#174 Jim Pendleton

Jim Pendleton is cooler than you thought. Really, he is. Want proof?

1) He played every position on the field except pitcher and catcher in the majors.
2) He was the last WWII vet to play in the bigs when he played left field for the fledgling Houston Colt 45s on Opening Day, 1962.
3) He was a near-full time outfielder for the Braves in 1953 but got squeezed out by a hot rookie in 1954... Hank Aaron.
4) His nickname was 'Guv'nor'.
5) He was originally signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and moved from the outfield to shortstop because of a logjam of OF talent, think Duke Snider.

Most of that and more comes from a wonderful tribute to Jim Pendleton written as an obit in 1996 by the terrific Houston writer and author, Mickey Herskowitz. It's a quick read and highly recommended. And it tells the tale of Jim Pendleton better than I can.

#380 Hank Aaron

If you are reading this blog then you don't need me to try to summarize the brilliant career of Hank Aaron. So I'd do what I usually do with mega stars here, a list of accomplishments from Hank's BR Bullpen page, and a few notes and links.

• 1953 MVP South Atlantic League Jacksonville Tars
• 24-time All-Star (1955-1975)
• NL MVP (1957)
• 3-time NL Gold Glove Winner (1958-1960/RF)
• 2-time NL Batting Average Leader (1956 & 1959)
• 4-time NL Slugging Percentage Leader (1959, 1963, 1967 & 1971)
• 3-time NL OPS Leader (1959, 1963 & 1971)
• 3-time NL Runs Scored Leader (1957, 1963 & 1967)
• 2-time NL Hits Leader (1956 & 1959)
• 8-time NL Total Bases Leader (1956, 1957, 1959-1961, 1963, 1967 & 1969)
• 4-time NL Doubles Leader (1955, 1956, 1961 & 1965)
• 4-time NL Home Runs Leader (1957, 1963, 1966 & 1967)
• 4-time NL RBI Leader (1957, 1960, 1963 & 1966)
• 20-Home Run Seasons: 20 (1955-1974)
• 30-Home Run Seasons: 15 (1957-1963, 1965-1967 & 1969-1973)
• 40-Home Run Seasons: 8 (1957, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1969, 1971 & 1973)
• 100 RBI Seasons: 11 (1955, 1957, 1959-1963, 1966, 1967, 1970 & 1971)
• 100 Runs Scored Seasons: 15 (1955-1967, 1969 & 1970)
• 200 Hits Seasons: 3 (1956, 1959 & 1963)
• Won a World Series with the Milwaukee Braves in 1957
• Baseball Hall of Fame: Class of 1982

Just some Hank stuff... I was at Shea on a May night in 1969 when Aaron hit #513. Two night later he hit a pair in one game.... I saw him hit two in 1973, the first off Jerry Reuss in May, it was #684 and I saw him hit #712 in the Astrodome in September 22, 1973. It was the winning blow in a 4-2 Braves win.... from his Hall of Fame bio:

Biography: Exhibiting an understated style that became his trademark, Hank Aaron became the all-time home-run champion via one of the most consistent offensive careers in baseball history, with 3,771 hits. In addition to his 755 home runs, he also set Major League records for total bases, extra-base hits and RBIs. Aaron was the 1957 National League MVP, won three Gold Gloves for his play in right field and was named to a record 25 All-Star squads.

He has three other cards  in this set: his All Star card, a Baseball Thrills card and a combo card shared with Eddie Mathews.  This is the best of them in my eyes. You can't see much of that great Braves uni but, hey, it's Hank Aaron. You know it looks great on him. 

#467 Baseball Thrills... Aaron Clubs World Series Homer

Indeed Hank Aaron clubbed a homer in the 1957 World Series. Three of them in fact. But this card doesn't actually depict any of those. If fact this isn't a shot of a homer, or even of the '57 Series.

I've learned that a little detective work can reveal Topps' propensity to, well, if not actually try to deceive anyone, but 'fudge' the details of the pics used in these Baseball Thrills cards to fit the story. And sure enough that's the case here. I googled 'hank aaron 1957 world series' images, 'aaron homer 1957' and a bunch of variations of those. Figured I'd find the original picture that was colorized for this card. No dice.

On a whim, since the Braves and Yanks had met again in the '58 Series, I changed the date to 1958 and bingo, there it was as the first hit. Clicking through revealed the truth. Sure enough this was a picture from Game Five of the 1958 Series. But even Corbis can't get the details exactly straight. Or maybe Baseball Reference is wrong because they list Hank Aaron's at bats in that game as a flyball to center, a flyball to left and two strikeouts. From the pic it's a little hard to say which at bat this really is. Hank seems to be looking towards left while Yogi looks to center. Doesn't matter. I'm happy to have figured it out. Here is the original shot for those reluctant to follow links.

Nice card no matter the origin of the original photo. Also of note if that Topps painted out the Yankee logo that was placed on the Yankee Stadium turf just to the left of home plate.

#561 Hank Aaron The Sporting News All Star

Again an miscut, but this one is still nice. Sharp corners and nice colors. Plus, it's Hammerin' Hank Aaron! What's not to love, right?

But there's a backstory to this one. Over the Christmas holidays I had a flurry of activity going on eBay. Grabbed several small lots of '59's, made a bunch of outright buys, grabbed more on Check Out My Cards and through the Beckett site. At some point I acquired an Aaron All Star for a decent price. Or I thought I did. I had marked it off my checklist but in late January when I went through my stack, putting cards in my binder, it wasn't there. I went back through my email, found the confirmed sale notice, the PayPal receipt and the "Your card has been shipped!" alert. It was obvious to me that I'd somehow lost the card. Looked all over for it and finally declared it 'gone', a casualty of overzealous spending and careless card accounting.

Back to eBay and won another one. Not a bad card and the price was right. Back came the Aaron All Star off the 'wanted' list and I wrote it all off to a lesson learned. But ...(can you see this coming?)... one week ago a padded envelope arrives. One I'm not expecting. Yes, my original #561 Aaron All Star. No explanation of why the card, supposedly shipped exactly three months ago, was just now arriving. I thought about it and decided not to bother asking the seller about it. What would be the point?

So now I have two Aaron All Stars. Could be worse. Could be two Kansas City A's team cards.

If you are interested I'd swap one of them for some decent 57's, 58's or 60's Topps. Nothing graded. Maybe an All Star card from the 1960 set. I like those a lot.

#212 Fence Busters

Among the 1959 set Topps scattered 'special' multi-player cards. With some exceptions these featured 2 or 3 teammates in posed shots with a write-up on the back. This (obviously ungraded) special is among my favorites largely because I admired both of these players and I really admired the classic Braves uniforms of that era.

Not much to say about either of these two Hall-of-Famers. Both were always class acts. I saw Hank Aaron hit a few homers, the most significant was #712 in the Astrodome. What I remember most about it is that I was at the game with a friend who was a big Braves/Aaron fan. He had fit when we overheard fans behind us disparaging Aaron home run totals because of the dimensions of Fulton County Stadium.

I saw Eddie Mathews play as a Brave at Shea Stadium in the 60s but nothing stands out. I did see him once as an Astro in 1967. My family had just moved to Houston and my father and I attended a game versus the Pirates. I was amazed at how green the turf looked and I spent a lot of time staring at the roof. He was dealt to the Tigers not long after that in a trade that brought Fred Gladding to Houston.

I hadn't realized until I found the game on Baseball Reference that Eddie Mathews was the Braves manager.