Baseball's Best Fifth Round Draft Picks 1975 - 80

Here's my third post on the best players from fifth rounds of MLB's "Rule 4" amateur draft. Previous iterations covered 1965-69 and 1970-74.

Evaluating talent must feel like fishing. You cast into the sea hundreds of times, hoping for one good hit that'll make all that time on a water's edge worthwhile. Fifth rounds of the late 1970s continued to impress me as 1-in-20 long shot picks, as history shows just one team took home a big fish.

1975: Lou Whitaker (75.1 WAR, 5x All-Star, 3x Gold Glove, 4x Silver Slugger, 1984 World Series ring, 1978 ROY)

I consider Whitaker baseball's best fifth-round pick for the 1965-75 decade, as many think Lou should be in Cooperstown. Keystone infielders with such consistency prove hard to find in any age, let alone paired with a teammate like Alan Trammell.

Love that "Sweet Lou" autograph on his 1982 Topps and cards like this convinced me every good hitter wore fielding caps under their batting helmet.

1976: Jack Morris (43.5 WAR, 5x All-Star, 1984/1991/1992 World Series rings, HOF)

An easy pick for his year and yet tough to write about, since Jack's relative career value (in WAR, anyway) falls well short of Sweet Lou. The 1991-92 rings with Toronto made a big difference for Hall of Fame voters.

As a young Seattle fan, I remember Detroit's 1984 maulers came into the Kingdome at 35-5 and left 35-8, swept by an otherwise nondescript Mariners squad. I trimmed shortstop Spike Owen's newspaper highlight photos from that series for my baseball scrapbook and assume it inspired my own player collection that continues today. Stuff it, Jack!

1977: Tim Raines (69.4 WAR, 7x All-Star, Silver Slugger, 1996/1998 World Series rings, HOF)

Tim Raines fed the enthusiasm for rookie cards with his own powder blue Donruss card, jockeying with Fernandomania for 1981 collecting supremacy. As an eight year-old, I knew a dedicated card, even for far away teams like les Expos, felt three times better than sharing space with two other "future stars."

A late-career (and still productive) Raines won two rings with the dominant late-1990s Yankees. Did those titles cement his case for Cooperstown voters? I think they did. Bobby (Roberto) Ramos, 0.1 WAR, and Bob (Bobby) Pate, -0.1 WAR, made the rest of their card a wash.

1978: Dave Stieb (56.4 WAR, 7x All-Star)

This longtime Toronto ace must be wondering if a better early-career personality would've also meant a spot in Cooperstown, given favorable comparisons to guys like Jack Morris. His excellence came with irritability, something the writers who vote for your HOF plaque tend to notice.

Dave's autograph evolved a bit over the years, even though it remains tough to remember I before E when spelling his name. Do you like long-form video journalism? S-T-I-E-B garnered his own series on Secret Base, the pinnacle of modern analytical baseball success.

1979: Greg Gagne (26.3 WAR, 1987/1991 World Series rings)

Gagne spent ten seasons in Minnesota as their everyday shortstop and backed up Jack Morris for 1991's series win over Atlanta. Several of those World Series moments pop up in his highlight reel.

Gagne delivered consistency at a position known for its variance and finished his career in the top 100 players all-time for defensive WAR. Hard to ask for more than that.

For all Greg's fielding prowess and the many cards that show him turning a double play, I prefer these two bat-in-hand shots.

1980: (tie) Mike Fuentes (0.1 WAR), Roy Johnson (-0.5 WAR)

1980's fifth round offered our slimmest pickings since the Rule 4 draft started in 1965. Mike and Roy rank highest in WAR for players with MLB time, which damns with faint praise. The former earned his tenth of a WAR in just nine career games (six in 1983, three in 1984), while the latter suited up in 36 (17 in 1982, 16 in 1948, three in 1985).

With so few games to choose from, did these fifth-round teammates ever play together in Montreal? Let's focus on those three 1984 appearances for Fuentes and see if he crossed paths with Johnson.

• Sept 14: Mike pinch hits a single (off Steve Carlton!) in the 5th inning. Roy Johnson pinch hits a single in the 8th inning.
• Sept 20: Mike starts in LF and is lifted for pinch-hitter Wallace Johnson in the 9th. Two batters later, Roy Johnson pinch hits and flies out to end the game.
• Sept 21: Roy Johnson pinch hits in the 7th, but Mike Ramsey takes over on defense. Mike Fuentes pinch hits in the 9th.

In other words, yes, Roy's in the box score for all three of Mike's 1984 appearances. Like ships in the night, they never quite fit in the active lineup together, given their pinch hitting usage.

Mike's story went quiet until 1995, reemerging for the Marlins when they prepared replacement lineups for striking players. Florida paper The Galveston Daily News highlighted his college power in its look at each National League team's "Imposter Roster," a preseason profile that anticipated scabs taking the field for opening day.

The Strike meant even more to The Streak. Baltimore felt so connected to Ripken's feat that replacement Orioles never materialized, even with forfeits on the horizon.

The strike's human story grew fraught as several union players, who'd endured seven months of lost pay, broke with their union to play alongside replacement players.

As days ticked by, pressure from all sides pushed baseball players and owners to resolve things in front of a name who later joined the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor.

"I like to see judges of that...caliber."

Justice meets Judge

"By 'caliber,' I refer to both the size of their guns and the high quality of their characters... Two meanings... 'caliber'... it's a homonym..."

I'll pick up the post-1980 fifth round in future posts. For now, enjoy how even guys with three career appearances can connect to something meaningful for the whole pastime.

1920 Universal Toy & Novelty Co. Hollywood Actors #5, Charlie Chaplin (and June Caprice)

The story so far

My past posts about the Universal Toy & Novelty Company covered their ten-card strips of boxers and American presidents.

• 1919-21 Universal Toy & Novelty Co. boxing
  
• 1921 Universal Toy & Novelty Co. American presidents
  

Those strips lay groundwork for more Universal Toy subjects, including today's 20-card set of movie actors. Its #5 features Charlie Chaplin looking a good deal cleaner than his signature Tramp character.

Its checklist includes Hollywood legends like Fairbanks and Pickford, who were married to each other from 1920-36.

1. Douglas Fairbanks
2. Theda Bara
3. Fatty Arbuckle
4. Pearl White
5. Charles Chaplin
6. June Caprice
7. George Walsh
8. Olive Thomas
9. William S. Hart
10. Mary Pickford
11. Elaine Hammerstein
12. Bryant Washburn
13. Mabel Normand
14. Charles Ray
15. Dorothy Dalton
16. Owen Moore
17. Mae Murray
18. William Farnum
19. Norma Talmadge
20. Wallace Reid

As with Universal's boxers and presidents, some actor strips include UNIVERSAL "MOVIE MATCHING CARDS" SERIES 2 text across Chaplin, #6 June Caprice, and #7 George Walsh.

A text variation shifts its header text to the left, starting UNIVERSAL on #4 Pearl White and placing "MOVIE over Chaplin. These text variations prove somewhat harder to find than cards without header text.

Note how SGC used "C(irca) 1919 W-UNC" on this flip, which implies the submitter and SGC each failed to nail down a year or manufacturer.

Why so little info? Jefferson Burdick's 1960 edition of the American Card Catalog articulated challenges identifying this category of low-cost, high-volume sets.

1934-36 National Chicle "Diamond Stars Gum" Baseball #5, Tom Bridges

This stylish card of Detroit righty Tom Bridges overlays a realistic, posed follow-through on top of an Art Deco outfield and horizon. It shows off the set's typical intense color (more pictures here), with vibrant red and green fighting for your visual attention. It's believed prewar sets show such colorful skies because the coal soot of urban industry transformed late afternoon sun into red, orange, and purplish clouds.

Tiger Stadium (aka Briggs Stadium in those days) might not allow for this exact shot, but the artist appears to have placed actual Detroit skyline highlights behind Tom. Boxes show the relative position of Tommy in black and two prominent "New Center" buildings in grey, as they were in the 1930s. I'm told our leftmost building's the Fisher Building, home to live performance at the Fisher Theater. Its steeple is broadcast tower for WJR. Our rightmost building appears in many skyline photos, but can't find a name so far.

Bridges' long, slender fingers enabled him to throw a highly effective curve. Toss in a decent fastball, adequate control, and you get plenty of strikeouts. Tom broke the Tigers team record for Ks in 1941, which stood until Hal Newhouser came along. This #5 Diamond Star Gum card discusses how pitchers grip the ball, appropriate for his talents.

"Pitching Tips - How to Grip the Ball. Most major league pitchers grip the ball with the fingers across the seams, to obtain a firm purchase. Tom Bridges of the Detroit Tigers, one of the most effective pitchers in the game, holds the ball thus. Yet a few well-known moundsmen hold the ball with the fingers between the seams. This is a matter of choice. But always be sure to hold the ball the same way, both for your curve and fast ball. Do not curl your thumb back when about to throw your curve, a familiar habit among schoolboy pitchers. Smart batters notice such habits. Hold the ball with medium firmness, keeping the fingers and wrist flexible."

I love this phrase: "Tom Bridges...holds the ball thus." That's old school sportswriting. Boston American columnist Austen Lake supplied the set's text and received a byline on each card. Also note those 1933 stats after his bio, because they're our key clue to tracking yearly variations.

National Chicle printed #5 Tom Bridges all three years of their 1934-36 run, revising his short bio paragraph with the previous year's stats. This 1935 series reflects Tom's 1934 win/loss record and World Series success. The copyright date remained the same across all of Tom's cards, even as the stats changed.

1936's printing switched to blue ink and include Tom's 1935 win/loss record. Detroit reached the World Series again in 1935 and this time Tom won twice.

VALUE: I was lucky to receive this card gratis from a collecting friend. Diamond Star Gum "commons" run about $10 on eBay, but players like Bridges, a key part of the first Tigers championship in 1935, could cost more if a team collector's on the hunt.

FAKES / REPRINTS: Many reprints and counterfeits exist for the full set and individual stars of this Diamond Stars set, so familiarize yourself with prewar's thicker card stock and other aspects of similar sets to avoid buying a reprint as the real thing. Bright white borders and thin paper are the easiest way to know for sure you have a postwar reprint.

2016 National Show Report, Aug 4 - 7, Atlantic City

This is my wrap-up for the 2016 National and what I brought back with me. It's not all in the binders yet, but some things take time.

Girlfriend: "That's kind of a lot of cards."

This National exceeded my somewhat low expectations for Atlantic City as a venue, providing both lots of vintage material to review and quite a few friends from OldBaseball.com to hang out with. Back in 2008, mired in a poor economy, AC's last National felt hollow. Suffering from reduced walk-up visitors and limited live events, its cathedral-like convention center often felt more like a dealer-to-dealer social club. This time, a wider spread of fans and sellers made the trip from all points of the map and kicked up the experience several notches. It's not quite as good as Chicago, which remains the easiest show for most of the hobby to reach, but enough about logistics, let's play ball.

"Get ready to walk." - Bill Freehan

Before the show, I wrote about my 5 goals for Atlantic City. Other than log over 12,000 steps per day, how'd I do?

1. Cut my 1954 Red Heart list in half

Take Billy Pierce off my list

So-so on this, hitting my list just three times. Red Hearts were findable on the floor, but rarely in low-grade. Red Heart's one of those sets whose in-hand attractiveness seems to keep show pricing higher than eBay. Still need eight for this one.

2. Finish upgrading my 1958 Topps set to VG

Thanks to a mix of friends and table finds, I knocked this set to one, #320 Whitey Ford, and plucked a VGEX off eBay for $10 soon after. Call this goal "achieved."

3. Fill out my 1930s non-sports sets

Limited luck finding anything for low grade prices ($2-3) except Indian Gum and a couple of Sky Birds, so hoping for better next year. You can always find non-sport dealers at the National, but I didn't locate any significant deals this time around.

4. 1963 Post Canadian pickups

Fortunately, a couple of trading friends passed along bilingual singles, because the show was a goose egg otherwise for affordable French singles. Zut alors.

5. Unexpected type set discovery: 1934 Sport Kings Varsity Football Game

Baseball comprises 99% of my type set, but I make some vintage exceptions and this is one I've been tracking for some time.

When you see Varsity Football cards in the case, this is the side they show. All the pennants make for an interesting frame and it says SPORT KINGS in big, friendly letters. You can forgive a dealer for not caring about showing the text-heavy "game piece" side, so I asked directly.

Me: "Can you check the number for this Varsity football card? I need a specific number."

Dealer: "Oh, there's a number?" (He picks up card, looks at the back, and holds it up without flipping it over.) "What number do you want it to be?"

Me: "I want it to be #5."

Dealer: "OK." (Long pause) "Well, it is #5. How did you do that?"

Me: "If I could do that every time, I would!"

So why was I excited about Sport Kings Varsity Football? Unlike the ample online love for Goudey's seminal 1933 baseball set, this piece of their history left few traces. Back in 1934, collectors picked up this flipping game from candy counters, but not from inside packs. It used the same kind of customer loyalty promo still evident at this year's National, where card makers offered walk-up, in-person bonuses to those who bought their packs on-site. Here's the guide Goudey included in their Sport Kings Gum deliveries.

In other words, 1930s shop owners gave Sport Kings customers these Varsity game cards and a game board to flip them on. (More details in my Varsity Football set post.) No known Football Score Charts survive today, so we don't know quite what they looked like, other than "probably something like a football field."

Other stuff!

In general, I spend Nationals shopping at tables of ungraded vintage. After two days walking the floor, I located 50 such dealers, which meant plenty to flip through and buy. About 300 new cards came home with me and I (finally) started work on the 1960, 1961, and 1963 Fleer sets, three significant parts of the hobby's competitive landscape. While 1960-61 stuck to retired players, their 1963 set challenged Topps directly by printing active Major Leaguers, including the not-in-Topps defending NL MVP.

1963 Fleer #43, Maury Wills

Many consider this Maury's Rookie Card, since Topps infamously didn't sign him to a $5 card contract in 1959. Their 1963 release saw Topps take Fleer to court, get an injunction on any remaining plans to publish cards of active players, and affirm an exclusive MLB license that persisted until 1981 and once again exists today.

Oh yeah, Topps hosted a custom card booth! Here's me goofing with OldBaseball.com friends Ken and Sal.

If you made the National, how'd it go? If you've never been, 2017-19 are Chicago, Cleveland, and Chicago, respectively...

1914 T222 Fatima Baseball Players #5, Ed Reulbach, Jimmy Archer, Larry McLean, Oscar Vitt

2015 vintage card forums continue to bustle with gossip and check-ins, as collectors take the temperature of what their market likes on a regular. Buyers (and thus, sellers) appreciate certain teams or players today more than our forebears and there's a continual hunt for discoveries in dusty estates or cigar boxes. Part of advanced collecting is feeling poised on the edge of new cardboard territory, even when "new" means "compared to Abner Doubleday."

I'm ten-plus years into the type collection, but discovered a new-to-me, century-old, Turkish cigarette entry just this week: T222 Fatima Baseball Players, a follow-up to their unnumbered T200 Team Cards. As seen in this excellent OldCardboard.com gallery, four of its players feature a "5" below their name and team, which is good enough to pique my curiosity.

The first #5, Ed Reulbach, would be a special find as one baseball's hardest-to-hit pitchers. He threw one of its finest curves and is the only man to pitch a doubleheader shutout (Sept 26, 1908); much more at his SABR bio.

How difficult is it to capture catcher Jimmy Archer in a single sentence? This Irish-born member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame could gun down base-stealers while crouched thanks to an industrial soap vat accident that bestowed upon him the proportional powers of a spider shortened and quickened his throwing arm. That's about three different novels in one guy.

While I don't own any of the #5s yet, The Trader Speaks' set gallery showed me what all four guys look like. How do they look? They look warm.

Phew, the sweating! Those dark woolens on Larry McLean speak to season after season of humid afternoon games, dreaming of 21st-century light-knit uniforms and cool evening start times.

(If Larry looks like a tall drink of water in that photo, it's because he stood 6'5", still the tallest catcher in MLB history.)

Like Billy Martin, Ossie Vitt's antagonistic managing style eclipsed his skills with the bat and glove. The public kerfuffle over his handling of Cleveland's Crybabies made the 1940 season especially juicy for fans of tight playoff races.

Despite its claimed "Collection of 100 photographs," collectors agree only 52 baseball players exist. Eight other athletes and cinema stars round out the T222 set at 60 total and there's a full checklist at Sports Collectors Daily.

Not a #5, but T222 Vic Saier is the most gleeful prewar card you'll see today. Omg weeeeeeeeeee!

Value: HOFers Walter Johnson and Grover Cleveland Alexander fetch 4-digit prices, but non-star singles can run under $100. (I hope to find the #5s for below $50.)

Fakes / reprints: Fatima cards are old enough and interesting enough to be a high risk for reprinting. How to detect the bad ones? Fatima cards are real photos, so won't show any dot-printing pattern under magnification. Also, as with most prewar shopping, know your dealer when buying type cards.

1973 Topps "1953 Baseball Stars" (aka 1953 Reprints) #5, Hal Newhouser

Let's start today's entry by saying farewell to Sy Berger (1923-2014), whose guiding hand in what "baseball cards" mean today reached well beyond the Topps Chewing Gum (T.C.G.) offices. Keith Olbermann did a nice job saluting our modern hobby's most influential creator, in matching bubble gum pink blazer.

My own post dives into similar "retro" ground via a long-awaited show find, the #5 type card from a Topps test printing created on the 20th anniversary of their own elegant, hand-painted 1953 set. Sy Berger might've created the 1952 cards on his dining table, but the follow-ups showed real artistry.

I'd been hunting this #5, a clean-cut Hal Newhouser, for more than a decade, so imagine my surprise seeing him behind an innocuous glass case on a Massachusetts show table. No protective lucite slab? No trumpet calls or wings of angels? Never mind the honorifics, I nabbed it straightaway. (Catalogs speculate that Topps printed just 300 of each card, hence the challenge in finding them today.)

1973 Topps "1953 Baseball Stars" #5, Hal Newhouser

Hobby catalogs sometimes call this a "1953 reprint," but even a cursory inspection shows it's repurposing (and improving) 1953's original painting, with no other reference to the earlier design. Newhouser's newer card restores significant details, like the ads on the outfield fence and additional depth in his uniform.

1953 Topps #228, Hal Newhouser

No 1950s or 1970s Topps base set used the full-text back style seen below, which more closely resembles cards from an earlier era.

1973 Topps "1953 Baseball Stars" #5 (back)

The set's 8 players include both HOFers and lesser-known players, without an obvious theme that connects them all.

1. Satchel Paige
2. Jackie Robinson
3. Carl Furillo (picture is Bill Antonello) -- Carl didn't appear in 1953 Topps
4. Al Rosen (picture is Jim Fridley)
5. Hal Newhouser
6. Clyde McCollough (picture is Vic Janowicz) -- Clyde didn't appear in 1953 Topps
7. Peanuts Lowrey
8. Johnny Mize

Did this set honor a group of actual players for a Topps event? I doubt it, given those three mislabeled names. These eight cards feel more whimsical or ad hoc -- and sources even differ whether they printed it in 1972 or 1973. (Find that discussion at Net54.)

Perhaps this came together because 1953's original artist (Gary Dvorak) played a more meaningful role than specific players in card selection. I can believe Topps creative man Woody Gelman wanted to highlight Gary's work somehow or printed the set for employees, a la 1970 Topps Teamates, and their editor made a mistake matching names to portraits.

Here's an uncut sheet, auctioned by REA in Spring 2019.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jason Schwartz, who compared these to 1934-36 Diamond Stars, which make a great match. To my eye, there's now a chance you're looking at something created to honor someone who served in both companies, first at 1930s National Chicle and later for Topps.

Value: I bought this EX-MT Newhouser for $35 at a 2014 show table, a decent price in my opinion. Bigger names like Robinson and Paige naturally command bigger prices and the few cards I've seen were all in nicer grades.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any reprints of these "reprints" and they're likely too obscure to profitably fake. Finding a type card won't be cheap, but keep your eye on eBay for one of the lesser-known singles to get at least a decent deal.