Sunday Night Baseball: 1960 Topps #132 Frank Howard (RC)

Night Owl Cards posted this card on Twitter this week to mark Frank Howard's Birthday (August 8th, 77th birthday). Tonight we are honoring the same card as the Dodgers host the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday Night Baseball.

1960 Topps #132 Frank Howard

The Sport Magazine 1960 Topps Rookie Star subset runs from card numbers #117-148. This is the 2nd time that Topps and Sport were on-card partners. The 1958 Topps All-Stars subset is a Sport Magazine collaboration. In 1959 Topps switched allegiances to the Sporting News for both the All-Stars subset and the Rookie Stars subset   

 Despite the muted orange background that dominates this sets presentation, I view the design as a winner. The confluence of the patriotic ribbon, bullseyed profile pic, and magazine cred combine to put this subset into the Win column.

And I must also note that Frank Howard wearing his cap slightly askew adds just a touch of cool to the head shot. 

2006 Topps Archives Reserve #34

Topps is apparently quite fond of the card as well.  They saluted the card by making a chromey reprint part of their 2006 Topps Archives Reserve set. 

1960 was a good year for Frank Howard who won the NL Rookie of the Year award over two Phillies (Pancho Herrera, Art Mahaffey) and future Hall of Famer Ron Santo. Howard tallied 23 Home Runs with 77 RBIs during his rookie campaign.  He would remain a power hitter throughout his career, leading the league in homers twice (1968, 1970) with the Washington Senators. 

Frank Howard spent 7 years in the Dodgers organization before being traded to the Senators following the 1964 season.  Along with his rookie of the year campaign the highlight of Frank Howard's Dodger career is their sweep of the Yankees in the 1963 World Series. Howard homered off of Whitey Ford in the final game of the series.


Howard stayed in baseball for a number of years after his career ended and I can recall seeing him as a coach with the Mets in the 1990s.  Despite being out of the game for 20-30 years he still dwarfed many of that eras current players (Baseball-ref lists Howard at 6'7", 255 lbs).

The last time I saw Frank Howard was at the final Washington Nationals game at RFK.  

2007 09 23 Frank Howard and Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals final game at RFK

This photo was a bit too blurry to make the cut as a Phungo card, and doesn't really show Frank Howard's commanding size, but I assure you that day he was a presence.


Sources
Vintage Baseball Cards  
Baseball-ref.com   
Night Owl Cards

Swag from Night Owl Cards

Last week the incoming mail included some great cards from Greg of the Prolific Night Owl Cards. So many of the bloggers blow me away not only with their frequency of posts, but also with so many ideas that are both interesting and funny. As you all are aware Night Owl is one of the best at coming up with so many of these gems.


Swag


2007 Bowman's Best #14 Chase Utley
1981 Topps #40 Tug McGraw
1992 Classic Best #395 Checklist
2010 Topps #89 JA Happ

The Bowman's Best Utley card is real nice. On top of being nice and shiny the card has some real weight and sturdiness. Any card of the Tugger Rocks - I like the artwork on the front of the checklist - Finally just wanted to post JA Happ and mention that the fan favorite is returning to Philadelphia this week after being traded last month in the deal for Roy Oswalt.


1995 Score #26 Tommy Greene
2009 Topps Chrome #62 Chase Utley
2009 Uppder Deck Gold #813 Ryan Howard

Tommy Greene with some Chrome and Gold.

A sad note, Tommy Greene's young wife just passed away after battling cancer I think. He was in town for the Alumni weekend a few weeks back. I was always a fan of his and hope that he is able to deal with this real life loss.

And There's More

If you take a close look you may notice a Non-Phils card in there. At some point I hope to put up a posting regarding this card that should be a significant help in completing a special Phungo Set.

2009 09 27 - Philly Show, Valley Forge PA

Both Sports Cards Info and Stale Gum have posted video on the Philly Show - both were entertaining and informative with some great cards. Here at Phungo we shall remain low tech and camera shy and bring you a show report with good old fashion scans.

I had a great time at the show and the roughly 3 1/2 hours I alloted myself clearly was not enough. I spent almost my entire trip in the cheapo vintage bins. Pardon the presentation, I am lazy tonight and have left the cards in their sleeves.


1959 Topps #338 George Anderson

Better known as Sparky Anderson, And yes Sparky wore a Phillies uniform during his playing days. I spent more on other cards and may have found deeper bargains then this one, but this one was likely my purchase of the day.

For the Colletor:
I believe there are only Two Topps Sparky Anderson cards the above 59 and his 1960 card #34. This card is in pretty good shape, though off-center and went for $2.50. Nice price for a rookie card of a Hall of Famer - albeit an HOF manager. The low completed auction on eBay for the 59 Sparky Anderson card ended at $6.64 (incl shipping) with many of the cards going for $10 and up topping out at just over $70.

1961 Topps #132 Frank Howard Rookie Star (RC)

Frank Howard played before my time, but I saw him on the field several times as a coach and he certainly is a big man. There was no doubt that he looked like the type of guy that could hit 30 homers and 100 RBIs in a season. Nice RC to pull out of the dollar bin.

I also came across several vintage Bowman cards in the dollar bin including this beat up Jackie Jensen card.

1954 Bowman #2 Jackie Jensen

If your not aware of who Jensen is, reach back into the baseball card blog annals to Ben Henry's post on 9 cards to Jump Start a collection and you will realize why you can't let this card go for a dollar. It should also be noted that Jensen made Jayson Stark of ESPN's all-underrated Red Sox top three strictly on the recommendation of Peter Gammons.


Another Red Sox great that I found in the buck bin was this 1975 Carlton Fisk

1975 Topps Mini #80 Carlton Fisk

A 75 Carlton Fisk might not be a steal for a buck, but look closer - this baby is a Mini. Can't turn down a 75 Topps Mini Hall of Famer.

2008 Topps Gold Campaign 08 #C08-MR Mitt Romney

Just taking a break from all the vintage. This is the last card I needed to complete the Campaign 08 series. For this small set, I didn't care whether the card was a gold card or base. 1 of each candidate was enough for me. It is likely the weakest of the 08 Topps Insert sets, but it is the first I completed - whoohoo. This likely came out of the 3 for a dollar bin and I still payed to much for it.

Back to the good Old Vintage


1958 Topps #115 Jim Bunning
1965 Topps #30 Jim Bouton
1960 Topps #555 Nellie Fox Sport Magazine 1960 All-Star

It was Sunday and check who we found in the half off bin - Two Vintage Hall of Famers and Jim Bouton. What the hell is a 2nd year card of Jim Bunning doing in the half off bin, and this is after already being knocked down to $6? 50+ Year old HOF card for three bucks - that's going in the Phungo collection baby.

I am basically a baseball collector, but football season is upon us and the Vikings are off to a quick start so.....

1974 Topps #129 Fran Tarkenton All-Pro

This is one of my favorite cards from my childhood and it was great to recover it and get the card back into a proper home witin my collection. The 1974 Topps Football is one of my favorites - The All-Pro cards don't have the goal posts but I really like the look of them.

1961 Topps #312 1960 World Series Game #7 Mazeroski's Homer Wins It!

The ultimate David slays Goliath World Series. The New York Yankees outscored the Pittsburgh Pirates 55-27 in the 1960 World Series. But none of that mattered as the Bucos won the 4 tight games while losing the three blowouts.

I look at this card and think of the Pirates winding down their umpteenth consecutive losing season, and the Bronx Bombers preparing to enter another Post-Season as the tournament top seed and favorite.....And then I think that if the Pirates could knock off the Yankees today, Now that would be David Taking Down Goliath.

For the Collector:
As you can tell I was mostly in the vintage bins. I can tell you that Chris over at Stale Gum was able to pick up a Hobby Box of Goodwin Champions for $68 (compare $82 Dave and Adam's Card World). I spoke with another colletor at the show that mentioned that the new Topps Ticket to Stardom was going for $75 ($85 DAC).

The one item I passed on was a 1936 Diamond Stars #27 Pie Traynor. The card was slabbed in 1-Poor condition and ran $20. I considered it just to have a Hall Of Fame player out of this 70 year old set.

Back in the 70s when Mike Schmidt and Brooks Robinson were still active Traynor was the Third Basemen on the Topps 1976 All-Time All-Star team. Now he is in danger of falling into the forgotten Hall of Famer category.