CLOSED...1961 Topps $15 Auction...Day 36

[Ricky]

This thread has become the first one I go to on this site every day... very entertaining! I hate to say it, Geno, but I almost hope no one ever bids just so we can keep getting these stories...

[HercDriver]

Ricky...thanks for the thumbs up! I had done one like this a long time ago, and after enjoying Frank's auctions for so long, I thought it was time to try it again! I told somebody else, it makes it fun to take the cards out of the binder and actually look at them again. I sold/traded a couple of the big cards, so this is a great way to go through the commons and get a little cash for my Sovereign collection. Anyway, tomorrow might be the last installment until the Super Bowl, since I'll be out and about, nowhere near my cards for a bit. Cheers!

[HercDriver]

Today I'm adding two pretty solid players, Johnny Podres and Vada Pinson. A few people used to pull for Pinson to get in the HOF, but it never happened. Podres did get in, sort of. He, of course, shut out the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1955 World Series, thus ending the drought in Brooklyn in their fight for supremacy over the Bronx. If you haven't been to the HOF, there is a statue to commemorate that event, or two statues, I guess. I borrowed this photo of somebody's travel blog, so you can see it. It's Podres pitching to Campanella, so Johnny did get in:



When the Dodgers went west, Podres pitched the first night game in the LA Coliseum, and also threw the first shutout. The fact that he recorded the first shutout is actually pretty amazing, considering not just his competition in Koufax and Drysdale, but mostly because he was a lefty, facing right handers. If you don't appreciate that fact, look at this picture of the Coliseum:



I'm pretty sure there's people on this forum that could homer to left field there...it's only 250 feet! So good on ya, Johnny, for mowing down the Reds that day!

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by Ricky

This thread has become the first one I go to on this site every day... very entertaining! I hate to say it, Geno, but I almost hope no one ever bids just so we can keep getting these stories...

I'll second this ^^

[HercDriver]

An early start for Day 18, and expect a late start to Day 19, as I’ll be out of pocket for a couple days, but will do my best to post when I can.

A bit of a sad story today, or maybe a wasted career, whatever you want to call it. Jack Meyer was one of three Phillies pitchers who tried to live up to the Mantle-Ford-Martin tradition of baseball by day, lunacy by night. From the Seamheads.com website, I found some good stuff on them. The three, with Turk Farrell and Jim Owens, were just as disorderly and drunk, but not nearly as good the next day as the famed Yankees were. They were known as the Dalton Gang, and tended to end their inebriated nights with a fight or two, either with strangers or teammates. They usually left bar tabs, bloodied noses, and shattered mirrors in their wake. Sometimes they had fun on the field, like when Farrell got into the game balls and left messages on them for the opposing pitcher to read, which resulted in Lew Burdette yelling into the Phillies dugout after he received each ball, with it's not so nice message on it. After one particularly long night, Farrell poured ice water on Meyer, resulting in a fight that left Meyer on the DL for an injured back. The Phillies were not pleased about that, so they fined Meyer $1200. That might not sound like much, but he only made $14,000, so it was almost 10% of his salary. That may have been the largest proportion fine for a player, until today’s long PED suspensions. All that hard living didn't do Jack much good, as he was dead of a heart attack, six years after a kid pulled this card out of a Topps pack. Farrell only made it to age 43, before a car accident got him.