Year of the Horse 1954: Ellis Valentine 1981 Topps #445

Today we return to our Chinese New Years postings - in hindsight spacing these out across several postings may not have been a great idea. Today finds us on birth year 1954.

1981 Topps #445 Ellis Valentine (image swiped from baseball card database)


Iconic cards come in a couple different varieties.

The obvious ones are Cards of Superstars like Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays and Hall of Fame rookie cards. 

Less obvious are the quirky cards such as Oscar Gamble 1976T Traded or the 1975 Topps Kurt Bevacqua bubble gum champ card. The 1981T Ellis Valentine fits into this category. The partial face mask is one of the most memorable looks in baseball card history.  

Valentine wore the face mask to protect a jaw that was busted by a Roy Thomas pitch in an Expos Cardinals game on May 30 1980. The injury put Valentine on the DL for six weeks. The rest of the 1980 campaign went fairly well for Valentine, but he never really was the same hitter following that season.

Last year Jeff Pearlman (formerly of SI) published a very interesting interview with Ellis Valentine who credits Larry Doby as being a mentor early in his career. Valentine also discusses his drug use, apparently part of the turnaround was the beaning. After that Ellis could see his career would conclude at some point and he wanted to put 5 more years together to help with his finances and take care of his parents.

Those changes have led Ellis Valentine to a career in counseling. According to his linkedIn profile he is involved the mental health care field with a couple of organizations based in the Dallas Texas area.

If you want to keep up with Valentine he has a pretty active twitter feed @EValentine17. There is also a Ellis Valentine website where he offers the T-Shirt that evokes the half face mask featured on the 1981T card above.

Year of the Horse 1954
1954 YTH features a pretty stellar class of Hall of Famers including Ozzie Smith, Gary Carter, Dennis Eckersley and Valentine's Expos teammate Andre Dawson. Other 54 YTH are former Phil Keith Moreland, Willie Randolph, Ken Phelps Denny Martinez and two players that died young Mark Fidrych and Donnie Moore.

Year of the Horse Index
1954 Ellis Valentine
1966 Curt Schilling
1978 Jimmy Rollins
1990 Yasiel Puig

Sources
Jeff Pearlman
baseball-ref.com
LinkedIn
baseball card database

Year of the Horse 1978: Jimmy Rollins 2003 Topps T205 #69

Today's Year of the Horse posting is an All Phillies edition, birth year 1978. Which means all of these fine folks have either recently turned 36 or will in the next year. This sort of explains the Phillies issue keeping players on the field.

2003 Topps T205 mini #69 Jimmy Rollins

T206 is talked about a lot more, but I have a preference for T205. Overall, I think the originals had a better look. They are more colorful and the gold borders help the cards pop. This really helps the retro cards like the ones Topps put out in 2003.  I am not sure how prevalent minis were in 2003, but I think it was before they were included in every stinkin set.

2003 Topps T205 mini #69 Jimmy Rollins (b-side)

Flipped this one over for a couple of reasons. T205 contain a paragraph of player info plus a short stat line. Just another reason to prefer them over T206 which only had an advertisements. The other reason I showed off the reverse of the above J-Roll card is that it is a Polar Bear back, Team Phungo is always looking for Polar Bear backs.

As mentioned above the 1978 Year of the Horse posting is an All Phils edition. The Phils '78 Horses include:
-Mike Adams
-Cliff Lee
-Chase Utley

Hopefully since the Chinese Zodiac rolling around to these players birth signs will be a good omen for the Phillies 

Year of the Horse Index
1966 Curt Schilling
1990 Yasiel Puig

Links
Jimmy Rollins Player Collection Index

Year of the Horse -1990: 2014 Topps #331 Yasiel Puig

It only took 4 weeks, but we are finally returning to our Year of the Horse postings. Today we are featuring the relatively recent year of 1990.

 

2014 Topps #331 Yasiel Puig

We are only in the 2nd cycle of the Year of the Horse for 1990 births. This pretty much limits us to players that are 23 or 24 years of age. Phter notable players in the birthclass our Phungo Favorite Wil Myers and the Phillies own Cody Asche

I chose Yasiel Puig for the cover of todays posting because in addition to being the most noteworthy of our candidates he also goes by the nickname of "Wild Horse" which is quite appropriate for our "Year of the Horse: 1990" posting.

Year of the Horse Index
1966 Curt Schilling

Happy New Year, Year of the Horse that is - 1994 UD Collectors Choice #253 Curt Schilling

Friday January 31st is New Years, Chinese New Year. Within the Chinese Zodiac we are moving into the Year of the Horse. Over the next couple of weeks we will take a look at a few Year of the Horse ball players.  

1994 UD Collectors Choice #253 Curt Schilling

Thanks to former Phillies GM Ed Wade, Curt Schilling is the perfect poster boy for Year of the Horse. Wade once famously quipped Schilling was a "horse" every fifth day, and a "horse's ass" the other four.

I think that pretty much makes Curt Schilling our Year of the Horse rep for birth year 1966, but there are a few other notables 
  

1966 baseball Horses:
Greg Maddux 
Tom Glavine

Larry Walker (nicknamed booger)

Tim Wakefield

Jose Mesa

David Justice

Jeff Conine

Mark Whiten

Shawn Abner (from Mechanicsburg PA)

Past Chinese New Years Postings
Year of the Snake (2013)
Year of the Dragon (2012)
Year of the Rabbit (2011)
Year of the Tiger 2010
Year of the Ox (2009)

Sources
Finger Food
Baseball-ref.com
 

Happy New Year - Year of the Snake

This weekend marked the beginning of the Chinese New Year - 2013 falls under the Snake on the Asian Zodiac. Other snake years include 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941, 1929, 1917, 1905, 1893, 1881 and 1869.  
 
Here is our quick look at some of Baseball's year of the snake players.  

2013 Phungo #34 Roy Halladay

Halladay is likely my favorite player that came up on the Snake search.  Hopefully Roy is healthy in 2013 and the Phillies can get back to their winning ways. This is a good Phungo card from this years set.  Decent photo of Hallady in action.  The picture is from a game in August in which Halladay was not particularly effective giving up 5 ER over 7 innings, but the Phils showed up that night with a 12 run outburst.  Once again I have given Halladay the designation as the teams ACE, but that may change after the '13 season - It may be time for Cole Hamels to step up.



Year of the Snake Players

1989 - Jason Heyward, Giancarlo Stanton, Madison Bumgarner.

2013 Phungo #16 Giancarlo Stanton  

1977 - Halladay, Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Juan Pierre
1965 - Craig Biggio
1953 - George Brett, Jim Rice

1994 Topps #180 George Brett
 

1941- Pete Rose

1980 Topps Burger King #4 Pete Rose

1929 - Jim Piersall, Curt Simmons
1917 - Lou Bodreau, Phil Rizutto 
1905 - Leo Durocher
1893 - George Sisler
1881 - Johnny Evers

 2010 Obak #108 Tinkers-Evers-Chance, Baseball's Sad Lexicon





Looking Back

Previous Chinese New Year Posts

Year of the Dragon (2012)
Year of the Rabbit (2011)
Year of the Tiger 2010
Year of the Ox (2009)
 

Happy New Year - Year of the Dragon

On Janary 23rd the Year of the Dragon will commence.  Today we are going to check out some famous Baseball Dragons:

1940 Ron Santo
1964 Barry Larkin

We start out with this years Hall of Fame inductees Ron Santo and Barry Larkin,  Pretty cool Larkin card - Cooperstown Collection issued 2 decades prior to his actual election.  Like Santo, Willie Stargell is also a 1940 Dragon and a Hall of Famer.    

1976 Pat Burrell

It is starting to appear as if Pat the Bat will not hook up with a team for 2012.  He had a mixed career in Philadelphia, but won a World Championship in the end and then went on to win another championship with the Giants in 2010.  Pretty nice finish.  Form Phil Randy Wolf is also a Dragon from the 1976 birth year.

1952 Fred Lynn
1988 Clayton Kershaw

Our next pair of Dragons features young Phenoms.  Well Fred Lynn was a young Phenom when he won both the Rookie of the Year and MVP award in the same year (1975).  Clayton Kershaw is of course the reigning Cy Young award winner. Fellow Dodger Dee Gordon is also a class of 1988 Dragon.  

1916 Enos Slaughter
1928 Billy Martin 

These two are both Fiery Dragons.  I picked up the 57 Topps Slaughter card out of a 3 for a dollar bin a few years back - of course that is because the back is marred to the point of being non-existent.  Billy Martin's longtime teammate Whitey Ford was also born in 1928.

1880 Christy Mathewson
1904 Chuck Klein

We finish with a couple of retro cards of Hall of Famers who played in the first half of the previous century.  The Mathewson card is from the Great Ones insert series of 2011 Gypsy Queen.  Chuck Klein comes from a 1970s Fleer issue. 


1964 Dragons
I just wanted to note that the 64 Dragons are quite the PED class and include Canseco, Palmiero, and Bonds.

Sources and Links
Ron Santo HoF Index
Pat Burrell PC Index 
 

Happy New Years - Chinese Style - Year of the Ox - Yogi, Marichal, Schmidt, Donnie Baseball, the Caveman and Joba

January 26th 2009 marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the Ox. To help celebrate the New Year I dined on some Chicken Shu Mai this evening, and I also put together this Chinese New Year Post.

The Chinese Zodiac is based off of a lunar calendar and is marked by Years rather than months. I am sure you have seen this on a place mat in a Chinese restaurant at some point in your life. 2009 is the year of the Ox, as is every 12th year going backwards and forwards. The most recent celebrations of Year of the Ox have been in 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, and 1997.

Here are some Major League Baseball Oxen.

1959 Topps #180 Yogi Berra - Born 1925
1973 Topps #480 Juan Marichal - Born 1937

1987 Topps Kmart #31 Mike Schmidt - Born 1949
1989 Fleer #258 Don Mattingly - Born 1961

2005 Leaf Century Collection #58 Johnny Damon - Born 1973
2008 Topps Foil #596 Joba Chamberlain - Born 1985

There you have a superstar Year of the Ox group of players. According to Dinged Corners "the Ox is patient, tireless in his work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint." So what do you think, do these players demonstrate the qualities of the Ox?

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Also, If you haven't done so already please take the time to vote in the Phungo Jim Rice poll.

Sources and Links
Johnny Damon Index