WTHBALLS CUSTOM SET SPOTLIGHT: 1960S STARS OF THE GAME: CHUCK ESTRADA

The next custom 1960 "Stars of the Game" card to get the spotlight here on the blog is my card for Baltimore Orioles pitcher Chuck Estrada, who had himself a very nice rookie year in 1960:

Estrada finished in second place for the Rookie of the Year Award that year because of his league-leading 18 wins, as he started 25 games while appearing in 36 total, completing twelve, saving two and tossing a shutout.

In 1961 he would follow it up with another solid season, going 15-9 over 33 appearances, all but two of those starts, pitching to a 3.69 ERA over 212 innings.

Sadly for him it would be his last "good" year in the Majors, as 1962 would see him lead the league in losses with 17 against only nine wins, posting an ERA of 3.83 over a career best 223.1 innings of work.

In 1963 arm issues led to an abbreviated season that saw him appear in only eight games, going 3-2 with a 4.60 ERA, and it would go downhill from there, as his ERA would bump up to 5.27 over 17 appearances in 1964, with only six of those games as a starter.

He would spend all of 1965 in the Minors, and would be back on a Big League mound in 1966 as a member of the Chicago Cubs for nine games, getting hit hard to the tune of a 7.30 ERA over 12.1 innings.

In 1967, he would put in what turned out to be the final games of his Major League career, suiting up for nine games with the New York Mets, going 1-2 with a 9.41 ERA over 22 innings, while also spending the bulk of the season in the Minors.

He'd pitch in the Mets Minor Leagues in both 1968 and 1969, but never get another shot at the Majors, closing out a once promising career with a record of 50-44 over 146 games, with an ERA of 4.07 and 535 strikeouts.

AVAILABLE NOW! 1ST WTHBALLS REPRINT SET- 1980 PEPSI-COLA BASEBALL ALL-STARS SET!

Good day all!

Happy to announce the latest WTHBALLS custom set, this a first for the brand, a REPRINT set, the 1980 "PEPSI-COLA BASEBALL ALL-STARS" 22-card set that was NEVER produced/released to the public, faithfully reproduced here along with a bonus:

For those not familiar: Pepsi-Cola and Topps were in agreement to create a 22-card baseball card set in 1980.

The negotiations went as far as Topps fully designing the 22-card set, front and back, and producing a few uncut sheets to show Pepsi.

For one reason or another Pepsi backed out of the idea, and in the ensuing years some folks took the produced sheets and hand-cut the cards, which eventually would show up at auction for high-dollar amounts.

I've been fascinated by this sweet-looking set for decades, and am proud to issue it now!

I was lucky to find high-resolution images of each card and added "REPRINT" clearly on the back of each card to avoid any unscrupulous mishaps later on.

All 22 cards of the original test set are here, along with a fun BONUS card: the 1980 Rickey Henderson rookie added as a 23rd card!

But that's not all! Since I actually made a mistake with the first printing of the Henderson card, with his position listed as "REL", I had it reprinted with correct "OF" position, and decided to also give you all the error card as well, thus 24 cards total!

As with my 1954 Wilson's Franks and 1980's "Career-Cappers", I am releasing this set in acetate box with full-color wrap.

They are $16 each with postage at $5.50 1st Class w/tracking. As usual, the postage stays the same no matter how many sets you buy.

Same paypal email: slogun23@gmail.com

Really psyched to have this first REPRINT set produced, and I hope you all are as well! I added a set in my 1980 Topps set binder as a cool coda, and it fits right in!

Take care and thank you for the continued interest and support!

Gio/wthballs

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1976 RYAN KUROSAKI

Good day all!

Fun card to create for the blog today, that a "not so missing" 1976 card for Hawaiian native Ryan Kurosaki of the St. Louis Cardinals:

Kurosaki appeared in seven games for the Cardinals in 1975, which would be the entirety of his Major League career.

Over those seven games he didn't factor in a decision while pitching to a 7.62 earned run average over 13 innings, striking out six while walking seven.

His professional career began in 1974 after getting drafted out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and he would pitch in the Minors through the 1980 season, all with the St. Louis organization, where he would rack up a record of 41-29 over 303 games, with a 3.87 ERA, with 53 saves.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1976 RICH McKINNEY

Good day all!

On the blog today, a subject of a FEW "missing" cards here on the blog over the years, Rick McKinney, with a "not so missing" 1976 edition this time:

McKinney appeared in only eight games for the Oakland A's during the 1975 season, collecting one hit over seven at-bats with two runs batted in and a walk.

He would spend all of 1976 in the Minors, but would come back in 1977 to play in 86 games for Oakland, which turned out to be the last Big League action of his seven-year career.
When it was all said and done, McKinney finished with a .225 batting average, with 199 hits in 886 at-bats over 341 games, with 20 homers and exactly 100 runs batted in and 79 runs scored.
Of course we’ll also remember that McKinney got two straight classic airbrush jobs on his Topps cards in 1972 and 1973, which I profiled years ago on the blog:

http://whentoppshadballs.blogspot.com/2014/09/an-all-time-classic-airbrush-job-1973.html

http://whentoppshadballs.blogspot.com/2013/09/when-airbrushing-goes-terribly-wrong.html

 

"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: RALPH KINER

The next player to get a card in my long-running "Classic Baseball" custom WTHBALLS set is slugger and Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner:

Imagine averaging 97 runs, 37 homers and 101 runs batted in over your ENTIRE career?! Just awesome.

Kiner broke in with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946 and promptly led the National League in homers with 23, then proceeded to lead his league in that same department for the next six years, with FIVE of those seasons with 40 or more, all consecutively.

In 1947 he smashed 51 homers, then topped himself two years later when he outright demolished the ball, hitting 54 home runs while setting his personal best in slugging with a .658 mark

In his 10 short years as a Major League player he led the league 17 times in a positive offensive category.

All told, he finished with 369 homers, 1015 RBIs, 971 runs scored and a .279 average over 10 seasons, playing in only 1472 games with 5205 at-bats.

Injuries curtailed what could have been a monster career, but he produced plenty enough for the BBWA to induct him in 1975, cementing his place in baseball history, and he was already entrenched as the long-time New York Mets TV announcer, where he even copped an Emmy Award and kept us all in stitches with malapropisms for over 50 years.

 

REVISIT: MISSING IN ACTION- 1975 MICK KELLEHER

On the blog today, we revisit another 10-year old post, this time my 1975 "Missing in Action" card for Mick Kelleher:

It’s a stretch being that Kelleher appeared in 19 games for the Astros during the 1974 season.
But it can be argued that he easily could have appeared on a card, at the very least a multi-player rookie card, in any given year between 1974 and 1975.
As it was he didn’t appear in a Topps set until 1977 after a relatively full season with the Chicago Cubs the previous year.
Nevertheless, Kelleher hit .158 during the 1974 season, collecting nine hits over 57 at-bats while playing shortstop.
He would go on to play 11-years in his career, mainly with the Cubs where he’d see the bulk of his 622 lifetime games.
In those, he collected 230 hits in 1081 at-bats, good for a .213 average.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1972 BOBBY DARWIN

On the blog today, how about a "not so missing" 1972 card for former pitcher-turned-outfielder Bobby Darwin, who started his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers:

Darwin appeared in eleven games in 1971 for the Dodgers, now as an outfielder after two brief shots as a pitcher in 1962 and 1969.

Over those eleven games in 1971 he hit .250 with a homer and four RBIs, collecting five hits in 20 at-bats.

It’s easy to forget that the man who’d eventually go on to the Minnesota Twins and slug 65 homers over three seasons between 1972-1974 started out as a pitcher with the pitching rich Dodgers in the 1960’s.
In 1969, after a seven year hiatus from his MLB debut in 1962, Darwin made it back to a Big League mound and appeared in six games, not factoring in a decision while posting an ERA of 9.82 in 3.2 innings pitched.
Back in his MLB debut in 1962, he appeared in one game at the age of 19, giving up six runs, four of them earned, in 3.1 innings, getting tagged with the loss in the abbreviated start.
But he’d find his place as an outfielder, eventually going on to hit 83 homers in his nine-year career playing for the Dodgers, Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Boston Red Sox and finally Chicago Cubs between 1962 and 1977.
A “hit-or-miss” type hitter, he led the American League in strikeouts (as a batter) three straight seasons between 1972 and 1974, his only three full seasons as a Big Leaguer.
He finished his career with a batting average of .251, with 559 hits over 2224 at-bats, with 250 runs scored and 328 RBI’s.