Sunday Night Baseball Rangers @ Yankees: Army Veteran Whitey Ford

It is Memorial Day Weekend and the Yankees are on Sunday Night Baseball.

2012 Cooperstown Collection With Honors #8 Whitey Ford

Between the vacations, barbecues and family get together it is a good time to remember the Veterans and servicemen and women who were less fortunate than Whitey Ford.

Ford Served in the Army from 1951-1952 during the Korean Conflict.

2012 Cooperstown Collection With Honors #8 Whitey Ford (b-side)

As noted on the back of his Panini card, his assignment Playing Baseball at Fort Monmouth was far less dangerous than say Ted Williams piloting fighter planes over the Pacific.

Cool fun fact on the card. Whitey Ford wore is Army uniform to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Yankees 1951 Opening Day game vs Boston. Now that would be a helluva shot for the the Topps First Pitch Series.

Sources and Links
Phungo Whitey Ford HoF Index
Baseball Hall of Fame
Panini card
Cardboard Connection

Sunday Night Baseball: Red Sox @ Yankees - 1962 Topps #475 Whitey Ford

Bosox and Yankees return to Sunday Night Baseball tonight. To mark this years matchup of the two rivalries we take a look at a Yankee that I believe to be under-covered by the hobby, Whitey Ford. 

1962 Topps #475 Whitey Ford All-Star

The Hall of Fame resume for Whitey Ford is built firmly on three of the stronger legs of the HoF qualfiers. Solid, if not exceptional Career Numbers, Hardware for the positions premier single season award - Cy Young, and an Incredible Postseason run including 6 World Championships. Ford has 10 World Series Game Wins, with 146 WS Innings across which he posted an impressive 2.71 ERA.

Whitey Ford lost two seasons to military service. Those two seasons early in his career most likely would have helped his already healthy career totals. 

Cy WAR
In 1962 Whitey Ford was coming off his only Cy Young Award. In a bit of an oddity Ford won the award despite not finishing top 10 in WAR that season. He did go 25-4 and led the league in innings. The oddity is further complicated when one considers Ford finished top 10 in pWAR eight times and
only received Cy Young votes one other season (1956). His best WAR finish was 2nd in 1964 when he received no votes (there was only one award for both leagues at the time). Dean Chance (9.3 WAR) rightfully won the award that season.

Whitey Ford HoF Index
1964 Topps Jumbo #7 
2012 Cooperstown Collection With Honors #8 

Sources and Links
baseball-ref

2013 Topps the Originals - 1964 Topps Giants

Today we look at a Set that Topps released in 1964, but wasn't issued with the base set.  The 1964 Topps Giants set was a near postcard sized issue of 60 cards.

1964 Topps Giant #7 Whitey Ford

I really like this design simple uncluttered.  I would like to see Topps bring this format back for the smaller traditional sized cards, just to see what it would like. Either Archives or Lineage including these cards as box toppers a few years ago, but I haven't picked any up yet. I would hope that 2013 Heritage would do the same thing this year, but I have not seen any indication that there are plans for including the larger format cards.

1964 Topps Giant #7 Whitey Ford (b-side)


I really like the flip side of these cards.  I have always been a fan of the newsprint format on cards. Having the 2nd photo on the cards is also a nice bonus.  The late Chris Stufflestreet wrote a fine column on this set in 2011 which you can find here.

Whitey Ford

For all of the card blogs I have read, I have not see many folks talk about Whitey Ford, which is a bit odd.  He is a Yankee and a Hall of Famer who was on Six World Championship teams. .

Ford won 236 games in the majors, leading the league 3 times. One of those seasons was 1961 when He went 25-4 and won the Cy Young Award.  He had an additional 10 World Series victories - over 146 World Series innings he compiled a tidy ERA of 2.71. 

Whitey Ford was also a 10 time all-star. Great all-around numbers and the guy lost 2 years to military service as well.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974 on his second ballot.

Today Whitey Ford is still alive at age 84.  He worked the Philly Show within the last couple of years.

For the Collector

The 1964 Topps cards are not uncommon at shows and are usually reasonably priced. I picked the Ford card above up as part of a lot of about a dozen cards with many Hall of Famers. Whitey Ford made up about $2 of the lot price.  Recent Lo-Bay close $3.75 with six auctions ending at $5 or under. The High for a PSA 9 (Mint) auction was $48.50

Prior 1964 Topps the Originals Postings 

1964 Topps Design (Ray Culp, Lou Brock, Gus Triandos)  

1964 Topps b-Sides (Ray Culp)

1964 Topps Rookie Cards (Dick Allen)

1964 Topps League Leader Cards (Hank Aaron, Ken Boyer, Bill White) 

1964 Topps Team Cards (Phillies, Reds)  

More info on 1964 Topps

The full series is in the process of being covered at the 1964 Topps Blog 

Chris Stufflestreet - Vintage Sportscards 1964 Topps Giants

The Phillies Room has a posting on the 1964 Topps Phillies as part of the ongoing Topps Phillies Series.

Dean's Cards

Beckett

Other Sources 
Phungo Whitey Ford HoF Index
1964 Topps Jumbo Index 

Bob Lemke's Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards 
eBay
Surf Baseball Card Collectiblies, Philadelphia Phillies

Baseball-Reference.com 

2010 Pull N Junk Playoffs: Best Pull - 2nd Quarter

The Best Pull Tourney Turns the page to the best pull of the 2nd Quarter of 2010.  Here are the candidates.

April
Two Topps Heritage Inserts make the cut for April 2010.   

2010 Topps Heritage Chrome #C90 Troy Tulowitzki (#d 288/1961)

2010 Topps Heritage Then & Now #TN10 Shutout Leaders Whitey Ford & Roy Halladay

click Here to find out more about these cards. 

May
May features a trio of entries that came out of UD bargain packs I picked up this past spring.  


2008 UD X Xponential 2 #X2-JT

2008 UD Baseball Heroes Copper #10 Brian McCann (#d100/149)
 
2009 UD 20th Anniversary #638 Steve Carlton

A couple of favorite players and a serially numbered McCann Card. 

For More Info on the May Cards click here.

June

1988 Donruss #539 Greg Maddux

Even Junk Wax can yield a Pull of the Month.  This is a Pre-Cy Young Greg Maddux.  At the time of issue Greg Maddux had a career W-L record of 8-18, He would go on to win 347 more games.

More info here. 

Vote

Please Vote for your favorite Phungo Pull of the 2nd Quarter in the comments:

1) Troy Tulowitzki
2) Roy Halladay/ Whitey Ford
3) Jim Thome
4) Brian McCann
5) Lefty
6) Greg Maddux

Pull of the Month - April 2010 - Heritage Chrome Troy Tulowitzki

It is a good thing I got involved in the Cardboard Junkie Heritage Blaster League - or else I would have a very little fodder for Pull of the Month.


2010 Topps Heritage Chrome #C90 Troy Tulowitzki (#d 288/1961)

I was also pretty happy with this Topps Heritage Then & Now Insert that came out of the box.

2010 Topps Heritage Then & Now #TN10 Shutout Leaders Whitey Ford & Roy Halladay

Not exactly sure how Topps came up with this one. According to the card back Ford actually finished 8th in shutouts in 1961. And if the stat doesn't match up there isn't much of a reason to pair up the HoF lefty with The Phils new staff ace.

I could also mention some of the cards I picked up in a group break from Nachos Grande that would be Pull of the month worthy, but I am sticking to packs I actually opened this month.

Meh of the Month


2009 UD Signature Stars #90 Ryan Garko

This product only has 100 veterans and Ryan Garko gets a card marking his 40 games as a San Francisco Giant?

If you want to find out more about the rather bland UD Signature Stars set check out my pack break over at A Pack to be Named Later.

Previous Pull of the Month Posts

2010 March

2010 February

2010 January

Philly Card Show Report - 2010 03 13 - Vintage Hall of Famers

For a previous post on the March 2010 Philly Show featuring Vintage Phils Cards click here.

Today I am featuring HOF cards that I picked up.

1964 Topps #29 Lou Brock
1962 Topps #475 Whitey Ford All Star

Cool to find a Lou Brock card from before he was traded to the Cardinals. I think each of these rough cards went for a buck a piece but don't remember now. The early vintage All-Star cards 1958-1962 are all usually pretty reasonable except for 1961.


1957 Topps #215 Enos Slaughter
1973 Topps #341 Jim Palmer

The back of the Slaughter card was well "slaughtered" but it was in the 3 for $1 bin and I couldn't turn it down. The Palmer is from the first iteration of the Boyhood Photos in 1973. This card was also in the 3fer bin.


1967 Topps #241 1966 AL RBI Leaders
1969 Topps #175 Jim Bunning

I am not a big League Leaders card fan, but this one was to big to pass up. Both of these were in the $1 bin.




1971 Topps #380 Tony Perez
1974 Topps #61 Luis Aparicio

Two more HOFs I think from the 3fer bin but can't remember. Aparicio was known for playing the White Sox but finished his career playing for the Red Sox. I believe this is his final Topps Card from his playing days.

2010 Topps Heritage First Pack

My first 2010 Heritage pack was a Retail Pack from Wal-Mart, where the packs go for $3.16 including PA Sales Tax. The pack proved to be a bit insert heavy.

2010 Topps Heritage

#22 Ross Ohlendorf
#295 Rick Ankiel #251 Jarrod Washburn

Nice first couple of cards. Hats off to Ohlendorf for being the First Heritage card of 2010. Wonder if he has ever been first at anything else before. Ankiel is now with the Royals - not sure if he kept the -stache. Washburn remains a free agent, but still gets a Heritage card from the 2 months he spent with the Tigers in 2009.


#114 Buster Posey
#105 Tim Hudson
#180 Robinson Cano (b-side)

I like the second half of the pack much better. Three pretty decent young players. I chose Cano for the B-Side Rep basically because he is a stinkin Yankee. Buster Posey only needs a rookie cup to have three different rookie designations thrown on his card.


#BF1 Baseball Flashbacks Roger Maris
#61RM-13 Maris Chase '61 13th Homer
#TN7 Then and Now White Ford, Justin Verlander

I like the Baseball Flashback card. Nice action shot of a player that has basically been denied his place in history twice.

Can somebody explain the Maris Chase cards going for bonkers bucks on ebay?? several #13 cards that appear similar to this one have gone for $7 plus shipping. According to the packs they fall one every four packs. They cannot be that uncommon.

I am pretty sure the Then and Now came out of a different pack. If someone can explain to me why Mr Verlander has been married to Mr Ford on this card, It would be appreciated. According to the leader board on the flip side of the card Ford finished 3rd in the league in Ks while Vernlander led the league - no symmetry there. It's not like the Tigers didn't exist in 1961. How about Jim Bunning he was a Tiger and was among the strikeout leaders in 61.



#BF1 Baseball Flashbacks Roger Maris
#61RM-13 Maris Chase '61 13th Homer

The B-sides of the two Maris cards for anybody that's interested.

Not a bad start to the year. I have already decided I am collecting only the Phils, plus one player from each other team from the base set. Undecided on the inserts.

The House that Ruth Built

On Sunday September 21 2008, The New York Yankees host the Baltimore Orioles in the final game at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankee’s are a team which has a legacy so great that Topps and Upper Deck have dedicated entire series’ to single players:

And there is a series dedicated to the stadium itself:

Yankee Stadium is the place that the Yankees called home while winning 26 World Championships. A wing of Hall of Famers have played in Yankee Stadium: Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Reggie. This Legend played the home half of 2131 consecutive games there:

The more recent versions of the Bronx Bombers have consisted of all-stars at nearly every position. Some are from the system some from trades some were free agents. Jeter, Posoda, Rivera, Clemens, Bernie, O’ Neill, Tino, Pettite, and of Course A-Rod.

This guy even left the enemy and SHAVED to play in Yankee Stadium.

Over the next couple of days I will be putting together a series of entries about the Yankees and Yankee Stadium. I hope you enjoy the posts.