#312 Don Newcombe

First things first.... I love this card. I'm partial to the black border cards in this set and this is one of the better ones. Newk's red and white uni just looks good here. More on the uni in a bit.

Don Newcombe began his career with the Newark Eagles in the Negro Leagues as a youngster in 1944. After signing with the Dodgers he pitched pretty impressively in their chain with Nashua and Montreal before debuting with the big club in 1949. And an impressive debut it was. Newk went 17-8 with 5 shutouts, made the All Star team and collected Rookie of the Year honors. 

And he only got better winning 98 games in the next five seasons. He did that wrapping those five seasons around a two year stint in the military. His best year was 1956 when he won 27 games, lost only 7, had a WHiP below 1.0 and took home the Cy Young and MVP trophies. That makes him the only pitcher until Justin Verlander to have won the three most prestigious trophies in his career. 

Although he never did win a World Series game himself, his Dodgers were in the Series three times and took the 1955 Series from the Yankees. 

Newcombe was traded to the Reds in June of 1958. He stayed in their rotation (and bullpen at times) until he was purchased by the Indians in June of 1960. He spent '61 with the Indians' top farm club and then pitched in Japan in 1962. In 1970 he joined the Dodgers front office and has served in several capacities ever since. The Los Angeles Times spoke to Newcombe following the recent news that the club had a new ownership group with Magic Johnson as part of it. Newk was very happy with the deal.

The photo on this card was taken in the LA Coliseum based on the tall sloping stands in the background. Newcombe was traded to the Reds in 1958 so it's possible that the photo was taken during one of the Reds' two trips to the West Coast following the trade. But it's also possible that the shot is airbrushed, something Topps did a lot of back then. If it is airbrushed it's one of their better jobs. I blew the card up and can't tell one way or another. Doesn't matter I guess. The card looks terrific anyway. It's a little worse for wear with being off center and having some soft corners but no matter. It's one of my favorites in the '59 set.

#38 Morrie Martin

Night Owl posted the other day about how he'd like to write a book. It's based on a card that shows a moment in time that turned the fortunes of two baseball franchises (in opposite directions). It's a good read. But even before he writes his first book, I have a suggestion for his second one......

You may or may not know much about lefty pitcher Morris "Morrie" Martin. I know that before I began researching this card I probably hadn't crossed paths with him more than a fleeting time or two while looking at Oriole history. Martin was signed off a Missouri farm by the Chicago White Sox in 1941 and spent the year in their system. In '42 he pitched (under a working agreement it seems) with the independent St. Paul Saints. There in St. Paul one of his teammates was Dave Philley. 

Late in '42 Morris, like many other American kids, shipped out for the European theatre of WWII. While serving in North Africa, Sicily and on D-Day he was, among other things, torn up with shrapnel, buried under a shelled house and left for dead and shot in the leg, almost losing it to infection. The whole 'Morrie Martin in war' story is chronicled here. 

Following his service he returned to baseball and, after several seasons in the Dodger chain, debuted as a 29 year old rookie with the Bums in 1949. A 1-3 record earned him a trip to the minors. He re-emerged in 1951 with the Philadelphia A's and he won 11 games for them that year, 10 more in 1953. The rest of his major league career was an odyssey through the South Side of Chicago (where he was reunited with fellow 3 year service vet  Dave Philley....I wonder if they had any war stories to swap?!?), Baltimore, St Louis, Cleveland, and finally the North Side of Chicago briefly in 1959. He finished with a career 38-34 record. 

Morris Martin, having survived so much on the battlefield, wasn't going to let a demotion by the Cubs deter him. He spent the 1960 season with the Houston Buffs and was signed by the fledgling Colt 45s (as was Martin's old pal Dave Philley) and traded to the Braves before hanging up his glove for good prior to the 1961 season.

By my count Martin played in 18 cities across North America and was a member of 18 different teams in one form or another and saw action on three fronts during WWII. Then he topped it off by living to the age of 87 back in rural Missouri in 2010. Full life I'd say. And to think I looked at Morrie Martin's '59 Topps card and wondered what I'd write about. Live and learn.

And here's a great shot of Morrie at a gathering of baseball/WWII vets in New Orleans a couple of years before his passing.

#251 Cletis Boyer

I saw a lot of Clete Boyer when he was active. He was the Yankees' third baseman when I was living up there and attending games at the Stadium. He was traded to the Braves at the same time I was moving to Houston. The first friend I made was a Braves fan so we went to quite a few of their games in the Dome in '67 and '68. 

I never heard anyone call him 'Cletis' except for possibly Red Barber. Anyway, Boyer a 'good field/good hit' third baseman for the Yankees and Braves through the decade of the 60's. He arrived in New York via the well established 'Kansas City to New York Express' in 1958. Seems like when the Yanks called, the A's always answered the phone.

Boyer, a Missouri native, never hit for a high average but he had good power and after coming over to the Braves in 1967 he had a career high 26 dingers. For the Yanks he was usually good for double digit homer totals and he anchored a pretty solid infield along side Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson and Moose Skowron or Joe Pepitone. 

As good as he was in the field he only won one Gold Glove, that coming in the NL in 1969. Playing in the same league as Brooks Robinson and then Ron Santo will do that.

There were three Boyers in the big leagues. Clete, his well known (and very accomplished) brother Ken, and Cloyd who was a teammate of Clete when he was ending his pitching career with the A's in 1955. Cloyd and Ken were both property of the Cardinals in the early 50s but Ken was serving in the military and missed the chance to share the field with Cloyd.

Clete played on five straight Yankee pennant winners from 1960 thru 1964, winning two tiles. He and Ken were the opposing third basemen in the 1964 Series won by the Cards.In the seventh game Clete and Ken became the only brothers to ever homer in the same World Series contest. Clete got another taste of the postseason as a Brave in the 1969 playoffs when his club lost to the Amazin' Mets. 

Clete Boyer died in 2007. Nice interview from 2004 with him right here.

Boyer's first Topps rookie card was in the '57 set (his 'rookie' card is a 1955 Bowman). He was a member of the Athletics and the shot was taken at Yankee Stadium. Since the '59 Boyer is an early series card the picture is likely from the same time. (Hard to fool me, yes?) Anyway the point is that Topps wanted to show Boyer as a Yankee and they airbrushed the NY onto his cap. Poorly. It's too small. No doubt they wanted to have it visible but it would have been better to just add the part that would have actually been seen from the angle of the shot.  

What IS seen from that (or any) angle is that my Boyer isn't one of the better cards in my '59 set. It's one of the few creased examples I haven't tried to upgrade yet. One of these days I'll get to it.

1957 Topps Clete Boyer:

1955 Bowman Clete Cloyd Boyer:

#317 N.L. Hitting Kings

Pretty rough card. Scuffed, soft corners and worst of all, Richie Ashburn is wearing one of those zipper, collared jackets under his uniform. That always looked pretty stupid to me. At least Willie looks good, despite the Topps guy carving a chunk out of his temple.

Two great players, one lousy card. That's all I have to say.

#128 Bob Hartman The Sporting News Rookie Stars

Bob Hartman had two Rookie Star cards, the featured one and another the following season in the 1960 set, pictured below. That's two more cards than he had wins in the majors. He played parts of two seasons in the bigs. In '59 he made three appearances for the Braves and, after being dealt to Cleveland, pitched in 8 games for the Indians in 1962. He lost his only decision but he should have had a win in his first start that year.

On June 26 in Detroit in the second game of a twin bill Hartman got the ball and went 10 very strong innings. He allowed only a run on three hits while fanning 7 Tigers. The only run he allowed was a homer in the bottom of the first by Bubba Morton. Meanwhile the Tribe was banging out hits but couldn't push across more than a single run. Hartman was lifted for a pinch hitter in the eleventh and the Indians finally took the game in 12, winning for Gary Bell in relief. Five days later Hartman got another start aginst the White Sox and was KO'd early, taking the loss. After six more relief appearances in July he was off to the minors where he played a few more seasons.

But Topps can't be faulted for giving him a Rookie Star card in 1959. He was a 20 game winner for the Braves' Atlanta farm club in 1958. Baseball Digest had a feature story on him that season. Hartman appeared to have a bright future. Just wasn't to be.

After more minor league work in the early 60's Hartman retired to Kenosha, Wisconsin and was a youth baseball official. He passed away in 2010.

My copy of this one is pretty weak with soft corners and a kid's initials printed on the front. I've got a few cards from this same kid's collection, all with his initials (I guess they are initials, could be a code). Since I'm not a big fan of these Rookie Cards this will end up being one of my last 'upgrades', if I bother at all. No disrespect to Bob Hartman intended.

#434 Hal Griggs

I looked at this card of Senators' pitcher Hal Griggs and I immediately thought: "What am I going to do with it? Another long time minor leaguer with horrific big league numbers for a lousy club. So he looks like someone I know who I can't seem to recall. Gonna be a dull post about a dull guy wearing a dull cap on a dull card."

Wrong. I found this Sports Illustrated Vault article from 1993 and, well, sometimes this stuff just writes itself. And since I've had a really hard time getting the link to load for the past couple of days I'm going to break a rule of mine and probably half a dozen copy-write laws and paste it here for your enjoyment:

What Ever Happened To...: Hal Griggs by Hank Hersch    July 19, 1993

Has anyone seen Hal Griggs?
Harold Lloyd Griggs, righthanded pitcher...6 feet, 170 pounds...born Shannon, Ga., Aug. 24, 1928...was 6-26 with a 5.50 ERA from 1956 to '59 for the Washington Senators...lasted four seasons with the Senators because his arm was live and the Washington pitching staff was terrible...after '59 pitched in minors for four seasons...enjoyed the nightlife...once told Senator teammate Ken Aspromonte, "I'm only going to be here once on this earth, and I'm really going to live it up."...
Hal Griggs has vanished. O.K., he hasn't exactly vanished—he has escaped the clutches of baseball's history buffs and autograph hunters, which is about the same thing. Griggs is on the very short MAA (Missing After Action) list of Jack Smalling, an insurance salesman and signature sleuth from Ames, Iowa, who has been a co-author of The Sport Americana Baseball Address List for the last 13 years.
Smalling first began tracking Griggs in August 1974 and since then has sent a dozen letters to mayors and newspapers in towns where Griggs supposedly lived, to phantom addresses in those towns and to Griggs's family. In December 1982 Smalling received a reply from Griggs himself; the return address was in Tucson. But Smalling's subsequent missives got no response, and in 1992 one of Griggs's children told Smalling that even he didn't know where his father was.
...decided to give pro ball a shot in 1950 after serving in the Coast Guard... on June 20, 1952, was wed on the mound before a Western Carolina-league game in Hickory, N.C. ...when asked why he chose that site for his wedding, he said, "I couldn't hit, so there was no sense getting married at home plate."...
Smalling has found several hundred ex-ballplayers over the years. Of Griggs he says, "Some of these guys don't want to be found, and so they aren't." Until last year pitcher Joey Jay had made himself scarce for two decades. Jay, who was the first Little Leaguer ever to make the major leagues and a two-time 20-game winner for the Cincinnati Reds in the early 1960s, retired in 1966 and faded from view in the mid-'70s. Autograph seekers placed him at the top of their most-wanted list. It was rumored that he was in the federal witness protection program. Jay was finally found last year, by autograph hounds, in Tampa. After years of denying it, Jay confessed that he was indeed their man.
...during the '50s Griggs gave up hunting and took up golf because he said he felt sorry for birds and rabbits...in an intersection of the two most divergent career arcs in baseball history, he ended Red Sox slugger Ted Williams's record streak of 16 consecutive times on base by inducing Williams to ground out on Sept. 24, 1957...once lost 18 straight minor league games...once won sewn straight minor league games, after which he said, "Can yon imagine what would have happened if I had been able to do that in the big leagues? I would have been in tall cotton."...
Our request to interview Griggs, sent to him through Major League Baseball Players Alumni, has gone unanswered.

"I couldn't hit, so there was no sense getting married at home plate." Now THAT'S a great line. Seems to me that Hal Griggs wasn't so dull after all. Quite the life of the party it seems. How did he miss hooking on with the Copacabana Club boys on the Yankees of that era?

Just to add a bit to what the SI article said... Griggs spent four seasons in the high minors after his last big league game, hoping for another taste of the bright lights no doubt. Baseball Reference's Bullpen page reports that after his career Griggs was employed in sales positions, building maintenance and construction in Florida, Michigan and Arizona. He retired in Arizona and died in May of 2005 in Tucson.I have no idea if he ever came out of hiding and found a place in Smalling's book after the article was printed.

It's still a pretty routine card, though. Not in bad shape, pretty nice actually. I just find a portrait of a guy in that uninspired Nats cap kind of 'meh'. I don't find much to like in the club's logo either. Oh well.

#549 Howie Nunn

Howie Nunn appeared in 46 ballgames between 1958 and 1962 for the Cardinals and Reds. He had a 4-3 career record. He was a signee of the expansion New York Mets and spent time in their first spring training camp in 1962 before being returned to the Reds. (edit: Actually Nunn had his contract sold to the Mets by the Reds. He talks about it in his interview linked below. I stand corrected.)

You can read an interesting two part interview/bio with Howie here and here. At the bottom of the second part of that series are some comments from Nunn's cousin and great niece/nephew. Nothing earth shattering there but it served to remind me that these baseball cards feature guys who are/were someone's father, brother, son, cousin, etc. He's the the first of two featured player to have pitched for the Houston Buffs. If I could interview him I'd ask how it was to pitch outdoors in Houston's summer heat.

I'd also ask about his 1960 season spent with the Havana Sugar Kings, until July that is, when the Castro regime nationalized all business and baseball up and moved the franchise to Jersey City. One day you're playing in colorful, storied (and tumultuous) Havana and the next day you're in Jersey City, New Jersey. There were a boatload (pun intended) of past and future big leagues on that 1960 Havana/Jersey City squad with Nunn including Mike Cuellar, Cookie Rojas, Luis Arroyo, Leo Cardenas and Brooks Lawrence.

This high numbered card is in decent shape. It's not off centered like so many of mine are. And the corners aren't bad either. The best part is the back that features a cartoon pointing out a fact very common back then. Nunn spent his off seasons as a basketball coach. Players such as this didn't make the kind of money that's made these days and many had to supplement with second incomes. I bet to a kid it was cool to have a coach who was also a big league player.

 Howie Nunn died just weeks ago, in February of this year.