Dick Allen

 1942-2020

It is with great sadness that I learned earlier today of Dick Allen's passing.

This one really stings.  I grew up a Sox fan in the '70s.  Dick Allen was a hero to me.  I had a homemade baseball bat that was just ridiculously way too big.  We called it the "Dick Allen" bat.  I could only use it playing sandlot ball because it was obviously not legal for little league play.  If you follow this blog, you know that I have used Allen as the subject of many posts. The 72 "In Action" was one of my first fake cards. Here are as many others that I can remember making:

1968 Topps Joe Morgan Game Insert

  

I decided to pay tribute (although belatedly) to Joe Morgan by adding him to the 1968 Topps Game Inserts.  He was on the Astros at that time and Topps was in a dispute with Monsanto over the Astros trademark.  So many Houston players appeared hatless or with the logo airbrushed. 

This was actually called out in the comment section when I had made a 1969 Topps Deckle card for Joe Morgan.  I had to agree with the accuracy of the comment and made a second version:

Of course Morgan's superstar status in the '70s made him a frequent subject on this blog. Here are some of the other Joe Morgan Cards That Never Were from past blog posts. 

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Just a side note:  I fought with this posting for hours.  The new google blogger is just awful.  I couldn't get the cards to line up properly.  So after a long battle, I gave up and stacked them.  Then my post wasn't showing up on other feeds.  I deleted it the re-made it, thinking all the reshuffling of images might've messed it up.  Still nada.  Finally it's showing up on others' blog rolls but it randomly used the 4th image instead of the 1st. I am so close to switching to a new platform.  Any recommendations?

Glenn Beckert

October 12, 1940 - April 12, 2020

I hate to keep doing this.  But Glenn Beckert was part of my childhood and I couldn't let his passing go without a small tribute.  We are living in difficult times now.  He was in hospice in Florida with dementia when he passed away. It was heartbreaking to read how his daughters were unable to visit him due to the Corona Virus. 

He was a Gold Glove, a four-time All-Star and an important part of the ill-fated 1969 Cubs. Most impressive was his low strikeout to at-bat ratio. He led the league 5 times and placed in the top ten every year from 1965-1972.  To put it into perspective as to how much the game has changed, the player with the most at-bats to strikeouts in 2019 was the Orioles utility infielder, Hanser Alberto.  He averaged 1 strikeout in every 10.5 at-bats.  Beckert's career average was 1 strikeout in every 21.4 at-bats.

Four years ago, when Milt Pappas passed away I found this photo of Pappas and Beckert at the 100 year celebration at Wrigley Field in 2014. 

I've created a few cards of Glenn Beckert over the years. Here they are once again.

Stretch

Willie McCovey
1938-2018

Yesterday we lost another legend. Willie "Stretch" McCovey.  I put together one more 1972 Alt-Topps card in his honor. Additionally, I have included all of the cards I've made of McCovey over the years for this blog. 

TBT - Atlanta Braves Edition

Last week the MLB held a Turn Back the Clock day in 4 cities. Also known as Throwback Wednesday? One of the more peculiar match-ups was the Reds wearing their 2000 era uniforms playing the Braves in their 1970 era uniforms. Predictably the Reds uniforms looked very close to their 15 year old counterparts. The Braves on the other hand, not so much.  First of all the material is just wrong. Is it possible to duplicate that retro grey flannel look and still have the comfort and fit of today's uniforms? If somebody can figure that out, they may just have a goldmine. The other obvious difference was the lack of the Indian Brave on the sleeve.  

I chose to compare the homerun trot of Freddie Freeman against the homerun trot of Hank Aaron on his 1972 Topps In Action card for this week's TBT pairing.  You can see Ivan De Jesus Jr. in the background of the Freeman card sporting the Reds retro uniform. Although the inspiration for these two unis are three decades apart, the fit and the material makes it look like they could belong on the field together. Overall it was a pretty weak effort on the part of the Braves who have some of the best looking uniforms in baseball and some great throwback uniforms to choose from.

What's going on at my other blog?

Just a quick post of some of the Cards That Never Were that I created for my other blog: Rating the Rookies. Perhaps this would be a good time to point out something that almost every collector knows: for every rookie card that has a legit future star, there are dozens of players that don't make it big. This batch of cards certainly proves that point.

Most of Dave Bennett and Morrie Steevens (no, not a typo) short MLB careers were behind them by the time they appeared together on this 1965 Phillies Rookie Stars card.  Steevens ended up pitching just 2.2 innings in 1965 which was exactly 2.2 more than Bennett. 

Tommy Matchick and Daryl Patterson were on the same 1968 Tigers Rookie Stars card. At face value, it looks like any other mundane rookie card. But it seems like there is always a good story hidden somewhere. Just ask Pedro Borbon, AKA the "Dominican Dracula".

Chuck Coles was an early one and done. His one and only baseball card was a Topps Sporting News  Rookie Stars of 1959 card. 1959 was the birth of the designated rookie card. Unfortunately, most of the players in that series didn't live up to Topps' expectations.

Randy Bass, Jim Gaudet, and Randy McGilberry were captured in grainy black and white on a  Royals 1979 Prospects card. Only one of them actually played on the Royals in 1979.

In 1973 Tom Paciorek and Jorge Roque shared a 1973 Rookie Outfielders card with the 1973 NL Rookie of the Year, Gary Matthews Sr. I had to dig deep to create Cards That Never Were for Paciorek and Roque but had several already in the bank for Mathews right here.