# 15 HUGELY UNDERRATED EARL BATTEY

Earl Battey is a bit of a lost player in history. He was a solid hitter and incredible fielder. His career fielding percentage for a catcher was .990. He won three Gold Glove's, three times finished in the top ten in voting for the MVP award and was a 4 time All Star. I'm not sure if most collectors even acknowledge Battey as something other than just another common when they price his cards.

Battey started his career as an understudy to Sherm Lollar on the Chicago White Sox. Veeck traded him along with MANY other players for immediate veteran help to bolster the slugging power lacking which was lacking in the lineup of the '59 Pennant winning White Sox. The Sox remained a competitive team into the '60's but their investment didn't really pay off well because they remained a solid fielding and pitching unit and not much else.

This wasn't the case where Battey ended up. He played the last year of the Washington Senators and was a charter member of the Minnesota Twins in '61. Being traded was a blessing for Battey because the Senators didn't hesitate to make him a starter where he showed himself to be a solid hitter and fielder in 1960. His numbers improved along with the record of the team after they moved to Minnesota. His career peaked along with the team in 1965 which won the pennant and took the Dodgers to the full seven games before ultimately losing. Battey did play in all seven games but failed to achieve much at the plate. He again reflected the team which struggled mightedly at the plate against Koufax, Drysdale and Osteen. The '65 Series was the Twins last appearance in the fall classic for more than 20 years.

Battey turned 31 in 1966 and that started his rapid descent due to injuries. He made the All Star team that year but he played 20 few games than in '65 and his numbers at the plate began to drop. 1967 marked the end of his career. He saw limited action and that was all he would see in any level of professional baseball again.


Battey went on to earn a college degree and devote his time to serving the community. He made it to the Twins Hall of Fame in 2010 A fitting tribute to a man whose career grew with the fortunes of a young and hungry Minnesota Twins team. The Twins had winning records from '62 to '67. 1968, the first year after Battey's retirement, the Twins record dropped to 79-83. Their worst record since 1961.

About the card, it features Battey clearly in preseason and I argue that this picture was taken shortly after pitchers and catchers reported to spring training ahead of the rest of the team because of Battey's jacekt. That may not prove much to most but it says something to me. I also remember thinking this card was strange as a kid because how often do you see a catcher in a jacket? It happens even today with MLB pitchers on the base path (that also looked weird to me too.)

Card 14 The Famed Phil Linz, former Yankee, Met Phillie and Harp player

Back from a another hiatus. Things are what they are and life is what it is. You still can choose to beat the living shit out of life instead of having life beat the living shit out of you.

Card 14 features Phil Linz on his second to last baseball card. He appeared on a '68 Topps card in a Phillies uniform but labeled as being a New York Met which he was for part of 67 and all of '68 (his final year)

Linz is best known for an incident on the Yankees team bus in 1964. Linz was playing the harmonica near the back of the bus which really got under the skin of rookie Manager Yogi Berra who was sitting in the front. Yogi finally yelled for Linz to knock it off. Phil didn't hear wehat he said so he asked Mickey Mantle what he said and Mantle told him Yogi wanted him to play louder. Thus a folk hero was born and a little known utility player achieved a status few other utility players could achieve over the course of several careers. Linz ended up playing harmonicas in full page ads (one of which is featured on the back cover of the '65 Yankees yearbook).

Linz's career was fairly short. He was a major leaguer from '62 to '68 playing his final game at the ripe young age of 29. Linz wasn't much of a hitter but look at his fielding stats, the man played almost everywhere. He played everywhere except 1b, C, and P. He appeared in 112 games in '64 for the AL Champion Yankees (last to win the pennant for 11 years) playing mostly SS and 3B.

The Phillies picked up Linz in '66. I am assuming the source of the picture of Linz on his '67 Topps card comes from the '66 spring training. He has a road jersey with a smallish stadium in the distant background. He actually split his playing time in '67 with the Phillies and Mets. In '68 the Mets employed him exclusively as a second baseman and pinch hitter.

A lesser know fact about Linz is that in 1,518 regular season at bats, he hit only 11 home runs but in only 34 World Series at bats, he hit 2 home runs. This fact might've overshadowed the famed harmonica incident if the Yankees managed to win the '64 World Series where Linz hit his clutch homers.

#13 Detroit Tigers pitcher Joe Sparma, Short career. short life...

Up next in the set is card #13 which features Detorit Tigers pitcher Joe Sparma. This card never made a major impression on me when I was a kid because I didn't know the players name and I didn't care much about the Detroit Tigers. If anything the photo of Sparma looked to me like it was taken in someone's expansive backyard. I got that impression with a lot of the photoes featured in this set because I always saw players in those massive cathedrals known as Major League Baseball Stadiums. How often do you see Whitey Ford posed as though he just through a legendary curveball on a barren open field? I grew up in the 1980's with cards mostly featuring game action shots during the season, not preseason poses. That all said the Sparma card basically missed my eyes as a kid even though he doesn't seem to have a well fitting hat.

 Sparma played in the majors only from 1964 to 1970. He started his major league career at the age of 22 after graduating college. He was done before he was 30. He played football for Ohio State in the early 60's, one of the best NCAA football programs ever. Wikipedia has a nice little story of Sparma and his meeting Mickey Mantle for the first time while pitching against him on Mickey Mantle Day.

Joe Sparma was primarily a starting pitcher in his career. He had a rocky injury prone career as a pitcher up until the '67 season where he went 16-9 and throwing 5 shutouts. He did all of this with a fairly high 3.76 ERA for that time. Earned Run Averages were plummeting toward the end of the 60's as were also home run totals. This prompted the lowering of the mound in 1969. Starting pitcher ERAs rarely approached the likes of Denny McLain (1.96 in '68) and Bob Gibson (1.12 in '68) ever since.

Sparma's high ERA leads me to believe that while he was probably a hard throwning pitcher (short career), his pitches didn't have much movement. Hard throwers didn't last long in the Majors in those days unless they try to reinvent themselves as knuckleballers once the wear and tear set in. Sparma didn't seem to do this.

His career continued to go fairly well for the 1968 World Champion Tigers team. He managed a 10-10 record in 31 starts, throwing 1 shutout and recording a 3.70 ERA. He was included in the World Series roster of the Tigers but he only appeared as a reliever. He managed only a third of an inning surrending in a two run home run in his lone appearance.

That series appearance was just after the end of Sparma's brief peak in the Majors. In 1969 he managed 23 starts a 6-8 losing record for the season. While a pair of those wins were shutouts his season ERA ballooned a full ERA point (4.76). The next season, Sparma found himself with the year old Montreal Expos. That was where his career came to an end without managing to win a single game for the 73-89 Expos. While his career was brief, he managed to do something Ernie Banks, Robin Roberts so many other players failed to achieve in long careers, earn a World Series ring.

Sparma passed away in 1986 because of serious heart troubles. He was 44 years old.

Pardon the interruption. Sandy came to town

Hello, I live in South Seaside Park, New Jersey. This is one of the hardest hit barrier islands on the Jersey coast by the combined strengths of Hurricane Sandy and the Noreaster. One storm ran into another and the worst case scenario was made all the more worse because it happened at high tide and during October's full moon. I luckily live in an area of the barrier island which has large protective dunes and am surrounded by houses which are set on concrete (not on sand). For an idea of what other areas of the island looked like after Sandy click here.

I was without power for 30 days, without water for only one day and I continue to be without natural gas (the source of my hot water and heat). There has been a lot of other things happening on the island which is more regarding the actions of local officials which, for me, has been far worse than the storm but I wish to not discuss that now and it doesn't belong on this blog anyway. I'm back online now and on with the tribute to a great baseball card set.

Card #12 Dodgers 1967 Rookie Stars Campanis/ Singer

 The madness of this overlong political campaign season got me thinking it was time to get back to moy card blog honoring the 1967 Topps baseball set.  This also happens to be the time where post season Major league baseball reaches its crescendo. Unfortunatly, fewer and fewer people are interested in America's first national past time. It's pretty clear now that the NFL has trumped the MLB in terms of grabbing ahold of the national consciousness and will likely retain it as long as either sport, or this country exists. I say all this because the pivotal seventh game of the NLCS pitting the Cardinals against the Giants in San Francisco drew an audience of only 8 million viewers. The thought of such an important NFL football game drawing that small a crowd is unthinkable.

If the MLB continues to lose interest in the minds of the masses, the size of the league will begin to shrink because fewer teams will be able to  stay afloat. Fewer fans means fewer dollars to cover still growing player salaries.Such problems didn't exist in the pre free agency era of MLB, but like most labor deals, the short term benefits fail to take into account the long term effects it will have on the sport and the business. Eventually, the golden goose is just going to get cooked.

NOW ABOUT THE CARD. This is the lowest numbered Rookie Stars card of this 1967 set. As a kid, I was fasctinated by them mainly because I never saw anything like them in the 1980's Topps sets. Two reasons for this, 1. The sets in the 80's had nearly 800 cards so featuring players on their own card was not difficult. 2. Maintaining who should be featured on these rookie stars cards must have been a royal pain in the butt. Bobby Murcer, Hal McRae and Lou Pinella were all featured on more than one "Rookie Stars" cards. A collector may think they had the Pinella rookie card in the 1969 set because it says rookie on it, but his 1968 and his 1964 cards ALSO say "Rookie Stars" on them. You'd think Topps would fix that problem or just abandon this format. Well they did the former and infact incresed the amount of players featured on them. SEE BELOW. I don't know about anyone else, but these 4 player cards are lousy and think about how some of the rookies who didn't make it feel when their rookie card shoots up in price because a future hall of famer is featured on it. I guess that serves as good trivia but I'd be put off by it.

This 1967 Topps card is a good example of thi. Jimmy Campanis' career never really took off. The most games the catcher/pinch hitter ever played in a season during his six year career was only 41 and his career batting average was a meager .167.  However, Bill Singer became a star pitcher. Twice Singer won more than 20 games and was elected to the All Star team in each of those years (1969 with the Dodgers and 1973 with the Angels). He went on to a 14 year MLB career and winning 118 games over the course of that time. Today, Bill Singer's cards aren't considered collector worthy but I imagine this rookie card was a hot item for young Dodger fans in 1969 and Angel fans in 1973. I am sure, in most cases, the kids who sought and eventually got this card asked themselves "Who is Jimmy Campanis?"

#11 Washinton Senator Robert Barry Moore

Up next is  pitcher Barry Moore. This is the first Senator card of the '67 set and the light purple lettering does not make for an attractive looking card. The '67 set is classic, don't get me wrong but some of those colors for the lettering just makes the cards look a little off for me.

This of course was the second of the now three Washington DC teams. The first moved to Minnesota to become the Twins. This Senator team moved to Texas to become the Rangers and the Montreal Expos moved to Washington to become the Nationals (the original name of the original Washington team before it changed to the Senators).

Barry Moore had a very short five year career in the Majors. Like the Alou card before, this one was produced during Moore's two year peak as a Major League Pitcher. His ERA was under 4 and while he didn't have a winning season until '69 he had his only shutout in 1967. He didn't win many games but neither did the second Washington ball club who only won more than half of their games in 1969, the year Moore broke.500 as well.

Judging from his stats, Moore lost something off his pitches in 1970 and that resulted in him getting roughed up on the mound. He went from the Indians to the White Sox in that year and he went winless after the trade. In December of 1970, the Sox traded him to the Yankees for Bill Robinson but he didn't make the team.

He struggled in the Yankees and Pirates farm system for awhile before quitting. He definitely caught Topps attention in the 60's and he deserved to be featured on his own card because he was a pitching prospect.

As I said the Senator cards were never a favorite of mine. This picture definitely looks to be taken in a Major League Stadium and it may even be D.C. Stadium

#10 Pittsburgh Pirate Matty Alou. Baseball's Royal Family

 Up next is one of three of the Alou brothers, Matty Alou. Mateo Rojas "Matty" Alou, who I am sorry to say passed away from diabetes complication on November 3, 2011 was the middle of the three Alou brothers who all had long successful careers in the Majors. Also, all three brothers have cards featured in this '67 set. The Alou trio all started their Major careers with the Giants (all three played for the team at some point of the '63 season) but all had equal or better success with the teams they went on to play for after San Francisco. This is definitely the case with Matty Alou.

Matty was in the prime of his career around the time this card came out. He had a string of over .300 avg seasons, a pair of 200+ hits in a season and, while he wasn't a power hitter, he was an excellent contact hitter with many doubles and triples to his credit. He didn't have many stolen bases so I question whether or not he was a speedster on the base paths. This tells me he really hit them where they weren't during his peak.

Matty was still hitting the ball well when he left the Pirates to play for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1971. In '72, he was traded to the A's. He went on to win a championship with the team that year and while he hit well in the ALCS, he was virtually hitless in the actual series.

It seems a player's career is all but done when they start to bounce around
from team to team and this is true for Matty Alou as well. While he continued to hit well with all of the teams he played for, teams just didn't keep him on. In '73 the Yankees brought him on and though he was a .300 hitter, he ended up with the Cardinals for the rest of the season. In '74, Matty didn't hit well for the Padres and that was the last of his 14 seasons in the Majors. Of the three Alou brothers, he had the shortest Major League career.

This card features the same purple lettering featured on the White Sox card and like much of the earliest cards in this set, the photo looks to come from spring training. I imagine this photo was taken prior to the start of the '66 season and the photographer likely asked Matty to take the same picture without his hat on in case he was traded. Later Topps just airbrushed out the wrong logo but back in the 60's they featured pictures of hatless players.