1948 Sommer and Kaufmann San Francisco Seals Baseball #5, Alfred Lein

Thanks to the wizardry of eBay, I finally know what this obscure Pacific Coast League team set's #5 looks like. These scans come from the first time one turned up in years of personal searching, foreshadowing a well-above-guide closing price (to be named below). I mean, who wouldn't pay top dollar for that posed catch in a left-field bullpen?

Al Lein bounced around the low minors as a Yankee farmhand during the late 30s before settling in with the San Francisco Seals for a dozen years. He proved a durable arm and averaged almost 40 games pitched during his decade with the team, serving as both starter and spot reliever (career stats at B-R.com).

The Bay Area's Sommer and Kaufmann chain, sellers of boys and mens clothing, sponsored this set of San Francisco Seals in the same mold as "competing" team sets from nearby Oakland businesses. (Links go to previous #5 profiles.)

• 1946 Remar Bread Oakland Oaks - Hersh Martin
• 1947 Remar Bread Oakland Oaks - Mickey Burnett
• 1947 Smith's Clothing Oakland Oaks - Ray Hamrick
• 1948 Smith's Clothing Oakland Oaks - Lloyd Christopher

With so few Sommer and Kaufmann singles in today's market, I assume the store printed small quantities compared to Smith's and Remar. Count yourself lucky if you've already snagged one as a type card!

Value: This low-grade #5 closed at $65 in its eBay auction, well above the NM guide price. Enough vintage collectors go after team and PCL issues today to make this a high-demand, volatile set.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace, but they might exist, given overall rarity.

1967-1968 Coca-Cola Atlanta Braves Baseball Caps #B5, Tony Cloninger

Coca-Cola covered a bunch of teams with their 1967-68 baseball bottles, each featuring a set of about 15 floating heads sealed beneath plastic cap liners. There's another series of All-Stars from the same period and several players show up in both sets. (Rusty Staub is All-Star #5.)

The 1967-68 cap sets were one of the first MLB Players Association-licensed products available nation-wide. Coke blacked out hats to save team license fees, knowing that player images help move food and perishable products. (By comparison, team logos sell better for caps, shirts, and clothing.)

On the 3rd of July, 1966, Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger hit a pair of grand slams off San Francisco pitching and remains the only pitcher to do so in MLB history.

Tony hit his first-inning slam off Bob Priddy, already pitching in relief of starter Joe Gibbon.

Ray Sadecki mopped up the last six innings of San Francisco's 17-3 loss and gave up Tony's second blast in the 4th.

Cloninger finished with 3 hits and 9 RBI, a monster game for anyone, pitcher or slugging outfielder. (Hank Aaron hit "just" a solo shot and probably bought the post-game beers.) Might a guy hit three grand slams one day? If so, it probably won't be a pitcher, making Tony's place in history pretty secure.

Read more about Tony's post-playing career and life in retirement at this retrospective article from DenverNCNews.com.

UPDATE: Some crowns include Tony's position (P) on the right edge. This might distinguish those produced in 1967 and 1968, but I haven't seen enough to know for sure.

Value: Low-grade Coke caps go for $1 or less. HOFers or commons without edge wear and rust cost a little more. (eBay sellers often ask $10 or more, several times what they sell for at shows.)

Fakes / reprints: It'd be hard to fake a Coke cap profitably and I haven't seen any in the marketplace.

1980 TCMA Arkansas Travelers Baseball #5, Sonny Ruberto

Sonny in name and sunny in disposition, Mr. Ruberto made a career of 60s and 70s minor league baseball, primarily in the Cardinals and Reds organizations. True to the "Travelers" name, he suited up for more than a dozen North American teams, bussing all the way from Winnipeg to Sarasota in 1964 alone.

Uniform detail that interests only me: the big A has two serifs at the bottom, but none on top. Unusual typographical choice.

As with the 1978 TCMA Arkansas set, it looks like they caught Sonny at night, or at least with such a bright flash that he's just a silhouette. Card design's otherwise identical to other 1980 TCMA issues, red border with white text.

Ruberto led Arkansas to the Texas League's best record in 1980, beating out seven other teams.

• Arkansas Travelers, 81-55
• Amarillo Gold Sox, 77-59
• Tulsa Drillers, 75-61 (1980 TCMA #5, Mike Roberts)
• San Antonio Dodgers, 74-62
• Jackson Mets, 74-62
• Midland Cubs, 64-72
• El Paso Diablos, 50-86
• Shreveport Captains, 49-87 (32 games back! Ouch.)

That squad's best-known player (now) was another manager, Jim Riggleman, who appeared as the #5 in their 1979 TCMA Arkansas team set.

Value: Sonny cost $5, more than my usual TCMA budget, but proved hard to find, so I made an exception. Most singles from this era cost a dollar or two and team sets run $10-20, depending on player popularity.

Fakes / reprints: TCMA reprinted several 1980 team sets later in the decade, as collector interest in minor league rookies escalated. Those cards used black ink on the back. The blue ink means this card is an original.

1934 World Wide Gum Baseball #79, Larry French

This card made me smile for two reasons.

First, it's a nice vintage design, down to the Lou Gehrig quote and the backset baseball diamond.

Second, it's Larry French...in French. World Wide Gum, Co. licensed this 1934 Goudey design for Canadian distribution, which also meant translating card backs. (The #5 is Brooklyn's Babe Herman.)

French in French! I'm easy to please. Any amusing cards you've seen lately?

1973 TCMA Cedar Rapids Astros Baseball #5, Bob Dean

20 year-old Canadian righty Robert S. Dean is one of the youngest guys profiled on this blog, but he was already a third-year veteran by 1973, after spending 1971-72 in the Appalachian rookie league (career stats at B-R.com). He's also got a look that says, "wait, is that a camera?"

This black-and-white design echoes TCMA's first set, which featured the 1972 Cedar Rapids Cardinals. All of Bob Dean's cards include the autograph, so they must've used a signed photo as its source.

TCMA started their minor league work with annual Cedar Rapids sets from 1972 to 1974. They expanded in 1975 to four Iowa cities (Cedar Rapids, Clinton, Dubuque, Quad Cities) and one in Louisiana (Lafayette). Odd that I lived in Iowa and attended games with my parents during that era, but never ended up with cards myself. Wait long enough and life comes full-circle.

Can't miss that classic Astrodome logo, complete with orbiting satellites. Single-A affiliate Cedar Rapids eventually "launched" six of its players to the bigs; most successful of those is a toss-up between Mike Stanton and Luis Sanchez.

Value: Not sure how many sets reached today's market, but it took awhile to track down this type card, so I assume the answer's "not many." Some sellers price TCMA singles or team sets as rare treasures, asking $10 or $20 per card for guys who never reached the majors. Wait until you see them for $5 or less. As of writing, eBay offers a team set for $20.

Fakes / reprints: Don't know of any 1973 reprints, but TCMA occasionally did so for 1980s minor league sets.

1971 Topps Baseball Coins #5, Felix Millan

Various baseball makers tried out metal and plastic baseball coins during the 60s and 70s, such as Topps' debut issue in 1964 (#5 Dick Groat). Similar efforts include Coca-Cola's cap liners and the Salada/Shirriff plastic coins.

Topps punched these coins from a metal sheet and then rounded the edges to keep kids from cutting themselves. My scanner got hung up on Millan's knurled lip, so here's a clearer scan of one of his more famous teammates.

Topps packaged these coins in wax packs of their "regular" 2nd series and even printed a separate checklist as 1971 Topps #161, the first time they'd made such an overlap.

Find just about everything there is to know about 1971's coin color-coding and other set peccadilloes at The Topps Archives' coin posts. (Checklist scan borrowed from its feature article, Post Pattern.)

As the tag line says, Topps minted a set of 153 coins, which itself divided into three sheets of 51 players (3 rows of 17); uncut proofs pop up occasionally in auctions.

Value: Single coins are common; Felix cost 25 cents at a show several years ago.

Fakes / reprints: It'd be quite a feat to fake one of these coins and I haven't seen any in the marketplace.

Off-Season Giveaway: New York Yankees

Let's not beat around a bush with these giveaways. It's time to send someone several dozen Yankee cards.

As with the first giveaway, these cards are from all over the place, and cover quite a range of players. Even guys with famous elbows.

Some of the Donnie Baseball cards include mustaches, but others do not.

There are also several Jeter cards, including this 2009 OPC Black Border.

UPDATE: Congrats to winner AstrosFreakCam, who picks up this lot of 70 Bronx Bombers.

MY FAVORITE GAME: By mid-July of 1979, both Seattle and New York sat several games back in their division standings, though at least the (defending champion) Yankees were above .500.

Dad and I went to a Mariners home game on July 11, expecting to see Tommy John pitch and Reggie Jackson swing. We did not expect for Seattle to knock New York pitchers around for 9 runs in the first inning, the final two scoring on an upper-deck homer by Ruppert Jones, which itself followed a two-run triple by Mario Mendoza.

Mariner starter Floyd Bannister spun a complete game 3-hitter, limiting the Yankees to a single run: a homer by future NYY/SEA manager Lou Piniella. Final score, 16-1. (In all the years since, I've never attended such a lopsided game.)

Let me know what NYY-connected games you've enjoyed, from either side of the ledger.

1980 Mitock LA Dodgers Baseball Postcards #5, Jay Johnstone

This smilin' Jay Johnstone postcard, from one of several team sets printed up by LA area photographers Mitock and Son, figures into one of my formative childhood baseball beliefs and one shared with many others: TEAMS DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER. Franchises should seek out rivals to challenge, fight, and beat. Every pitch is a potential bench-clearing incident. Fans have long memories for victories, mishaps, and offenses. That's part of why this postcard looks...wrong.

Between 1970 and 1980, Johnstone played for several teams: California, Chicago, Oakland, Philly, New York, San Diego, and Los Angeles. It's hard to imagine a guy with that resume feeling "anchored" to one area, but my young mind only cared about one team in 1978: the Dodgers, NL pennant-winners over Philadelphia for the second straight year.

LA's World Series opponent, the Yankees, included one Jay Johnstone, a man who played only 59 games for the Bombers over parts of two seasons, but did enough to snag a World Series ring that year, over the Dodgers. Jay appeared twice as a defensive replacement without batting, so figured only slightly in the result, but I remembered: JAY JOHNSTONE WAS A YANKEE.

But if Jay was a Yankee, wasn't he also a Dodger? The crazy part is that Jay won another title in 1981, as a Dodger, over the Yankees. He even hit a crucial pinch-hit homer off Ron Davis in game 4, a win that squared the series at 2-2! So why am I stuck on him as a "hated" Yankee? Those six year-old feelings are hard to shake. These days, I have to remember that rivalries are more about nostalgia than records of what really happened on the field.

According to scattered Internet sources, the KVB12953 prefix (at bottom middle of the card's back) covers Mitock's 1980 postcard set and these known players.

• KVB12953-1:
• KVB12953-2: Jerry Reuss
• KVB12953-3: Dave Goltz
• KVB12953-4: Rudy Law
• KVB12953-5: Jay Johnstone
• KVB12953-6: Rick Sutcliffe
• KVB12953-7: Don Stanhouse
• KVB12953-8:
• KVB12953-9:
• KVB12953-10:

Let me know if you have others and we'll update the checklist.

Value: Jay cost $1 at a recent card show. (I've seen autographed versions online for $5.)

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any Mitock postcards I'd call a "reprint," though the company might've printed more of each player as long as they stayed with the team.

Winner of St. Louis Cardinals Giveaway

Thanks to fellow bloggers Ryan G (Cardboard Zoo) and Matt (Tenets of Wilson) for adding their stories to my St. Louis Cardinals giveaway. They made it easy to pick a winner; I gave Ryan heads, Matt tails, and went to Random.org's coin flipper.

Spanish 5 Pesetas piece; love the on-coin soccer ball

Congrats, Matt! Here are just two of the cards headed your way.

2007 Fleer Ultra Swing Kings, Albert Pujols

2009 OPC black border #579, David Freese

Look for another giveaway later this week!

David Segui Wantlist Hits from Mad Guru

Big thanks to Rain of Error's Mad Guru for a pair of hits to my David Segui wantlist. I've been at this player collection a while, so getting two new ones at once is much appreciated.

First up, 1997 Fleer Circa Rave. Headline-sized text, on-card pull quotes, and bar charts instead of stat grids? They're the New York Post of baseball cards.

Keeping that card company was 1995 Donruss Top of the Order, one of several 90s attempts at a baseball-themed collectible card game (CCG).

This game set requires at least one starter box, which contains rules, and as many booster packs of extra players as you care to purchase. In most CCGs, people who spend more tend to amass better and more powerful cards. It's a real design challenge to keep all player levels interested. (See a ripped booster at A Pack To Be Named Later.)

Anyone tried playing Top of the Order? If so, was it fun?

Thanks for the hits, Guru! I've updated my David Segui wantlist to reflect the arrivals.

FREE STUFF: Don't forget you have until the end of Friday, Nov 11, to enter my St. Louis Cardinals giveaway.