A Giant Project Update #11

This is the giantest of Topps Giant updates. It has taken me awhile to assemble this set. Long than I thought, but I think that it actually helped to collect the tough short-prints and expensive Hall of Famers first. Since my last update in February, I have been able to find another 8 cards to cross off the checklist. Yes, there are short-prints in this post and Hall of Famers, but most were nowhere near the cost of the Mantle and Mays cards.

After my last post, I was closing in on the 2/3 mark for the set with 37 of the 60 cards. In the last month, I have brought that total up to 45. 

A quick look at the new cards.

First up is Kansas City A's infielder Wayne Causey. 

This was one of the short-prints that I still had leftover on the checklist. Causey was a glove-first, light hitting utility infielder. There are multiple Hall of Famers in this post and Wayne Causey cost more than all of them combined. If I were not putting together the set, this is a card I would 100% not purchase. At those moments where I thought about quitting on this set, Wayne Causey always flashed through my head.  

"Would I buy a really expensive Mark Lemke card?"

I will get back to you. 

Wayne Causey's career year involved him finishing twelfth in the American League batting average leaders. I am not really sure that is the type of statistic and brag you want on the back of your baseball card.  I guess it's better than saying he finished 21st in MVP voting that season. I think Topps could have squeezed it in: 

"Wayne just missed out on the American League MVP in 1963, finishing just a mere 243 points behind Yankees catcher, Elston Howard" 

Yes, this card cost a fraction of Wayne Causey.

Frank Robinson.  

This Frank Robinson guy seemed really good. I am not going to go look it up, but the Reds would be foolish if they ever traded him.

 

Pete Ward is an interesting player. He won the 1963 American League Rookie of the Year Award. Ward was a legit hitter with a .290s average, 25-30 doubles, and roughly 25 home runs in his first year or two in the Majors. He hurt his back and neck in a bad car accident after his second year and was never quite the same. Still, the guy is in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. 

Ward still stuck around the Majors for a decade after injury, mostly with the White Sox. He played his last season as a left-handed bat off the bench for the Yankees. The back undersells his father a bit, which is the reason why I knew of Pete Ward before buying the card. 

Way back in the day, there was an antique store in my wife's hometown in northern Michigan that had a spattering of sports cards and memorabilia. It was next to the town's incredible coffee shop. One of the items in the store was an autographed photo and old O-Pee-Chee card of a Montreal Maroons hockey player, Jimmy Ward. I am not good with old hockey players, but the price for the two items was outrageous. 

I went home and Google searched the guy.  

Not mine, nor the items at the store, but he was a member of the popular 1934-1935 Montreal Maroons Stanley Cup winner.   

The card below is from Google. I don't buy hockey cards for hundreds of dollars. Nothing says popular Canadian sports star like appearing in an advertisement for syrup. Pretty dapper guy for a professional hockey player from the old days when they did not wear helmets. Although, maybe there is a reason his mouth is shut. 

Back to baseball cards.  

Not a Hall of Famer, but definitely a great of the era. I think he might have been one of the few players to appear for both the Minnesota version of the Washington Senators and the Texas Rangers version of the Washington Senators.  

The back describes his skill on the mound. His playing numbers are solid. 

Camilo was also a notable scout for the Mets, A's, and Dodgers following his retirement. Camilo convinced Cuban refugee Jose Canseco to sign with the A's, while also suggesting the team draft USC infielder/pitcher Mark McGwire. He also found a 15 year-old Tampa high school pitcher, Dwight Gooden, for the Mets. The majority of Latin American Dodgers players from the 1990s and early 2000s were discovered and signed by Camilo Pascal.  

Next. 

Heard this guy ended up on the Reds at some point. 

I hope the Orioles got a good return.  

The card is off-center. Although, in the grand scheme of things, this is a really inexpensive Roberto Clemente card. I might revisit this one at some point in the future. For the moment, I will take it.  

I feel the need to make a post ranting about Topps use of "Bob" in Roberto Clemente cards. 

Another really inexpensive Hall of Famer.  

Finally a Topps Giants card talking about an established Major League players Minor League career. This set has tons of cards were parts of the back are taken up by their Minor League numbers. This is the first card in this post. The PCL was serious baseball. The Sally League? Yikes. Someone was reaching.  

Final card.  

Dodger great Tommy Davis.  

Yes, Tommy Davis has two batting titles and helped get the Dodgers to the World Series, but here is something about his time with the Spokane Indians. 

 

Eight more cards crossed off and I am at 75% of the set. Two Hall of Famers left and no short-prints. 

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 #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

A Giant Project Update #9

I am inching closer to completing my 1964 Topps Giants set. I have a few more cards to post today, including another one of the really tough short-print. I thought I would finish this set quickly, which is not happening, but at least I still have some momentum going in tracking down these cards.  

First up.  

Roy McMillan looks really old in this picture, but he is only 34. I figured he was going to be 40.  However, he was at the end of his career.  If you have ever seen some of his other cards, much like Sparky Anderson, he just always looked old. McMillan was a long time Reds and Braves shortstop, one of the really great defensive players of the 1950s.  He made a few All-Star Games and also won a few Gold Gloves.  Not much of a hitter.  

The back of the card focuses on his standout defense. Many of these cards skew off onto player's Minor League careers, but the writer did a great job with this McMillan card to keep the focus on his fielding.  I like the action picture on the back. I wish I knew who the players was sliding into second base.  

Next up is Red Sox first baseman, Dick Stuart. This is a short-printed card in the set, but I did not think it was too tough to find.  

Dick Stuart could hit.  Dick Stuart could not field.  It's the best summation I can come up with for his career.  During his prime years with the Pirates and Red Sox, he hit 30 to 40 home runs per year. He also led all first baseman in errors almost every year he played. Red Sox pitcher Dick Raditz once suggested that he get a vanity license plate for his car that read "E-3".  

The back of the card starts out by mentioning a three home run game he had for the 1960 World Champion Pirates team. The author does manages to squeeze in a line about his Minor League career, which again is done throughout the set. That last line on the back is something. I am sure many pitchers on the Pirates and Red Sox would strongly disagree with that statement.  

Next up is a pretty good card.  

I like this portrait photo of Brooks Robinson, but it would have been nice to get something where he is fielding or standing with his glove. Although, he actually was a decent hitter at this point in his career.  Plus, the picture on the back of the card more than makes up for the photo on the front.  

Now, this is a great staged fielding photo. Outstanding. The write-up does not involve his Minor League career. Nice card, but let's get to the best card in the post.  

I will let the card do the talking here.  

The centering is off slightly going left-to-right and top-to-bottom, but the rest of the card is fairly clean. 

The back is a little yellow too, but this was a really tough card.

I know I stated in an earlier post that I thought the Mantle was going to be the biggest challenge in completing this set, but I think I completely underestimated this Koufax card. Again, it is short-printed and seems to be the toughest out of that group of cards.  

With the 4 new cards, I now have 33 out of the 60 cards needed to finish the set. I have two short-printed cards remaining with one of them being Willie Mays.  I am going to try to knock out a lot of the common cards over the next two months. More updates to come....

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: Where Are We?

It has been 4 months since I last updated my progress towards completing a set of 1964 Topps Giants cards.  Way back in July, during my last 1964 Topps Giants post, this was the last card I shared....

I could feel the positive momentum after posting this Mickey Mantle card.  Nothing was going to stop me from finishing this set off by the end of the summer.  After all, this set has a small checklist and the Mantle card is one of really challenging cards in the 1964 Topps Giants set.  

A few more tough cards and thirty easy to find commons?  

Slam dunk.   

I will be kind to Duke later in the post. 

Well, I went on vacation to Michigan and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.

School started and I did not post any new Topps Giants cards.  

Several have come in the mail.  I have not scanned the majority of the cards and I have not updated the checklist from the previous posts.  I am going to divide the Topps Giants cards that have arrived in the past two months into a few posts during the second half of October.  I will update the checklist on the last post.  

So, for this post I have two new 1964 Topps Giants cards.

First, is a card of long-time Reds outfielder Vada Pinson.  

Great photo on the front of the card.  I love the sleeveless Reds uniforms from this era.  I also noticed that Pinson is holding a bat with the number 18 on the knob, rather than his number 28.  I went to look up the player with that uniform number, which belonged to Gordy Coleman.  He's a well-known player in these parts.

Quick side story and interesting ACC sports factoid about Gordy Coleman.    

Gordy was the Reds first baseman for most of the 1960s, before being replaced by Tony Perez.  Prior to playing with the Reds, Coleman played both baseball and football at Duke University in 1953.  That was the first season that the ACC played football and Coleman helped the Blue Devils to a perfect conference record.  Duke was the first team to win a conference title in the ACC in football.  Shocking.  Gordy Coleman dropped out of school the next year to play for the Cleveland Indians, who later traded him to the Reds.  

Back to Vada Pinson.  

The picture of Pinson flying into home is incredible.  

However, this is another card back that spends time talking about a good Major League player's career in the Minor Leagues.  Why?  Yes, they gave some highlights from the Majors mixed in there, but Vada Pinson was a really good player in the early 1960s.  There was nothing better to talk about than his stats in A Ball?  

Prior to 1964, Pinson had already hit over .300 three different times, led the league in hits twice, led the league in double twice, led the league in runs once, made two All-Star teams, and also appeared in the 1961 World Series.  Yes, some of this did end up on the card, but there is no reason to talk about his career in the Minors.  He's not quite a Hall of Famer in my opinion, but I have heard some good arguments over the years for including him.  

Next.  

Picked up another Hall of Famer from the set, Nellie Fox.  This is a really odd card for me.  Nellie Fox is one of those players who only looks right in one uniform.  I know he played for the early Colt 45s/Astros teams, but to me, Nellie is always a White Sox player.  He is still got a big wad of tobacco in his mouth, which seemed to be a frequent feature on his cards during the 1950s. 

Back of the card.  

This is one of the better cards of the set.  No Minor Leagues and a solid write-up on what made Nellie Fox a good player.  For a guy at the end of his career, I dare say this is a good career summary if you did not know anything about Nellie Fox.  I even like the picture of him throwing the ball over the runner sliding into second base. The only way to improve this card back would be to squeeze Luis Aparicio into the picture.  

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?  

A Giant Project: Update #2

 Picked up a few new Topps Giants cards for my set project.  There are a total of four cards in this post, they were all pretty easy to find and inexpensive.  My next update is going to have some really good names.  Thought about waiting a week, but I think the next group of cards deserve their own post. 

First up for this post is Reds pitcher Jim Maloney.  

Here is the back of the card.  

Solid player.  Made a few All-Star games, struck out a ton of batters.  

Next up is Bob Bailey.  I know him mainly as an Expo in the 1970s, but he started out with the Pirates in the early 60s.  Kind of an interesting career path.  Here is the front of the card.  

He was much more of a fielder at the beginning of his career who hit the occasional home run.  Then he got sold to the Expos before the start of their first season.  He started hitting home runs in bundles and was one of their offensive stars.  

The back of the card focuses on his defense.  The second sentence was generous in describing his offensive talents at this point in his career.  Love that action picture on the back.  Very nice.  

Next.  

I was a little disappointed in the top to bottom centering on this card.  I bought it from an Ebay seller who had multiple copies.  I paid for one copy, got another copy.  Tried to return this copy, got my money back, and the guy told me to keep the card.  I might replace this one at some point, but for the moment it's staying.  

Back of the card.  

Another great action shot here with the pitch almost over his head.  I also like that the mention his basketball career at Duke on this card.  Groat's career with the Pirates was far more notable than his time with the Cardinals, but he did win a World Series with them in 1964.  

Last card.  

I did not know too much about Gary Peters before writing this post.  He had a really good beginning of his career, but was out of baseball by his mid 30s.  He won the 1963 American League Rookie of the Year, two ERA titles, and once won 20 games.  

Back of the card.  

Looks like he had a really odd motion.  

Here is my updated checklist.  I have 14 out of the 60 cards, roughly a quarter of the set.  A few new cards will be posted next week, a good name or two is included in the next group of cards.  

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