TASR: 1967 Topps #90 Jim Nash

On Tuesday Night the Pirates Rookie Pitcher Paul Skenes will throw the first pitch of the All-Star game. It's a rare occurrence but so is starting your career 6-0. Skenes' name is being mentioned in the same sentence with Rookie phenoms such as Doc Gooden, Fernando Valenzuela, Mark Fidrych and Jim Nash.

Jim Nash?? 

The first three of those names are all folks casual fans know well and whose Rookie accomplishments are referenced frequently. However Jim Nash - well he's before my time and even though he is a member of the All-Star Rookie Cup canon I had to look into his accomplishments

1967 Topps #90 Jim Nash 

Nash was the RHP representative for the 1967 TASR squad and he earned it, 12-1 with a 2.06 ERA. He led rookies in both categories (100 IP minimum). Prominent pitchers in the Rookie class included Future HoFs Don Sutton (12-12, 209K, 2.99 ERA, 3.5 WAR) and Fergie Jenkins (6-8, 3.32 ERA, 150 K, 3.3 WAR)

Flip

Two things to point out from the back, first the last line in the text mentions Nash's TASR nomination and secondly I direct you back to the first comic - I want pitchers to be awarded a trophy with a giant '%' etched on the front. 

Cover Boy

At roughly the same time as the above card was issued Jim Nash was also the triple cover subject for Sports Illustrated. 

Sports Illustrated 1967 March 13

Yes in March of 1967 with 12 Career Wins under his belt Jim Nash made the cover of Sports Illustrated.  At 22 years of age he was the staff ace for an Oakland A's staff that included a Young Catfish Hunter and Blue Moon Odom. 

Phuture Phillie

Jim Nash's ended his career with 8 starts for the 1972 Philadelphia Phillies, He lost ALL 8 of those starts. The 97 Loss Phillies were really bad, however Nash's 6.27 ERA with the squad was a pretty large factor in those losses. 

1973 Topps #509 Jim Nash

 

This looks like an airbrushed shot of Nash.  Check his cap, I doubt he wore that number 23 with the Phillies.  According to baseball-ref both he and Oscar Gamble wore 23 in 1972, but their tenures with the club appear to overlap so I am thinking Nash wore the other number they have listed #42. 

Flip

The comic on the flipside mentions Jim Nash's rookie Win Streak. I also want to note the Weight listed as 220. That is likely Nash's Rookie number. Articles from the era mentioned the voracious appetite of "Jumbo" Jim Nash and that he had ballooned to 260 lbs at one point in his career. 

Best of luck to Paul Skenes on Tuesday Night. Right now I imagine he is the front-runner to be the RHP rep on the 2024(2025 card) Topps All-Star Rookie team - hopefully if he ever becomes a Phillie he does better than 0-8. 

Peanut Gallery

For more coverage of this card check out Jim's column on the 1967 Topps Blog.

Sources and Links

1967 Topps All-Star Rookie Index

1967 Topps Blog

Philadelphia Inquirer (1970 June 11, Sandy Padwe)

baseball-ref

1960s Topps All-Star Rookie Cup Tournament - Major Bracket Opening Round

 We have reached the Major Bracket of the tournament. 

The Bracket features 8 teams that will engage in a double elimination tournament to narrow the field to four teams that advance to SemiFinals. Here are the Major Bracket Day 1 Results:

Team Boog 1963 (2-1)	3 - 11 - 0
Charlie's Hustlers 1964 (0-0)	1 - 10 - 2
W: Al Jackson (2-0)	L: Gary Peters (0-1)
HR: Fred Whitfield 63 (1), Ed Charles 63 (1),

In the first game we have a HUGE Upset #8 Team Boog gets Home Runs from Fred Whitefield and Ed Charles in the 3-1 victory. The Bush Division Team Boog may be a threat to the Majors. 

Team Torre 1962 (2-0)	2 - 5 - 1
Little Joes 1966 (0-0)	3 - 12 - 3
W: Frank Linzy (1-0)	L; Don Schwall (1-1)
HR:Tony Perez 66 (1), Ron Swoboda 66 (1)

#2 Seed Little Joes earn their first W of the Tournament

Team Davey J 1967 (0-0)	4 - 9 - 3
Team Mad Hits Carew 1968 (0-0)	1 - 8 - 1
W Jim Nash (1-0)	L: Tom Seaver (0-1)
HR: George Scott 67 (1)

Jim Nash outduels Tom Seaver! the Davey J come up with a big Win over Mad Hits. 

1967 Topps Jim Nash

Bench No Drips 1969 (0-0)	0 - 5 - 2
Oliva's Army 1965 (0-0)	1 - 6 - 0
W: Wally Bunker (1-0)	L: Jerry Koosman (0-1)
HR: none

Wally Bunker tosses the tournaments first Shutout giving Tony's Cronies a narrow 1-0 Win. Tough day for for Jerry Koosman in hard luck loss. Turns out Al Jackson now 2-0 was the best Mets pitcher of the day. 

Thats it for our opening round Our next posting will feature the Winners and Elimination Brackets to determine who goes to the Semis

Round 2 Winners Bracket

The four Winners from the opening bracket now meet to determine the first 2 teams to advance to the 1960s Semis

Team Boog 1963 (3-1)	1 - 10 - 3
Oliva's Army 1965 (1-0)	4 - 12 - 3
W: Bill McCool (1-0)	L: Dean Chance (1-2)
HR: Tony Conigliaro 65 (1), Mike Brumley 65 (1)

Tony Oliva's Army becomes the first team to advance to the Semis with a Homer from another Tony (Conigliaro) and one from Mike Brumley. 

Team Davey J (1-0)	2 - 6 - 1
Little Joes 1966 (1-0)	6 - 7 - 0
W: Marcenio Lopez (1-0)	L: Woody Fryman (0-1)
HR: Tony Perez 66 (2), Curt Blefary 66 (1), Sonny Jackson 67 (1)

Tony Perez with his 2nd Home Run in as Many Games sends the Little Joes to the Semis as the #1 Seed. 

Team Boog and DaveJ are still in the mix, they will get a second shot in our next post after we resolve the elimination half of this round. 

On Deck

The Pitching matchups for the Elimination Bracket are as follows:

Bench No Drips 1969 (0-1)	Stan Bahnsen (0-0)
Charlie's Hustlers 1964 (0-1)	Ray Culp (0-0)
Team Mad Hits 1968 (0-1)	Dick Hughes (0-0)
Team Torre 1962 (2-1)	Jack Curtis (1-0)

1967 Topps #165 Cleon Jones

I often find the "Where are They Now" features on retired ballplayer fascinated. Particularly those that are accomplished off the field.

Recently I saw a a news item on 1960s-1970s era Mets outfielder Cleon Jones.

1967 Topps #165 Cleon Jones

Jones has returned to the community where he was raised, Africatown Alabama which is near Mobile. He is 76 now and is busy helping out townspeople and elderly folks fixing and painting their homes. Africatown is an historic town in the area which is attempting to build a museum to honor the communities past. To read about the towns history, I strongly recommend you read this Alabama Newscenter article to find out about Africatown and Cleon Jones' efforts.


1967 Topps
Seeing the story about Cleon Jones also gives us a chance to add a column to our All-Star Rookie Cup Series. Unless team Phungo returns to serious blogging the Series will remain unfinished, but I do think it is within the realm of possibility to get up a Rookie Cup from each year and all the Phillies.

For his 1966 Cleon Jones received a single Rookie of the Year vote, good enough to place him 4th in the voting which was won by Reds Infielder Tommy Helms. Jones played 13 years which is wear several of his 1966 Topps Rookie All-Stars mates fall. The leader for tenure appears to be Woodie Fryman (LHP 18 years), while George Scott (1B) led the crew in WAR (36.5, Jones = 18.5). 

1967 Topps #165 Cleon Jones (b-side)

No pressure here, just that the back of Cleon Jones' first solo card mentions Hank Aaron, Billy Williams and Willie McCovey (featured on the very first Topps All-Star Rookie Cup card)

Sketchy
One of the many reason blog output has been slow is I have diverted my hobby time to artwork - mainly sketching baseball cards. Cleon Jones off the field charity inspired me to create a 5x7 based off of his 1967T card coupled with his efforts in Africatown.

1967T Cleon Jones (Phungo Original 5x7 in 2019 06 24)

Chief among my customizations is changing the bat to a paint roller. I also added a different trophy, changed the Mets team designation to Africatown and gave Cleon a background of a refurbished home rather than Shea Stadium.

Sources and Links
1967 Topps Rookie Cup Index (1966 Winners)
Phungo Sketch Index
Alabama NewsCenter
Baseballl-ref BR-Bullpen

1966 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup Team (1967 Topps Set)

This is an index to our postings related to Topps 1966 All-Star Rookie Cup Team. The subset was published in 1967 to honor the Rookies of 1966. 

1967 Topps #363 Dave Johnson

Randy Hundley, C, Chicago Cubs
George Scott, 1B, Boston Red Sox
Davey Johnson, 2B, Baltimore Orioles
Tommy Helms, 3B, Cincinnati Reds
Sonny Jackson, SS, Houston Astros
Tommie Agee, OF, Chicago White Sox
Byron Browne, OF, Chicago Cubs
#165 Cleon Jones, OF, New York Mets
#90 Jim Nash, RHP, Kansas City Athletics
Woodie Fryman, LHP, Pittsburgh Pirates

sources and links
All-Star Rookie Cup Master Index

1976 ASG +40: Bob Uecker 1967 Topps

The Phillies make their annual trip to Milwaukee over the weekend which gives us the opportunity to roll out one of my favorite vintage commons.

1967 Topps #326 Bob Uecker

No Bob Uecker did not play in the 1976 All-Star game. By the time the Bicentennial rolled around His career was over by almost a decade and as you may suspect the Career .200 Hitter never did play in an All-Star game.

Bob Uecker did make it to the All-Star game as a part of the broadcast team for ABC Sports. He worked alongside Warner Wolf and Pirates announcer Bob Prince.

Warner Wolf and Bob Uecker on ABC Broadcast of 1976 ASG

For the broadcast Bob Uecker drew the AL Assignment, In his pregame comments he singled out Yankees Catcher Thurman Munson and Rangers Shortstop Toby Harrah as statndouts, However the player the was really looking forward to seeing was Mark Fidrych.

The follow up question from lead broadcaster Warner Wolf was about how Uecker liked to spend his All-Star Break. The reply was pure Self-Depracating Bob Uecker

"Well what I used to do was load my catchers equiment into my car rent a motel room for three days lock myself in and scream my head off because I didn’t make it again. "

I should note that it is not entirely correct that Uecker was never an All-Star....

1967 Topps #326 Bob Uecker (b-side)

According to the second -toon on the back of the card Uecker was an All-Star selection in 1961. There is something in error here, as in 1961 Bob Uecker played for the Louisville Colonels of the Ammerican Association not the NL.

Bleacher Seats
For more on Bob Uecker and this card (his last as an active player) check out the 1967 Topps Baseball Posting.

Sources and Links
1976 All-Star Game Index
1967 Topps Baseball
baseball-ref
YouTube - 1976 All-Star Game

All-Stars aren't the only players relegated to Short Print Hi# cards in 2016 Heritage

On Tuesday night we mentioned all the All-Stars that are part of 2016 Heritage, but have their cards relegated to the harder to find Hi Number series. With 31 of the 75 Hi#s dedicated to the ASG participants there remains 44 slots for other players.

2016 Heritage #498 Odubel Herrera

I fortunately did not have to look for this Hi# long, We pulled Odubel in our first pack of Heritage. 

Decent spring training shot, nice to see the palm trees in the background. The card and picture definitely evoke the feel of the original 1967 Topps. 

Odubel Herrera resides at card #498 in Heritage and bears no connection to the player on the original card, Larry Dierker.

I didn't have to go through the checkers comparing this info, I waited long enough for the Good Folks over at the Phillies Room to do it for me...

2016 Heritage Checker

2016 Topps Heritage Phillies Team Checklist vs 1967 Topps Checklist

The above chart is a comparative of the original 1967 Topps with this years Heritage set. This will come in handy if I ever decide to fill out the team set. There are 18 cards on the team checker. Herrera is one of two Hi#s, the other is Maikel Franco at #473.

I will take another turn at reprimanding Topps here. Out of the Phillies players awarded Heritage cards the top-3 in 2015 WAR were Herrera, Aaron Nola, and Franco. Two of the three have been banished to the High set.

More SPs

2016 Heritage #448 Tyson Ross

Yeah I will never find a reason to post a pix of this SP of Tyson Ross, but figured I would give it some life here, just in case we never see the card again.

For what it's worth the #448 card was occupied by Harry "the Hat" Walker - a card that according to Cardboard Connection was DOUBLE-PRINTED.

Sources and Links
2016 Topps Heritage Index
The Phillies Room
Cardboard Connection
Baseball-ref

Does Topps Really Short Print all the SuperStars in Heritage?

I am not here to debate the merits/issues of Short Printed cards, not tonight anyway.

But I would like to discuss the number of Star players that are among the Short Printed Cards

2016 Topps Heritage #479 Lorenzo Cain

It has been mentioned that there are a disproportionately large number of stars among 2016T Heritage cards which run from #426-500 and can only be found at a rate of 1:3 packs.

If your favorite player is Mike Trout and he is in the SP range, you may be upset at how hard his card is to find. That doesn’t necessarily mean that more stars are short printed.

While there are many Stars in the high range there are plenty in the base set, Andrew McCutchen, Adam Jones, Jose Bautista and Kris Bryant among them.

How do we go about figuring out if the Stars are backloaded into the Short Print Range?

What is a Star?

For purposes of our study we picked the 2015 All-Star teams.

I admit the way the All-Star team is composed is a complicated process subject to the whims of a popularity contest. Regardless, every player that makes the squad is a star at some level, even if it is because of strong public persona or due to the mandatory rep for each team clause.

The 2015 All-Star teams gave us a sample of 76 players that were chosen for the two squads. Of those players 74 were issued 2016 Topps Heritage cards. The retired AJ Burnett was skipped which makes sense, but I have no idea why Alex Gordon was omitted (perhaps it was an allusion to the 2006 Topps debacle)

How many Star Players should be Short Printed?

12

Why Twelve? You may want to check my math on this one - here goes: there are 75 SP cards 2016 Heritage. This makes up 15% of the 500 card set (75/500 = 0.15)

There are 74 All-Stars in Heritage and 15% of 74 = 11.1

To give Topps some extra room we rounded up.

How many Stars are SP in 2016T Heritage?

31

THIRTY-ONE!?!!

That is just a shy of 42% close to Three-Times the expected number. Among the first 425 cards 43 are Stars just a tad more often than 1 in 10. The final 75 cards include 31 Stars, that is more than 1 in 3.  

The Numbers
The Chart below lists all of the 2015 All-Stars in Topps Heritage Numerical Order. The red notes the High Numbers that start at card 426 - Clayton Kershaw. 
 

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2016 Heritage	2015 All Star	Team
7	Alcides Escobar (1)	Kansas City Royals
11	Francisco Rodriguez (6)	Milwaukee Brewers
14	Jhonny Peralta (3)	St. Louis Cardinals
30	J.D. Martinez (1)	Detroit Tigers
36	Carlos Martinez (1)	St. Louis Cardinals
38	Adrian Gonzalez (1)	Los Angeles Dodgers
70	Kris Bryant (1)	Chicago Cubs
73	Jonathan Papelbon (6)	Philadelphia Phillies
74	Brock Holt (1)	Boston Red Sox
79	Jose Iglesias (1)	Detroit Tigers
80	Aroldis Chapman (4)	Cincinnati Reds
84	Yasmani Grandal (1)	Los Angeles Dodgers
89	Trevor Rosenthal (1)	St. Louis Cardinals
90	Sonny Gray (1)	Oakland Athletics
100	Adam Jones (5)	Baltimore Orioles
125	Zach Britton (1)	Kansas City Royals
128	Mike Moustakas (1)	Kansas City Royals
130	Zack Greinke (3)	Los Angeles Dodgers
131	Russell Martin (4)	Toronto Blue Jays
146	Kelvin Herrera (1)	Kansas City Royals
156	Mark Melancon (2)	Pittsburgh Pirates
157	Manny Machado (1)	Baltimore Orioles
160	Joc Pederson (1)	Los Angeles Dodgers
195	Nolan Arenado (1)	Colorado Rockies
210	Michael Wacha (1)	St. Louis Cardinals
247	Hector Santiago (1)	Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
251	Yadier Molina (7)	St. Louis Cardinals
254	Dee Gordon (2)	Miami Marlins
293	Wade Davis (1)	Kansas City Royals
297	Joe Panik (1)	San Francisco Giants
300	Glen Perkins (3)	Minnesota Twins
302	Salvador Perez (3)	Kansas City Royals
310	Chris Sale (4)	Chicago White Sox
320	Madison Bumgarner (3)	San Francisco Giants
322	Giancarlo Stanton (3)	Miami Marlins
325	Matt Holliday (7)	St. Louis Cardinals
331	Brad Boxberger (1)	Tampa Bay Rays
339	Darren O'Day (1)	Baltimore Orioles
340	Mark Teixeira (3)	New York Yankees
382	Brett Gardner (1)	New York Yankees
400	Andrew McCutchen (5)	Pittsburgh Pirates
419	DJ LeMahieu (1)	Colorado Rockies
425	Gerrit Cole (1)	Pittsburgh Pirates
426	Clayton Kershaw (5)	Los Angeles Dodgers
427	Brian Dozier (1)	Minnesota Twins
430	Dallas Keuchel (1)	Houston Astros
431	Jose Bautista (6)	Toronto Blue Jays
433	Prince Fielder (6)	Texas Rangers
435	Chris Archer (1)	Tampa Bay Rays
444	Anthony Rizzo (2)	Chicago Cubs
445	Justin Upton (3)	San Diego Padres
446	Troy Tulowitzki (5)	Colorado Rockies
447	Brandon Crawford (1)	San Francisco Giants
450	Bryce Harper (3)	Washington Nationals
451	Stephen Vogt (1)	Oakland Athletics
457	Nelson Cruz (4)	Seattle Mariners
458	Jason Kipnis (2)	Cleveland Indians
459	Max Scherzer (3)	Washington Nationals
460	Buster Posey (3)	San Francisco Giants
461	Felix Hernandez (6)	Seattle Mariners
462	Dellin Betances (2)	New York Yankees
464	Shelby Miller (1)	Atlanta Braves
465	Paul Goldschmidt (3)	Arizona Diamondbacks
466	A.J. Pollock (1)	Arizona Diamondbacks
470	Jose Altuve (3)	Houston Astros
472	Todd Frazier (2)	Cincinnati Reds
477	David Price (5)	Detroit Tigers
478	Miguel Cabrera (10)	Detroit Tigers
479	Lorenzo Cain (1)	Kansas City Royals
481	Albert Pujols (10)	Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
483	Josh Donaldson (2)	Toronto Blue Jays
495	Jacob deGrom (1)	New York Mets
496	Ryan Braun (6)	Milwaukee Brewers
500	Mike Trout (4)	Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
na	Alex Gordon (3)	Kansas City Royals
na	A.J. Burnett (1)	Pittsburgh Pirates

Exploring these numbers a bit further uncovers greater violations.

The parenthetical numbers associated with the player names indicate the number of times the player has been an All-Star. The total number of games for Hi-Numbers 104 versus 98 for Base. Yes among last years All-Stars the 31 players that fall among the 75 short prints account for more All-Star appearances than the 43 that fall in the first 425 cards.

Sources and Links
2016 Heritage/1967 Topps Index
Baseball Almanac
Sports Collectors Daily