Friday Five: Top 5 Curt Flood Cards

I do not fully understand how Curt Flood is not in the Hall of Fame. He had a very good playing career, which by itself is probably not Hall worthy, but his contributions to the game should make him a slam dunk. In fact, every modern player who is enjoying a league minimum salary of almost $800K with the possibility of making millions of dollars through arbitration and free agency should be name-dropping Curt Flood for the Hall on a daily basis. 

That's not going to happen, but I can dream.  

I have long enjoyed Curt Flood baseball cards and decided it would be a fun exercise to put together a list of my five favorite cards of the long-time Cardinals outfielder.  

5. 1960 Topps 

I love the contrasts on this card with the black and white photo paired with the color photo, along with the bright yellow letters with the black background. That red background behind the black and white photo really pops. I also love the old-style Cardinals bats-on-the-bat logo, really sweet. Overall, this is one of my favorite early 1960s Cardinals cards based simply on aesthetics. Great looking card.  

4. 1967 Topps 

I am not sure Clubbers is the right word to describe the combination of Lou Brock and Curt Flood in the Cardinals lineup, but I love this dual card.  The two were fixtures in the Cardinals outfield for the latter half of the 1960s helping the team win a World Series in 1967 and a National League pennant in 1968. I love the look of the old, wool 1960s Cardinals uniforms on this card. The off-white jerseys with the shortened sleeves and bright red accents and hats looked great together. The Cardinals also have some of the better socks in the league.  

3. 1971 Topps 

I love that Topps gave Curt Flood a card in 1971. After the Phillies traded him to the Senators, Flood only played in a handful of games and retired before the first month of the 1971 season ended. It would have been easy to skip over Flood. This was his final baseball card.  

2. 1964 Topps 

A bit of a sentimental choice for me to rank the 1964 Topps card second on my list. This was one of the first good vintage cards in my collection and my first Curt Flood. Wasn't there a collector who hoarded this card by the thousands? Yes.   Anyway, I love the green text on the white background, the photo of Flood standing with his glove, and who could miss that his name is spelled out on the fingers.  Classic.  

1. 1958 Topps 

My scan is pretty terrible, but this is a great card.  I love all the bright colors here with the bright green background, yellow logo box...err...triangle, and the red name box on the bottom of the card. Love the blue Cardinals cap and that Curt Flood is smiling on his rookie card.  

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

A Giant Project: Update #6

I am still working on my 1964 Topps Giant set project, even if I am posting here less often. The last card I added to the set was Mickey Mantle, so I have had a limited a budget the last few weeks.  The Mantle card is not one of the short-printed cards in the set, but it's still way up there in price.

In case you missed it, here is the Mantle. 

 

Last week, I was able to add another pair of cards from the set. No Hall of Famers this time around, but two players I would classify as being in the Hall of Very Good Players if you followed baseball in the 1950s and 1960s.  

The first card is a short-print and cost a little more.  Not Mantle expensive, but more than the normal card for this player.  

 

 

I was a little thrown off seeing Bill "Moose" Skowron on the Senators.  Happens every time I see one of his mid to late 1960s cards at a show.  The 1950s and 1960s Yankees teams had plenty of Hall of Famers, which Skowron is not, but he was a very good supporting cast member on many of those teams.  Skowron was good for 20 home runs and 70 to 80 RBIs a year hitting 5th or 6th behind players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  In all, Skowron played in 8 All-Star Games and won 5 World Series with the Yankees.  

 

His play in the 1963 World Series is actually the subject of the "news story" on the back of his card, only he was playing against the Yankees as a member of the Dodgers. This was Skowron's 5th and final World Series ring. 

Skowron was a really good Postseason player which is summarized on the back of this card.  The numbers speak for themselves. Skowron never won any Postseason Awards, but had some really good performances in years where the Yankees lost.  In the 1960 World Series against the Pirates, he had 12 hits in the 7 games for a .375 average with 2 home runs, 2 doubles, and 6 RBIs.  Not bad for a guy hitting 6th in the lineup.  Skowron jumped around at the end of his career.  He spent time with the Dodgers, Senators, White Sox, and Angels.  Again, I am always a little weirded out to see him in a uniform outside of the Yankees. 

Speaking of the 1960 Pirates, my second card is an important member of that team.  

 

 

 

Bob Friend was on the Pirates forever.  He played 16 years in the Majors, 15 of them were with the Pirates.  In 1955, he led the National League in ERA.  In 1958, he led the National League in wins. In an average season, Friend won a bunch of games and pitched a ton of innings.  Friend had some shaky years mixed in too, but ended his career with almost 200 wins and 2,000 strikeouts and a ton of innings pitched.  I looked up his comparable players on Baseball Reference, some of his similar players were Curt Simmons, Claude Osteen, Rick Reuschel, and Jerry Reuss.  Wins and innings.  

Here is the back of the Bob Friend card. 

All-Star Game stats are fine, but Bob Friend had a great year in 1960 until the World Series.  He was in the top 5 in the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts that season.  Nothing about that?  

Procrastination Post

I am supposed to be creating a portfolio of everything that I did this year as a virtual and hybrid (50% in-person and 50% online simultaneously), but I am finding it hard to get started.  I have a large stack of cards on my desk at the moment since my blogging is down to almost nothing.  So many to choose from, but I decided to go with some random old 1960s, 70s, and 80s cards of former Durham Bulls players.  

When summer hits, I am going to work on putting together the Durham Bulls cards from the 1960s or 1970s set, similar to what I did last year with the 1975 Topps Mini set.  In the meantime, it's fun to just find some of these old cards for cheap.  This group of cards cost me more than $10 after shipping, so roughly a dollar per card.  Hard to pass up.  

Here's what I found, in sequential order by year.  

 

  

 

First up is a 1960 Topps of long-time Major League catcher Clint Courtney.  His claim to fame was starting several fights with the Yankees during the 1960s.   I believe he was a Yankees farmhand at some point and held a grudge against them.  Clint Courtney ended up on the Bulls at the end of his career.  He was the old guy on a Carolina League team.  

 

 

 

This is a 1974 Topps Rusty Staub card from the World Series Highlights subset.  The Mets did not win, but Rusty hit .429 during the 7 game series against the Oakland A's.  Always good to find a Rusty Staub card.   Easily one of my favorite Durham Bulls players from the early 1960s.  

 

 

Next up is a 1976 Topps Ken Singleton.  This set has really grown on me over the years.  I have already found a few of the other Durham Bulls players in this set, plus I have a bunch of the Cardinals too.  I have never put together a full 1970s baseball card set as a project on here.   This would be fun.  Great looking Singleton card with the cartoon Oriole bird uniform.  

  

 

 

Another 1976 Topps card, only this is from the Traded set, which is famous for the Oscar Gamble card.  That airbrushed Tigers logo is terrible, but I still like the card.  This near the end of Rusty's career as an everyday player, also his last year making an All-Star team.  

 

 

 

 

 

Last Rusty Staub of the post.  He was everywhere at the end of his career, including the Rangers for the 1980 season.  He ended up going back to the Mets as a free agent after this year where he played out his career as a bench player.  I remember getting a few of his cards as a kid.  He was the token old guy on the team.  

The last two cards are from the same set.  

 

 

 

 

 These are both from the 1981 Topps Scratch-Off set.  I have one or two of these hanging around somewhere, but not many.  There have been a few other bloggers who have posted some of these cards over the last few months.  Seemed like a fun pair of cards to add to the collection.