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

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