CLOSED...1960 Topps $25 "expanding lot" auction...Day 7

[HercDriver]

Baseball is obviously a very statistical game, which makes it fun for most true fans to compare players to each other, or chances for a hit in a certain situation. And most statistics, we sort of already have a feel for, without even seeing them, like a guy's batting average against the shift, or something like that. But every once in awhile, you see some stat that is just too weird, like how can it even happen? If you look at the back of Roy Face's card here, you'll see his Won/Loss record for 1959 was 18-1. That's pretty remarkable as it is, but it was all in relief...he only pitched 93 innings! He also had 10 saves added to that. Oddly enough, he's been called baseball's first great closer, but if you think about it, he should be baseball's first great set-up man, or some other name for what he was. A closer today could never get 18 wins, because that meant he blew that many saves. I guess the Pirates went with the "best pitcher" mentality when bringing in a reliever, which is like playoff baseball today. Remarkably, he was 17-0 before taking his first loss. So for those of you who don't like closers, like myself, you can blame Roy Face in part for getting us to where we are today.

[HercDriver]

Rocky Bridges was a treat for the media, with his one liners. After a two year home run drought, he hit one to win a Fourth of July game. Afterwards, he had this to say...“I’m still behind Babe Ruth’s record, but I’ve been sick. It wasn’t very dramatic. No little boy in the hospital asked me to hit one. I didn’t promise it to my kid for his birthday and my wife will be too shocked to appreciate it. I hit it for me.” As his career was winding down, he had this reflection...”I’m in the twilight of a mediocre career…I’ve had more numbers on my back than a bingo board.” Jim Bouton said that Bridges looked more like a baseball player than any player ever did. I think it had a lot to do with that huge chaw in his cheek that you always see in pictures of him. When I played baseball in high school, I used to mix Bazooka Joe bubble gum with Red Man chew, and ended up looking something like that, I suppose. It created a ton of spit, though. I couldn’t keep up with my own spit requirements, and eventually had to switch to just a small pinch of Kodiak. But the Kodiak just didn’t look quite as cool as that Rocky Bridges cheek bulge. One last Bridges quote, after making the 1958 All-Star team, but not playing. “I sat on the bench with Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Yogi Berra. I gave ‘em instruction in how to sit.” Haha...class act, Rocky. God Bless ya’!

[HercDriver]

Well, not much time to type for Day 4, as I’ll be in an airplane all day. Actually a fake airplane for six hours, and then a real one for three. I’m an airline pilot, and doing my annual simulator check ride today, then flying back home. But I promised to do my best to keep the thread going, so here’s a couple quick Sparky Anderson quotes that I love:

“I only had a high school education, and believe me, I had to cheat to get that.”

“Me carrying a briefcase is like a hot dog wearing earrings.”

“The problem with John Wockenfuss getting on base, is that it takes three doubles to score him.”

Ahhh...the Big Red Machine. They would come into Wrigley, and I’d look at the lineup, then I’d look at ours. Swisher, LaCock, Trillo, Kelleher, Ontiveros, Morales, Cardenal, and Monday. Then I’d see who Pittsburgh was playing, to see how many games we might be out after we lost the series, three games to none. It’s hard to know if Sparky was a great manager, with a team like that. I suspect he was better than Herman Franks on our side of the diamond, though.

[HercDriver]

Today's addition is HOFer Whitey Ford, the Chairman of the Board. Ford was maybe the most successful pitcher of his era, and his World Series stats are still all over the record books, most notably his 10 wins. He started an amazing eight Game Ones, but remarkably never pitched any of the seven Game Sevens the Yankees had in that run. I was looking around for some good Whitey stories, and ran across this one, by C. Paul Rogers III, on the SABR website. I thought it was pretty good, so I clipped it from there, to share with your morning coffee:

The Yankees assigned Ford to report to spring training in 1947 with the Binghamton Triplets of the Eastern League, who trained in Edenton, North Carolina. The Triplets were managed by former Yankees southpaw great Lefty Gomez who had trouble remembering all of his new players’ names. Gomez imposed a 10:00 pm curfew. A carnival was in town and one night about 9:40 Ford and teammate Ray Passapanka decided to catch one last ride on the Ferris wheel before getting back to their hotel. They ran into a problem when the Ferris wheel operator would not stop the wheel to let them off and ended up getting back to the hotel a few minutes after 10. They were met in the lobby by Gomez, who promptly fined them each five dollars.

A number of years later when Ford was with the Yankees, he happened to see Gomez interviewed by Joe DiMaggio on television between games of a doubleheader. Gomez related how, in spring training in Edenton he had given the Ferris wheel operator a couple of dollars to keep the wheel going past 10:00 pm before walking back to the hotel to await the tardy ballplayers. After the interview, Gomez came into the Yankee clubhouse only to be confronted by Ford, who said, “You SOB. How can you keep that from me all these years?” Gomez laughed and said, “I got a lot of mileage out of that story at banquets.” Ford said, “Well, at least you can give me back the ten dollars you fined me.” Gomez reached in his pocket and gave him the money and Ford had his revenge. Gomez had only fined him five dollars.

The card has a wrinkle in the upper left that doesn't really show on the scan, thus the Vg rating, otherwise a pretty nice one.

[HercDriver]

Today is just a single card, featuring Bill Bruton. It's one of my favorite cards in the set, so it gets single billing. Plus it gets us to a nice round 20 cards. Bruton was a Braves speedster, specializing in triples. As a matter of fact, he's one of only three guys to hit two bases-loaded triples in a single game, the others being Elmer Valo and Duane Kuiper. He hit a nice .412 in the 1958 World Series against the Yankees, after having had to sit out the 1957 WS with an injury. After baseball, he ended up at Chrysler, where he climbed the ladder to be a special assistant to Lee Iacocca. He also was inducted into the Delware Sports Hall of Fame, along with the likes of his father-in-law, Negro Leaguer Judy Johnson, and the much heralded John Wockenfuss. That's two mentions in a 1960 thread now, for Johnny Wockenfuss, which is pretty good, since he didn't appear in the bigs for another dozen or so years. As I said, it's one of my favorite cards, because I love the Braves uniforms of that era. The screaming Indian, the tomahawk, and the script Braves on the front. The 1960 set doesn't have a lot of action shots, if any, so this is as close as you get. At least the head shots usually have the right cap, though. And to make the card even better, it features my beloved Wrigley Field in the background, as does the Pinson card above. Maybe I should do a subset of Wrigley Field cards, which would include almost the entire 1981 Donruss set. Enjoy the beauty of the Bruton card, and have an awesome day!

[HercDriver]

Day 7 brings us the kid of a HOFer, but after getting my Google on and finding Jerry Casale, I thought I'd tell you about him instead. I found an article from about 15 years ago, when Casale was running his Italian restaurant in NYC. It intrigued me at first, because it was right by a place I like to go, called The Ginger Man, on 36th and 5th Ave...great beer joint. Anyway, his place, Pino's was just three blocks down, on 33rd. Evidently, his brother had made a recording of him hitting a home run off of Bob Turley at a game in Fenway, during the 1959 season. So his patrons would be treated to this call by Phil Rizzuto a couple times a night, "Ohh! That’s gone! A home run! Holy cow! Did he hit that one!″ He also hit one off of Early Wynn that year, which Wynn didn't appreciate, and cursed the rookie the whole around the bases. In the picture on this card, he has just signed a $12,500 contract to pitch for the Sox, with a promise of $25K if he wins 15 games. He thought that was pretty good, since he'd been getting $90/month, driving a tank in Germany. He started out 1960, beating the Yankees twice, then blew out the arm. We all know that story, as it happens to seemingly 90% of pitchers. He stuck around, and even gave up Yaz's first homer as an expansion draft Angel the next season. But, he loved his restaurant, which is mentioned in The Teammates, and was frequented by ball players. And he loved playing that tape of his homer, according to his wife, presumably with an eye roll. Reminds me of coming home last night from my hockey game and telling the wife that I scored a sweet goal, with one minute left, to win the game 5-4! "That's nice, honey, did you feed the dog?" I get it, Jerry...I totally get it.

[TheDDG]

This is the first one of these I've seen. Sorry if I'm spoiling the fun, but I'm jumping in at $25 now.