#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.

#48 Baltimore Orioles Team

I've only posted a few times with 'a purpose', that is selected a card for a specific reason. The first two posts (Brooks and Bob Gibson) and the Duke Snider post are about it. But here we have another one. The Orioles 1959 team card with first series checklist on the reverse. I need to get this one posted before they lose a game and spoil my mellow.

As a lifelong Orioles fan I've had my shares of ups and (lately) downs, but I keep plugging along. What else can you do... change to another team? Not going to happen.

But the 4-0 start to the season has really peaked my interest. I'll be the first to admit I don't follow the game as I used to, I can't name every teams rotation or every Oriole's number and hometown like I could in the 60's. Hell, I don't even remember the Os' closers name, but I do know that the Birds have good young pitching arms and that goes a long way towards building a firm foundation. I heard on the radio the other morning that if you started a season the day Buck Showalter arrived to manage the O's they'd be 4 and a half games up on the entire league, only the Phils have a better record in that time frame. Wow.

The 1959 Orioles finished 6th in the A.L. at 74-80 under Paul Richards. Speaking of young arms, the '59 O's had Milt Pappas and Jerry Walker in their rotation. They were joined in 1960 by Chuck Estrada and Steve Barber to form a starting staff known as the 'Baby Birds'.

Yes, that's Brooks Robinson's signature on my team card. I remember picking this one up at a show way back when I was putting together all the Orioles Topps and Bowman team sets. That was a fun project that I finished by obtaining the elusive 1967 Mark Belanger/Bill Dillman rookie card. I continued putting together Oriole team sets until some time in the early 90s when the rookie/variation/error card shenanigans turned me off to the hobby.

The checklist on the reverse of the Oriole team card appears to have been filled in by a kid with visual impairments.

#440 Lou (Lew) Burdette

One of the more famous (infamous) uncorrected errors in the '59 set is this one of known trickster Selva Lewis Burdette Jr. Or Lou for short, or is it Lew? Hell if I know, and apparently neither did Topps. They put it both ways on his cards throughout his career, sometimes two different ways on the front and back. He was Lew until 1958 when Topps smoothly transitioned to Lou by having one name on each side. Then he turned into Lou.

Even Bowman used Lou in the early 50's so kids were probably more confused than I am if they even bothered to pay attention. To be fair, a Google search of "Burdette" turns up links using both 'Lou' and 'Lew'. 

But Burdette got revenge (or is it the other way around) by posing for the shot on this 1959 classic as a lefty. Reportedly that was friend and mound mate Warren Spahn's glove used in the shot. I think you can see Burdette trying not to smile too widely in this one.

No matter. However you spell his name on a card, Lew Burdette was a terrific pitcher for the Braves. He won three games in the 1957 World Series over the Yankees. Two of them were shutouts. He finished with 203 wins after a late career tour of St. Louis, Chicago (Cubs) and L.A. (Angels). Along the way he had seasons in which he led the NL in wins, E.R.A, shutouts. win-loss %, assists, starts among others. 

The colors on my copy are sort of muddy but the corners are sharp. For many reasons this is one of my favorite cards in the set.

#245 Ned Garver

Here's a guaranteed 'bar bet' winner for you.... Who's the only pitcher to win twenty games for a 100 loss team and do it with a winning record?

Why it's Ned Garver. Garver toiled from 1948 into 1952 for the generally hapless St. Louis Browns. In 1951 Ned finished with a 20-12 record while on a club that lost 102 games. In fact he collected 20 of the Browns 52 wins. Thats nearly 40%. Hell no other pitcher on that Browns club had more than six wins! He completed 24 of his 30 starts. Pretty damned amazing. And it showcases one of the really cool things about doing a blog that almost nobody reads... I learn some great stuff about players I knew very little about in many cases. 

And Garver's 1951 season wasn't just sterling from a pitching standpoint... he hit .305, frequently batting sixth and started the All Star Game in Detroit. No wonder he finished second in the MVP balloting that year.

Unfortunately Ned Garver never had another season that approached his '51 campaign, before or afterwards. He had some decent years with the Tigers and A's through the fifties, with double digit win totals in five seasons. He finished up with the '61 Angels. 

And one last stat... in 1944, Ned Garver's first year as a pro, he was 21-8 for the Newark Moundsmen of the Ohio State League. That club was 71-58. He led the league with 221 strikeouts and a 1.21 ERA. When Ned Garver was good, he was very very good.

#424 Ken Aspromonte

I like the blurb on the back of Ken Aspromonte's card: "After playing 6 games with the Red Sox last year, Ken shifted to the Senators for 92 games." Wow. Thats fairly compelling info, yes?

He's a Brooklyn boy (so am I) who is the older brother of Bob Aspromonte who I'm more familiar with from his days as an Astro and his later career as a beer distributing company executive in the area. The cartoon mentions that three Aspromontes are 'in baseball'. I assume the third is Charles "Sonny" Aspromonte who had a couple of years as a minor leaguer and gets a mention is Jane Leavy's great bio of another Brooklyn native, Sandy Koufax, A Lefty's Legacy.

Ken bounced around for seven seasons, playing for six clubs with only one season as an everyday player. He hit .290 with 10 homers for the Indians in 1960. But the most interesting aspect of his career is his circuitous route through the American League. Here is the trail, as charted by Baseball reference:

• Before 1950 Season: Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent.
• May 1, 1958: Traded by the Boston Red Sox to the Washington Senators for Lou Berberet.
• May 15, 1960: Traded by the Washington Senators to the Cleveland Indians for Pete Whisenant.
• December 14, 1960: Drafted by the Washington Senators from the Cleveland Indians as the 26th pick in the 1960 expansion draft.
• December 14, 1960: Traded by the Washington Senators to the Los Angeles Angels for Coot Veal.
• July 3, 1961: Selected off waivers by the Cleveland Indians from the Los Angeles Angels.
• June 24, 1962: Traded by the Cleveland Indians with cash to the Milwaukee Braves for Bob Hartman.
• December 3, 1962: Traded by the Milwaukee Braves to the Chicago Cubs for Jim McKnight.
• April 3, 1964: Released by the Chicago Cubs.

So lets see...signed by Red Sox and waits seven years to debut in 1957. Traded from Sox to Nats in early 1958. Traded by Nats to Indians early in 1960. Drafted back by the Nats in the expansion draft late in December 1960. Traded that very day to the Angels. Waived by the Angels the following year and signed by the Indians. A year later traded to the Braves and traded that December to the Cubs who cut him around Opening Day of 1964.

But Ken Aspromonte, player for hire, wasn't done. He went to Japan and played three seasons with two teams over there and returned to the Indians (for a third time) as their manager in 1972. He compiled a 220-260 record, never finishing higher than fourth.

#546 Al Schroll

Who is Al Schroll? And how can a major leaguer look so much like the kids I played Pony League ball with? What did Topps do... use his junior high team picture? According to Baseball Reference his nickname is "Bull"!! Are they serious?

Anyway, Al Schroll played in parts for four seasons with four different clubs compiling a 6-9 record and a 5.34 ERA. He pitched for 13 years in the minors. 

Here is an interesting piece of trivia. Schroll and Jack Kralick both homered for the Twins on August 20, 1961.  It was the sixth time in history that a pair of pitchers have homered for the same team in the same game. It was Schroll's only homer but he had a .273 career batting average. Not too shabby.

And that's no "Bull".

#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.