NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1969 TONY LARUSSA

Up on the blog today, we have a "not so missing" 1969 card for future Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa:

As we all know, Tony LaRussa the "manager" is one of the all-time greats.

Between 1979 and 2011, a span of 33 years, he managed three teams (White Sox, A's and Cardinals) to 2728 victories, six pennants, three world championships, and 12 first place finishes.

You can easily make an argument for LaRussa as the best modern era manager in baseball.

Now, Tony LaRussa the "player". Well…

Let's just say that he never really fulfilled the promise on THAT end of his career.

He came up in 1963 for a brief cup of coffee with the Kansas City Athletics, but wouldn't make it back up to the big leagues again until 1968, when he appeared in only five games, good for three at-bats.

In 1968 he only appeared in five games, going 1-for-3 at the plate, never appearing on the field for defense. 

Actually, in his six year playing career, he never really got a chunk of playing time in any one season.

Topps didn't have a LaRussa card in their 1969 set, even though he WAS included in their sets in 1964, 1968 and 1972.

Even though his playing days left a lot to be desired, he was well on his way to the Hall of Fame once he got the hold of managing a squad in 1979.

 

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION: 1957 CURT FLOOD

Today on the blog we have a fun card to create, a "missing" 1957 card for Hall of Fame worthy outfielder and trailblazer Curt Flood, who started his Big League career with a handful of games with the Cincinnati Reds in 1956. 

The card was part of my recent "1960's Dedicated and Missing" set released early this year:

Flood appeared in five games for the Reds that year, going 0-1 at the plate while putting in some time as a pinch runner.

The next year he'd appear in three games for Cincinnati, going 1-for-3 at the plate with two runs scored, that one hit a home run.

During the ensuing off-season Flood found himself traded to the St. Louis Cardinals as part of a five person trade involving Willard Schmidt, Marty Kutyna and Ted Wiend to the Reds, and Flood and Joe Taylor to the Cardinals.

His first three seasons with his new team were stutter steps, as he played sporadically and hit about .250 combined.

But beginning in 1961 Flood strung together nine fantastic seasons starring for the St. Louis Cardinals, consistently batting over .300, two 200-hit seasons, and seven straight Gold Glove Awards, right up to the 1969 campaign.
Then it all began with a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies along with others including Tim McCarver for superstar slugger Dick (Richie) Allen and a couple of other players.
Flood refused to report to his new team, eventually forcing the Cardinals to send prospect Willie Montanez to complete the deal, essentially ending his career as a player while he fought to have control over his own career, fighting the “reserve clause”.
After sitting out the season in 1970, the Phillies eventually sent him to the Washington Senators, where Flood played the last 13 games of his career before leaving the team within the first month, abruptly closing out a great career that could have been Hall of Fame worthy had he played longer.
If you’re not familiar with Flood’s case, and his teaming up with Players’ Union head Marvin Miller, you MUST read up on this to understand the state of the game today.
I just touched upon some brief points here, but the case and Flood’s decision to pursue this cause is incredible.
Every single player today has much to thank Flood and his sacrifice, allowing the Free Agent boom of the mid-70’s to change the game forever, leading to the salaries and benefits even the average players have today.

REVISIT: OPC IMAGE VARIATION: 1977 DAVE ROBERTS

On the blog today, and interesting OPC image variation to spotlight, that the 1977 cards of former #1 overall pick Dave Roberts:

OPC Version

Topps Version

I covered the craziness of the Topps Blue Jays edition way back in 2013, explaining how Roberts never actually ended up playing for the them at all!

Funny story with that actually.
Roberts, who was the #1 overall draft pick by the San Diego Padres in 1972 out of the University of Oregon, never really panned out as the star infielder San Diego was hoping for.
In all fairness, that 1972 draft wasn't exactly teeming with stars. You have to go all the way to the third round to find a legitimate "star", those being Dennis Eckersley and Gary Carter. But you DID have Chet Lemon go late in the first round. Oh well...
Regardless, Roberts did manage to stick around with the Padres on the Major League level for four years, but in 1976 he spent the entire year in the minors, not really showing enough to be promoted before the year was up.
In October of 1976 San Diego sold Roberts, along with Dave Hilton and John Scott to the Toronto Blue Jays, seemingly giving up on their failed future star.
With that, Topps went ahead and airbrushed Roberts (along with Hilton, who I profiled earlier on this blog) in a Blue Jays uniform in anticipation of his new team for the upcoming season.
Only problem is Toronto then managed to turn right around and trade Roberts BACK to San Diego for pitcher Jerry Johnson in February of 1977, immediately making this an outdated card before it even came out!
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Topps must have been scratching their heads with this one.
Check out the airbrushed Blue Jay logo on Roberts' cap...a bit on the small side don't you think?

As for OPC, they had him in the correct uniform, that of the San Diego Padres, for whom he'd go on to play another two seasons before putting in two years with the Texas Rangers, followed by a year with the Houston Astros and one final MLB season with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1982.

All told, the former top pick finished his 10-year career with a .239 average, with 483 hits over 2017 at-bats in 709 games, with 194 runs scored and 208 RBIs, putting in time out in the field at every position except for pitcher.

 

REVISIT: MISSING IN ACTION- 1971 HAWK TAYLOR

On the blog today, we revisit a 10-year-old post featuring a "missing" 1971 card for Hawk Taylor of the Kansas City Royals:

Taylor put in an 11-year career between 1957 and 1970, even though the most action he ever saw in a season was back in 1964 as a member of the New York Mets when he appeared in 92 games.
Other than that he mainly got to play in about a few dozen games every year of his career, playing for the Milwaukee Braves (1957-1963), Mets (1964-1967), California Angels (1967) and Kansas City Royals (1969-1970).
For the 1970 season Taylor appeared in 57 games, batting .164 with nine hits over 55 official at-bats while splitting time behind the plate and first base.
For his career, Hawk batted .218, with 158 hits over 724 at-bats spread out over 394 games, just about 38 games a year.

 

NOT REALY MISSING IN ACTION: 1970 RICK BLADT

Good day all!

Up on the blog today, we have a "not so missing" 1970 card for former outfielder Rick Bladt, who made his MLB debut in 1969 with the Chicago Cubs:

Bladt appeared in 10 games for Chicago that season, hitting .154 with two hits over 13 at-bats, driving in and scoring a run.

He'd be stuck in the Minors until 1975, when he found himself a member of the New York Yankees, as he appeared in 52 games, good for 133 plate appearances and a .222 batting average.

He also chipped in 13 runs, 11 runs batted in and 5 extra-base hits, all while manning center field.

That would be it for his Big League tenure.

He did put in a solid 12 years in the Minors, spanning 1966 to 1977 with the Cubs, Yanks and Orioles organizations.

After playing for Rochester of the International League in '77 he was out of baseball for good.

As a side note: he did appear on another card, a Topps 1974 multi-player rookie card (#601) which also features Bake McBride, Brian Downing and Ed Armbrister, three players who went on to have decent careers, especially the former two.

 

"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: GEORGE SCOTT

Time to add "Boomer", George Scott to my long-running "Classic Baseball" custom WTHBALLS set, celebrating the great game that has kept me entertained my entire life:

He put together an excellent career playing for the Red Sox, Brewers, Royals and Yankees between 1966 and 1979, slamming 271 home runs with 1051 RBI's, 1992 hits and a .268 batting average.

Defensively all he managed to do was take home eight Gold Gloves for his work at first base, and though he was only named to three all-star games, he garnered MVP attention in seven seasons, or half his career!

Not too shabby to say the least...

 

AVAILABLE NOW! WTHBALLS "1963 FLEER SECOND EXTENSION SET"

Good day all!

Happy to announce the latest WTHBALLS custom set, 1963 Fleer "Extension Series 3" is now available!

 

The second WTHBALLS "extension"series for the classic 1963 baseball card set has another 20 player cards that were NOT in the original issue, plus a bonus "In-Action" card of the great Mickey Mantle, and finally another checklist card. 22 cards total with full-stat backs with bio.

As with my my first Fleer extension set, this one comes with repro 1963 Fleer baseball wax wrapper.

This time I am NOT trying to include a cookie, as that experiment failed miserably the first time because of cookie oils. Luckily I tested it first on a couple packs before making up the rest!

They are $17 each with postage at $6.00 1st Class w/tracking. As usual, the postage stays the same no matter how many sets you buy. Sorry about the bump of $0.50 in postage. USPS just raised shipping another 8% in April.

Same paypal email: slogun23@gmail.com or if you prefer Venmo my ID is: @Giovanni-Balistreri-1

Another fun set of cards to add to the WTHBALLS checklist!

If anyone has any questions please feel free to reach out!

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

Gio/wthballs