#567 Del Crandall The Sporting News All Star

This Del Crandall card is the next to last All Star card to be posted here. Crandall, who was featured on his own '59 card (posted here), was a eight time NL All Star, a four time Gold Glove winner and 1949 Rookie of the Year runner-up.

Known for his defensive and pitcher handling abilities Crandall was a decent hitter who had a couple of .290+ seasons. He was probably ranked second only to Roy Campanella at his position during the decade of the fifties.

Crandall played in 8 All Star games and while he hit only .200 in those games (4 for 20) he did homer for the NL off the Red Sox' Bill Monbouquette at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium in the first of two All Star games in 1960.

The red railing tips us off that Crandall is posing in San Francisco's Seals Stadium in the photo on this card.

#569 Bob Friend The Sporting News All Star

Poor miscut, badly scanned Bob Friend. Seems his '59 All Star card can't catch a break. This is his third and final appearance in this set. He had his regular card featured here in 2011 and then he showed up on a special multi-player card, Buc Hill Aces, with Ron Kline, Vern Law and Roy Face last year.

Friend made the NL All Star team in 1956, '58 and '60. He started in 1956 and 1960 (first of two games) and got the win both times. He didn't allow a run in either of those games going three inning both times. In 1958 he came out of the bullpen and went 2 1/3, allowed four hits and two walks taking the loss.

I hadn't realized that he started the fateful ninth inning in Game 7 of the 1960 Series. He came in with a shot to close it out but quickly allowed two hits before he was replaced by Harvey Haddix. Haddix allowed those runners to score and the Yanks to tie the game at 9-9. We all know what happened in the bottom of that inning. The card of the central figure in that dramatic game is queued to post in a few days.

As is the case with most of the Pirates photographed around this time, Friend is shown wearing a batting helmet. The batting helmet was designed by Charlie Muse, an executive of Branch Rickey's company and Rickey, at the time the Pirates' president, decided that all his players would wear one both at bat and in the field.

#558 Frank Malzone The Sporting News All Star

All this time I was under the impression that Frank Malzone had hit the first home run I'd seen live at Memorial Stadium. Not sure why I believed that but I always recalled it that way. I finally did some digging, knowing that it was the same night Boog Powell had hit his titanic 'hedge row' homer. The records show that in the first game of the doubleheader on June 22, 1962 Carl Yaztrzemski homered off Milt Pappas in the fourth inning. That was the homer I saw and my Uncle almost caught. The Orioles' Jackie Brandt had homered earlier but I'm pretty sure we hadn't made it to the ball park for that one.

Boog's blast was in the second game off Don Schwall. I have no memory lapses concerning that one. It made quite an impression an all of us.

#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.

#125 Ron Fairly

That baby-faced Dodger smiling on the card above had a lot of baseball in his future. Ron Fairly broke in with LA in 1958 and spent 21 years as a solid major leaguer and 27 years as a broadcaster. That totals over 7000 games. Now that is a full life in the game!

He won 3 World Series rings in four chances with the Dodgers and really performed in the '65 Series against the Twins batting .379 with eleven hits including a pair of homers.

Most interestingly Fairly appeared to be winding down and easing into retirement in 1977 when, after five seasons as a platoon/bench player with four clubs, he grabbed a full time spot in the Blue Jays' outfield and made the A.L. All Star team.

My copy of this Sporting News Rookie Stars card has really nice corners but displays the off centered look that seems to become common in my collection.