Topps TTM Project: the 1950s

Cards previously posted have a link to that post. Enjoy!

1951 Bob Feller (post)

1952 Billy Pierce

1953 Roy Sievers (post)

1954 Bobby Shantz (post 1; post 2)

1955 Monte Irvin (post)

1956 Virgil Trucks (post)

1957 Gene Conley (post)

1958 Chuck Harmon (post)

1959 Whammy Douglas (post)

There we go, the 1950's in ttm autos! Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Rhymes with "pants": Classic ttm from Mr. Shantz

I've posted before about Mr. Bobby Shantz, so I'll spare you about how awesome I think he is. And I'm not alone. Mr. Shantz is real tolerant of us ttm aficionados and his praises are all over the blogosphere. In fact, every day I'm a bigger fan of mid-20th century because of guys like Mr. Shantz, Mr. Trucks, and Mr. Sievers (and there are tons more!)

Last December I bit the bullet and grabbed this 1950 Bowman Shantz RC with the intention of sending it off. I sent it to Mr. Shantz a few weeks ago and got it back within 10 days.

As a card this thing is AWESOME. It's one of the "knothole-gang" type portrait cards from the 1950 Bowman that reminds you of wooden fences and apple pie baseball. Mr. Shantz loos 12 and the wood-plank wall looks, well, GREEN. 

And then there's the sig: ^%$^ that's nice, even better than I'd pictured it or could have reasonably expected.

Of course, the backs of these things speak for themselves.

Thanks again Mr. Shantz and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Old Man Update: Horse Trading with Daddy D

So, the old man has been here 72 hours. Pleasantries exchanged, Wally Moon gifted, a Chicago Whales T-shirt received, we're down to business. We don't know when he's leaving, he doesn't know when he's leaving. In the mean time, we're trading cards.

I dig Roy Sievers. He was the toughest batter Bobby Shantz had to face (per Mr. Shantz himself) and a he had some great lifetime numbers for the Browns, Senators, White Sox, and Phillies, and was ROY in 1949. He also laid some great sigs on these cards I sent him. First, the 1960:

The funny thing is that here he looks like a dude that eats nails for breakfast. In both of these he's about as serious as I've seen a ballplayer look. Pretty bad day, I guess. I mean, compare it to the 1956:

That's happy Mr. Sievers. And now, I know that about half of the 1956 set is in the running for "best card from the 1956 set." This card, however, is definitely in the top 10%. Those are some classic shades he's sporting there in the background, and I love the empty stands behind him as he makes the catch. Which leads us to the question of "What kind of catch is that?" Pretty strange, looks like he's about to break his back.

So, Daddy D gives me this card, but is holding out on a sweet 1959 he brought. We're currently in negotiations.

He also brought a small stack of "look but not for trade cards" he wants up on the blog for various funny reasons and I, as the dutiful son-in-law in want of a 1959 Sievers, will gladly oblige. I'll be getting to these over the next few days, and they are pretty awesome.

Finally, I'll be a little behind on trade posts as a consequence, but let me say to the folks I've traded with recently that y'all are awesome and I can't thank you enough for your generosity! I hope you dig the cards I sent you as much as I dig these, and they'll be up on the blog soon!

Have a great one!

Charles Bender is Money

My new car needs new engine. Bummer. It's under warranty (thank you dear, sweet Lord) so hopefully things will turn out.

In other news, I bring you my small Charles Albert Bender (1903-1917, 1925), AKA "Chief," collection. Connie Mack referred to Bender as the best "Money Pitcher" he'd ever had, as in if he had a single game to win, he'd want Bender on the mound. Those were some of baseball's All-Time great teams, with players like Frank "Home Run" Baker, "Gettysburg" Eddie Plank, and "Rube" Waddell, just to limit myself to naming a few players. And Mack felt Bender was his best pitcher.

Bender appeared in 5 World Series with Mack's A's, compiling pretty impressive stats: 6-4 with a 2.44 ERA. The ERA would be a lot lower save for the infamous 1914 game against the miracle Boston Braves, in which he gave up 8 hits and 6 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. He and other A's players were suspected of negotiating contracts to jump to the startup, rebel Federal League before the series began, and so many felt he and other A's players conspired to throw the series, whether under the influence of gamblers or due to plain indifference. Both of the great recent Bender bios, Chief Bender's Burden and Money Pitcher, offer excellent portraits of the moment, but neither offers anything conclusive proof.

Like a lot of pitchers from that era, Bender threw a lot of innings, doing things like starting the opening game of a double-header and relieving the second. Like a lot of them, he often pitched hurt. If there's an argument against the Nolan Ryan, ESPN school of "we used to throw a ton of innings and it had no effect on us," it's to be found in the careers of pitchers like Bender and others, the original old schoolers.

Like I said before, he went on to be a mentor to CCC favorite Bobby Shantz. Bender is often credited with inventing the slider, though he didn't have a name for it.

Bender's story also highlights a lot of the difficulties Native Americans faced at the turn of the century and continue to face today. He was "white enough" to play, but not "white enough" that he escaped being heckled with war whoops when he pitched or, like John Meyers, being dubbed "Chief." Bender, or so the story goes, would respond by calling them "foreigners."

I'll go deeper into these cards another day, but here are my Bender cardboards.

The front of this T205 is great, the back is interesting, but you don't get all the text!

To borrow a phrase from Capt'n Canuck, this card went though the wash with a pocketful of poker chips, but we get the full text. Turns out Bender was also a great hitter, too.

Finally, this T207, not quite as pretty as the T205, but a solid card nonetheless.

Have a great one!

Bobby Shantz as the original Tim Lincecum

First, I have to apologize to Mr. Shantz for making a reference to his size in the title. I recently finished his 1953 bio The Bobby Shantz Story, and he's pretty adamant about the fact that he doesn't want people to focus on his size because he is, first and foremost, a ballplayer, and a heck of a ballplayer at that. However, the media is constantly talking about the 5' 11'' "Tiny" Tim and how he's overcome his diminutive size to be a dominant force among the big boys. Shantz, by comparison, is 5' 6''. That's right, "Tiny" Tim has about 1/2 a foot on Mr. Shantz, so make of that what you will.

What this post is about is the really awesome player and person that Bobby Shantz is. As a player his finest years were perhaps 1951 and 1952. Playing for the A's in 1952, Shantz went 24-7 with a 2.48 ERA and 1.048 WHIP. He sported a 159 ERA+. Dude was flat out dominant and won the MVP that year pretty handily over second place Allie Reynolds. In the bio he talks about persistent back troubles that nag him in his ascent to the Majors, and I'm guessing that those and other injuries plagued him, limiting his starts over the ensuing years.

Shantz remained a force for the rest of his career. For example, in 1957 he has traded to the Yankis, and he went 11-5 with a 2.45 ERA, and the best ERA+ in the league at 147. In other words, one of the best, most effective pitchers in the league. My dad remembers Shantz pitching for the Yanks in those years, and says he was awesome.

For his career he finished 119-99 with a 3.38 ERA and 119 ERA+. He was also a 3x All-Star and 8x Gold Glove winner.

He's feature prominently in two bios of the A's great and HOFer Charles Albert Bender. Bender was Shantz's pitching coach in 1951, leading up to the phenomenal 1952 season, and was a great mentor and influence. As Bender's health deteriorated in 1954, Shantz wrote him a touching letter, the complete text of which is unfortunately not on-line (lines here).

Since I am a HUGE Bender fan, I decided to write Mr. Shantz and request an auto. I grabbed a '52 Topps from his MVP season and hoped for the best. He sent it back in record time and I am very thankful!

I also sent him a small sheet with a few questions about his career, again hoping for the best. Mr. Shantz came through much bigger than I could have reasonably expected. I asked him for his favorite memory of "Chief" Bender, and he wrote the following:

"Chief Bender and I always went fishing together at West Palm Beach, where we had Spring Training. Chief was a very fine pitching coach and a great fisherman!"

I hope Mr. Shantz doesn't mind my sharing that. At any rate, it was incredible to receive those words from such an amazing player and person who is directly linked to one of my favorite players, Bender. I am also now a HUGE fan of Mr. Shantz. Many thanks, sir! That really made my day.

On a personal note, in-laws are leaving tomorrow and I'll be getting to handing out more overdue "thank you"'s. Have a good one!