#3 Duke Sims The Cleveland Indians...My Blind Spot

Maybe it's an Ohio thing but I never got into any sports team coming out of the Buckeye State except for the pre Post Modell Cleveland Browns. That isn't to say i hate teams from Cleveland or Cincinnati. I found myself rooting for the Indians in '95, '97 and '07 after the Yankees were out of the post season. It didn't do them much good but then again, that city always seemed to need something more than just talented players to win.

Of course this lengthy intro has absolutely nothing to do with the card picture excepting for the fact that that I never heard of the player pictured and this card made no impact on me as a kid.

Duke Sims is a great name for a baseball catcher and judging from his blurb on the back and his stats, he was quite the fielder but failed to make an impact as a hitter in the Majors. Thanks to the trusty Baseball-Reference website (where I get all of my stats from), he never hit for average in the majors but did end up hitting for power for Cleveland in '69 and '70.

Sims also looked to have had a Dunkin Donut sponsored Major League career enjoying many cups of coffee with the Dodgers, Tigers, Yankees and finally with the Rangers.

The card was pretty standard for the '67 set. The picture was taken at the Indians spring training facility on as clear as day as anyone has any right to live through.

The name and position, printed in black on the front is slightly obscured by the trees in the photo. Topps will fix this issue with later cards.

You will also see that all of the teams will be themed with the same color lettering. The Mets had a striking purple while the Indians here have powder blue lettering. It isn't the best looking card in the set but perhaps the designers at Topps back in the 60's didn't think much about Ohio either. They were based in the Big Apple.