the spring of ’66, Colbert made his major league debut. According to Colbert, he became the second member of his family to play in the major leagues, after his father, Nate, Sr. The younger Colbert claimed that his father was a catcher who was a onetime batterymate of the great Satchel Paige, but there is no official record of Nate Colbert, Sr. having appeared in an official Negro Leagues game.
As for the junior Colbert, he played in only 19 games for the Astros, accumulating a mere seven at-bats without a hit. For some reason, Astros manager Grady Hatton refused to use Colbert in the field, instead giving him only the handful of bats and a few pinch-running appearances. It turned out to be a wasted summer for the 20-year-old Colbert.
By 1967, the Astros were free to send Colbert back to the minor leagues, where he could accrue both actual playing time and badly needed experience. They assigned him to the Amarillo Sonics, their Double-A affiliate in the Texas League. He then returned to the Astros midway through 1968 and was later given a September looksee at first base, but he did not hit well and showed a propensity for striking out. He also clashed with Astros manager Harry Walker, who tried to force Colbert into becoming a contact hitter who hit to all fields. Colbert wanted to pull the ball—and hit with power.
Still, Colbert found his fair share of fun away from the field. Some of that came through sharing a clubhouse with the most colorful teammate of his career. During his visit to Cooperstown in 2008, where he regaled visitors with stories from his major league days, Colbert recalled playing with Doug Rader, the quirky and unpredictable third baseman who was forever playing pranks and testing the limits of sanity. “When we were with the Astros,” Colbert said, “[Rader] and one of the guys, another player on the team, went down to the pet store. That’s when it was legal to own alligators. And they bought three alligators, baby alligators. They waited until we were all in the shower, and they let them loose in the shower, down in Cocoa, Florida. We were trying to climb the walls, these little baby alligators all around us.”
Rader made life in Houston memorable for Colbert, but he longed for an opportunity to do more on the field. A much-needed break would soon come his way. After the 1968 season, the National League added the Padres and the Montreal Expos as expansion franchises. The Astros left Colbert unprotected in the expansion draft, giving the Padres the chance to select his contract. With the 18th pick of the draft, after such obscure selections as infielder Jose Arcia and pitcher Al Santorini, the Padres took Colbert. He would soon become their best player.
After starting the season in a platoon role at first base, Colbert caught the attention of his new manager, Preston Gomez. At first, the Padres planned to platoon Colbert with the lefty-hitting Bill Davis, who was six-feet, seven-inches tall and was known as “The Jolly Green Giant.” Colbert went on a short hot streak, impressing Gomez. The Padres soon traded Davis, clearing the way for Colbert to play every day.
From 1969 to 1972, Colbert put up huge power numbers, twice hitting 38 home runs in a season and twice posting slugging percentages of better than .500. Those numbers become even more impressive given his home ballpark, San Diego Stadium, which featured a distance of 420 feet to center field and outfield walls that stood 17 feet high. In 1972, Colbert’s best year, he collected 111 RBIs, accounting for nearly 23 per cent of the Padres’ run total for the season. That remarkable 23 percent figure remains a major league record.
Colbert was never better than he was on August 1 that season, when the Padres played a doubleheader against the Braves at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium. Colbert hit two home runs in the first game, one against Ron Schueler and one against Mike McQueen, and then smacked three more in the nightcap, victimizing Pat Jarvis, Jim Hardin, and Cecil Upshaw.
The fifth home run matched the doubleheader record set by his boyhood hero, Musial. (To make the story even better, Colbert claimed that he was one of the fans in attendance at Sportsman’s Park the day that Musial hit his five home runs.) Rather dramatically, Colbert hit the record-tying home run in the ninth inning against Upshaw, a tough right-handed reliever who threw with a submarine delivery. That home run gave Colbert 13 RBIs for the doubleheader, establishing a record for a single day.
Colbert’s years with the Padres provided other memorable moments, including the infamous night in April of 1974 when new team owner Ray Kroc took over the public address system on Opening Night at San Diego Stadium. “Well, we had just gotten thumped in LA,” said Colbert, setting the scene. “And we came home… and were getting thumped again [by the Astros]. So I was the hitter, and somebody comes on the mike and says, ‘People of San Diego…’ It scared me, I thought it was God. You know, I thought, oh gosh, the rapture was coming, and I’m not ready. And he said, ‘I want to apologize for such stupid baseball playing.’ So in protest, I said to myself, I’m not swinging.’ I just stood there and I walked… We eventually got a rally going. We scored five runs [actually three runs]. He [Kroc] apologized to us later. And I told him, ‘You own us. You can say what you want!’ ”
That same season, Colbert struggled in making the transition to the outfield. The Padres moved him there to make up for wintertime acquisition Willie McCovey, who took over first base. That was also the summer that Colbert’s chronic and longstanding back problems worsened. Diagnosed with a congenital condition caused by degermation of his vertebrae, Colbert’s hitting mechanics were severely affected by 1974, leaving him with a batting average of .207 and a paltry 14 home runs. That winter, the Padres traded Colbert, sending him to the Detroit Tigers for a package of shortstop Eddie Brinkman, outfielder Dick Sharon, and a minor league pitcher named Bob Strampe.
Colbert would spend an unproductive tenure of two and a half months in Detroit before being sold to the Montreal Expos at the June 15th trading deadline. (That explains why Colbert appeared on only one Topps card as a member of the Tigers. Appropriately, the 1975 card shows him with an upturned cap and another large smile.) He would fare little better with the Expos before being released in June of 1976.
Later that summer, Colbert signed with the Oakland A’s. Although he appeared in only two games and went hitless in five at-bats for the A’s, he enjoyed his time playing for another controversial owner, one who surpassed Ray Kroc for unpredictable behavior. “As far as Charlie Finley, I loved Charlie Finley,” Colbert said. “I thought he was awesome. When he traded for me, he told me that he always wanted me to play for him. He told me couldn’t afford me the next year [1977], but he wanted me to have a good time that year [1976]. He told me if I needed anything, just call him. He treated my wife and I very well.”
Becoming a free agent after the 1976 season, Colbert drew little interest from teams. One team, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, offered him an invite to spring training as a non-roster player. Colbert took the offer, but his back problems persisted, resulting in his release early in spring camp. The release officially ended his major league career.
It was during his brief tenure in Oakland that Colbert met his wife, Kasey, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. The couple would have nine children and 22 grandchildren. They both became ministers and co-owners of an organization that provided advice and counseling to amateur athletes considering careers at the professional level.
While Colbert did a lot of good work with kids, his post-baseball life also involved controversy. In 1990, Colbert was indicted on 12 felony counts of fraudulent loan applications. He listed real estate assets that he did not actually own on several loan applications to banks. Under the maximum penalty, he could have faced 40 years in prison, but Colbert eventually pled guilty to only one charge and served six months in a medium-security facility.
After his release from prison, Colbert returned to his ministry and opened up several baseball schools. He also served briefly as a minor league manager in two independent leagues before again returning fulltime to his ministry work.
In more recent years, Colbert hosted a weekly radio show on KBAD Radio, an affiliate of NBC. He also hoped to write a book about his experiences, including his work as a minister, though he never did embark on such a project. But for Colbert, his ministry was clearly his obsession. “I love to pray,” Colbert said during his visit to the Hall of Fame. “And I love to teach. I love the involvement with other people.”
Given the broad smile on his 1969, 1973, and 1975 Topps cards, Nate Colbert’s affinity for people should have come as no surprise. He made life fun for many of his teammates and helped a lot of youngsters along the way. And there’s little doubt that he enjoyed just about every day that he spent playing our game.
Freshly back from SABR50 in Baltimore a number of questions from attendees are fresh in my mind. Perhaps the question most frequently asked pertained to assessing the value of a collection. Sometimes I’d ask for a description of the collection in question, and a typical reply might be “several boxes of cards from the 50s and 60s including Mickey Mantle.”
I’ll use this article to acquaint readers, particularly those who aren’t active buyers and sellers, with the main variables at play in putting a price tag on, say, a 1950s Mickey Mantle.
Which Mantle?
Without a doubt, not all Mantles were created equal. Head and shoulders above all others, at least as far as his standard Topps and Bowman issues are concerned, is the 1952 Topps card.
Mantle’s 1951 Bowman card, which doubles as the Mick’s rookie card, also carries a substantial premium, though perhaps counterintuitively a much smaller one than the aforementioned Topps card.
In general, not as a hard and fast rule but as a trend, older cards are worth more, and rookie cards in particular are worth the most. Though we have already seen an exception, it’s true much more often than it’s not. The graph below illustrates this for a hypothetical star player whose first card was in 1960. Note the significant drop-off from 1960 to 1961 and the overall decreasing trend across the decade. You might also recognize a significant drop-off between 1961 and 1962. This too is a thing as second year cards tend to carry a premium, though not nearly as much as first year (or “rookie”) cards.
Now, here is an actual graph for Mickey Mantle’s 1950s baseball cards. As we will soon see, the condition of the card plays an outsized role in valuation, so at the moment we will pretend all cards in the graph are of equal condition. (For those keeping score at home I’ll assume PSA 5, but don’t worry if you don’t know what that is.)
One thing you’ll note right away are the two sets of bars used, one blue and one orange. These correspond to the two major producers of baseball cards in the 1950s, Bowman and Topps. Bowman produced cards of Mickey Mantle annually from his first card in 1951 through the company’s demise following the 1955 season. Topps, meanwhile, issued Mantle cards in 1952 and 1953 but was forced into a two-year hiatus by rival Bowman who had Mick locked into an exclusive deal for the 1954 and 1955 seasons.
If you glance at the graph, one color at a time, you see that each color follows the general trend of the hypothetical graph presented earlier. Whether blue or orange, a downward pattern is unmistakable, and significant premiums are attached to the first of the bars.
So what was the purpose of all this? Mainly, I wanted to reinforce the idea that the value of a Mantle depends a lot on which Mantle. This weekend a 1952 Topps Mantle may make headlines by selling in the neighborhood of $10 million. This will no doubt cause some to wonder if the box of cards in their attic might produce its own seven-digit payday. Of course, as the graph shows, most Mantle cards (all but one, really!) are worth nowhere near that.
Before heading into our promised discussion of condition, I’ll share three more bits of information on the which Mantle front.
Particularly for cards produced before 1974, you will sometimes see exceptions to the monotonicity of the Value vs Year graph due to a “high numbers” effect. In many older sets, the cards at the end of the set were sold in smaller quantities, hence have greater scarcity. A famous example is the 1967 Topps Brooks Robinson, which is worth far more than any of his other 1960s Topps standard issues. (And yes, in case you’re wondering, Mickey Mantle had a “high number” card in the 1952 Topps set.)
Some players, especially stars, can have more than one card in a set. For example, Mickey Mantle has all three of these cards in the 1958 Topps set (and some might add the Yankees team card as well). Nearly always, the base (regular) card is worth more than the extras, in this case a World Series card with Hank Aaron and an All-Star card.
I’ve limited discussion thus far to cards from the major producers. However, the baseball card ecosystem is typically far larger than that. In 1954 alone, Mickey Mantle also had a dog food card, a potato chips card, a wiener card, as well as a couple others. It’s difficult to attach a general rule to the pricing on such cards. On one hand, they are generally less sought after by most collectors. On the other hand, some can be quite scarce. Thus there is some tug on their value in both directions, reduced demand pulling prices downward and reduced supply pulling prices upward.
In What Condition?
Even when I was a young collector in the late 1970s I knew cards with sharp corners and no creases were more valuable than ones you could practically roll along a table. This didn’t stop me from keeping my favorite cards in my pants pockets, but then again was I ever planning to sell them?
At any rate, the same is true today, but the premium on “high grade” vintage cardboard has only increased, in my eyes past the point of absurdity. Nowadays, much of the dealings in the Hobby’s upper stratosphere transpires with cards that have been commercially (the implication being professionally and objectively) graded by companies like PSA, SGC, and Beckett. While these companies certainly have their share of misses, the logic is that a well trained third party grader is more trustworthy than the card’s owner, who naturally stands to profit (at least in the short term) by over-stating a card’s condition.
Most grading is done on a numerical scale from 1-10, but the scale is decidedly non-linear. For example, here is a graph showing the value of the 1959 Topps Mickey Mantle card across its range of conditions. (Source: PSA, August 24, 2022.)
There have been no recent sales of the card with a grade of 10 and in fact only one such card has ever been graded by PSA. As such, there is no bar on the graph at 10, but you might have some fun guessing what such a card might go for based on the graph as shown. Half a million?!
Before proceeding I’ll show the same graph for grades 1-8 only, since the current graph’s very tall bar at 9 tends to dwarf all else.
The reason I’ve shared these graphs is to show just how much grade impacts value. For this particular card, a card graded 9 is worth more than 500 times as much as a card graded 1. Let’s unpack this a bit more.
Perhaps a friend lets you know that he just sold one of his 1950s Mickey Mantles for $1000, and—lo and behold—you have that very same card. Your copy might be worth $100 or it might be worth $10,000, maybe even a lot more than that! The point is, condition doesn’t just attach a premium; right or wrong, it creates a 500x (or more) differential in value, even when we’re talking about the exact same card!
I just illustrated the non-linearity of condition with respect to value. Separate from any discussion of market value, I’ll add my opinion that condition is also non-linear with respect to appearance. This may sound contradictory at first since you may view condition and appearance as synonyms, i.e., how the card presents. Either way, let’s take a look.
Here is the 1959 Topps Mickey Mantle card in grades 9, 8, and 7 respectively. At first glance, you would not be wrong to imagine the three cards identical. If anything, you might even dock the “9” for what looks like a very small stain below the O in OUTFIELD as well as some faint discoloration above the mickey mantle name.
At any rate, if we presume no error or subjectivity in the grading, we can only assume that there are important distinctions not necessarily evident to the naked eye (or, in fairness, on the backs of the cards). Perhaps the “8” has some microscopic corner ding, for example. Still, the larger point is that a 7, 8, and 9 all look almost exactly the same. (Notably, the card on the left sold for more than 30 times the card on the right!)
While I’ve illustrated my point using three cards, to my own eye the top six slots on the grading scale, i.e., grades of 5-10, all look about the same. Don’t get me wrong. If you look hard enough, I bet you can figure out which of these Mantle cards is a “10” and which is a “5” but I’ll still paraphrase Maya Angelou and say they “are more alike, my friends, than they are unalike.”
Back to value for a second, one of the two cards pictured sold recently for $1600. The other, were it to hit the market today, would likely fetch upwards of $500,000. 🤷🏻♂️
Sometimes someone sends me a picture of a card they took with their phone and asks what I think it’s worth. I hope the two Mantle cards illustrate the difficulty of providing such an assessment, particularly when cards are in really nice shape, hence differences in grades reflect only tiny distinctions but gigantic pricing differences.
For completeness, I’ll illustrate the lower end of the scale, where distinctions are much more notable, though still not always evident.
Though I’ve used graded cards to illustrate the hypersensitivity of price to condition, there are again some notes to offer.
Some cards receive half-grades (e.g., 3.5). Pricing for half grades is about what you’d expect.
Many sellers, even when a third-party grade has been assigned, will hope to realize a nicer sale by claiming their card is “under-graded” or “the nicest 3 you’ll ever see.” I can definitely say that grades being equal, some cards look better than others. Ultimately though, the buyer should be the judge of this rather than simply take the seller’s claim at face value.
Some cards receive non-numerical grades, the most common being “Authentic,” which usually is not as good as it sounds, and the most dreaded being “Counterfeit!”
Last but not least, most cards bought and sold are not graded. (Sometimes the term “raw” is used.) Here there is a greater risk associated with fakes, but the good news is that most of the folks out there buying vintage collections are able to tell real from bogus. As such, if you’re thinking about selling your childhood collection of 1950s cardboard, you need not panic that the only way to get anything for it is to spend tens of thousands of dollars having it graded first.
That said, if you are selling online to someone who can’t handle the cards directly, you may well experience a lower sales price based on buyer uncertainty over authenticity. A return policy and clear images mitigate this, but many online buyers will still attach risk to your cards and lower their offers accordingly.
Conclusion
Though it seems ridiculous, the value of a 1950s Mickey Mantle can be anywhere from about $10 to $10 million. Two factors that make a very, very big difference are which card you have an what condition it’s in. These certainly aren’t the only factors, but they more than suffice to make the point, which is that it is exceedingly difficult to assess the value of a vintage card or collection without spending some real time with it.
So what’s the value of that box of 1950s and 60s baseball cards from your childhood, the one you’re positive has a Mantle or two? There’s only one real answer, and it’s an incredibly unsatisfying one: it depends…and almost comically so!
I featured Dave Hoskins on SABR Baseball Cards a few years ago as the first player in my Uncommon Common series. Since then my collection has grown from a handful of readily available cards (1954 Topps, 1955 Topps, 1955 Topps Double Header) to a state player collectors only rarely proclaim: done?!
In this post I’ll highlight the five most unique pieces in the collection, along with some tips and tricks that might help other player collectors track down tough pieces.
1955 ALL AMERICAN SPORTS CLUB
This “card” is part of a set of 500 subjects across multiple sports, hand-cut from 9″ x 12″ sheets of glossy paper stock. As Hoskins cards go, it has a lot going against it: a low quality image, its small size (similar to a postage stamp), a blank back, and the obscurity of the issue. Still, there are so few playing era cards of Hoskins that I still treat the card as an essential.
I was able to add this card to my collection thanks to a rather broad eBay search I’d set up that was essentially “DAVE HOSKINS -TOPPS.” My goal in this search was to turn up any and all Dave Hoskins collectibles not produced by Topps. (Nothing against Topps here; it’s just that I already had all three of their playing era issues and didn’t want to clutter up my search results with more of the same.)
Lessons for player collectors: Trading Card Database is a great resource for identifying cards you might not know about. If searching on eBay for less common items, use the minus operator to de-clutter search results.
2017 MAGALLANES BASEBALL CLUB CENTENNIAL ISSUE
The same search (“DAVE HOSKINS -TOPPS”) added another card to my collection just last week. It was not only a card I never knew existed but even portrayed Hoskins with a team (and country!) I never knew was part of his résumé.
The card (or sticker, to be precise) was one of 200+ issued by the Magallanes Baseball Club (Venezuela) as part of its 100th anniversary. Other notables in the set include Dave Parker, Barry Bonds, Willie Horton, and local legend Nestor Chavez.
While I am not a “completist” when it comes to post-career issues, I make an exception when there are no playing era cards of a player on a certain team. That, and the fact that I might never see this one again, made the card a must have, even with the price tag being a good ten times what I would have expected.
Side note: This card led me to a very cool site for Venezuelan Winter League stats from which I learned Hoskins played for Magallanes in the 1951-52 season and also the Pampero team during the 1959-60 campaign.
Lesson for player collectors: In this case the card came from a US seller. However, it’s worth knowing that eBay assigns a default location to your searches that may cause you to miss items being sold from other countries. Edit the Item Location option to Worldwide to ensure the most comprehensive search.
1950s NOKONA DAVE HOSKINS MODEL GLOVE
Again that same “HOSKINS -TOPPS” search gets the credit for this rather unexpected find, a Dave Hoskins signature model glove.
Until this item arrived, I suspected it might even be game used, simply because I didn’t imagine Hoskins was a popular enough player to support store models. Once I had it in hand (and on hand!) I decided it was too small to have been sported by the player himself and was in fact a store model sized for kids.
A second surprise came my way after having the item refurbished by Jimmy Lonetti, whose nice work I’d seen several times on Twitter. Unreadable beforehand, the glove bore a name and date stamped into the leather. Some searching turned up a person of that name, unfortunately deceased, whose birthday around age 10 corresponded to the date on the glove. What’s more the person seemed to have grown up around Cleveland when Hoskins was a pitcher for the Indians. His family now has the glove, which makes me very happy.
Lesson for player collectors: If you are open to balls, gloves, bats, and other items appearing in your search results, be sure you haven’t “over-filtered” to where only Trading Cards are shown.
1952 DALLAS EAGLES SIGNED BASEBALL
If there is one item in my entire collection–Dave Hoskins or otherwise–that might belong in a museum, it’s this one: an official Texas League baseball signed by nearly the entire 1952 Dallas Eagles team.
I never would have found this ball using my “HOSKINS -TOPPS” search since the seller didn’t feature Hoskins at all in the listing. Fortunately, I had also set up a 1952 Dallas Eagles search, which generally turns up football items (e.g., Philadelphia Eagles vs Dallas Texans ticket stubs) but at least this one time turned up gold.
Lesson for player collectors: Particularly if the player you collect isn’t a big name, recognize that their name may not appear in item listings/descriptions, which of course eliminates those items from your search results.
1952 GLOBE PRINTING DALLAS EAGLES CARD
The term Holy Grail is probably overused in card collecting, but in the small universe of Dave Hoskins collecting I do believe it’s apt for this particular card.
This article from April 13, 1952, coincidentally the day of Hoskins’ first start, provides some information on the set and seems to indicate that the Hoskins card would have been given out only one night of the year.
A complete checklist for the set remains unknown, though there are currently at least 22 known players.
In the three years I’ve been collecting Dave Hoskins, this is a card I’d never once seen available and was only aware of due to its entry on Trading Card Database where it is one of only five cards from the set with an image uploaded. How the heck did I end up with one then?
A nice feature of Trading Card Database is that each card image includes metadata on who uploaded the scan. Another nice feature is that members can message each other. Well, figuring my chances of success were somewhere south of 1%, I contacted the member who had uploaded the image. As it turned out, he was very open to a deal! He even supplied a bit of provenance:
I got it years ago in a box of old items from a relative here in Dallas back in the 80’s.
Lesson for player collectors: Take advantage of Trading Card Database as, among other things, a buy/sell/trade platform. Though I got the card I wanted by contacting the user who uploaded its image, you are also able to bring up a list of ALL users who have cards from a set in their TCDB collection. For instance, here is the complete list of members with 1952 Globe Dallas Eagles cards, including a collector with an impressive 21 of the cards.
WHAT NOW?
I mentioned at the top of this article that my collection is now complete. However, if there’s a lesson from that Magallanes sticker, it’s that I can never rule out the discovery of something new. As such, I definitely won’t be deleting my “saved searches” on eBay just yet.
There are still a handful of items that I consider more bonus than essential. Topping this list is the August 1952 issue of Negro Achievements magazine, which features a familiar photo of Hoskins on the cover.
There have been four eBay sales of this item since 2011, most recently in March 2019. As is often the case for unusual pieces without a lot of comps, prices have varied widely, though condition was certainly also a factor:
May 2011: $127.50
July 2013: $14.37
June 2014: $29.95
March 2019: $48.47
Another “nice to have” is the Dave Hoskins photo from the 1954 Cleveland Indians team issued photo pack.
The final two items on the “maybe someday” list are ticket stubs or game programs from the two Dave Hoskins Nights held in 1952, one in Fort Worth and one in Dallas. The first of these also corresponds to Hoskins’ 20th win of the season and (hopefully) and upcoming SABR Games story.
Lesson for player collectors: Though I don’t have the photo pack card or the ticket stubs I’ve definitely noticed numerous listings, if not the majority, that use non-specific titles like “1950s Cleveland Indians photo pack” or “1950’s Dallas Eagles ticket stubs.” This makes particular sense for the photo packs cards since they are undated and repeat many players/photos across multiple years. Therefore, adding a search for “(1950s, 1950’s) INDIANS PHOTO PACK” may be useful. I’ll also note that sellers with partial sets typically list only the top stars like Feller and Doby, hence fly under the radar of a Dave Hoskins-specific search.
While the Dave Hoskins shelf is now full and includes all the essentials, I’ll keep looking for more cool stuff. If you have any leads, definitely let me know, and whatever you do, don’t outbid me!
If you are not familiar with former major leaguer Elio Chacón welcome to the club. I was not aware that Elio played a total of 228 games in the majors from 1960 to 1962 with the Reds and Mets until very recently.
Topps only issued two mainstream cards of Elio. Card number #543 in 1960 when he was a rookie with the Reds and card number #256 in 1962 when he was with the Mets. The 1962 card is an airbrushed, no cap, Reds photo that features Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in the background. If you do a search on eBay you will also find a 1967 “Venezuelan Topps” card, a Venezuela Sport Gráfico Ovenca card produced in 1970, and a Venezuelan Show card with the same photo Topps used in 1962.
Topps 1962 Card #256
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Elio is remembered in Cincinnati for hitting a single off Ralph Terry in Game 2 of the 1961 World Series and then scoring the winning run in the Reds only victory in the Series. In New York, fans remember Elio for getting into a base-brawl with Willie Mays and the “Yo la tengo” incident.
Here is recap of the “Yo la tengo” incident from Elio’s Wikipedia bio. You will also find similar descriptions of the incident in these two books – Richie Ashburn Remembered by Fran Zimniuch – and Richie Ashburn…Why the Hall Not? by Bruce E. Mowday and Jim Donahue.
During the 1962 season, New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and Chacón frequently found themselves colliding in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would scream, “I got it! I got it!” only to run into the 160-pound Chacón, who spoke only Spanish. Ashburn learned to yell, “¡La tengo! ¡La tengo!” which is “I’ve got it” in Spanish. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was instead run over by 200-pound left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish and had missed a team meeting that proposed using the words “¡La tengo!” as a way to avoid outfield collisions. After getting up, Thomas asked Ashburn, “What the hell is a Yellow Tango?”. The band, Yo La Tengo, gets its name from this baseball anecdote.
Topps 1963 Richie Ashburn #135 and Topps 1964 Frank Thomas #345
The above story fits in seamlessly with the other hilarious stories from the first year Mets who were managed by Casey Stengel and finished the 1962 season with only 40 wins – but did it actually happen?
Pittsburgh Road Trip
In early July, I went on a road trip from my home near Boston to Pittsburgh. I had planned out a baseball heavy vacation with my two travelling partners – my daughter and her boyfriend. We toured the Clemente Museum, took in a game at PNC Park, snapped pictures in front of the remaining sections of the Forbes Field wall, and pretended we were Smokey Burgess at the site that marks where home plate was at Forbes Field.
Meeting with Frank Thomas
The highlight of my baseball vacation was an in-person meeting with Frank Thomas “The Original One” at his home in Pittsburgh on July 4th. Frank and I have been trading letters back and forth since 2019. We also have had a couple of phone conversations. I told Frank shortly after his 93rd birthday that I was coming to Pittsburgh and would like to see him. He was fine with an in-person meeting. I was expecting the visit to be no more than 20 minutes. My daughter and I had a wonderful time speaking with Frank about his playing days and our families for 90 minutes. He let me record the conversation so I could some of the baseball stories.
My first question was – “Tell me about the Yo la tengo story?”
Frank’s answer – “It never happened. Richie made it up. I couldn’t catch them. Richie played centerfield. I played left field. Chacon played shortstop. I never even came close to them. When he was an announcer in Philadelphia, he made up stories that’s all. Like all great announcers do. All fictitious.”
During our visit Frank mentioned that the Mets called him up and wanted his measurements for a uniform for the Old Timers game on August 27th. “The Original One” is going to be at Citi Field on the 60th anniversary of the 1962 original Mets. I told him I would be there. I already have my tickets.
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 