Monday Morning Autograph - Rex Hudler

I own a couple of thousand autograph cards, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted before:

Today: 1996 Leaf Signature Rex Hudler 

Why do I own this card? 

Rex was briefly a Cardinal in the early 1990s. The team would not spend money on pitching, but there was money in the budget for a colorful utility player.  

When did I get this card? 

At some point in college. It's actually one of the first certified autographs that I owned. Not a pack pull, but a really cheap card store pickup. I would guess this came from 1,000,000 Baseball Cards in west St. Louis County.  

Good Rex Hudler story?

Tom Pagnozzi, Lee Smith, Frank DiPino, and a bunch of other Cardinals players gave Rex Hudler a stack of 100 dollar bills to eat a bug off of his hat.  

Card back. 

Look at this gem. Card companies did not need a filler with some giant "CONGRATULATIONS" note. It's Leaf Signature, you already know you are getting an autograph. Nice little paragraph of Rex Hudler playing all over the field and his career batting stats. I would have guessed lower than .257 for his career average. Maybe Rex was better than I remember.  

The Softest Tosser

There are some really good baseball channels with short videos on YouTube that occasionally provide me with good background while I am doing my school work at night. I ran across one a few week's ago about former Blue Jays and Angels relief pitcher Mark Eichhorn. You can find the video here.  

Interesting career.  

In summation, Eichhorn came up with the Blue Jays in 1982 and failed miserably. He went back to the Minors and started throwing sidearm. Eichhorn also dialed back the velocity on all his pitches and became noted as the softest tossing pitcher in modern baseball. He came back up in 1986 as was the setup man for Tom Henke. Eichhorn had one of the best seasons by a modern relief pitcher with a sub 2 ERA, 14 wins, 10 saves, and more than a strikeout per inning.   

Without going year-by-year through his career, Eichhorn ended up playing 11 years, mostly with the Blue Jays and Angels. If you're into sabermetrics, his WAR7 (WAR in his best 7 seasons) is equal to Billy Wagner and Lee Smith, just without the saves.   

Eichhorn's career was derailed by injuries in 1995, which is where my baseball cards come in. As a middle reliever, Eichhorn has very few cards and not many with much flash or pizzaz, but after watching the video I felt like trying to find one. 

Eichhorn attempted to come back with the Angels in 1996. He missed huge chunks of the season and was not very effective, ending the year with an ERA north of 5. However, he did end up signing cards for the per-pack-autograph Leaf Signature Series.  

Here is the flashiest Mark Eichhorn card out there:  

This was less than $2, a small price to pay for an intriguing player with a good story.  

In the process of finding this card, I discovered that Mark Eichhorn actually fit into my collection quite well and I already owned a card of him outside of common cards from the 1980s and 1990s products. It turns out Mark Eichhorn was on the Durham Bulls for a season.  

Deep dig into the Durham Bulls team set box: 

This is Mark Eichhorn from the 1998 Durham Herald Sun Durham Bulls team set. It was a giveaway from the local newspaper. This was the Bulls first season as a Triple A team, also the first season for the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays. As a new franchise, the Devil Rays did not have many prospects ready for Triple A, so they signed a bunch of 30-somethings to fill out their top Minor League team.  

I enjoy a good 4A player as much as the next person, but the 1998 Durham Bulls set is all 4A players, which has long made it one of my least favorites. Russ Mormon, Dennis Springer, Dave Eiland, Bob Natal, and Dave Silvestri all make appearances. 

The picture on the card actually looks like it is from the exhibition the Bulls played against the Devil Rays in Durham before the start of the 1998 season. There are some grainy photographs of the game floating around on the internet.  

Anyway, the presence of Mark Eichhorn and the knowledge of his career has moved the 1998 Durham Bulls set ahead other of their team sets with Aubrey Huff or Josh Lueke.  

I Don't Care That These Are For Kids.......

The 2023 baseball cards feel a little slow. It's the middle of April and all we've got so far is Topps Series  1 and Bowman Heritage from 2 years ago. Maybe some delayed 2022 products too. Where is Topps Heritage and Bowman?  

Anyway, strep has been making its way through my house this week. I have avoided it so far, but I spent my Friday hanging out with my middle schooler who felt miserable. Lots of rest, fluids, and some amoxicillin and we are feeling better today. Still, I needed a little entertainment to keep myself going yesterday, so I picked up a few packs of Topps Big League.  

I don't care that Topps Big League is made for kids, it provided a little bit of entertainment on a long day at home with a sick kid. 

Here's what I pulled out of the packs.  

The base cards are missable, but I picked out my favorite three........  

This Molina card is actually a foil parallel, hard to tell from the scan, but it has a silver finish. I did not pull a Pujols base card, which was a little disappointing, but it's a 300 card set and I opened a Blaster box with roughly 100 cards.  

My two other favorites were former Durham Bull Blake Snell and current Durham Bull Jonathan Aranda.  

I am honestly surprised that Aranda has appeared in both 2023 Topps products. I think he's a Major League player, but he's not high up on the Rays prospect list and he is buried in Triple A at the moment.  

Can I bring up the most annoying base card?  

Topps airbrushed a bunch of the players who were traded or switched teams with free agency this offseason.  Several are really bad, but Andrew McCutchen is easily the worst. It's really obvious that the photo on this card was airbrushed.  

Remember when Andrew McCutchen was on the Pirates for 9 years at the beginning of his career? You're telling me that Topps could not have used one of those photos?  I would rather see a dated photo than one where he in on the Brewers and Topps airbrushed him into a Pirates uniform.  

The insert cards are much more kid-friendly.

We've got graffiti name tag.  

Babe Ruth and graffiti. Peanut butter and jelly.  

I did pull an Albert Pujols card. Nice looking insert.    

Yes, it's a video game reference, which seems kid-friendly, but most current kids also think 8-bit games are really lame. My fifth graders talk about NBA 2K. I talk about NBA 96. They don't care about Reggie Miller or Charles Barkley. Not truly kid-friendly. Really, this card appeals to the average Topps customer. Middle-aged, white guy who collects cards and owned a Nintendo, Sega, or PlayStation at some point between elementary school and college.  

I am more of a 16-bit guy.  

These are "Fun Box" inserts.  

These two cards made me think that this insert set was somehow an ode to ballpark food or Lunchables, Ballpark food is okay, Lunchables are gross. I ended up with a few other Fun Box cards that had different backgrounds without the food.  

These feel like leftover Topps Project 2020 or Project 70 leftover cards. The Alonso card with the cartoon is goofy, but I like the Willie Mays with the swirled colors. Might be amongst my favorite cards out of these Big League packs. I guess someone at Topps was not able to quite pull this insert set together, but something decent came out of the effort.  

There are also City Slickers inserts, which are just advertisements for the Nike City Connect jerseys, which are available now at your team's store or at Nike dot com. There are a lot of base cards with City Connect jerseys as well including several Rockies players, which is why I included C.J. Cron in the scan.  

Although, those Rockies jerseys feel like an advertisement for the Colorado DMV.  

Don't forget to renew your license plates.  

Last two cards are the best two cards.  

I love the mascot cards.  

These are just incredible cards. I don't think I have a Rally Monkey card in my collection and that Fredbird card is one of the better ones out there.  There is no Opening Day set this year, so these are going to have to tide everyone over on mascot cards for the year.  

The Final Giant Update

I have long dreamed about typing this post. 

There has not been much time for writing lately, so I am glad I have a three day weekend to crank out a post or two.  

I did not think it would take this long, but here we are with the final few cards that I needed to finish off my set of 1964 Topps Giants cards. Thank you to everyone who helped out along the way, whether you traded or sold me cards, or were just here to cheer me on. I could not do it without you.  

There are only two Hall of Fame players in this post, so lets start the post with one of them.  

Yaz is not a short-print, nor a very expensive card. The centering is a little off side-to-side, but the condition of the card is good. I like the portrait photo with him looking over his shoulder. 

Back of the card, which mentions the Raleigh Capitols. 

Yaz was actually really young here, so the Minor League write-up on the back does not feel quite as out of place. He played on the Raleigh Capitols before the team folded. Yaz had one of their more memorable seasons by an individual player. The Bulls were merged with the Raleigh baseball franchise at one point, but they do not claim their players, so the season by Yaz flies under the radar locally. It's a shame that there is not any recognition of the Minor League players from that franchise.   

A common theme amongst the final players posted here, I learned a lot about players I knew little about.  

I only own one other John Romano card, which is a 1967 Topps card of him on the Cardinals. I am not going to post it here, but he has some combination of a 1950s flattop and slick-backed hair all rolled into one picture. He's wearing a sleeveless vest uniform, which I had long attributed to the Reds, but now know it's an Indians jersey. 

Romano was actually a really good player for a time in the 1950s and 1960s.  

Romano was a good hitting catcher with pop who made a few All-Star games playing for the White Sox and Indians. He ended his career with the 1967 Cardinals as the backup catcher behind Tim McCarver.  He was not on the Postseason roster, but still spent the season with the team.  

Next, Red Sox pitcher, Dick Radatz.  

The front of the card is a little worn, but I am going to live with it. 

Radatz played in the wrong era. He was a gigantic person who threw really, really hard. He played in a time where relief pitchers were minimized. Radatz struck out a ton of batters and led the American League in saves twice. He seems like he would fit in really well with modern baseball better than the 1960s.    

The second Hall of Famer in the post.....

I know Aparicio spent the second half of his career with the Orioles and Red Sox, but he's a player I always associate solely with the White Sox. It's jarring to see him on a non-White Sox card. Sort of like those Dale Murphy cards where he is on the Phillies or Rockies.  

I really like the back of this card. The entirety is spent on his Major League career and does a good job of focusing on his strengths as a player, which were stealing bases and playing defense.  One of the better write-ups in the set. I even like the small black and white photo of Aparicio sliding into second base.  

Next,Tigers pitcher, Dave Wickersham.  

He actually passed away last week while I was drafting this post. Wickersham was 86. 

Wickersham had an interesting career. 

As stated on the back of the card, the Tigers thought enough of him that they traded Rocky Colovito to the A's to add him to their rotation. He was a middle of the road pitcher with the A's, but was great for the Tigers in 1964. Wickersham won 19 games that season and was ejected in the seventh inning of his final start with the game tied 1-1 in the 7th inning pitching for his 20th win.  

The Vintage Detroit blog did a good write-up on the incident.  

Wickersham did not do much after 1964, but did end up with the expansion Kansas City Royals for his final season, making him one of three players to appear for both the Royals and A's in Kansas City.  The window between the A's moving (1967) and the Royals starting (1969) was narrow enough its surprising that it was not a more common occurrence.  

Next up, Albie Pearson.  

I was not overly familiar with Albie Pearson before tracking down this card, but I do like the picture on the front of this card. It's got to be a Spring Training photo with the mountains in the background. The Angels train in Arizona.  

I like that they mention his height and weight. After looking him up, it seems that he was most notable for being a really small person playing professional baseball more than any single event or season. I tried to see if I could find an Albie Pearson and Frank Howard picture, or some other really huge player, floating around on the internet. Something similar to the Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge photos that pop up everywhere when the Astros and Yankees play.

I found nothing, so here is Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve. I am sure Frank Howard and Albie Pearson would have looked the same.   

Maybe taking pictures of extraordinarily tall players next to extraordinarily short players is more recent phenomenon.  

Next up, "The Turk". 

Farrell was a tall, hard-throwing relief pitcher for the Dodgers and Phillies for the majority of his career. However, the expansion Colt 45s selected him in the expansion draft and used him as a starting pitcher. He had some good years as a starter, but he later returned to the Phillies as a relief pitcher to end his career. Nice portrait photograph on the front of the card. 

The centering on the back of the card isn't great, but I am going to live with it for the moment. The back describes his All-Star appearance in the 1958 game, which I thought was likely to be his career highlight.  It turns out that he actually ended up making the National League All-Star team 5 different times. Four of those were with the expansion Astros, so it could be that he was just the best player on those teams.   

Farrell's son, Richard Dotson, played for the White Sox in the late 1970s and 1980s. 

Another player I did not know much about.....

Chuck Hinton.

You should know this guy.  

He is actually a local player who went to high school in Rocky Mount, which is about an hour east of Raleigh. Hinton went to Shaw University, a small HBCU in Raleigh before he got drafted into the Army for Vietnam. Hinton had a late start to his career, reaching the Majors at the age of 27, but he was a good player for a short time. At the peak of his career, Hinton was a 20 steal, 20 home run player.  

Most importantly, Hinton founded the Major League Players Alumni Association after his career. There are people who, rather convincingly, argue that he is a person who should be in the Hall of Fame as a contributor to the game for starting up the Players Alumni Association. As the argument goes, he is likely tied to Curt Flood for admission into the Hall.  

Here is the back of the card, which spends most of the time talking about his Minor League career.  

Two cards left.  

Dick Ellsworth played during the 1960s, decent pitcher, but was always on the wrong teams. I kind of feel bad for him when I run into his cards. In 1963, Ellsworth went 22-10 for the Cubs. However, he also had a season where he went 9-20, another where he was 8-22. Not his fault. At one point in the late 1960s, Ellsworth ended up on the Red Sox. Otherwise, his career was spent with the Cubs (not good), the Indians (not good), and the Brewers during their first two years of existence (not good).   

Ellsworth played thirteen years and his career record is 20 games under .500. He also has a career ERA of 3.72. If he had been on good teams, you can imagine his career would have been a lot different. People who argue that wins is a misleading statistic sometimes use Ellsworth's career as an example. Decent pitcher with horrible results, largely due to where he played.  

The back of his card focuses on a one-hitter Ellsworth pitched against the Phillies in 1963. Not mentioned is the fact that Wes Covington bunted to break up the no-hitter. Also in the box score, this gem. Top line.  

The last card. 

Dean Chance won the 1964 American League Cy Young Award with 20 wins and an ERA of 1.65. He had some good seasons with the Angels and Twins, but not a very long career. He was much more noted for his off the field activities than his on the field activities at different points during his career, along with Angels teammate Bo Belinsky. After spending his 20s hanging out at the Playboy mansion, Chance spent his retirement working as a carnival operator.  

The back of the card is the standard with a short write up about a single game and a whole bunch of stuff about Chance's Minor League career.  

That's it, the entire 1964 Topps Giants set.  

A Giant Update Part 12

I am getting so much closer. I had hoped to finish off my 1964 Topps Giants set on this post, but there will be at least one more after this one. Before this post, I was down to 14 cards to complete the set, with only one Hall of Fame player left to find. I also already have all the short-prints. Maybe at some other point in my life, I would have already finished this set. Between kids, work, and garage doors, there has not been much time to find new baseball cards.  

Here are the five new Topps Giants cards.

First up is Senators shortstop, Ed Brinkman.  

Brinkman was a really good defender, but was not much for hitting. He played more than 1,800 games in the Majors, but only had 1,300 hits. In 1965, Brinkman set an American League record for fewest hits in a season while playing in more than 150 games. He ended the year with just 82 hits and a .185 batting average.  

That's bad.  

The back naturally sticks to his defensive skills.  

I like that the card mentions his time as a member of the Raleigh Capitols. 

Next up, Mets infielder Ron Hunt.  

Did he cut himself shaving? That's a pretty wicked looking something underneath his nose.  

All this stuff on the back is impressive, but Ron Hunt is actually from St. Louis. He went to the same high school as Jerry Reuss, just a few years earlier.  

Next. 

Jim Fregosi was a favorite on the first Angels teams in the early 1960s. I knew him best as the manager of the Phillies when I was in middle school and high school. 

This is kind of a lame write up, considering that the Angels were in their third season when this card was produced.  I need to go back and look at my 1999 Devil Rays cards to see if they acknowledge Randy Winn's triples record for their franchise at the time. It's still 9th all-time in franchise history, but all of those higher triple total seasons belong to Carl Crawford.  

Next up is Ken Johnson.  

Before Edwin Jackson, there was Ken Johnson. He seemingly played on a different team almost every year in the 1950s and 1960s. Not really, but it was close. He played 13 seasons with 8 different teams. Considering the number of teams in the league during the 1950s and 1960s, that's a large number.  

The back of the card is interesting.

After reading about his no-hitter loss, I actually went and read a little bit more about his career. He actually seems like a decent pitcher who was on the wrong teams at the wrong times throughout his career.  

For example, he ended up on the Reds in 1961 and was given a rotation spot during the second half of the season. He went 6-2 with an ERA of 3 and helped them make the World Series versus the Yankees. If you are into sabermetrics, he had several 3 and 4 WAR seasons, just screwed over playing on bad teams. 

Last card is Leon Wagner.  

Leon Wagner was a really good player during the 1960s. His career got off to a slow start, otherwise he might have been a little more of a recognizable name. Wagner played college football and then ended up working at an auto manufacturing plant in Detroit while playing sandlot baseball.

The Giants signed Leon Wagner, but he drafted into the Army for the Korean War. 

Leon Wagner returned to the Giants, but was blocked by Willie Mays, Felipe Alou, and others. 

The Giants traded him to the Cardinals, but he was blocked by Stan Musial, Curt Flood, and Joe Cunningham.  

The Cardinals traded him to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the baseball team in the International League.  

The Maple Leafs traded him to the Angels where he finally got to play as a regular at the age of 27.  

Back of the card.  

Once Leon Wagner started playing, he was really good.  He made a few All-Star Games, hit 30 home runs a few times, and received MVP votes in several different season. It's too bad the Giants or Cardinals did not have an open outfield spot while he was a little younger.  

Updated checklist.

I am getting closer.  

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP