"MISSING" 1969 DECKLE REGGIE JACKSON

Up on the blog today, my "missing" 1969 Deckle Edge card for "Mr. October", Reggie Jackson, from my custom 1969 "Gimmie A Do-Over" set released a few months back:

Really a fun insert to create for that set, as I had to manually hand-cut the deckle edging for each and every one of these to insert into my packs.

Truly one of the eternal icons of the game, the man was just destined for baseball greatness since his days at Cheltenham High School in Pennsylvania.
Recruited by pro teams and colleges alike, he went on to Arizona State where he was actually on a football scholarship.
Of course we all know the story of the 1966 amateur draft, where the New York Mets held the #1 pick, and opted for high school catcher Steve Chilcott instead of who many considered the true #1 overall amateur, Jackson.
With the second pick, the Kansas City Athletics (later Oakland) picked the slugger and the rest is history, as he would eventually lead the organization to three straight championships between 1972-1974 before being traded in a blockbuster to the Baltimore Orioles where he’d play for one season in 1976.
As a highly coveted free agent before the 1977 season, Jackson signed with the New York Yankees, and with Reggie in NYC, the legend exploded as he helped the Yankees to two championships in 1977-78.
With his larger than life persona, New York ate it up and before you knew it, he was known around the world, even getting his own candy-bar by the end of the decade.
For a kid like me growing up in Brooklyn in the ‘70’s, Reggie was like a God, larger than life, and before he finished up his career in 1987, putting in 21 seasons, he would put together a Hall of Fame career with 563 homers, 1702 runs batted in, an MVP Award in 1973, and five championships.
Add to that 14 all-star nods, four home run titles, a legendary homer in the 1971 All-Star Game against Dock Ellis, his 1977 World Series performance, and you can see why he goes down as one of the most well-known baseball personalities the game has ever seen!

REVISITING A POST FROM 2014: MISSING 1977 LEON BROWN

On the blog today, we revisit a post from June of 2014, my "missing in action" card for Leon Brown of the New York Mets, who was left out of the 1977 Topps set:

Here's the original write-up for the card from that post over 10 years ago.

"Here's one for all you Mets fans out there!

Although he only appeared in 64 games in his Major League career (all in 1976), I came across a nice photo of former New York Mets outfielder Leon Brown recently and decided to design a 1977 card for him.

While I normally never designed cards for "missing" players with so little Major League action, I've decided to branch out a bit and start designing cards of players that fit the bill if I come across a decent enough photo, like Brown here.

As I stated earlier, Brown only appeared in 64 games in 1976, batting .214 with 15 hits in 70 at-bats while playing all three outfield positions.

While his Major League action was sparse, he did manage to pull together a 13-year Minor League career, playing for six organizations along the way: the Orioles, Giants, White Sox, Mets, Cardinals and Royals.

Ironically enough, he fared much better than his brother Curtis, who got into one Major League game, for the Montreal Expos, in 1973, going 0 for 4."

 

"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: STEVE GARVEY

Let's go and add "Mr. Clean", Steve Garvey to my future custom "Classic Baseball" set, celebrating the sport I have obsessed over for the past 45 years or so:

Just a nice portrait shot of the man who would anchor those great Los Angeles Dodger teams of the late-70s/early-80s.

Garvey made his Major League debut in 1969 as a 20-year-old, appearing in three games, going 1-for-3 at the plate.

Of course, we all know that the man would go on to be a perennial All-Star first baseman, and for ME, a lock for the Hall of Fame.

The fact that he was the premier first baseman in the National League from the mid-70’s through the mid-80’s, an All-Star year in and year out doesn't seem to matter to most however.
Modern metrics be damned, the man topped 200-hits six times, took home the NL MVP in 1974, won four Gold Gloves and strung together a run of 1207 consecutive games played, which is still the NL record.
The anchor of the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers teams of the era, they took over from Cincinnati as the preeminent team in the Senior Circuit in the late-70s, reaching the World Series three times over five seasons between 1977 and 1981, winning it all that final year, beating the New York Yankees and exacting some sweet revenge for their two losses in 77/78.
I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a few hundred times: the fact that this man is NOT in the Hall of Fame, representing his era of Major League baseball, is a joke. Flat out nonsense. Beyond the numbers, the personality, the leader of a team that was shattering attendance records, helping popularize the game further, the man was an All-Star year in-year out.
In my book, seeing that the most support he ever received was 42.6%, which was in his second-year of eligibility in 1994, is nothing short of a mark on what the Hall of Fame is.

That goes for Dave Parker and Dale Murphy as well!

 

1960S "IN-ACTION": 1960 YOGI BERRA

Today's blog post has me adding a 1960 "In-Action" card for all-time great Yogi Berra, which I hope to be part of the third series in this collection in the coming months:

Fun template to play around with!

Let's see, the man was a three-time American League Most Valuable Player, a FIFTEEN-TIME all-star, and received Most Valuable Player votes every single year between 1947 and 1961. As a matter of fact, between 1950 and 1956 he never finished lower than fourth for the MVP, with three wins, and two second place finishes!

That's seven top-4 finishes in seven years! Just awesome.

Oh yeah, let's not forget the fact that he was a member of TEN world championship teams! Amazing!

Except for four scant games in 1965 with the New York Mets, Berra played the rest of his 19-year career with the Bronx Bombers, amassing 358 homers, 1430 runs batted in and a .285 average.

One other note about his amazing career: the man only struck out 414 times over 8359 at-bats!

YOGI!!! I loved that man!

A true baseball treasure…

WTHBALLS GUM PACK CUSTOM SET: MIKE SCHMIDT

Time to spotlight my mini card from my "Gum Pack" custom set released a few months back of perhaps the greatest third baseman the game has ever seen, that of Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies:

What a career Schmidt had: 12 All-Star nods, 10 Gold Gloves, three Most Valuable Player Awards, all while anchoring a Philadelphia Phillies team that would reach their apex in 1980, taking home the World Series with a victory over the Kansas City Royals.
By the time he hung them up in 1989, he’d hit 548 home runs, drive in 1595 runs while scoring 1506, while also stealing 174 bases! Easy to forget he could steal a base or two. As a matter of fact, it’s really easy to forget that he came one stolen base short of joining the (then) exclusive 30-30 club back in 1975, slamming 38 homers to lead the league while swiping 29.
Nevertheless, “Schmitty” rode that success straight to a Hall of Fame induction come 1995, a lock if there ever was one.

MINOR LEAGUE DAYS: LEGENDS EDITION- JOE McGINNITY

Up on the blog today, a fun guy to add to my long-running "Minor League Days: Legends Edition" set, Hall of Fame pitcher Joe McGinnity, who won nearly 500 games over his professional career, which spanned a quarter century from 1893 to 1925:

By the time McGinnity decided to rest his arm for good after pitching for the Dubuque Climbers in the Mississippi Valley League in 1925, he finished his pro career with 478 wins, collected over a staggering 1048 games, which saw him throw 7091 innings.

Pictured here on this card with Dubuque, he was in his 50's when he suited up for them in 1922-1925.

Nicknamed "Iron Man", you can understand why when you look at his time with the New York Giants at the turn of the 20th Century when he teamed up with Christy Mathewson to form one of the All-Time great 1-2 pitching tandems in MLB history.

Over his 10-year MLB career spanning 1899 through 1908, he posted 20+ wins eight times, with a high of 35 wins in 1904 when he appeared in 51 games, with 44 starts and 38 complete games, amounting to 408 innings of work, with nine shutouts.

Incredibly, a year before that in 1903 he posted a record of 31-20, appearing in 55 games, with 48 starts and a ridiculous 44 complete games, pitching a mind boggling 434 innings.

He also posted a 28 win season for the Baltimore Orioles in 1899 as a rookie, followed by another 28 win year in 1900 now with the Brooklyn Superbas.

His pro breakdown for wins was 246 in the Majors and 224 in the Minors, with 32 shutouts as a Big Leaguer, with his Minor League stats lost to history. So who knows just how many shutouts, complete games, etc he racked up overall.

In 1946 he was eventually voted into the Hall of Fame by the "Old Timers Committee", joining many of his former teammates in Cooperstown, and rightly so!

REVISITING A POST FROM 2014: DEDICATED ROOKIE- 1971 DON BAYLOR

Good day everyone!

Thought it'd be fun to revisit my post from 2014, a "dedicated rookie" for Don Baylor, a favorite player of mine from my youth as I followed the New York Yankees in the mid-80's:

 

Nice shot of the slugger as he began what ended up being an excellent Major League career spanning almost two decades.

Here's the original write-up:

Let's go and give Don Baylor a dedicated rookie card in the 1971 set, where he originally shared a multi-player rookie card with Tom Paciorek and Dusty Baker.

Now while his original rookie wasn't too shabby a card, I found this nice image of Baylor during his very early years and decided to whip up a 1971 card for him. Some of you may wonder about his uniform! But if you notice all the late-series Orioles players in that 1971 set were photographed with the "new" Baltimore uniform, which Baylor is wearing on this card. As a young teen in NYC in the early 1980's, I can tell you Baylor was a favorite of ours in the schoolyards of Brooklyn for his hard-nosed play. He was cool as a cucumber, yet as likable as you can be when we'd see him at baseball card shows around town. Besides, he looked bad-ass standing there at the plate, upright and waiting to crush a ball into the stands. He finished his 19-year career in 1988, playing for his third straight American League Champion team, and all three were different: Red Sox in '86, Twins in '87, and the A's in 1988. Of those, the Twins brought home the title, giving Baylor his only Championship ring as somewhat of a "regular player". He retired with over 2000 hits, 330 homers, 285 stolen bases and over 1200 runs scored and runs batted in. In 1979 he exploded while with the Angels, bringing home the American league Most Valuable Player Award after slamming 36 home runs while leading the league in runs scored (120) and runs batted in (139), while hitting .296 with 22 stolen bases thrown in. Of course, he'll also be remembered as one of the key components in the Orioles-A's trade that sent Reggie Jackson to Baltimore in April of 1976. But by the time he hung up his cleats for good, he put together a very solid career himself, even winning the National League Manager of the Year Award in 1995 while steering the Colorado Rockies to a 77 and 67 record (good for second place). Here's to you "Groove"!