#234 Chuck Tanner

Chuck Tanner looks fresh faced and happy as he gazes into the future and sees himself having a much better career as a big league manager than he was having as a player. That's not entirely fair though. Chuck had a decent career as an outfielder, batting .261 over 8 seasons for four different teams, mostly the Braves and Cubs.Chuck, as noted on his cartoon, homered in his first at bat in the bigs pinch hitting for Warren Spahn on April 12, 1955. Supposedly that homer was on the first pitch he saw!

This truly f/g card is a favorite of mine. The green frame seems to work well with the Cubs colors and the field/stadium background. Ironically Tanner didn't appear as a Cub in 1959 as he was dealt to the Red Sox during Spring Training. He spent most of the year with the Minneapolis Millers alongside Carl Yastrzemski and soaking up the lessons of Miller skipper Gene Mauch. He was sold to the Indians in September before the Millers had moved on to lose to Havana in the 'Little World Series'.

After ending his career with the Angels in 1962 be managed in their farm system until taking over the White Sox helm in 1960. Chuck managed four different franchises through 1988. While he missed out on the 'Little WS' in '59 he more than made up for it by leading the Pirates to their 1979 World series championship over my Orioles. He managed his last game in the Braves dugout in 1988 and held front office jobs after that.

Tanner trivia... he was traded as a manager by the A's to Pittsburgh for Manny Sanguillen before the 1977 season!

Chuck Tanner's Restaurant in New Castle gets a 79% positive rating on Urban Spoon. Pretty good win percentage, no?

Chuck Tanner died in February of this year.

#288 Dutch Dotterer

Henry John "Dutch" Dotterer Jr. packed a lot of career into just pieces of 5 seasons and less than 300 at-bats in the majors. He's the son of Henry John "Dutch" Dotterer Sr. who was a minor league player and long-time major league scout. 

Dutch the Younger was a Syracuse native and attended SU. He's an inductee of the Syracuse Hall of Fame and his bio on that site mentions that he held a Masters in International Relations from that school. I guess that came in handy during his foreign travels to play winter ball.

Dutch pulled off a couple of unique accomplishments in his abbreviated stay in the bigs... he is the only player to hit a grand slam off Sandy Koufax and the only player to twice beat Warren Spahn with extra-inning pinch hits. His blast off Koufax was hit on June 10, 1960, in the mammoth L.A. Coliseum and provided all the Reds' (errr, I mean Redlegs') runs in a 4-3 win!

My copy of Dotterer's card is not very strong but that doesn't distract much from the 'cool' factor of the black frame and the superb "Redlegs" logo. This looks a lot like a companion to the Whammy Douglas card already profiled. 

On a personal note...this was probably my favorite card in the set when I began collecting them back in '59. I loved this one, loved everything about it.  Seeing it today brings back a lot of memories of those emerging collecting days.

#408 Keystone Combo

"Nellie... hey Nellie..... Nellie Fox!! Jump in there and toss your arm around Looie's shoulders, will ya? This'll make a great shot!"

Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio were two important cogs in the "Go Go Sox" machine that took the A.L. pennant and faced the Dodgers in the '59 Series.

Man, I like a lot about this card. Those late 50's White Sox unis are really sweet in their simplicity. And the caps! Yes, I'm an Oriole fan but those interlocking S-O-X caps with the red outlined letter are among the best ever. I looked for one of those for years, literally, before I got one last year. I have a size 8 noggin so that was one problem but even so they were tough to find in any size.

And what can you say about these two players? Both extremely popular middle infielders that now have well deserved plaques on the wall in Cooperstown. I'm especially partial to 'Little Looie' thanks to his years as an Oriole mainstay and contributions to the 1966 World Champion Birds.

My only quibble is related to all the special multi-player cards Topps issued in 1959. Why not use the exact "template" that they used with the regular cards and not crop the background. A photo with the background intact is one of the charms of the '59s. Why go a different direction here? The Keystone combo should have stands or the playing field in back of them, not a yellow inner circle. If you look under the arms of Fox and Aparicio you can see the grass that was part of the original shot.
Both Aparicio and Fox have their own cards in this set but in the meantime we can enjoy this 'special' Topps beauty.

#200 Warren Giles

Ok, imagine you're a kid in the spring of 1959 and you talk your mom into giving you another nickel to get yourself a pack of Topps baseball cards at the store on the corner. Run down to the store hand over the coin and run outside to open the red and yellow pack with your buddies. Hoping for a Mickey Mantle or Ernie Banks you rip open the pack and see....... Warren Giles? Really..... National League President Warren Giles?  Instead of Hank Aaron you got a guy in a bow tie?

Well, Warren Giles is a Hall of Famer and he had a long (50 years) and distinguished career in baseball. But I'm guessing that this card wasn't well received back in the day. At least card #1 featured a Commissioner.

And hey, why no card for American League President Joe Cronin?

And just my luck, pretty much the best corners of any card in my '59 collection can be found on this card.

#522 Gene Snyder

This '59 card was issued the same year Gene Snyder had his only major league stint. He got into 11 games with the Dodgers during the first half of that year. He had spent seven seasons in the Phillies organization before coming to the Dodgers in a deal that sent Sparky Anderson to the Phils.

Taking a good look at Gene's minor league numbers will give you some idea of his mound abilities. His strike out and walk totals are just out of sight! Topps calls him a 'fireball lefty'. I'll bet. He never made it back to the majors after being sent down in July of '59.

Apparently he was one of the best schoolboy players that the York, Pa. area has ever scene. The article I linked to had this to say:

Gene Snyder ('49, North York): He was a star left-handed pitcher who signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent. Though he signed with the Phillies, he saw his only major-league action as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1959. He pitched in 11 games and went 1-1 with a 5.47 ERA that year for the Dodgers. Armed with a stunning curveball, he was famous for striking out 31 batters in a 14-inning American Legion state playoff victory. He also was a standout basketball player. When Snyder died in 1996, York County baseball long-timer Marlyn 'Curly' Holtzapple said: "Gene was a super guy. (I) remember him as a terrific competitor who probably had one of the best curveballs ever by a lefty. If his control wasn't a problem, he might have had a long, long career in the big leagues."

I like the last line... lol. But 31 K's in 14 innings is impressive at any level. And one last thing. Look at Gene's ERA with Miami in 1958....63.00. I don't think I've ever seen one that high on the back of a card. This is a high number in pretty nice shape. I don't know if Topps painted these cards or what. I'm guessing they 'retouched' the whole photo.

#318 Rocky Bridges

Everett Lamar "Rocky" Bridges was a light hitting infielder for seven different clubs between 1951 and 1961. He opened his career in Brooklyn and finished with the expansion Los Angeles Angels. Rocky had a few seasons that could be classified as his being a regular starter but he never seemed to really establish himself in that role, likely due to his bat.

My knowledge of Rocky Bridges revolves around his managerial career in the minor leagues and his numerous quips. His Wikipedia page has this great reference:

The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, Brendan C. Boyd & Fred C. Harris, Little Brown & Co, 1973, began a lengthy writeup next to a picture of a baseball card of the square-jawed, crew-cut, tobacco-chewing Bridges on p.103: "Rocky Bridges looked like a ballplayer. In fact, he may have looked more like a ballplayer than any other ballplayer who ever lived."

In 1964 Sports Illustrated published a terrific article about Bridges, the then newly minted manager of the San Jose Bees. Well worth the read. The story is titled for Rocky's most famous quote: "I managed good, but boy did they play bad." That quote in turn became the title of a Jim Bouton book of essays.

You have to love this card with Rocky displaying his best 'tough guy' pose that features a squint and a huge chaw. 1959 was his first year with the Tigers and the picture used here shows Rocky at Griffith Stadium in D.C. wearing his zipper front Senators uni. 

#180 Yogi Berra

I'd be willing to bet that Yogi Berra is the only player in the '59 set has his own museum. That fact and a quick peek at Yogi's website and Wikipedia page give some idea as to why I couldn't begin to cover the details of the life and career of this Hall of Famer.

Just a few highlights:

• Yogi was 15 time All Star.
• Yogi was A.L. MVP three times, in 1951m '54 and '55. He finished second in the voting twice and third once.
• Yogi caught Don Larson's perfect 1956 World Series game.
• He played on 14 Yankee World Series teams, winning 10 rings......
• .....and on and on.

Yogi has lived in Montclair, New Jersey since his playing days. I attended high school with a couple of his nephews in Nutley, just across the Garden State Parkway from Montclair.

My copy of Yogi's '59 Topps is a far better one than is shown in the Yogi Card Gallery on his webpage. I guess that counts for something.

The '59 from Yogi's site:

"You can observe a lot by watching."