A Giant Project Update #10

I crossed the half-way point with the 1964 Topps Giants during my last update post back in January. I have been working on this set for awhile, but I have crossed off a lot of the short-prints and big names on the checklist. Over the past month, I have added another 4 cards from the set to my collection. All four of the new Topps Giants are Hall of Fame players, including the last pricy card I needed to find.  

I am going to start off with Whitey Ford.  

Not a huge Whitey Ford fan. He looks a little grizzled here. Wonder what Whitey and Mickey were up to the night before this photo was taken. Probably the morning this photo was taken too. In keeping with the other Topps Giants posts, here is the back of the card.    

You ever look at the Hall of Fame stats at the bottom of player's Baseball Reference page? You know what left-handed pitcher had a better top 7 years of their career than Whitey Ford? 

Mark Langston.

I am going to make a Mark Langston post one of these days.  

On to the next one.  

Yes, there are Cubs cards on the checklist. I actually waited to buy this Billy Williams card. When I first saw it, I was convinced that the copies were flawed due to the fuzzy quality of the picture. Nope, that's just the way this card was made. Disappointing given that Topps managed to put together 59 other decent pictures of the players in this set.  

The back of the card has a nice write-up on Billy Williams. He was a younger player here. As mentioned in previous posts, Topps spent a lot of time talking about Minor League careers on the backs of the Giants cards. This Billy Williams card is particularly odd. The left-side of the card focuses on his first few seasons, there are two or three sentences about his time in the Texas League, and then it goes back to his career as a Major Leaguer.  

Just give me a whole paragraph about the home run in the All-Star Game.  

Another Cub.  

Much better photograph on the Santo card. He looks really young here, although this photograph would likely have been taken in his third or fourth season. I really like the cream colored Cubs jersey here. They should wear these as throwbacks.  

Back of the card. 

The Texas League. 

American Association.  

The National League is not mentioned.  

The last card is the best card.  

There is a little surface discoloration going horizontally across the card from the W on the Willie to the left border. The centering is not terrible, but I am happy to cross off the last really tough card left on the checklist. I am still missing the Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson cards, but those are fairly reasonable compared to the Mantle, Koufax, and Mays.  

A card back without any mention of the Minors. 

Amazing.  

I am now at 37 cards out of 60, closing in on the two-thirds mark. I am mainly down the common cards, but I am going to keep working on the bigger names on the checklist. Overall, I have four Hall of Famers left. I am going to try to knock those four players out next.   

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

One Odd Pig

There has been a recent craze in the Minor Leagues with goofy/ridiculous team nicknames.  It's always been there to some degree, but recently it feels like teams are just trying to one up each other with the bizarre and unusual.

RailRiders?  Baby Cakes?  Jumbo Shrimp?  Sigh.  

There is one goofy nicknamed Minor League team that I have some appreciation for.......

The Iron Pigs replaced the Ottawa Lynx in the International League in 2008.  They have been the Phillies Triple A team for their entire run over the last 10 years.  

What makes this "unique" nicknamed team more acceptable than teams like the Baby Cakes?  

There are so many places I could go here.  I think my favorite thing about the Iron Pigs has to be their uniforms.  If you are intrigued with the team you can go check out their Twitter pages, one of them is at @PorkCenter, or the teams various mascots, racing and non-racing, which are borderline scary.  

Back to the uniforms.  You can find all of these on their webpage.  There are the standard unis which you can frequently see the team wear if you follow along with Triple A baseball......

Pretty standard looking uniform.  There is obviously a road grey version, and an alternate blue with the word "Pigs" written across the front in a cursive like script, but with a name like the Iron Pigs you know there is also going to be something goofy.  

There most well known is the Bacon USA jersey.....

I believe that this was the team's first sort of "different" uniform.  It might have actually started with just the bacon hat though.  I didn't do a ton of research on this post.  You're welcome to comment at the bottom if you know the answer.  

Which brings me to some of their uniforms which have more of a fun take on something that has to do with the Phillies, again their parent club.

My two favorites are their powder blue alternate jerseys....

 

which are a variation on the 1980s Phillies powder blue road uniforms.  This is how I remember the Phillies looking when I first started watching baseball.

If you prefer something older, I also like their take on the Whiz Kids......

which is a play on the 1950s Phillies teams and the city of Philadelphia's love of cheese steak sandwiches.  Not a huge fan of the cheese-wiz variations, but they are fine for the sake of making this alternate uniform a winner.

Again, goofy name, but I like that they can draw on some history.

All of this brings me to my latest Minor League baseball card.  Obviously it's an Iron Pigs card.  It's a little bit of an oddball too.  I think I have been here with a Topps Heritage Minors coin card before.....

I like the front of the card with the picture of Phillies shortstop prospect J.P. Crawford donning an Iron Pigs jersey.  Crawford is a pretty intriguing prospect and pretty enjoyable to watch.  The whole coin/card thing has become a standard feature in many of the different Topps sets, all of those things are a positive.

Which brings me to the oddness of "Cubs Break The Bank" above J.P. Crawford's name on the bottom of the card.

This is a Phillies card?  Excuse me, Iron Pigs?  Right?

Wrong.

It appears that the card, I should have posted yesterday so it would be on the date on the card, is actually all about two Cubs players signing a contract before the 1967 season.  One of the players is an outfielder, one is a third baseman, and J.P. Crawford is a shortstop.

I am failing to see how Crawford, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo have anything to do with each other.  It wasn't an expensive card, and since I wanted an Iron Pigs card, I am going to go ahead and ignore all of the Cubs names on the card.

Perhaps someone at Topps was watching that episode of Cheers where Cliff goes on Jeopardy.  Great episode and perhaps the only thing that these three baseball players have in common......