#10 Mickey Mantle (Blog Post #500)

I figured a good way to celebrate the 500th post on this blog was to feature the (arguably) most popular and (definitely) most expensive card in the set, that of Mickey Mantle. I consider myself lucky to have grown up watching Mantle. Although I wasn't a Yankee fan it was easy to find yourself in awe of him and his persona. My father and I were regular Sunday visitors to Yankee Stadium and if the Yanks were playing a doubleheader (they did that a lot) then Mantle usually started one of the games. If it was a single game there was a chance he would be sitting it out. That always disappointed me (and probably everyone else in the place).

There isn't any point to summarizing his career or life here. You can Google infinite pages of Mantle info including both 'official' and 'unofficial' dedicated sites. But, as with the other mega-stars shown in this set, I'll paste in the list of achievements as listed on Mickey's Baseball Reference Bullpen page.

16-time AL All-Star (1952-1965, 1967 & 1968)

3-time AL MVP (1956, 1957 & 1962)

AL Triple Crown (1956)

AL Gold Glove Winner (1962)

AL Batting Average Leader (1956)

3-time AL On-Base Percentage Leader (1955, 1962 & 1964)

4-time AL Slugging Percentage Leader (1955, 1956, 1961 & 1962)

6-time AL OPS Leader (1952, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1962 & 1964)

5-time AL Runs Scored Leader (1954, 1956-1958 & 1960)

3-time AL Total Bases Leader (1956, 1958 & 1960)

AL Triples Leader (1955)

4-time AL Home Runs Leader (1955, 1956, 1958 & 1960)

AL RBI Leader (1956)

5-time AL Bases on Balls Leader (1955, 1957, 1958, 1961 & 1962)

20-Home Run Seasons: 14 (1952-1962, 1964, 1966 & 1967)

30-Home Run Seasons: 9 (1955-1962 & 1964)

40-Home Run Seasons: 4 (1956, 1958, 1960 & 1961)

50-Home Run Seasons: 2 (1956 & 1961)

100 RBI Seasons: 4 (1954, 1956, 1961 & 1964)

100 Runs Scored Seasons: 9 (1953-1961)

Won seven World Series with the New York Yankees (1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961 & 1962)

Baseball Hall of Fame: Class of 1974 (Mantle's Hall of Fame page)

As for the card, well it's a classic and one of my favorite Mantle Topps cards. I can't say I remember pulling it from a pack as I wasn't buying packs in 1959 but in the early to mid 60s it was a big thrill to pull a Mantle from a pack no matter how you felt about the Yanks. I picked this one up for what I thought was a reasonable $100 after many losing bids on lower conditioned examples. It's more appealing in person than it appears in my scan which seems to have washed out some of the color. Mantle poses near the batting cage in Yankee Stadium with some teammates and the third base seats in the background.

I met Mantle once some years after he had retired. In the late 70s and early 80s I would spend a day every spring at the Houston Open Wednesday Pro-Am. Back then there would be actual sports and entertainment celebrity players out on the course. I'd get there very early and hang out around the clubhouse parking lot area seeing who I could see. I never approached any of the celebs with one exception. I'll never forget turning around to see Mickey Mantle alone on the passenger side of a golf cart parked in a row of other carts near the clubhouse steps. Oddly no one else was around so I went over and said hello and mumbled something about the fact that my Dad's two favorite players were him and Joe DiMaggio. I don't remember what he said but he did shake my hand and smiled. I never thought to ask for an autograph. I probably didn't have anything for him to sign anyway.

When my Dad died I stuck a Mickey Mantle pin onto his lapel just before they closed his casket. I'd bought the pin on a whim a few years earlier at a game in the old Yankee Stadium. Probably the last game I attended in the park I'd enjoyed so many Sunday afternoons at with my father. Even though it looked different due to the refurbishings it had gone though it was still Yankee Stadium and it held some great memories for me.
Here is my favorite picture of Mickey Mantle....

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#249 Bobby Adams

Infielder Bobby Adams was 37 years old and in the last season of his pro career when this card was issued. He had signed with the Cincinnati Reds way back in 1939 and spent four seasons in the minors, three of the hitting well over .300. Interestingly he was signed by the Reds as part of a sort of 'family deal' that included his brother Dick Adams.

After the 1942 season both Adams brothers were called to military service and they played alongside Joe DiMaggio in California. Bobby Adams remained in the service through 1945 and re-joined the Reds organization the following spring. He made the big club and played in a platoon/utility roles until he worked into the Reds' full time third base job in the early 1950s.

Always a good fielder, Adams led the league in games played and at bats in 1952 while hitting .283 on 180 hits which was good for third in the league. He even garnered a few stray MVP votes that year. He played everyday again the following season but after that his performance and playing time waned until he was dealt to the White Sox in 1955. He moved on to the Orioles in '56 and then to the Cubs in '57. He played sparingly through 1958 and after three games played in 1959 he was sent to the minors where he saw his final action as a pro.

After his active days Adams served in several capacities in baseball, as a coach, league executive and players association executive. He also raised a major leaguer, son Mike Adams who played for three different clubs in the 1970s.

From the site I linked above comes this picture of the 1943 Santa Ana Army Base team. Bobby Adams is front row, fourth left. His brother Dick is back row, sixth left and Joe DiMaggio is front row, second right.

In the late '40s picture below Bobby Adams is the guy (#12) greeting the runner who is scoring on a wild throw to the plate. I'm always fascinated by how close to the action they allowed photographers to get in those days. 

#534 Faye Throneberry

Faye Throneberry, brother of Marv Throneberry whose card was featured earlier, had a very similar career to his younger brother. They had similar career lengths and not so dissimilar numbers when they were finished. And each finished his career with an expansion club.

Faye signed with the Boston Red Sox in 1950 and put together respectable stats in the minors before debuting with the BoSox in 1952. Ted Williams' U.S. Marine stint opened some playing opportunities in the Red Sox' outfield that season. He had over 300 at bats and hit .258 in nearly 100 games. Uncle Sam came calling in December and Faye served two seasons in the military. When he returned to Boston he was used sparingly for a couple of seasons before being traded to the Senators in late April of 1957. With the Nats he experienced his best season when, in 1959, he hit .251 but had career highs with 10 homers and 42 RBI in 117 games.

He had about half as many at bats in 1960 and that December he was acquired by the fledgling Los Angeles Angels after the draft ended. He served mostly as a pinch-hitter for the Halos before he was farmed out in July and after another year plus a few games in the minors he retired.

After his playing days Faye Throneberry became  successful professional bird dog trainer in Tennessee. Details, of course, are provided in his SABR bio.

Griffith Stadium provides the backdrop for this card on a day the Senators hosted the Yankees.

#328 Lou Skizas

As soon as you get to Lou Skizas' Baseball Reference page and you see that he was known as "The Nervous Greek" you know that there is an interesting story here. And when you check out the first paragraph of his SABR bio, you know that there most certainly is:

“I was a character in baseball. I saw it as an interim type of career,” Lou Skizas told Bill Gleason. Skizas, known as “The Nervous Greek” during his four-season major-league playing career, was perhaps best known for an unusual ritual that he followed before coming to bat. Before reaching the plate, the right-handed-batting Skizas dropped his bat, covering it with dirt. Then, wiping the bat off by rubbing it between his pants legs, he kissed the end of the bat before reaching into his back pocket at least three times to touch an object that was said to be a good-luck piece. Placing all of his weight on his right leg, Skizas kept his left foot off of the ground until just before the pitch reached the plate. This was the unorthodox style that belonged to the man Casey Stengel once called “the greatest natural-looking hitter I've ever seen.”

Skizas was born in Chicago and raised in a home where only Greek was spoken. He claims to have been labeled as 'retarded' (his words) when he first entered school because he didn't know what his teacher was saying. As a ballplayer in high school he caught the eye of Yankee scouts and was signed in 1949 and while playing in their farm system he developed a close friendship with Mickey Mantle that remained in place all their lives. Skizas spent two seasons in the military along with his five years in the minors before he got a token shot with the Yankees in 1956. He was dealt (as all marginal Yankee players were then) to the Kansas City Athletics in May of '56.

He hit .316 in about 300 at bats that year and held down a regular outfield spot for the club in '57. That winter he was part of a huge 12 player deal that sent him to the Tigers with whom he split the '1958 season between the majors and minors. The White Sox drafted him prior to 1959 but traded him to the Reds early in the season. He was therefore technically a part of the Sox' AL champion club but he was long gone by the fall. He played for three season in the Reds' chain and one more in Detroit's, never again making a major league appearance. He also played in Cuba during the winter of 1959.

He finished with a .270 lifetime average and had 30 homers. After retiring Skizas finished a bachelor's degree he'd been working on for over a decade and then went further by adding a masters and doctorate in biology. He was a college professor in Illinois at Illinois State and the University of Illinois-Champaign along with coaching the schools' baseball teams.

As late as the 1990s he continued to be part of the game as a part-time scout for the Cubs in the Chicago area.

#307 Curt Barclay

After signing with the Giants in 1952 out of the University of Oregon Curt Barclay finished that season with a nine game taste of pro baseball before he spent 1953 in the military. Returning to the States in '54 Barclay ascended the Giants' farm system with three impressive seasons.

He made the Giants staff in 1957 and was the #3 starter, finished second on the team in wins (9) and had the best ERA among the starting staff. He moved with the club to San Francisco but injured his shoulder early in the '58 campaign and spent most of that year and the next trying to work his way back up to the Giants from their AAA club. After his injury he managed to appear in just seven games for the Giants. His last big league appearance was a rocky 1/3 of an inning that he had in April of '59. He finished out his career with 12 games of minor league ball in 1960.

After his playing days Barclay worked for a lumber manufacturer. He died at the age of 53 in 1985. During his days at Oregon he played alongside Earl Averill on the ball field and was a starter on the basketball team that featured 'Jungle Jim' Loscutoff who played on seven Celtic NBA title teams. 

#560 Luis Aparicio The Sporting News All Star

Luis Aparicio makes his third appearance in the 1959 Topps set with this All Star card. It follows his regular issue card and his Keystone Combo special card appearance alongside Nellie Fox.In his career Looie make 8 All Star squads appearing in 10 games. His Hall of Fame career is not reflected in his All Star game numbers as he went 2 for 25 with one stolen base in those 10 games.

No way to tell if this shot was taken at the same time as his regular issue card photo but they were both taken at Yankee Stadium.

#154 Ray Herbert

Detroit native Ray Hebert signed with his hometown Tigers in 1949 and after putting up some nice minor league stats he got a taste of the majors in 1950. He spent most of 1951 and all of '52 in the service before returning to Detroit and taking a spot in the Tigers' bullpen.

He had control problems and was beaten up pretty badly over two seasons before he was sold to the Athletics for the 1955 season. Another subpar year led to a couple of seasons back in the minors. He returned to the bigs in 1958 and had better results in a swingman role. The next two years saw Hebert gain a spot in the Athletics' rotation and he won 25 games for some pretty bad KC clubs. He was traded to the White Sox in June of '61 and he career took another turn for the better.

He went 20-9 with a 3.27 ERA in 1962 and he made his only All Star appearance, a game he ended up winning. He won fewer games in 1963 (13) but he led the A.L. with seven shutouts and had a 3.24 ERA. His numbers declined after that and he was out of the majors following 1965 after a couple of seasons with the Phillies.