2010 UD UNC National Champions #83 Dean Smith

The long time Hall of Fame Basketball coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels Dean Smith turned 83 last week. Sadly being a great coach does not exempt one from the issues that come with aging and today Dean Smith finds himself suffering from the effects of dementia.

2009 UD UNC National Champions #83 Dean Smith

His illness was recently documented with great reverence by the prolific sports journalist John Feinstein. Among the issues that Feinstein discusses regarding Dean Smith's deteriorating condition is the fact that one of the greatest assets the iconic coach had was an incredible memory that could remember every game, coaches, players, refs, and even specific plays. The column published in the Washington Post can be found here.

2010 UD UNC National Champs
Upper Deck came out with a 163 card set to take advantage of North Carolina's NCAA Championship triumph. There are a couple of similar releases I have seen out there including University of Texas and Oklahoma football sets.

2010 UD UNC National Champs blaster box

The sets offer an interesting variety of subjects which for UNC includes Smith, Lots of Michael Jordan cards, and some guys with Philadelphia connection like Larry Brown, George Lynch and Doug Moe. It is not unusual to see blasters of these cards going for $5-10 within a few years of release.

Sources
Naismith Memorial Basketball HoF
John Feinstein Washington Post
Sports Card Radio
Sports-Ref/College Basketball
Alzheimer's Association

hat tip - Yankees blogger @StaceGots tweeted the WaPo link earlier today

1964 Phillies @ 50: Bobby Wine 1963 Topps #71

During the 1964 season the Phillies carried two Gold Glove Shortstops. There was Ruben Amaro who took home the hardware following the season and Bobby Wine who won the award in 1963.

1963 Topps #71 Bobby Wine

Amaro may have collected the 1964 Gold Glove, but it was Wine who started the majority of games at the position in Gene Mauch’s platoon heavy lineup. The 25 year old Wine batted .212 over 126 games during the ’64 season. In addition to playing short he also spelled Dick Allen at third base. Bobby Wine never hit much above those numbers for his career, however His glovework kept him around the Major Leagues for 12 years. He played 1100+ games with 3000 ABs despite being a career .215 hitter.

Bobby Wine stayed with the Phillies through 1968 season and ending up being the Phillies primary Shortstop for the decade. In 1969 Wine served as the Shortstop on the inaugural Montreal Expos club, which like the 1964 Phillies was helmed by Gene Mauch. In 1970, Wine set the single season Double Play record for shortstops with 137. The record still stands for the NL today.

Folks who (like me) are in their middle 40s will likely remember Bobby Wine the Phillies Coach who served with the organization in a variety roles throughout the 70s and 80s. One of those roles was as Dallas Green’s bench coach for the Phillies 1980 World Championship squad. In 1985 he also served as the Manager of the Braves on an interim basis for 41 games.

Bobby's son Robbie also played major league baseball getting into 23 games as a catcher for the 1986 and 87 Astros. Following his playing career Robbie Wine went into coaching. He served as the Penn State Head coach for nine season before resigning this past June.  

1964 Philies Series
Dick Allen 
Johnny Callison
Tony Gonzalez
John Herrnstein 
Chris Short
Tony Taylor
Frank Thomas
Bobby Wine 

Sources
baseball-ref
Year of the Blue Snow
Go PSU Sports

 

2014 Heritage Rookie Stars: 1965 Topps #282 Dick Estelle & Masanori Murakami

We are a week away from 2014 Topps Heritage, today we bring you one of my favorite cards from the original 1965 set:

1965 Topps #282 Giants Rookie Stars Dick Estelle & Masanori Murakami

Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese MLB player way back in 1964. He preceded Hideo Nomo by three and a half decades. As a lefthanded relief pitcher Murakami pitched farily well for the Giants. Unfortunately due to a variety of contract issues and failed negotiations between the Giants, MLB and the Japanese League Nankai Hawks Murakami would return to Japan after a mere two seasons in the States.  

For further information, I highly recommend this Masanori Murakami biography that I believe was written by High School student in New York City. The Bio- further cites "Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History of the Game" which as it's name infers is mostly Murakami commenting on his career - not terrific writing but an interesting read.   

Murakami was honored by the Giants in 1995, throwing out the first pitch prior to a game versus the Dodgers. Coincidentally the LA starter that night was Hideo Nomo who took a no-hitter into the 7th inning, Royce Clayton broke up the Nomo No-No which was the only hit for the Giants. 

1965 Topps
I had thought Masahiro Tanaka would have been a great candidate for the #282 card in 2014T Heritage, but Ben Henry as pointed out over at the Baseball Card Blog that Tanaka's signing may have happened to late for Topps to send the card to print.  I hope that Topps figures it out, Tanaka would be a nice bonus for 2014 Heritage.

1965 Topps featured a number of Rookie Stars cards including 3 and 4 player varieties. 

1965 Topps #597 Rookie Stars Twins
1965 Topps #561 Rookie Stars Dodgers

No idea why Joe Nosseck got the prime spot in the Twins card. Perhaps alphabetic order. Rich Reese had the best career of the three Players. As far as the Dodger card, Jim Lefebvre was probably the most successful - in 1965 he even beat out Joe Morgan for Rookie of the Year. 

Other Voices
The Great 1965 Topps Blog - Kevin has a lot more info on the Dick Estelle half of the above card.

1965 Topps/2014 Heritage Index
Base - #534 John Herrnstein
Rookie Cup - #460 Dick Allen
Rookie Stars - #282 Dick Estelle & Masanori Murakami

More info on 1965 Topps
The entire 1965 Topps Series was covered by Kevin B of Orioles Card "O" the day on The Great 1965 Topps Project
Cardboard Connection
Sports Collectors Digest (TS O' Connell)
Golden Age of Baseball Cards
Dean's Cards
Beckett

PSA

Sources
Baseball-ref.com
HSMSE Sports Journalism Blog
Sports Illustrated 

1964 Phillies @ 50: Dick Allen 1965 Topps #460

In 1964 the then 22 year old Dick Allen was the starting third baseman for every one of the '64 Phillies 162 games. He batted .318 with 29 Homers and 91 RBI and led the league in both Runs scored (125) and total bases (352).

1965 Topps #460 Richie Allen

Not only was Allen a member of the Topps All-Rookie team, He was also the overwhelming NL selection for Rookie of the Year, receiving 18 of the 20 RoY votes cast. His rookie numbers were so good that he finished 7th in the MVP voting and likely deserved better finishing 3rd in the league in WAR(8.8) trailing only Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Ron Santo.

The 64 Phillies may have collapsed in September, but none of that can be blamed on Dick Allen. Even during their 10 game losing streak he batted .415, slugged .634 - good enough for an OPS of 1.076.  

For various reasons Dick Allen wore out his welcome in Philadelphia and in 1969 he was traded. Allen and the Phillies eventually resolved their differences and he returned to the Phillies in 1975. A year later he helped the Phillies to make the playoffs, it was Allen's only appearance in the Postseason.

I believe that someday Dick Allen will get in the Hall of Fame. In addition to his Rookie of the Year award he took home MVP hardware in 1972 (White Sox).  For his career Allen hit 351 Homers and racked up 1119 RBI. He led the league multiple times in several key offensive categories: Home Runs (twice), OBP (twice 2), Slugging (3 times), OPS (4). His MVP was earned as he led the league in oWAR that season, the second time that he had done so (1966).  

Today Dick Allen is 71 and near as I can tell he is based out of Western Pennsylvania and maintains a fairly active Twitter account. He is a regular at Phillies Alumni events and always appears to be enjoying the festivities. 

1965 Topps
This card is doing double duty, in addition to being part of the 1964 Phillies retrospective, we are also using it as part of our 1965 Topps series. On this card we see the Rookie Cup Trophy icon which was in use for the 6th time in 1965.  The 64 Topps Rookie team is well represented in the 1965T set with members including Bert Campaneris, Rico Carty, Tony Conigliaro, and Tony Oliva.

In 2014 Heritage the Rookie Cup third baseman will be Nolan Arenado of the Rockies who we have seen already in flagship.  Since Dick Allen is #460 in 65T that means his card number will fall in the short print series in Heritage. It will be interesting to see what route Topps takes with the #460 card, They could put in current Phillies rookie 3B Cody Asche. or match the RC trophy with Arenado or more likely ignore Dick Allen altogether. 

Richie Allen
Early in his career Dick Allen played under the name Richie, which is his Topps On card name through 1969. In 1970 Topps he becomes Rich Allen, He finally becomes Dick Allen in 1973 Topps  

2014 Topps Heritage the Originals Index
Base Cards (John Herrnstein)
Rookie Cup (Dick Allen)

Sources & Links

1965 Topps Rookie Cup Team
1964 Phillies Series 
Dick Allen Player Collection Index
Baseball-ref
Wrigley Wax
baseball Card Database

Harold Ramis (1944-2014) once pitched at the Vet

Sort of...

Mark Harmon and Harold Ramis in Stealing Home (photo swiped from Cineplex)

A lesser known (and likely not so funny) Harold Ramis movie was a baseball flick set and filmed in Philadelphia

I have never really seen Stealing Home – I think it is safe to say it is more chick flick then baseball flick.

However, somewhere along the line I did catch a scene where Mark Harmon re-enacts a Home Run at the Vet that he never hit or never got the chance to hit - something like that. I believe the pitcher in that scene was Harold Ramis, who played one of Harmon's friends. The shot above shows Ramis at the pitcher’s mound at the old Veteran’s Stadium with Harmon.

More Harold Ramis
White Sox Cards
Swing and a Pop-Up

Fresh Air - Terry Gross

Sources
Cineplex
Fresh Air

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