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

[HercDriver]

Hmmm...Team cards, or Felix Mantilla? As a Cubs fan, team cards were always disappointing, because while everybody else had an actual team photo, the Cubs had those ridiculous heads. And then there was 1979, when I sent away for a sheet of team cards from an offer on the wax packs. The sheets came, but they were this horrible, thin cardboard, with a cream colored back, that didn't match the rest of the cards. And then they looked even worse when I cut them all apart. The jury is still out on team cards for me. As for Felix Mantilla...did you know he's the guy who broke up Harvey Haddix's perfect game in the 13th inning? He led off by getting on base on an error. Of course, Haddix ended up losing the game, 1-0. But did you know it should have been 3-0? With Mantilla on second, and Hank Aaron on first, Joe Adcock hit a homer to win the game. Aaron didn't realize the ball had cleared the fence, so when Mantilla crossed the plate, he headed for the dugout. Adcock rounded the bases, passing Aaron. The result was that Adcock was credited with only a double, and Haddix lost his perfect game, 1-0, instead of 3-0. Have a great day!

Card Tracker:
110 cards, averaging 45 cents each, shipped

[HercDriver]

Remember in the way back days, during rain delays, when they would play the old World Series films? I loved those! It was like watching your old baseball cards move. I hadn't seen a lot of those guys play in the sixties, and by the time I did, they were at the tail end of their careers. That's where I got to see Clemente, Mantle, Aaron as a kid, and more. But I remember watching the 1959 World Series film, and seeing the AL Smith beer shower, and just thinking it was awesome! Here's the famous pic, and below that, you can see the video, at the 7:50 point in the film. Poor Al. Evidently, the man that spilled it was asked to be on "I've Got a Secret," but didn't want the attention. Enjoy...and have a great day!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U7v4YeyZcY

Card Tracker:
112 cards, 45 cents each, shipped

[HercDriver]

Jackie Jensen is certainly a guy who could have been so much more. He won the MVP, then was out of the league, just three years later. And it wasn’t for production. He led the league in RBIs in 1959, and finished 10th in the MVP voting, then retired. He tried to comeback in 1961, but then left again. If you didn’t know, he had a crippling fear of flying, and as the league started to expand, he just couldn’t handle the panic attacks anymore. I looked up other athletes that were afraid to fly, and was surprised the Wayne Gretzky was one of them. His roommate, Ace Bailey, was a huge part of calming him down and allowing him to become the best ever. In a horribly tragic coincidence, Bailey died on UAL 175, when it hit the South Tower on Sept 11. RIP, Ace...and everyone else from that horrific day.

Card Tracker:
116 cards, at 43 cents each, shipped

[HercDriver]

Don Larsen...wow. Could you have picked an unlikelier hero for the Yankees? The one guy to throw a perfect game on the biggest stage? He had been shelled in his previous WS outing, and would be in his next one. Not only that, but according to his SABR bio, he had a court order in his locker for not paying support to his wife and child. The court was looking to seize his WS share to pay his debts to his family. His teammates didn’t even know he had a family, they thought he was a hard-drinking bachelor. Mantle was quoted as saying “Don had a startling capacity for liquor. Larsen was easily the greatest drinker I’ve known and I’ve known some pretty good ones in my time.” He was a below .500 career pitcher, but was 4-2 in the post season, and won the NL tiebreaker game to send the Giants to the 1962 World Series, when he met his old mates. He won Game 4 of that WS, despite only pitching 1/3 of an inning and walking Yogi Berra, whom he was hugging six years earlier in that iconic photo. He got Kubek, and the Giants took the lead, giving him his fourth WS win. Larsen was a bit of an anomaly, who showed us that even those of us who are imperfect, can still have perfect days. Guys like Sully, landing in the Hudson. Who knows, maybe yours is today. Here’s a song for you to listen to, while you scroll through the rest of the board today:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYp9q3QNaQ

Card Tracker:
120 cards, at 42 cents each, shipped

[62corvette]

FWIW, Larsen and David Wells, the first two Yankees to pitch perfect games, graduated from the same high school. David Cone messed up that string.

[HercDriver]

Here’s a few more for your viewing pleasure! Probably the most intriguing is Dave Nicholson, who set an MLB record for strikeouts, with 175, while hitting majestic homers in the process. The crazy thing is, that when he set that record in 1963, you would have thought that, sure, it will be broken some day. Well, the style of the game is different, I suppose, because in that category, with his 175 K’s, he is now in 78th place. Bobby Bonds broke the record in 1969, then again in 1970. So Nicholson was 3rd, until Rob Deer and Pete Incaviglia passed him in 1986. Then the flood gates opened at the turn of the century, with players striking out 200 times with regularity. Nicholson was before my time, but I bet he wasn’t unlike a guy I used to like watching in Wrigley Field, Dave Kingman. Talk about majestic blasts!! He used to hit the highest, longest homers of anybody I ever saw. It was like the old days of football when they timed hang time. Do they still do that? I don’t know, don’t watch the NFL. But Kingman had hang time. No liners into the seats for him. They didn’t have that northern runway at O’Hare back then, I don’t think, which was probably a good thing, with Kingman up. Anyway, Nicholson seems like a 60s Kingman to me, and that makes him pretty cool in my book. Have a great one today!

Card Tracker:
123 cards, at 41 cents each, shipped

[HercDriver]

A trio today, that includes Jim Marshall, the first Cubs manager I remember as a kid. Also, Elmer Valo, one of two Slovaks to appear in MLB history. And of the 1809 games played by Slovakians, Valo played 1806 of them. And then there is a Herb Score. Score struck out 245 batters as a rookie, a record that stood until Dwight Gooden topped it. He was on his way to stardom, going 20-9, with 263 K’s in his sophomore season. And then came the fateful day that Gil McDougald lined a ball into his face, shattering his nose and eye socket. He was never able to return to the form that earned him the respect of many players, which makes you wonder how good he could have been. Mantle said he was the greatest lefty he ever faced, and Berra picked him for his All-Time Great team. That tells you how great he could have been, if he just could have got the glove up a bit quicker. Have an awesome day!!


Card Tracker
126 cards, at 40 cents each, shipped