1970 Baltimore Pictures of Champions Baseball #5, Brooks Robinson

Baltimore won 100 games every year from 1969-1971, one of only four franchises to accomplish the feat, and reached the World Series each year, winning it all in 1970. That run ranks among the best-ever in baseball and 1971's squad is famous for fielding 4 different 20-game winners (Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson). Brooks Robinson anchored third base throughout and won the series MVP in 1970.

This 16-player set's numbered by uniform, so Brooks gets #5. For a small, orange-and-black rectangle, this card features a lot of uniform detail.

1. That's the "Cartoon Bird" hat used from 1966 to 1989 (with black hat and orange bill)
2. Baltimore used black half-sleeve undershirts for during the late 1960s and early 1970s
3. Brooks added a T-shirt layer under his uniform; probably a chilly night
4. His left shoulder shows MLB's 100th Anniversary patch, calling back to 1869 as pro ball's (debatable) starting point

This patch means the photo came from 1969 or perhaps 1970 spring training, since teams often reused a prior year's uniform during their spring games. (Given the huge light standard looming over Brooks, I think it's a 1969 home game in Baltimore.)

A local promotor distributed this set in the Baltimore area, though it's not clear exactly how it got into the hands of collectors. I've seen dealers with small bunches of them at shows and a full set once or twice, so perhaps you could buy either singles or sets. Here's the checklist.

• 4: Earl Weaver
• 5: Brooks Robinson
• 7: Mark Belanger
• 8: Andy Etchebarren
• 9: Don Buford
• 10: Ellie Hendricks
• 12: Dave May
• 15: Dave Johnson
• 16: Dave McNally
• 20: Frank Robinson
• 22: Jim Palmer
• 24: Pete Richert
• 29: Dick Hall
• 35: Mike Cuellar
• 39: Eddie Watt
• 40: Dave Leonhard

Value: This #5 cost me $25. Brooks, Jim Palmer, and Frank Robinson are the only players who run that much--most cost a few dollars.

Fakes / reprints: It'd be easy to fake these with modern printers, so be wary of buying them from unknown dealers.

1972 Venezuela Baseball Stamps #5, Jim Fregosi

1972 is one of those years Topps took a ton of card photos on spring training practice fields, leading to several marginal "action" poses with chain-link fence backgrounds. This not-really-swinging look captures both the malaise of Florida afternoons and Jim Fregosi's "my knee hurts again" ennui.

Sticker front (blank back)

If found this post following the bread crumbs of my other Venezuelan posts, you probably know their native pro ball (aka, Liga Venezolana de Béisbol Profesional) occupies the MLB's winter months, so this stamp set likely hit Caribbean stores and ballparks in late fall. Local card sets usually came in small packs of 4 or 6, which I assume was also the case here.

1972 stamps feature a plain, gumless back, which most collectors mounted in albums. Unfortunately, that habit makes card damage a common occurrence and few survived the 1970s at all, let alone in decent shape.

While most of the set's pictures came directly from 1972 Topps cards, Venezuelan editors cropped Jim's from his high-series "traded" card.

Thanks to a Jan 6, 2011 blog post from Who Made the Grade, I learned that Fregosi appeared on three Topps cards that year: #115 (as an Angel), #346 Boyhood Photos (as a Met), and #755. NY traded for Jim in December 1971, so the first series must've already been closed for printing by then, and only caught up in the next go-round.

Who Made the Grade also made the point that Nolan Ryan--the focus of the swap--deserved a traded card more than Fregosi. Failing knees put Jim's prime behind him, though he still helped teams as a platoon player and unofficial coach. (I feature his unusual final days as a fielder in the 1966 OPC #5 profile.)

If you enjoy that early 1970s "look" on these cards, check out the blog 1973 Topps Photography, which is running through the whole set.

UPDATE: Bad news for me! Turns out that rounded font for JIM FREGOSI means this stamp's a counterfeit printed in 2009 and sold into the modern hobby on eBay. See this Collectors Universe forum for more details on how that happened and cards to avoid. This Brooks example and (its blockier font) should be legit. Some fakes made it into PSA slabs, reminding us that professionals get fooled.

Value: Found Mr. Fregosi on eBay for $12. HOFers like #184 Nolan Ryan cost triple digits--well above Topps equivalents--given the set's rarity.

Fakes / reprints: Collectors Universe confirmed that many counterfeits exist, even in professionally graded slabs. Look for rounded lettering with whiter borders and avoid too-good-to-be-true pricing. It took real expertise to ID and call out these fakes, given their low profile in the hobby.

1975 Shakey's Pizza West Coast Greats Baseball #5, Ernie Lombardi

Pizza might not be "American" as apple pie, but it's just as much a staple of our modern diet. Mozzarella even passed cheddar as the nation's most-consumed cheese, thanks to our love of every size and topping combination you can shred and sprinkle it on. Mmm, lunchtime.

Card front

This makes two mentions of Mr. Lombardi in one week, since Dave Frishberg also included him in the song "Van Lingle Mungo." Ernie looks a little dour here, but he hit well enough (126 lifetime OPS+) and long enough (1931-1947) for the Veterans Committee to posthumously enshrine him in 1986. Of course, Shakey's beat them by a full decade--take that, Vets!

Card back

I grew up a half-mile from that Bellevue (Washington) location and ate many a meal there, gorging on their lunch buffet of fast food slices and spiced steak fries. "Aurora" and "Lake City" mean neighborhoods in Seattle itself--Bellevue and West Seattle are separated from Seattle by bodies of water.

This card set includes 18 retired MLB players born somewhere on the West Coast and I assume people obtained cards during restaurant visits. Shakey's followed with similar sets in 1976-77, ceasing only after the Mariners came to town, as fan attention moved to players they could actually see on the field.

Value: Lombardi cost me a few dollars on eBay. Ted Williams is the set's biggest name and runs $10 or more.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace.

1954 Plankinton Meats Baseball #5, Bobby Thomson

Every now and then, baseball cards return to the floating head, that single design element that's equal parts "spotlight" and "creepy." Topps league leader cards use it off-and-on since their debut in the 1960s.

1962 Topps #55

Chicago Cubs team cards went bodiless for most of the 1970s.

1971 Topps #502, no room for a team name!

Magazines and newspapers no doubt used close-cropped head shots well before then, but today's #5--actually a folded booklet--predates anything I've seen on regular cards.

Wisconsin-based Plankinton Meats printed this 12-player series to honor the Braves' new home in Milwaukee and put real design work into the 11" x 17" finished product. Each poster shows a dozen highlight photos with text for "miscellaneous baseball tips." (Bobby's include "throwing from left field," pull hitting," and--my favorite--"fans are important.")

Bobby broke his ankle during spring training in 1954, so gave way to a rookie outfielder named Hank Aaron, who went on to play 122 games and hit his first 13 MLB homers. Aaron shifted to right in 1955, returning Thomson to left, a lineup Milwaukee kept through mid-1957.

Value: I recently came in second on eBay for a mid-grade booklet at $70, so that's a starting point. As of this writing, another eBay seller lists it for $220 Buy-It-Now, so let's call its price "variable."

Fakes / reprints: It'd be tough to fake something that large, but might happen for something so rare. (Warren Spahn and Eddie Mathews are probably the only guys valuable enough to try.)

Van Lingle Mungo in cards?

Back in the late 1960s, songwriter David Frishberg turned a former Dodger pitcher into his most successful single, spinning the chorus "Van Lingle Mungo" over verses built from baseball contemporaries like Johnny Mize, Augie Bergamo, and Stan Hack. (Full player list at Baseball Almanac.)

1934 Diamond Star #19, Van Lingle Mungo

Here's the song with superimposed player pictures.

Some guys mentioned served as "fill-ins" during WWII--including the aforementioned Bergamo--but even Augie picked up two TCMA retrospective cards in 1975 and 1983. Anyone seen a video or blog cover the song (i.e., its players) in actual cards?

For the record, these #5s profilees also appear in Frishberg's tune.

• 1951 Topps Blue Backs #5, Johnny Pesky
• 1960 Nu-Card Highlights #5, Johnny Vander Meer
• 1975 TCMA WWII Baseball in Guam #5, Johnny Vander Meer
• 1941 Goudey #5, George McQuinn
• 1977 TCMA Galasso #5, Roy Campanella
• 1953 Red Man Tobacco NL #5, Roy Campanella
• 1948 Topps Magic Photos #5, Lou Boudreau

1978 Bob Bartosz Baseball Postcards #5, Dizzy Dean

Some oddball sets fit a soft spot in my heart, thanks to their context or theme, and this small group of postcards feels just right. They're the product of long-time New Jersey resident Bob Bartosz, profiled as Camden County's official photographer, and still photographing for the fire department more than 50 years after he started in 1959.

Dizzy Dean's held forth as team ace during the Gashouse Gang's championship run in St. Louis and collected an amazing 102 victories from 1933-36. 150 career wins proved enough to get him into the Hall of Fame in 1953, but he'd have a harder time in 2011. While Kirby Puckett and Dean both played a dozen seasons, the former ran it out everyday and appeared in less than 125 games just once. Guys with short careers can't throw in empty years anymore, like Dizzy's three (!) with just 1 game each (career stats). 

Bartosz bound 24 of his photos into a postcard book, discretely numbered at lower-left on the back, and likely sold them by mail or in-person locally.

Last week, reader Ed Watts helped figure out answers to the Memphis Chicks matchbox trivia. Today's Dizzy Dean montage spurs another question--what year and stadium is Ol' Diz pitching in? I've seen an in-uniform Old Timer's Game photo (shown here) of him at Yankee Stadium in 1962, but that's well before my time. Can anyone confirm or deny that game as the sequence pictured on today's #5?

UPDATE: Ed chipped in again to say it's likely the Astrodome, given the arrangement of fencing seen behind Dizzy's wind-up. He even appears uniformed in a blog article called Old Timer Games at the Dome!

Value: This postcard cost $5 on eBay in 2008. Singles that don't picture HOFers might run less.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace.

1978 Big T/Tastee-Freez Baseball Discs #5, Greg Luzinski

Hey, it's another disc set! After yesterday's post about 1976 Sportstix stickers, round cards are on a roll. On a roll! Because they're round.

Big T produced this 26-player set on the heels of MSA's popular (but unnumbered) discs from 1977. The 3" diameter allows for a mug shot and basic bio, but used black-and-white photos, probably to save on printing costs. (Greg wears a logo-less hat because Big T only licensed the players themselves through the MLBPA union, not the team insignias via MLB Properties.)

Big T / Tastee-Freeze restaurants serve "classic" American fast food, similar to larger chains like Dairy Queen. Wonder what that light stain on the Luzinski disc (just below the #5) came from, a burger or the milkshake?

Original at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fragtoy/3184962231/

Love these old restaurant signs, though this one's for a Big T awaiting demolition. According to Wikipedia, you can still find Tastee-Freez shops scattered across 22 US states.

Value: Single discs cost a few dollars and HOFers--Palmer, Carew, Seaver, Brett, etc.--run somewhat more.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace.

1976 Sportstix Baseball #5, Ted Simmons

While unplanned, the 1970s disco decade became the high point for baseball cards that were actually shaped like a baseball. Several companies licensed the right to show player pictures--with black, logo-less hats--including the widely available MSA discs. They closely resemble Pepsi's glove discs, already featured in a 2010 set profile.

Isaly disc from PSA registry

1970s company Sportstix echoed this circular look in style, if not substance, with their own multi-sport sticker set. It included three sports (baseball, football, basketball), distributed five stickers at a time in small plastic packages. Each one listed all five included players, perhaps to avoid legal conflict with Topps, who claimed the exclusive right to sell cards in "packs."

Sportstix included 13 baseball stickers and used two numbering styles, depending on their playing status. Active players were #1 to #10 and include All-Star caliber guys from 1976. (Dave Kingman might be the best-known today.) The three retired players--Mays, Clemente, Mantle--go by letters A, B, and D. The older, retired players are all-timers, so prove both more memorable and more valuable in the market. Not sure what happened to letter C--perhaps they meant to add a fourth, but couldn't work out a contract?

Each sticker measures 3" across and comes in one of three styles: square-cornered, octagonal, and (like my #5) round.

Sticker front (blank back)

Few seem to remember Ted Simmons today, perhaps because he competed against elite backstops like Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Thurman Munson, and Gary Carter. I won't call it a shame that his legacy faded, since his excellent hitting overshadowed middling defensive play, but a guy must be great to count five HOFers in his Top 10 Similarity Scores, with Miguel Tejada a possible sixth.

Value: The 1976 active players cost a dollar or two. Mays, Clemente, and Mantle run $10 or more.

Fakes / reprints: It'd be hard to reprint these stickers for any kind of profit, so I doubt anyone tried.

1978 Memphis Chicks Baseball Match Box #5, Team Trivia

This is one of the more era-specific baseball giveaways I've seen, especially coming from a minor league team. Matchboxes usually mean cigarettes and cigarettes mean tobacco, which MiLB prohibited across the sport starting in 1993. These days, it's all programs and overpriced food!

Of the 5 questions on box #5, only 3 turn up easily via Google. The other two are somewhat esoteric--players living in Memphis in the 1970s--or need quality research, since Memphis rosters from the 1940s and 1950s prove tough to come by. (I suspect you could find answers locally back when these promos came out.) Questions below!

1. What famous father and son combination is pictured here? (Father pitched for Chicks--son presently pitches for a major league team) Appears to be Ross Grimsley, Sr. and Jr.
2. Name 3 former Chicks now living in Memphis who played prior to 1960 Answers in the update section below
3. What former Chicks pitcher holds the record for the best winning percentage in a single season? (This is an all-time Southern Association record) From the Association's own records page, I suspect it's Glenn Liebhardt)
4. What famous holiday and year did Russwood Park burn? Easter Sunday, 1960
5. What two major league teams played there that day? Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians

Isn't it odd that Memphis, a franchise devastated by their ballpark burning down, would promote themselves with matches?

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Ed Watts for researching the first two questions!

1. It appears the father/son combo is Ross Grimsley, Sr. and Jr. The father played for Memphis 1952-53 and 1979 Hostess #5 shows some of his son's pitching record.
2. Ed suggested four possibilities, given players who pitched for--and died in--Memphis : Sammy Meeks (1952-54, d.2007), John Antonelli (1935, 1948-49, d.1990), Ed McGhee (1950-52, 1955, d.1986), and the aforementioned Grimsley, Sr. It's an intriguing question, if hard to narrow down to 3.

Value: Found this for $1 at the 2010 National in Baltimore. Not sure if there's a larger market for matchbooks, beyond better-known sets like the 1935-6 Diamond Match Co.

Fakes / reprints: Doubt someone would ever fake a matchbox.

1977 Bob Parker Reds Baseball #5, Don Gullett

Happy Opening Day, Reds fans! Congrats on the exciting comeback and win over Milwaukee, who got a reminder how un-automatic the closer role really is, short of guys like Mariano Rivera (who picked up save #560 on the back side of a Yankee win).

Card front (blank back)

Gullett made the opening day start twice during his 7-year stint with Cincy. Notably, he drove in the team's only run against Juan Marichal in 1972 and then pitched into the 10th (!) in 1975, giving up a single run over 9 2/3 innings. I predict it'll be a long time before we see a starting day pitcher go into extra innings again, if ever.

Artist Bob Parker first drew these postcard-sized images in a regular newspaper feature highlighting Reds players, but later printed them as individual cards, sold by mail order for a few dollars each. I love the surrounding cartoons, a style that calls all the way back to 1938 Goudey.

1938 Goudey #277

Value: Sets cost a few dollars then and singles cost a few dollars today. Stars Pete Rose and Johnny Bench might run you more.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace.