#532 Mark Freeman

Mark Freeman graduated from Memphis' Christian Brothers High School in 1948 where he lettered in baseball and basketball, and was an All-State baseball pitcher. He was awarded a baseball/basketball scholarship to LSU.

Freeman signed a contract with the Yankees in 1951 and began his pro career but he continued his education and received his degree from LSU in 1953. Meanwhile he had begun a seven year climb towards the majors taking a nearly two season detour to serve in the U.S. Army as a First Lieutenant and Sports Officer and manager of Ft. Jackson baseball team at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

He returned to civilian life and baseball in 1956 and was a double digit winner for three straight seasons in Denver where the Yanks had their AAA club. While there he established team marks for season strikeouts and shutouts.

On the eve of the 1959 season he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics and made it into three April games as a reliever for them. In mid-May he was returned to the Yanks. I cannot find anything to suggest why and given the history of the Athletics and Yankees during the 1950s it was likely another on of those deals of convenience for New York. The Yanks sent him to pitch in Seattle of the PCL and he had another fine AAA season there including a no-hitter. In September the Yanks activated Freeman and he capped his tumultuous season with a start at Yankee Stadium against the Orioles. He pitched seven innings allowing only six hits and two runs while fanning four. He left with the game tied but the Yanks lost it in 11 innings.

He was back in the minors to open 1960 but the Yanks dealt him to the Cubs in May and he spent the rest of that season pitching in the National League. He made eight starts over 30 appearances and went 3-3 with his only career save.

He retired to Denver, Colorado after that season to work full time in the mutual funds business which he had dabbled in for the last several years of his baseball career. He was a very successful business man and established an endowment fund for supporting the tutoring of student athletes at LSU in 2003.
His LSU bio (he was alum of 'distinction') mentions that he was founded and served as President of the Denver Broncos Quarterback Club (their official booster club).

His card shows him in a spring training shot with a retouched cap featuring the Athletics' logo but untouched Yankee pinstripes. I came across several versions of a story that goes like this:

Once, during a game when Mark Freeman was pitching for the New York Yankees, a bee buzzed his head and he balked. Casey Stengel, the Yankee manager, told him: "Next time ... swallow it."

Volume 4 of the Baseball Hall of Shame series of books contains the same story but stated the game was played against the Tigers.

Two problems with this. First of all Freeman never pitched for the Yanks against the Tigers. His only game was that September '59 start against the Orioles. And second of all, according to Baseball reference game summaries he never committed a balk. Not in his big league career anyway.

My guess? It was a spring training game or it's a story that somehow evolved from some other incident and mutated in the retelling. With Casey Stengel stories that's very possible.

 Here he is in his Yankee gear, unblemished by the Topps artist's brush and another spring camp shot in which he warms up while Stengel watches closely.

And here he is as a businessman years later:

Freeman died in 2006.

Almost done,

cards remain.

#525 Jim Coates

The back of Jim Coates' '59 card states he was a 'high school sensation' in Farnham, Virginia. That may very well be true but it doesn't tell the same story that Coates himself does in his memoirs, "Always a Yankee: A Pitcher's Story". Fact is that Coates dropped out of high school at 16 to work cutting trees and pitch in a semi-pro league against older and more experienced competition.

His skills earned him a Yankee try-out and later a contract offer. So in 1951 the tall, thin righthander found himself beginning to pitch his way up the Yankee chain. He spent five seasons in the minors and finally got a two game peek in 1956 before returning to the minors for '57 and suffering a broken arm which cost him most of the 1958 season.

Coates made the Yankee staff in '59 and won six games while showing his versatility by filling roles as short man, long reliever and starter. He hit his stride in 1960 and won 13 games against three losses in 35 games, 18 of them starts. He was named to his only AL All Star squad and pitched a couple of innings in that year's first of two ASGs. Along the way he picked up his nickname of 'Mummy' for his mound appearance which has been described as 'funereal'. 

He gained some unwanted notoriety during the 1960 World Series against the Pirates. In the deciding seventh game of that wacky Series he failed to hold a lead in the eighth inning. He had relieved Bobby Shantz following the "pebble grounder" that hit Tony Kubek in the throat. Coates, entering with two runners on and none out got two outs and forced Roberto Clemente to top a roller towards the right side of the infield but Clemente beat the play at first. Coates has been blamed, probably unfairly as has been shown, for failing to cover the bag on a play that would have ended the inning with the Yanks still ahead. Hal Smith then followed with a home run that put the Pirates up two and chased Coates.

The Yanks managed to tie the game up in the ninth but Bill Mazeroski's homer sent the city of Pittsburgh into delirium. Coates survived and pitched as well or better in 1961 and he picked up World Series rings with New York that year and the next. This blog page has an interesting account of that 1960 Series' 7th Game including a couple of video clips.

In the spring of 1963 the Yanks traded Coates to Washington. After a season there he went to the Reds and then the Angels.  He never matched his Yankee success but pitched through 1970 in the Angels' system before retiring to work as an electrician.

He was referred to quite a bit in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four. Bouton said "Coates could pose as the illustration for an undertaker's sign. He has the personality to match..." Coates' grandson, Aaron Pribanic, was a minor league prospect for the Mariners and Pirates who pitched for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 

#523 Harry Bright

When you are 22 years old with five years of pro experience and an organization turns over the reigns of a team to you, even a Class D minor league team, it's clear that someone sees you as a 'baseball guy'. And so it was with Harry Bright. In 1952, six years after signing his first contract with the Yankees (at 16!), Bright was named player/manager of the Janesville Cubs in the Wisconsin State League. One of his opposing managers, btw, was Hall of Famer Travis Jackson who, at 48, likely had spikes older than Bright.

Despite some impressive numbers it took Bright 12 years to make the major leagues after his signing in '46. He played some for the Pirates in the second half of 1958 and spent the whole of '59 with them playing on a limited basis.

He was traded to the Senators and in '61 was a platoon guy but in '62 he had his best big league year hitting 17 homers to go with a .273 average as the Nats' regular first baseman. He bounced around with several different clubs through 1965. That included a stint with the Yankees that got him his only post-season action, two at bats (both whiffs) in the '63 Series against the Dodgers. He was Sandy Koufax' 15th strike out in Game One, ending the game as a footnote to what was then a new Series single game K record. He later lamented that after waiting so long to make it to a Series the whole country was pulling for him to strike out.

Following his retirement as an active player Bright coached and managed in the minors and served as a scout for the Expos up until his death in 2000 at the age of 70.

And finally, just because it's a challenging read, here is Harry Bright's transaction log, as seen on Baseball Reference. Please take notes as a quiz will follow.

• Before 1946 Season: Signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent.
• May, 1947: Released by the New York Yankees.
• Before 1950 Season: Sent from Miami (Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri) to the Chicago Cubs in an unknown transaction.
• December 3, 1951: Drafted by York (Interstate) from the Chicago Cubs in the 1951 minor league draft.
• Before 1952 Season: Returned (earlier draft pick) by York (Interstate) to the Chicago Cubs.
• Before 1953 Season: Sent from the Chicago Cubs to the Chicago White Sox in an unknown transaction.
• November 30, 1953: Drafted by the Detroit Tigers from the Chicago White Sox in the 1953 rule 5 draft.
• May, 1955: Purchased by Sacramento (PCL) from the Detroit Tigers.
• July 21, 1958: Purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates from Sacramento (PCL).
• November 30, 1959: Drafted by the Chicago Cubs from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1959 rule 5 draft.
• April 7, 1960: Returned (earlier draft pick) by the Chicago Cubs to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• December 16, 1960: Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with Bennie Daniels and R C Stevens to the Washington Senators for Bobby Shantz.
• November 24, 1962: Traded by the Washington Senators to the Cincinnati Reds for Rogelio Alvarez. Rogelio Alvarez returned to original team on April 20, 1963.
• April 21, 1963: Purchased by the New York Yankees from the Cincinnati Reds.
• September 11, 1964: Released by the New York Yankees.
• March 15, 1965: Signed as a Free Agent with the Chicago Cubs.

Harry Bright Transactions quiz:

• How many times was Harry 'returned' to his original team within months of a transaction?
• How many times was Harry released by the Yankees?
• How many times times was Harry involved in an 'unknown transaction'?
• How many of Harry's transactions involve the Cubs?
• How many years elapsed between Harry first being acquired by the Cubs and the first game he played for them?

And finally...

• ...Which of these transaction methods did the Cubs employ in deals involving Harry?

---Sent to the Cubs

---Sent from the Cubs
---Drafted from the Cubs
---Returned to the Cubs
---Returned by the Cubs
---Signed as Free Agent by the Cubs

Answers: 2, 2, 2, 7, 15 and All of the Above.

It's easy to see that Bright's card has escaped my 'upgrade purges' over the past few years. Condition-wise it sits right in between "I'm  OK with it" and "Maybe I should I'll spring for the $3.75 to get a better one". I think I'll just keep this copy. Harry's bright-eyed 'happy-to-be-in-majors-after-eleven-years-in-the-minors' look seems fitting on a card that's much closer to "F" than it is to "G" on the Fair-to-Good scale.

#507 Bob Hale

In each of Bob Hale's first two years in the minors after signing with the Browns in 1952 he had exactly 473 at bats while playing in 121 games. Identical numbers, both seasons. How did he pull that off?
Anyway his batting average did climb and he continued to hit well for a couple of additional seasons until he got a shot with the Orioles in July of 1955.

He took advantage of it, too. He hit .357 from his July 4th debut until the end of the year. But those numbers were hard to match and Hale split time in each of the next four seasons between the Orioles and the minors. Most of his big league time was as a pinch hitter but he did play first base, too. Oddly he played in the Dodgers', White Sox', and Tigers' organizations at various times during that stretch without being involved in any transactions I can find. Must have been some sort of 'loan-a-bat' program.

He was waived by the Orioles and claimed by Cleveland for 1960 and for a year and a half he was their #1 hitter off the bench. In July of 1961 the Tribe sold Hale to the Yankees and he had a front row seat for the Maris/Mantle home run chase as well as getting to pour pennant winning clubhouse champagne. He did not get to play in that season's World Series.

In a Jerome Holtzman book I found on Amazon Hale discusses his brief Yankee tenure. He comments on the depth of that '61 club by stating that while he was the #1 pinch hitter at each of his previous stops he was #4 on the Yankees. He also mentions that he received a 2/3 Series share despite only having pinch hit seven times for them (actually he had 10 pinch at bats plus one full game, but who's counting?)

Hale goes on to comment on the Yankees' decision to farm him out for 1962 proclaiming that he'd hit .300 at Richmond.and be recalled. That never happened. Hale hit .282 in close to 100 games but never did make it back to the big leagues. So it turned out that his last major league game was the game that Roger Maris hit his 61st homer.

There is not much about Bob Hale that I can find on Google. I did learn from this blog page that from August of 1960 thru August of 1961 he went 60 games with an at-bat without scoring a run. As of 2008 that stood as the fourth longest streak since 1956. Take that for what it's worth.

Bob Hale passed away in September of 2012.

#430 Whitey Ford

Whitey Ford didn't pitch the first game of every Sunday doubleheader at Yankee Stadium that my father and I attended, it only seems that way as I look back. No doubt I saw the great lefty pitch more than any other starter in the years I've been going to games. The Astros' Don Wilson would likely be second.

Anyway, Ford was a favorite of my father's. Probably second only to Allie Reynolds as far as Yankee pitchers go. He signed with the Yanks in 1947. He was a local kid having grown up in the Astoria section of Queens and attending Aviation Tech High School. Three and a half seasons of very impressive pitching in the minors earned him a shot with the Yanks in July of 1950.

He was hit hard in his first appearance but when put into the rotation his numbers steadily improved and he won his first nine decisions. He finished that first season with a 9-1 mark and pitched the fourth and final game of the '50 World Series. He beat the Phils 5-2 with both Phillies' runs being unearned. He went 8 2/3 before giving way to Allie Reynolds for the final out. Coincidentally that out was the strike out of Stan Lopata mentioned in Lopata's entry day before yesterday. He was second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting (to Walt Dropo) despite pitching only half a season.

Ford, like so many players in that era, was called to military service and spent two years in the Army. When he rejoined the Yanks in 1953 he picked up where he left off and reeled off a career very worthy of his 1974 Hall of Fame induction. The highlights include:

• 8-time AL All-Star (1954-1956, 1958-1961 & 1964)
• ML Cy Young Award Winner (1961)
• 1961 World Series MVP
• 2-time AL ERA Leader (1956 & 1958)
• 3-time AL Wins Leader (1955, 1961 & 1963)
• 3-time AL Winning Percentage Leader (1956, 1961 & 1963)
• 2-time AL Innings Pitched Leader (1961 & 1963)
• AL Complete Games Leader (1955)
• 2-time AL Shutouts Leader (1958 & 1960)
• 15 Wins Seasons: 10 (1953-1956, 1959 & 1961-1965)
• 20 Wins Seasons: 2 (1961 & 1963)
• 25 Wins Seasons: 1 (1961)
• 200 Innings Pitched Seasons: 11 (1953-1956, 1958, 1959 & 1961-1965)
• 200 Strikeouts Seasons: 1 (1961)
• Won six World Series with the New York Yankees (1950, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961 & 1962)
• All Time World Series Game Wins Leader (10)
• Baseball Hall of Fame: Class of 1974

His bio on the Hall of Fame site reads as follows:

Edward 'Whitey' Ford was the big-game pitcher on the great Yankees teams of the 1950s and early '60s, earning him the moniker The Chairman of the Board. The wily southpaw's lifetime record of 236-106 gives him the best winning percentage (.690) of any 20th-century pitcher. He paced the American League in victories three times and in ERA and shutouts twice. The 1961 Cy Young Award winner still holds many World Series records, including 10 wins and 94 strikeouts, once pitching 33 consecutive scoreless innings in the Fall Classic.

Not much I can add to all that other than to say that I knew (and if I didn't my Dad reminded me) that watching Ford work was watching a master craftsman.

Plenty of Whitey Ford links for those interested:

• His official website
• A Daily News article in which Ford discusses that 1950 Series win.
• A Daily News article in which he reminisces about his career as a Yankee.
• Some photos of Whitey Ford Field, a baseball facility near his home in Astoria.
• Ford's page on the Hall of Fame site.
• There is a Whitey Ford Street in, of all places, El Paso Texas.
• He has an interest in a private golf club in Florida
• Hardball Times story about his near no-hitter in 1953 (Early Wynn got the only hit, an infield single!)
• A fun blog post that discusses Ford's admitted use of mud, catchers' shin guard buckles and his own wedding ring to scuff the ball late in his career. 

I don't remember how much I spent on this card but I do know it was a bargain. It's about as nice as any of the non-graded cards I picked up for this set. It has just the slightest corner wear and the colors look as good as the day it came out of the pack. Plus, it's Whitey Ford at Yankee Stadium. I put a Yankee pin on my Dad's lapel just before they buried him. I wish now I had had a copy of this card to slip into his suit.

He sure liked the 'follow-through' pose didn't he?

Random cool pics from around the 'net.

Ford on the cover of Sports Illustrated in September, 1956

#386 Jim Delsing

When this card was issued in 1959 outfielder Jim Delsing had played 806 of his 822 major league games, he hadn't been in the majors for two years, he was still a year away from returning to the bigs (briefly) and he had never taken the field in a Washington cap (and never would).

Also in his rearview was a unique moment that arose in August of 1951 when, as a member of the St. Louis Browns, he was called upon to pinch-run for Eddie Gaedel the 'little person' that owner Bill Veeck had his club use as a pinch-hitter. Delsing describes the whoe situation in his SABR bio thusly:

"Mr. Veeck owned St. Louis back in 1951, and he was always doing some promoting. This happened at a Sunday double-header on August 19, and between games they brought out a great big, huge cake. Out of the cake popped Eddie Gaedel, wearing a St. Louis Browns uniform, with 1/8 on the back. He gets out of the cake and walks over to the dugout. We knew nothing about it. We took a look at the lineup. I had a couple of hits in the first game, so I thought I would sure be playing." 

"I went up to Zack Taylor, who was manager, and he said, Cool it. You'll be all right.' Taylor had Frank Saucier leading off. When it came time for Saucier to bat, Taylor called him back, and told Gaedel to bat for Saucier. We all thought it was a joke, because Mr. Veeck used to do all kinds of promotions. Gaedel walked up to the plate, and the umpire said, You can't bat.' But Mr. Veeck had this all worked out. Gaedel reached in his pocket and pulled out a major league contract. So they had to let him hit. Bob Cain was the Tiger pitcher, and Bob Swift was the catcher. Gaedel had a strike zone that was about an inch and a half! He walked on four pitches, and Zack Taylor said to me, Now go run for Gaedel.' Then I knew what he was talking about, why I wasn't playing the second game."

That's Gaedel in the center of this picture and Delsing is #18 leaning against the pole to the left.

Delsing had begun his pro career in 1942 with a year of independent ball in his native Wisconsin. He was signed by the Cubs and played a minor league season in their chain before serving Uncle Sam for two years. Returning from the service Delsing found his contract had been obtained by the White Sox and he played for nearly three full seasons in the upper reaches of that team's system. He hit well enough to earn looks with the Sox at the beginning and end of the 1948 season.

He was traded to the Yankees prior to 1949 and was called up for a September look during which he hit .350 and impressed his teammates enough that they voted him a small World Series share despite his not being active for it.

He hit well to start the 1950 season for the Yanks but was traded to the Browns in June as part of a seven player deal. He was a regular in the Browns outfield putting up pedestrian numbers and was traded again, this time to the Tigers in August of 1952.

Three plus seasons as an everyday player for the Tigers was highlighted by his best season, 1953, when he hit .288 with 11 homers and 61 RBI. Subsequent seasons brought diminishing numbers and in May of '56 he was again traded, this time back to the White Sox. Over the next three years Delsing moved around the minors via a dizzying string of trades and purchases that saw him being the property of the Tigers (again), the minor league Houston franchise, the Senators (for a few months of the off-season between the 1958 and 1959 seasons) and finally the Kansas City Athletics where in 1960 he re-emerged in the majors for the last five weeks of the season. that was his last in uniform.

After baseball Delsing worked for the archdiocese of St. Louis for thirty years. He has a son who is a pro golfer and a grandson who played Major League Soccer.

For more of Jim Delsing and his interesting career (and he has some cool stories to tell) see his SABR bio or this interview done a few years back with the Missouri History Museum's magazine.

As noted Delsing never suited up for the Senators in a regular season game and his shot features a drawn "W" logo on his cap. I get the vague impression the this pic shows the left-centerfield area of Yankee Stadium in the background.

#367 Cal Neeman

Signing as a catcher in 1949 with the New York Yankees Cal Neeman faced the unenviable task of moving up the minor league ladder with a roadblock named Yogi Berra at the top of it. He spent two seasons in the military but even eight years after first signing Neeman wasn't going to make the Yanks and displace Charlie Silvera or Elston Howard, much less Berra.

The Cubs took him in the minor league draft and he took over in 1957 as the starting catcher on Chicago's North Side. He hit 10 homers to go along with a .258 average and 39 RBI which represented a sizable improvement over the previous Hobie Landrith/Harry Chiti platoon. Ironically Neeman was backed up in 1957 by former Yankee Silvera.

Neeman's time as a starter was short however as the Cubs gave the job to Sammy Taylor in '58 and by '59 Neeman was an afterthought. Early in 1960 he was part of a trade that also sent Tony Taylor to Philadelphia and after that Neeman spent about four seasons banging around through several different organizations getting big league time here and there for the Pirates, Indians and Senators.

He was out of the game after the '63 season and went through several career changes after that including being a railroad switch-man, college student at Illinois Wesleyan University, a teacher and coach, school supply salesman and retail store manager.

He lives in Florida these days and the MLB BlogNetwork caught up with him a year or so ago and Neeman reflected on his career including getting his first big league hit (off Warren Spahn) and first big league homer (off Lew Burdette).

That is a nice big fat tape stain in the middle of the cardback. Not enough of a issue for me to upgrade this one.

#364 Danny McDevitt

Danny McDevitt is the first Dodger that I've posted for quite awhile. Looks like a spring training shot that's been 'painted' over. Probably a Vero Beach photo.

McDevitt signed with the New York Yankees late in 1951 out of St. Bonaventure College and reported for work that September to the Yanks' low minor league clubs. He got into 7 games and was whacked around pretty good on the rare occasion he got the ball over the plate. Apparently the Yanks decided that they had made a mistake and released him.

McDevitt signed with the Dodgers that off season and had a much better year in their system but he still had control issues as evidenced by his 171 walks allowed in 199 innings. Then it was off to the military for a couple of years. When he returned in 1955 he began a two and a half season stretch during which he continued to struggle with control. His work in 1957 was good enough however to earn him a promotion to Brooklyn and secure him a spot in the rotation alongside Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres and Don Newcombe. In his first start on June 17 he pitched a complete game against the Reds allowing two runs on seven hits and fanning 11. He went on to a 7-4 record with a couple of shutouts that year.

One of those shutouts came in the very last game ever played in Ebbets Field. McDevitt handcuffed the Pirates that day on five hits. A brief video of that final Ebbets Field out was on You Tube and I've posted it here:

McDevitt's recollections of the game are featured in his L.A. Times obit:

"It was just another game, as far as I knew," McDevitt told Times columnist Jerry Crowe in 2007. "All the older guys – Pee Wee [Reese] and Duke [Snider] and those guys – seemed to know the facts, but I didn't know.
"I couldn't believe that after working my butt off to get to Brooklyn that I would be going back to another minor league town, which is what L.A. was then."

A brutal start to the '58 season earned McDevitt a demotion to the minors and when he was recalled in August he wasn't much better. 1959 was McDevitt's 'bounce-back' season as he went 10-8 in 39 appearances including 22 starts. He earned four saves as well. The Dodgers and Braves tied atop the NL standings that year and McDevitt drew the first playoff game assignment. He was KO'd in the second inning but the Dodgers won the playoff series and went on to win the World Series. McDevitt didn't pitch against the White Sox.

He continued his up and down trend with a poor 1960 season. He was sold to his original team, the Yankees that winter and was traded to the Twins in June. He pitched for the A's in 1962 and was out of baseball as an active player later that year. He went on to work as an umpire in the minors and later sold real estate among other jobs.

A Google search turned up a book on Cuban Winter League baseball that featured a story of an incident between McDevitt and an umpire that had some serious consequences. I also found a neat picture of McDevitt in Ebbets Field.

#259 Jim Pisoni

Hometown boy Jim Pisoni made his big league debut with the St. Louis Browns by appearing in the final three games in the franchise's history as they prepped to move to Baltimore. He'd been in the Brownie's chain since he signed as an outfield prospect in 1949 sandwiching three fairly successful minor league seasons around a two year military stint.

He went 1 for 12 in those three '53 games (his one hit was the next-to-last homer in Browns' history) and found himself back in the minors from 1954 through mid-September of 1956 when the Orioles included him in a trade to the Kansas City Athletics. He got into 10 games with the A's and hit a pair of homers as he flashed the power that had marked his minor league days.

The following season Pisoni was a semi-regular in the Kansas City outfield before he was part of a (surprise!) trade package that sent him to the Yankees. After a season and a half as Yankee property (but never playing for the big club) he was drafted by the Braves for 1959 but after a handful of games in Milwaukee he was returned to the Yankees. This archived article on Google concerns the Braves hopes when they took him in the Rule 5 draft.

He got into nearly 40 games over the next two years for the Yanks but spent the bulk of his time in the minors. He played for the reds' AAA club in 1961 and then retired to become an electrical contractor. He passed away in 2007.

Two points of interest... the shot on his card was taken in Yankee Stadium and the "M' is airbrushed over his Athletics' logo and the card-back leaves off his 1958 minor league stat line despite the write-up mentioning his "solid performance".

#96 Lou Berberet

Lou Berberet was a two sport athlete at Santa Clara University for two years before he accepted an offer from the New York Yankees in 1950. After  productive 1951 season in the minors he spent two years in the military and then returned to pro ball. The Yankees had Yogi Berra behind the plate in those days and Casey Stengel favorite Charlie Silvera backing him up, so Berberet's chances of getting much playing time with the Yanks were slim to none.

He did get a couple of looks though. He got ten at bats spread out over 1954 and '55 and picked up 4 hits giving him a career .400 average in pinstripes. According to his son Tom, Lou Berberet was playfully proud of that accomplishment.

Traded to the Senators (the Athletics must have had a bunch of Yankee reject catchers already) for 1956 Berberet played as more or less the Nats regular catcher for a couple of seasons. He had some notable defensive accomplishments as a catcher. He made just one error in 460+ innings behind the plate in 1956. Just to prove that was no fluke he bettered that mark the next season by having a flawless year in over 600 inning over 70 games. In '56 and '59 he led the AL in caught stealing percentage.

He was traded to Boston in May of '58 and then spent the final two years of his career with the Tigers. After retirement he worked for many years managing liquor distributorships in California and Nevada. His Baseball Reference Bullpen page chips in with a couple of humorous stories from his playing days:

Longtime Washington Senators announcer Bob Wolff tells of the time Berberet, the team's catcher, settled under a pop fly, threw away the glove and attempted to make the catch with his mask but never touched the ball.In another instance, he was catching and chewing a chaw of tobacco when a player came down the line and collided with him. Berberet swallowed the tobacco and almost choked. He had to be revived on the field.

Looks to be an altered cap logo on this card. Could be that a Red Sox logo was finagled to resemble the Tigers' "D" or a Senators logo was wiped out and the "D" drawn form scratch. Ahhh. life's little mysteries.

btw... this is the last card from the '59 Topps checklist numbered below 100 to be featured. That's if I haven't screwed up someplace.

#449 Tom Gorman

Tom Gorman began his professional career was a Yankees prospect who they drafted in 1946 after he had been in the Navy serving in the Pacific in WWII. He was more or less a local kid having been born and raised in Valley Stream on Long Island.

He pitched erratically in the Yankees' chain but got a call mid season in 1952. He made six starts with an equal number of bullpen outings and went 6-2. He made an appearance in the World Series that year against the Dodgers getting into the Game Three in the ninth inning after Eddie Lopat had allowed the deciding runs in the loss.

The next season he pitched in 40 games for the Bombers, all but one in relief and posted six saves which was good for ninth best in the A.L. He made another World Series appearance and earned his second ring. In that Series he pitched three innings in relief of White Ford in Game Four and struck out the first batter he faces, Brooklyn's Billy Cox. Gorman allowed a run in that outing and even came up to hit once and whiffed.

He pitched for the Yanks up until July of the '54 season when he was farmed out despite decent numbers. I can't find out anything more but I suspect he was blocking the progression of a younger arm. Tom Morgan perhaps?

Either way the Yanks traded him to Kansas City in the off season (Another deal with K.C.? Shocking!). Gorman pitched for the Athletics for four full seasons and part of a fifth. 1955 was his busiest and best year. He collected a career high 18 saves which translated to second among AL bullpen guys. He was a spot starter for the A's in '56 and '57, went back to the pen full time in 1958 and was washed out of the big leagues early the next season.

Gorman died in Valley Stream in 1992. He is not related to umpire Tom Gorman who worked in the NL for nearly three decades or to the Tom Gorman who pitched for several NL clubs in the 1980s.

I've always liked his 1953 Bowman. Anyone out there collect these? I'd love to swap for some of your dupes.

#373 Herb Plews

Herb Plews is one of 181 players who have gone from the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana to the ranks of pro baseball. One of them is a Hall of Famer, Lou Boudreau.

Plews was signed by the Yankees out of UI in 1950. He took spent four seasons as a pretty good hitting infielder and a couple of years in the service before he debuted with the Washington Senators in 1956. He had been traded by the Yanks to the Nats that winter. With Washington Plews spent three years as a semi-regular at second base and filling it at third and short.

His numbers were actually pretty good for a middle infielder as he hit .264 with 82 RBI for Washington. He was traded to the Red Sox early in the 1959 season. But after only 12 at bats in 13 games he was shipped to the minors when the Red Sox finally integrated their club by bringing up Pumpsie Green.

Beginning in 1960 Plews was an everyday infielder in AAA for five different organization over six seasons. He retired in 1965 and currently resides in Denver.

There sure is a lot of Herb Plews material available to read. Here is a Denver Post article about Plews in his days as a Yankee farmhand in Denver. He was part of one of the best minor league teams ever assembled. Hobby blogger Tom Owens recounts his interactions with Plews in this entry. Here is another lengthy but worthwhile interview done in 2010. And of course SABR has perhaps the definitive Plews bio.

Herb Plews' smiling visage in Yankee Stadium on his '59 card seems to reflect his overall personality and character. These traits come through in all those articles. For a guy I'd never really been aware of he seems to have acquired quite a fan base among writers.

#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....

Posted with Blogsy

#182 Milt Graff

Yes, this is another nifty, excellent conditioned '59. Off-center as all get out but that is more the rule than the exception I think, at least among my '59s.

Second baseman Milt Graff was signed by the Pirates out of Penn State in 1949 and he proceeded to toil in the Pirates' and Yankees' chains, when he wasn't toiling for Uncle Sam, until he was dealt to the (surprise!) Athletics in February of 1957. He'd shown some real hitting potential in the minors with several seasons of .300+ averages.

But with the A's in '57, after opening the season as a regular, he wasn't able to solve major league pitching and played most of that year back in AAA. After one more at bat in '58 Graff spent six more seasons in the minors before retiring as a player.

He went on to work in baseball after getting an accounting degree. According to Baseball Reference some of the baseball jobs he held assistant general manager and Scouting Director for the Pittsburgh Pirates, infield coach for the Pirates and director of stadium operations at Three Rivers Stadium. He served as a scout for the Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds.

He died in Rockdale, Texas in 2005 having migrated to that state earlier. His son, Steve Graff a.k.a "Coach Graffie",  is a former minor leaguer and  major league coach. He now coaches amateur baseball in central Texas. 

#72 Bill Renna

William "Big Bill" Renna was a 3-sport collegiate standout at Menlo College and Santa Clara in California when he was signed by the Yankees in 1949. He displayed plenty of power and a hit near or better than .300 in his four year stretch in the Yankee chain. In one game in 1952 playing for the Yanks' AAA club in Kansas city he was part of a 10 home run (six in one inning!), 53 total bases assault. Renna hit two of those homers in a game that set American Association records that stand today.

Renna played in New York in 1953 but, while he hit .314, he failed to show much of his expected power. He was dealt to the Athletics who held on to him until June of 1956 when the bosses in New York decided he might be useful and had the Athletics send him back. During his 2+ seasons with the A's he hit 26 homers but batted just .214. He spent the remainder of the 1956 season with the Yankee farm club and he again showed the bat he had earlier in the minors.

The Red Sox acquired him for the 1957 season and after another season in the minors he played sparingly in Boston through May of 1959. Renna worked in the concrete business after he retired. He tells much of his own story in an interview on the This Great Game site.

I found a couple of variations of this picture of Bill Renna in a couple of places. I like it a lot.