THE WHOLE NINE: SERIES 2- MISSING IN ACTION: 1981 MINNIE MINOSO

On the blog today, we have my "not really missing" 1981 card for Minnie Minoso, from my recent custom "Whole Nine: Series 2" set released a few months ago:

I'm so happy that Minoso is finally a Hall of Famer, and I always felt the stunts in 1976 and 1980 may have even hurt his chances of getting into Cooperstown.
From 1951 to 1961 he had a wonderful Major League career, leading the league in stolen bases three times, triples three times, and hits and doubles once each, while also driving in over 100 runs four times and topping 20 homers four times.
Eight times in that span he would top a .300 batting average, and in 1951 many consider him the true American League Rookie of the Year when he hit .326 split between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, while topping the league in triples with 14 and stolen bases with 31.
Along the way he was named to seven All-Star games, winning three Gold Gloves as well, funny enough finishing fourth in the A.L. MVP race four times.
Of course, 12 years after his last playing days, in 1976, he ended up going 1-for-8 at the plate as a 50 year-old, then coming back in 1980 at the age of 54 and going hitless in two at-bats.
Nevertheless, Minoso finished his career with a .298 average, with 1963 hits over 6579 at-bats, along with 186 homers and 205 stolen bases while also topping 1000 runs scored and RBIs, 1136 & 1023 respectively.

If only he didn't have to wait until his age 27 season to show the ENTIRE country what he could do on a ball field.

WTHBALLS CUSTOM SET SPOTLIGHT: 1890 "BASEBALL CHAMPIONS" PUD GALVIN

Time to showcase my custom "19th Century Base Ball Champions" card for the "Little Steam Engine", Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin, from my custom set released in 2018:

Over the course of his spectacular 15 year professional career, Galvin produced 365 wins, with 10 20-win campaigns, which included two straight 46-win campaigns in 1883 and 1884 with the Buffalo Bisons.

In those two seasons, Galvin started 147 games and completed 143 of them. Read that again! 143 complete games in two years, with a total of 1292.2 innings of work! Just astounding.

When he retired after the 1892 season, he was at the top or near top of every pitching mark in baseball's young history, winning 365 games, tossing 57 shutouts, completing 646 while throwing 6003 innings, with a 2.85 earned run average.

Just a powerhouse of a pitcher in the game's early years, with the end result a spot in Cooperstown when he was inducted as a player by the Veterans Committee in 1965.

Of special note for all uber-baseball history geeks out there: it seems that it was recently discovered that he pitched in the National Association before his Major League days, appearing in eight games for St. Louis in 1875 as an 18-year-old, going 4-2 with a league-leading 1.16 ERA, completing all seven of his starts with a save thrown in. I do not recall this at all until seeing it recently, and I promise you I've been a fan of National Association history since the early-80s.

Baseball history STILL evolving with nuggets like this some 150 years later! Fantastic!

DEDICATED ROOKIES: 1962 BOB VEALE

Branching out into the 1960s with my "Dedicated Rookies" theme, this time a 1962 card for flame-thrower Bob Veale of the Pittsburgh Pirates:

Veale would make his MLB debut that season at the age of 26, appearing in elevel games for the Pirates, going 2-2 with a 3.74 earned run average over 45.2 innings.

After a Sophomore season that saw him go 5-1 with a brilliant 1.04 ERA over 34 games in 1963, generally in relief, the lefty put in his first full year in 1964 and had a great year, going 18-12 over 39 games, all but two of them starts, posting an ERA of 2.74 in 279.2 innings with a league-leading 250 strikeouts, the first of what would be four seasons topping 200 K's.

He'd retire after the 1974 season with a tidy 120-95 record, with a 3.07 earned run average and 1703 K's with 20 shutouts.

Between 1964 and 1970 Veale was a very solid Major League starter, averaging 15 wins and 213 strikeouts over those seven years, easily keeping pace with contemporaries like Don Drysdale, Jim Bunning and Jim Maloney.

REVISITING: "MISSING IN ACTION" 1975 JACK AKER

Thought it'd be fun to revisit a post from just about ten years ago featuring my "missing" 1975 card for former reliever Jack Aker, who wrapped up a very nice MLB career in 1974:

For the 1974 season, his last as a Major League player, Aker appeared in 41 games for both the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.

He posted a record of 2-2 with a couple of saves and a 3.57 earned run average, all out of the pen.

As a matter of fact, in his entire 11 year career he never started a single game, appearing in a total of 495 games in relief, posting a (then) very respectable 124 saves, including 32 in 1966 alone when he had his best season in the big leagues for the Kansas City Athletics, going 8-4 with a 1.99 ERA to go along with those league-leading saves.

Between 1964 and 1974 he'd suit up for the Athletics, Pilots, Yankees, Cubs, Braves and Mets, finishing with a 47-45 record with a nice 3.28 ERA and 404 strikeouts over 746 innings of work in 495 appearances.

"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: VADA PINSON

On the blog today, a beautiful card I hope to have released as part of a multi-series custom set, "Beautiful Baseball", by the end of the year, featuring one of my favorite players, All-Star outfielder Vada Pinson:

Just a beauty of a photo I found to celebrate both the sport I love and the man himself, who put in season after season as a top-notch player who got lost amid the Mays, Aarons and Clementes reigning the National League when he came up.

Heck, he even got lost on his own team, the Cincinnati Reds, trying to share the spotlight with guys like Frank Robinson and Pete Rose!

When you look at Pinson’s career, you should be impressed with what he accomplished between 1958 and 1975.
The man could slug the ball, hitting 256 home runs, while also swipe the base, as his 305 steals show. He collected 200+ hits in a season four times while topping .300 four times with a high of .343 in 1961 for the pennant winning Reds.
He led the N.L. in hits, doubles and triples two times each, while also topping the Senior Circuit in runs in his first full season, 1959, with 131.
By the time he completed his career, he topped 2700 hits, 1300 runs, 1100 runs batted in, 250 homers and 300 stolen bases.
To this day it amazes me that guys like Pinson, Al Oliver, Ted Simmons, Steve Garvey, Dave Parker and Jack Morris get snubbed by both the BBWA at first, then the Veterans Committee, yet Cooperstown has players like Stonewall Jackson, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines and “High Pockets” Kelly in there.

THE WHOLE NINE: SERIES 2- NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1980 TIM RAINES

Today on the blog, we have my "not so missing" 1980 card for Hall of Famer Tim Raines, from my "Whole Nine: Series 2" set released a few months back:

The "four-decade" player made his Big League debut with six games for the Montreal Expos in 1979, all as a pinch-runner, giving him three runs scored and two stolen bases without an official at-bat at the age of only 19.

From there the man was nothing short of elite, leading the league in steals four straight seasons from 1981 through 1984, winning a batting title in 1986 when he led the N.L. with a .334 mark, twice pacing the league in runs scored, and making seven straight All-Star teams from 1981 to 1987.

The National League's counterpart to Rickey Henderson, Raines went on to play 23 seasons in the Majors, including a very nice three year run with the New York Yankees during their Dynasty from 1996 to 1998, giving him two Championships, the only two he'd have.

I loved watching him play, and was especially happy to see him play "live" when he suited up for the Yanks those three seasons, when I was pretty much at almost all Yankee home games.

By the time he retired after the 2002 season, Raines finished with 2605 hits over 8872 at-bats, hitting .294 with 1571 runs scored and 808 stolen bases, collecting 113 triples while striking out only 966 times!

That is an average of only 42 strikeouts a season!

In 2017 he was elected to the Hall of Fame, his place in baseball history cemented for all to appreciate in years to come.

Cheers "Rock" Raines!

 

"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: WILLIE MAYS

Today on the blog, we finally add the greatest of them all, Willie Mays, to my upcoming custom "Classic Baseball" set, celebrating the great game and its impact on my life all these decades:

As for the man himself, what needs to be said about perhaps the greatest player in history?
660 home runs, 3000+ hits, over 2000 runs scored and over 1900 runs batted in, with over 300 stolen bases and a .300+ batting average as well!
He took home the Rookie of the Year Award in 1951, then proceeded to win two Most Valuable Player Awards, the first in 1954 and the second eleven years later in 1965.
Let’s also not forget the 20 all-star nods and 12 Gold Gloves, leaving him in that rarified company of Ruth, Cobb, Aaron and Gehrig as far as accomplishments and legend.
Of course, Hall of Fame voting being what it is, he wasn’t a UNANIMOUS selection because of this silly unspoken rule of “no one gets 100% voting”, something I will NEVER understand.