A MISSING ROOKIE CUP- 1974 DAVEY LOPES

The next player who got “ripped off” a nice Rookie Cup by Topps in the 1970’s is none other than future Dodgers’ All-Star second baseman Davey Lopes, who broke into the Major Leagues with a very nice 1973 season:

Lopes hit .275 for Los Angeles in his rookie year, with 36 stolen bases and 77 runs scored, giving the team an idea of what he’d end up doing over the next eight years while making the All-Star team four times while also taking home a Gold Glove.
He’d would lead the National League in stolen bases two years in a row: 1975 and 1976, with a high of 77 in ‘75 and 63 in 1976.
What always amazed me about that 1976 total was that he stole those 63 bases on only 103 hits! Incredible to think he swiped so many bags on so few hits (along with 53 base on balls).
On occasion he’d also show some “pop”, as he did in arguably his finest season in the big leagues when he hit 28 homers to go along with 44 stolen bases, 109 runs scored and 97 walks in 1979, starting the All-Star game alongside his teammate Steve Garvey.
By the time he retired after the 1987 season, he collected 557 stolen bases and 1023 runs scored to go along with 1671 hits and a .263 batting average.
And to think, he didn’t play his first full season until the age of 28 in 1973. I never realized he got such a late start in his MLB career.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1978 MARK WILLIAMS

Here’s a “not so missing” 1978 card for a guy who is a bit of a mystery to me, Oakland A’s outfielder Mark Williams:

Williams appeared in three games for the A’s in May of 1977, going 0-for-2 with a walk and an RBI after toiling for five years in the Oakland and Kansas City Minor League systems.
But it seems he was sent back to the Minors right after his short three day stint in the Majors, where he’d play a full season for San Jose of the Pacific Coast League.
But then the mystery is that after that action in 1977, nothing. Not only did he not play again in the Majors, but it seems he never played in the Minor Leagues again as well.
Anyone know what happened to him? He was only 23 years old at the time, and his Minor League season was a good one, hitting .277 with 88 runs batted in and 20 stolen bases.
I looked online and couldn’t find a thing.
All told, he spent three days as a Major League player, with those three games in May.
On top of everything else, I’m intrigued by the fact that he also had a nickname, “Cadillac”, which makes him all that more interesting to me!

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1977 FRANK RICCELLI

Today’s blog post has a 1977 “Not really missing” card for former pitcher Frank Riccelli, who appeared in the first four games of his brief three-year MLB career in 1976:

Riccelli posted a record of 1-1 for the San Francisco Giants in his debut, pitching 16 innings and giving up 10 earned runs, good for an ERA of 5.63.
He’d spend all of 1977 in the Minor Leagues, before coming back to the Big Leagues in 1978 for two years as a member of the Houston Astros, where he’d go 2-2 generally out of the bullpen, even getting a Topps card in the 1980 set, though it turned out his MLB playing days were behind him.
After two seasons in the Minor Leagues playing for the Pittsburgh and Toronto organizations in 1981 and 1982, he retired for good.
For his Big League career, he finished with a record of 3-3, with an ERA of 4.39 over 17 appearances and 41 innings of work, with five of those appearances being starts.

1978 REDEUX- DOUG RADER'S AIRBRUSH JOB

Came across this nice in-game shot of former Gold Glove third baseman Doug Rader recently and wanted to redo his airbrushed 1978 “career-capper”, so here we go:

Re-done

Original by Topps

Funny enough little did Topps know that Rader’s playing days were already behind him when this card would come out, finishing up a very nice 11-year career with 96 games in Toronto’s inaugural 1977 season.
Rader’s first nine years in the Big Leagues were spent with the Houston Astros, where he took home five straight Gold Gloves between 1970 and 1974 while showing some “pop” with his bat, topping 20 homers three times while driving in 80+ four times, with a high of 90 in 1972.
I was surprised to see he never made an All-Star team. I’m not saying the guy deserved to be a starter or anything, but I’d figured he made one or two as a back-up or replacement along the way.
After his playing career was over he went in to coaching, then managing, putting in six years leading the Texas Rangers and California Angels, the latter of which I have NO recollection, even though he had the Angels win 91 games in 1989, finishing third in a strong American League West division.
I’ll have to whip up a “Nickname” card for him soon! “The Red Rooster”!

"1940 STARS OF BASEBALL" CUSTOM SET #6 NOW AVAILABLE!

Hey everyone!
Hope you're all having a great weekend!
The newest custom baseball set, "1940 Stars of Baseball" is now available for purchase, and I'm really happy with the way they came out. Take a look:

The set features 40-cards along with a fold-out play board, dice roll-card (Lou Gehrig "Commemorative" card), line-up 20-page booklet to keep your line-ups, score sheets to score your game, a branded "1940 Stars of Baseball" pencil to help keep score, two dice and four stands to help you "run the bases" with your player cards (if you so choose!).
All of this comes inside a box with printed lid, and are limited to 40 sets, then they're gone.
The cards have all the stars of era: DiMaggio, Williams, Mize, Feller, Hubbell, etc, and have fully printed backs like the other sets I have produced in the past.
As an added element of the game, the backs of each card have a unique "Power-Roll" number, so if you roll that number for that individual player's at-bat, it's an automatic home run!
The sets are $28 postpaid, and will start shipping asap upon payment.
If you are interested in more than one, just ask and I'll see what I can do, depending on how fast they sell. But I did make more sets this time so it is a possibility.
Hope to hear from you! And thanks for all the support thus far!
Gio/wthballs

A 1969 SPECIAL- JOPHERY BROWN AND HIS GREAT BACK STORY

Today I’m excited to post up a “special” card outside my usual “1970’s” focus, this one a 1969 card for one-game Major Leaguer Jophery Brown of the Chicago Cubs:

Jophery made his Big League debut on September 21st of 1968, pitching two innings and allowing a run on two hits, not factoring in a decision.
Turns out that would be the sum total of his Major League career, spending all of 1969 in the Minor Leagues before calling it a career.
Don’t feel too bad for the guy, turns out he already had a great career in place that he would ride for the next 40 years: as a Hollywood actor and stuntman!
Brown had already appeared on television some four years before his Big League debut as both an actor “Arrest and Trial” and stuntman “I, Spy”, before coming back full-time in 1973 with an uncredited role in the movie “Coffey”.
He would go on to act in 35 films and do stunts in 115.
Incredible story to his life in Hollywood as a stuntman and actor, doing work in films such as Scarface, Jurassic Park, Spider-Man and of course The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, the classic baseball movie starring James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor from 1975.
Jophery Brown passed away in January of 2014 at the age of 68, after battling cancer. But what a wonderful life he had.
R.I.P.

NOT REALLY MISSING IN ACTION- 1976 TOMMY BIANCO

Another fun card to create to fill out the awesome 1976 set, a card for former Milwaukee Brewers infielder Tommy Bianco, who played the only games of his brief MLB career during the 1975 season:

Bianco appeared in 18 games for the Brewers, batting .176 with six hits over 34 at-bats, with six runs scored while playing third and first base with some DH-ing thrown in.
Originally drafted as the third overall pick in the 1971 draft after Danny Goodwin and Jay Franklin, #’s 1 & 2 respectively, Bianco had some pop in his bat, hitting 28 homers with 81 runs batted in during the 1974 season at Triple-A Sacramento in the Pacific Coast League.
Sadly for him however, as mentioned earlier those 18 Big League games during the 1975 season would be it for him, as he’d play out the next four years in the Minor Leagues for the Milwaukee, Montreal, Detroit and Baltimore organizations.