# 27 Bob Saverine of the Washington Senators "The Rabbit"

Next up is a player I knew next to nothing about on a team I didn't care much about either. There was no Washington DC baseball team when I was a kid. I saw the '60's era Senators for what they were to me, a failed ball club which moved to Texas and became the Rangers (another team I never cared about)

As for basically all of the players, I viewed them all as commons. These cards weren't even listed by name in Beckett Baseball Card Monthly, just grouped together by numbers and a value. How can a boy develop any interest in first a Senators team that doesn't exist and a common baseball player?? This is a common thing you will read in this blog I'm sorry to say because this is what card collecting was for me in my adolescence. This blog is partially my attempt to learn about the players and teams I didn't think much about. Now that I'm older, I've learned that players on common cards are actually some of the elites in the sport. Most not only don't make it to the Majors, they never appear on a bubblegum card either.

That being all said Bob Saverine was predominately a utility ball player. Topps has him list as an infielder but he played Left and Center fields to go along with his play at Short stop, 2nd and 3rd base. He started his career with the Orioles where he didn't see too much action when he first came up in the league as an 18 year old rookie in September 1959. His low batting average and lack of power at the plate kept him strictly as a fill in position player. Nowadays utility players do not seem to be as common as they were prior to the era of massive contracts. Players like Saverine would be regulars in the minors and brought up to fill in with a multimillion dollar signed regular while that player is on the DL. These players used to be regulars on the team.

Saverine didn't see much minor league action after he became a regular Major league in 1963. He ended up spending '65 in the Baltimore farm system before being dealt to the Senators where he played the '66 and '67 seasons. He finished his pro career in the minors with the '68 season being played in Buffalo.

Saverine was a regular on Topps cards from 1964 to 1968. His usual appearance in Topps sets leads me to belive that he was a fan favorite like Mario Mendoza for the Royals and Doug Dascenzo. Saverine even earned the nickname The Rabbit. Probably for his quickness on the base path. Odds are his baserunning skills are the other key reason he maintained a career and a following int he majors. He is only credited with 23 career stolen bases (9 caught stealing) but Johnny Damon taught us in the 2009 World Series that bass runners do a heck of a lot more than just run bases.

I've already discussed my dislike of these Senator cards in the '67 set. Very bland lettering, dull looking hat (featuring a W which made no sense if you were introduced to the set in the 80's and 90's.

# 26 Bob Priddy and the STRANGE '67 Topps San Francisco Giants Card Design

 For some reason, the San Francisco Giants card design made no sense to me growing up. As simple and classic as the card design is for this set. The Giants cards are still strange. I mean, why green lettering for a team with black and orange colors? It's not that the other team colors correspond with the Topps choice of letting colors but these cards looked odd to me. Especially when I first saw these cards in 1987. The reason of this is probably because the 1987 Topps set did the opposite of the '67 set and that's the first modern set I ever saw.

The Will Clark card above is from the '87 Set. The player lettering may have alternated between black and white lettering but the borders correspond with the team's dominate color.

The card which made the color distinction for the 1967 Topps Giants card is most evident to me with this Bob Priddy card. That and Priddy has a mildly distressed
Gene Hackman face.

Bob Priddy was a journeyman of a Major League pitcher. He played for 6 different major league teams in 9 years. The Giants was his second team and while he is featured as a Giant on this '67 card he was already off to the American League pitching for the hard luck Washington Senators. I'll go into more detail about the state of the replacement Washington club (the original became the Twins earlier in the decade) later.

Priddy did a little of everything before 1969. He started a handful of games and did a fiar amount of relieving during that period as well. He seemed to be an emergency starter who stepped into the breach for the White Sox in 1968 and admittedly received little success. His era in '68 was a then very high 3 and half. That's the same year Bob Gibson and Denny McLain had ERA's under 2. Gibson was down near just 1.  It didn't help Priddy that he was on the White Sox which had a lousy offense.

Priddy's effectiveness in the Majors diminished starting in '69 with the Angels. He finished his career with the Braves in 1971. He didn't make much of a dent mostly because he didn't play a major role on the few winning teams he played for. He started out as a major prospect and that's what landed him on more than a few Topps cards. He got a '64,'65, '66,'67,'68,'69,'70 and '71 Topps card. Topps banked on him big time as being a mainstay.

# 25 Elston Howard- Historic Player's Last Yankees Baseball card

There are more than a few notable player's final bubble gum cards in this classic '67 set. For decades, I always assumed this was Elston Howard's final card as well. Little did I know, he was featured in the '68 set with the Boston Red Sox. Howard had one last hurrah with the Red Sox, appearing in the '67 Series. 

This card was always viewed by me as being a prized possession. One of the cards I was most happy to have and it still is. Elston Howard was the star player of the golden era of the Yankees I never saw on television during the old timer's day ceremonies. He and Maris both died far to young.

Howard not only was the first African American baseball player in the Yankees organization, he was also one of their best. A nine time all star and one time MVP. A solid hitter in his career and also a great fielder who almost literally played everywhere. He played catcher, outfield and infield. He took on all of these assignments and remained a solid and focused slugger.

People for decades have criticized the Yankees for not integrating and breaking the major league color barrier until 1955. In defense to the Yankees, Howard was working his way to the Majors on a team that had one won five straight world championships and in 1954, the team broke 100 wins in the season for the first and last time in the decade. Ironically, they weren't close to catching the Cleveland Indians that season either. Howard started in the Yankees organization in 1950. Elston Howard lost a couple of seasons two military service, likely fighting in Korea. He returned to organized baseball after his military service.  During his years in the minors, Howard played catcher and the outfield. The Yankees in the Majors were loaded in both positions. Yogi Berra may have been the best placed catcer in all of baseball. He won three MVP awards within a span of four seasons, back to back in '54 and '55. Howard came up in the outfield in '55 and he never again spent a day in the minors.

The card looks excellent and it looks like it was taken on the same day ad by the same photographer as the Whitey Ford card. Howard's smile always reminded me of the power of optimism even though his hat looks like it was thrown back onto his head.  I imagine this was the case.

Howard was one of the last great Yankees from the era of the championships to appear in this '67 set. While this card was never worth more than $5, I felt it was worth $50

# 24 Bob Allen - Pitcher of the Cleveland Indians.

Here are the front and backs of one of the cards I saw most often as a kid. I always had a pair of these Bob Allen cards. One was kept in the set, the other was kept in my collection of cards. It never turned up where it was supposed to be, with my other '67 doubles! More often than I can to remember, that eye sore of a Indians baseball cap turned up in piles of '88 Donruss or '90 Fleer cards (so, maybe I wasn't so organized). Look at the card, and tell me what strikes you first. It's that darn hat! It must be.

 These Indian cards are very much the same as the Cardinal cards and here, we see how the Topps designers chose their color schemes for at least players wearing red uniforms. The light blue lettered team name in the foreground against the very red uniform and hat. The Topps designers also chose this color for the Red Sox (also uniforms with red).

I never knew anything about this player. His career in the majors was brief. He never pitched in the majors again after 1967. His time was spent entirely in the bullpen. While there, he did see alot of action. 274 innings pitched in 204 games. He finished 84 but only managed 19 saves in his career. Saves weren't made the way they are now. If you were in to close a game, you sometimes pitched 3 or even more innings. Today, the closing specialists pitch a single inning.  This is great for the salaries of these specialists but it is also invaluable to the team because the less time you see the pitcher, the harder it is to figure him out. This isn't so hard to do when a pitcher is out there for three innings and the entire lineup faces him during that game. This may or may not be the reason why Bob Allen finished his career with a losing 7-12 record. Ironically, he had hs best ERA in his last season. He went 0-5 but had a solid 2.98

I assumed from his Major League stats that he threw out his arm but it does look like he had a long minor league career after 1967, If he did have that injury, it came in '72 while pitching in the Padres farm system.

Allen was featured in the '62, '63, '64, '66, '67 and though he was done in the Majors, was in the '68 Topps sets. For some reason, Topps claims Bob Allen was a Pirate in their 1964 set though he apparently never spent a day pitching within their organization.  An odd, little know uncorrected error card.

Welcome to one of the worst seasons in the history of the Majors

Welcome to August's eve. This has been probably one of the worst seasons in Major League history. Only the Hall of Fame veteran's committee elected new members because of the steroid epidemic. For some reason, Craig Biggio was denied first ballot entry because of the epidemic. Few players were more deserving for first ballot entry than Biggio, and he never was remotely linked to PED usage so the reason makes no sense. Biggio played his entire career with the same team, had more than 3,000 hits and was an exceptional fielder. Maybe he would've gotten more respect if he played for a larger market team than the Astros. Regardless of the reason, this adds to the misery of the 2013 Major League Baseball season.

Attendance is down at the games, wealth disparity between the large and small market teams has expanded so much that the Yankees payroll of players on the disabled list is higher than the entire Houston Astros roster. Even though the Yankees are currently languishing in 4th place, they still lead the league in attendance which says something about devotion to the team and not much else.

The defending World Series champion Giants are on pace to finish dead last in their division and perhaps have the worst record in baseball. in fact, following who will have the worst record in the league is almost more entertaining than following who's leading. 7 teams in the NL alone are on pace to have 90+ losses.

The final nail in the coffin for this season is the specter of mass suspensions (20 players, 15 known, 5 of which are current or recent Yankees) because of being linked to a Floridian clinic who specialized in PED distribution. Braun, Arod top this list. Both ex MVP players...

It's hard to imagine that just 15 years ago at this time of the season, the entire country was completely engulfed in the famed home run record chase. McGwire and Sosa's quest for 61 captured the imagination of even the most modest baseball fan. The New York Yankees amassed an incredible 125 wins against only 50 losses in route to their second World championship in three seasons. It's pleasant to think back of those days when even cars in New York City had Sosa's latest home run totals updated regularly on the back windows of cars.

If you were around for that summer, close your eyes and try to remember the thrill of those moments. Attempt to live in those moments again in your mind. Isolate those memories from all that's happened to those players and the sport. Exhilarating isn't it? Now open your eyes and look where we are now..........

True, we haven't the stigma of a pending strike to wipe out the season (1994). We haven't gambling scandals (1919,1989). No untimely player deaths (1979). No Pittsburgh drug trials (1985), But if the sport had any of those, would anyone really care anymore???  The majors is in a state of permanent national decay and I don't see any home run record chasers coming along to change that.

#23 New York Met Larry Elliot after his cup of coffee.

 Here is the first New York Met card to appear in the '67 set. Mets cards struck me as interesting when I first got my 9 year old hands on this set. The Mets were the reigning World Champions and while I was never a true Met fan, I respected the team and all of their players.

Generally, these '67 Met cards appealed to me. The lettering is striking and stands out against the photo well. This card failed to grab my attention at the time because Larry Elliot is a bonafide unknown Major Leaguer. For one thing, Larry Elliot didn't play in the Majors again after 1966. He had "a cup of coffee" with the Pittsburgh Pirates. A cup of coffee usually means a player spent such a short time with a team that it was as though he was there for a cup of coffee. Elliot was in the Pirate minor leagues for a few years but he only appeared in 12 Pirate games in two years. This was good enough for Topps tp feature Larry Elliot on a Mets Rookie Stars card in their '64 set. Elliot did appear in 80 games that year but didn't do much at the plate. His .228 AVG 9 homers 8 doubles in '64 led to his being demoted to the minors in '65. In '66, his playing time was less, his batting average was higher and he called it a day at the end of the season at the age of 28. Typically, when players with low batting averages and poor slugging percentages find themse selves in the Majors because they're great fielders. This is likely the case with Elliot, though he knocked around for a full decade in the minors.

His card has a decent photo with a nice view of the Shea Stadium scoreboard in the background.

Because of Elliot's long career in the minors, Topps made rookie star cards for him in '63 and '64. Both cards had multiple players on them. This is his first and last Topps card that features only him on it.

22 - GENE BRABENDER - PITCHER for the ORIOLES and later literary folk hero

 We move from Dave Bristol to a pitcher who would later play for him with the Brewers, Gene Brabender. This picture of Brabender does not do him justice. This man could've played on the same defense with Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones, Rosey Grier and Lamar Lundy calling him the "Fearsome Fifth." He was 6' 6" and weighed 225 lbs. Brabender had a short pro career which began in 1966 with the World Championship Orioles. He started out as a jack of all trades. Starting, closing, and filling in out of the bullpen. He did not see action in the series (only four pitchers did: Drabowsky, Palmer, McNally and Bunker) but he may have made the roster.

He continued to be a starter and reliever for the O's. Garnering few wins but 4 shutouts and 5 saves to his credit. The Piolts picked him in their expansion draft in '69 where he saw the most work in his career. He went 13-14 with a 4.36 ERA. Neither stat looks great but neither was that Pilots team. At least Brabender gave them a fighting chance.

Brabender continued with the franchise when the new owners moved in and took the Pilots out of Seattle and landed them in Wisconsin as the Milwaukee Brewers, Brabenders home state. Brabender struggled with the struggling team with a 6-15 record and a balooning ERA of 6.02. He bounced around in the Angels farm system in '71. Topps was even optimistic enough of his prospects to return by making a high number '71 Topps card. Unfortunately, he never returned to the majors after 1970.

Brabender, like all of the '69 Pilots team is mentioned extensively in Jim Bouton's famous (for fans) and infamous (for fellow players) book "Ball Four" The book is still considered a classic tell all book which broke the long held clubhouse rule which says "What you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here" He didn't and the players on the Pilots team who were able to laugh at themselves live beyond their playing careers for baseball fans everywhere thanks to Bouton's book.

Bouton later wrote that Brabender auditioned for the role of Gene Brabender for a TV sitcom based on "Ball Four" but the part of Brabender went to former Raider Ben Davidson.

As for this '67 Topps card, the Orioles were the reigning Champions when the card was designed. The picture is generic posing at Spring Training fair but the bright yellow lettering stands out well and it lets the collector now clearly that you ARE holding the card of a champion.