WWII Hero and NFL Hall of Famer Emlen Tunnell Honored in Radnor PA

On Saturday June 2nd Radnor township where team Phungo resides honored WWII Hero, NFL Hall of Famer, and Radnor HS Alum Emlen Tunnell with a statue at the local township building.

Emlen Statue Unveiled 2018 June 2

The Statue stands at local the township buildings entrance which also houses the Sports Hall of Fame for Delaware County.

Jennifer Frudakis-Petry 

The sculptor for the project was local artist Jennifer Frudakis-Petry who was on hand for the ceremony. Frudakis-Petry has done a number of Portrait Sculptures (busts) and Bas Reliefs including several sports artworks.

Her baseball commissions include a Bronze Bas-Relief at Atlantic City's Pop Lloyd Stadium that celebrates the history of the Negro Leagues

And Notable to Phillies fans she has worked as an assistant to Zenos Frudakis on the four Hall of Fame statues at Citizen's Bank Park (Schmidt, Ashburn, Robin Roberts, and Carlton).

Alongside the statue is a plaque summarizing Tunnell's career accomplishments.

Ceremony Speakers
The dedication featured a US Coast Guard Honor Guard with Coast Guard Commander William McKinstry as a featured speaker. McKinstry discussed Tunnell's tenure with the Coast Guard and how he saved lives of fellow Guardsmen on two different occasions. To read more about the ceremony please check Linda Stein's Delco Times column here.

Billy "White Shoes" Johnson

Sportswise the big name speaker was Billy "White Shoes" Johnson. And Yes..

He Still wears the White Shoes!

Other sports figures present included NFL former Vikings and Jets D-Coordinator Ted Cottrell, New York Giant Don Clune and Wisconsin Basketball Coach Bo Ryan.

The day was very well done with ceremonies lasting about 90 minutes. In addition to the Honor Guard presentation there was a terrific rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by Vanessa Howard. All the sports related folks gave great speeches with Ted Cottrell being particularly effective. He noted that many of today's players are "knuckleheads" and proposed that the NFL retired the #45 league-wide to honor the memory of Emlen Tunnell as both a hero and pioneer on and off the field.

Jim Vankoski is one of the driving figures behind the Sports Legends of Delaware County Museum and deserves recognition for dedication for creating a great space and putting together a terrific day to honor a legend.

Sources and Links
Delco Times - Linda Stein
Jennifer Frudakis
Sports Legends of Delaware County Museum

 

Pete Rose (1985) Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol’s Pete Rose portrait was the idea of Cincinnati based art collector Carl Solway. Solway got into fine art collecting almost by accident. He attended University of Pennsylvania where he met his first wife who was working at the Philadelphia Art Museum. This connection led Solway to a return to his native Cincinnati and a career as an art dealer.

Pete Rose

In 1985 Carl Solway was driving home listening to a Reds game on the radio when broadcaster and former player Joe Nuxhall mentioned that Pete Rose was expected to break Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record later that year. This gave Solway an idea

“It would be so cool if the art community could do something about that, instead of just the jocks and the sports people” 

He discussed the idea with the Cincinnati Art Museum and Andy Warhol’s agent. Everyone agreed to the deal and a price of $100,000 was set for the commission. However Andy Warhol had one question:

“Who is Pete Rose”

Eventually Andy Warhol did find out who Pete Rose was and created this really fun portrait.

Pete Rose (1985)

The portrait is the property of the Cincinnati Art Museum where it hangs whenever it is not on loan. It measures approximately 9x7' with each of the individual panels 54x44"

This is the last of Andy Warhol’s three major baseball related paintings and features several of his signature techniques:

1. It is of course a silkscreen
2. It is bright and colorful – lets face it if your subject is Pete Rose you better be colorful
3. Seriagraph (Repetition)
4. It appropriates a Photograph. This photograph is by Gordon Baer and appeared in "Pete Rose on Hitting"
5. It appropriates a familiar artifact of pop culture, in this case the design of a 1985 Baseball Card

It is interesting to compare and contrast Pete Rose with Baseball (1962). While the paintings appear very different, there are many stylistic gestures that remain. The biggest difference is Black & White vs Color. For similarities we have Two Silkscreens, Two Photographs used for Appropriation, and Two Seriagraphs.

Of course the serigraph for Rose is totally different than Baseball/Maris. Limiting Rose to Four large images rather than three dozen smaller ones makes the subject instantly recognizable, whereas in Baseball we are not even sure that the picture is of Roger Maris.

 “Pete Rose” made it’s debut at the Cincinnati Art Museum on September 10 1985, in a case of remarkably good timing this was just a day prior to the night that Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb’s record.

For more detailed  information check out the various links below for interesting stories regarding 

Andy Warhol’s “Pete Rose” (unlinked titles are columns that I hope to cover in the future)

 

SABR Presentation: The Andy Warhol Triple Play (the Rose portion starts at 5:00)
The related slides can be downloaded here. 
Carl Solway
Donahue (1985 SEP 12) 
1985 Topps
Golden Ratio
Reds @ Mets 1985 JUL 22-24 (The portrait sitting that never happened / Phyllis George Memorial)
Gordon Baer  (Pete Rose Batting RH & holding a white bat)
Switch Hitting
Pete Rose II (Lavender Single)
Pete Rose and Warhol after 1985

Trading Cards and Art
Jean-Michel Basquiat (Nick SABR BB Card Blog)
Don Celender
Dick Perez
Gerry Dvorak
Vernon Wells Sr
Bill Forsyth
Peter Max

Sources and Links
Andy Warhol Index
Pete Rose Index
Carl Solway
Solway Gallery
Cincinnati Art Museum
CityBeat 2010 May 19 “A Life in Artworks” - Steven Rosen
CityBeat 2010 Aug 24 “Warhol’s Pete Rose Portrait Turns 25” - Steven Rosen
City Beat 2015 Apr 7 "Warhol's Baseball Art is a Hit at CAM" - Steve Rosen
Sports Illustrated 1985 Aug 19 “On Deck For The Big Knock” Rick Reilly

New York Times 1985 Jul 14 “Rose Still Hustling, Still Hitting at 44” Ira Berkow

Andy Warhol Diaries (Pat Hackett) 
Pete Rose on HItting (Golenbock/Rose)

ANNIVERSARY: 1993 May 10 - Phillies Win on Dauton Slam, Push record to 23-7

Today marks the 25th Anniversary of the first Grand Slam that I saw in person. This is a re-issue of a posting published here 5 years ago:

I had always been a baseball fan but in 1993 it reached another level. The 93 Phils is where my fascination with baseball as an adult began.

And if I was to point to a single game where this all happened it would have been the Pirates @ Phillies game on May 10th 1993.

1993 05 10 Game Ticket - Pirates 1 @ Phillies 5

The Phillies were coming off a big comeback win where Mariano Duncan had hit an 8th inning Grand Slam off of Lee Arther Smith.  Smith was one of the most dominating closers of the late 80s and The game completed a 3 game sweep of the St Louis Cardinals.

The next afternoon a colleague popped into my office and asked if I wanted to go down to the game.  It was the first time I had ever considered going to a Phils game on a whim - and I am glad I did.

The Pirates and Phils were knotted at 1 in the 7th inning, Lenny Dykstra reached with a one out single Mickey Morandini reached on a 2 base error and John Kruk was intentionally walked to load the bases.  Dave Hollins grounded into a force at home setting up a bases loaded 2 out AB for team leader Darren Daulton.  And Daulton delivered - One day after Mariano Duncan hit a go-ahead slame Daulton had one of his own.  The Philllies had won 4 in a row and ran their record to 23-7 16 games over .500.  They would not look back going all the way to the World Series.

1994 Topps Black Gold #28 Darren Daulton

It was the first time I ever saw a Grand Slam in person and it was the first time I ever really understood what it was like to be watching a great baseball team. To this day it remains one of the greatest games I have ever been to.

Friday marks the 20th anniversary of that game - This year I plan on focussing on commemorating the 1983 Phillies NL Pennant but there will definitely be a few nods to the 1993 Clubs as well.

 Go Phightins!  

Sources and Links
Baseball-Ref
1993 Phillies Index
Darren Daulton Index

Tom Seaver (1977) Andy Warhol - The Polaroids

These are the pictures I have found from the Tom Seaver portrait sitting with Andy Warhol.

The sitting occurred on July 20 1977 during Seaver's emotional return to New York after being traded to the Cincinnati Reds. To read more about the session and Warhol's photographic process click here.

 

Danzinger Gallery

  

Danzinger Gallery

Design Boom


Design Boom

 Christie's

 Christie's

 Christie's

Christie's


AP Images / Rene Perez 

Andy and Tom examining the photographs. Warhol would typically take 60-100 polaroids, notice all the used 4-flip flashbulbs in front of Seaver. In the pre-digital photo age Polaroids gave Warhol the best opportunity to get input from his subject in a timely manner.

Links and Sources
Andy Warhol Tom Seaver Index
Andy Warhol Index
Danzinger Gallery
Design Boom
Christie's
Rene Perez

Tom Seaver (1977) Andy Warhol - From the Athletes Series

This is an Index to our material related to Andy Warhol's Tom Seaver painting. One of ten done for the Athlete's series.    

 

The Athlete Series: Tom Seaver (1977)

Rather than go into a lot of detail on Andy Warhol's 1977 painting of Tom Seaver here, I have broken down the information into smaller columns focusing on specific aspects or stories about the painting. The related links are below.

The 8 flavors of the Tom Seaver painting

The Midnight Massacre (1977 Jun 15)
The Portrait Sitting (1977 Jul 20)
A Tale of Two Caps - Mets or Reds  (1977 Jul 20)
The Polaroids (1977 Jul 20)

Juliet & Charles Seaver
Nancy Seaver
Richard Weisman
Rene Perez
Bernard Gotfryd
Andy Warhol Index 
Richard Diebenkorn

The Athletes Series
Rod Gilbert

Muhammad Ali

Pele

Chris Everett

Kareem Abdul-Jabaar

OJ Simpson

Jack Nicklaus

Dorothy Hamill

Willie Shoemaker
Dr J

Sources and Links
Andy Warhol Index
Tom Seaver Index 

ANNIVERSARY: 1993 Apr 9 - Opening Day

Ok the busy/lazy blogger that I am missed an Anniversary. 25 Years ago the Phillies held the home opener for their 1993 Pennant Winning season. 

The 1993 Phillies opened at Houston and took all 3 games from the Astros. The Phillies returned home hosting the Cubs in front of 60,985 - the largest opening day in club history - and Team Phungo was there for the game.

As one can tell in 1993 I was not very picky about taking card of my souvenirs. This is the first major league ticket that I ever had with a play photograph. It was pretty special for the era. Oddly since then we have gone through a period when almost all tickets had pictures to the current situation where we don't use hard tickets at all. 

Regardless, I loved it at the time and I still love the tix today. Note that below the photo the card err I mean ticket honors Darren Daulton by mentioning his 1992 RBI crown. Well on his Ticket Photo day, he had a helluva day which included 5 RBI on a pair of Home Runs. So we have our star player on the tix, and the tix mentions RBIs and he piles on 5 RBI. Well Done Dutch!

Unfortunately that was not enough as the Phillies lost to the Cubs 11-7. The Phillies fell to second place a half game behind the 3-0 Pirates - It was the only day the 1993 Phillies fell out of first place. 

 

Sources and Links

1993 Phillies @ 25 Index

Darren Daulton Index 

Game Dated Cards

Macho Row - William C Kashatus

Baseball-Ref

1959 Topps All-Star #553 Orlando Cepeda - and a BIG cartoon

Last month Orlando Cepeda had to be rushed to the hospital to be treated for a "cardiac incident". Thankfully, according to a SF Gate article the Hall of Fame first baseman has made significant progress towards recovery. 

The scary news got me to check and I realized that I had not yet dedicated a column to Cepeda. Tonight we rectify this issue. 

1959 Topps All-Star #553 Orlando Cepeda

In 1959 Orlando Cepeda made the first of eleven All-Star teams that he would be part of during his 17 year career. 1959 began a four year run that featured two all-star games. Cepeda made all 8 of those teams. Cepeda only appeared in the first of the two 1959 games, with the NL winning the contest 5-4 despite the fact that Cepeda went 0-4.

In addition to the 11 ASG Orlando Cepeda's accolades include a World Champion, four postseason appearances,  an MVP (1967) award and a Rookie of the Year (1958).

And oh yeah that Hall of Fame plaque awarded by the Veterans Committee in 1999.  

The 1959 Topps All-Star cards close the set and were the last to be released for the year. The nice thing about this is that it allows Topps to put out an All-Star set representing the current years game, unfortunately they made some dubious choices in selection.

Orlando Cepeda would appear on two other All-Star cards, 1962 and 1968. In addition to being included in the 1968 ASG set Cepeda was also the subject of that years NL All-Star puzzle.

Flip

1959 Topps All-Star #553 Orlando Cepeda (b-side)

I like the backs of the 1959 Topps All-Stars, The full-size cartoon and fun-fact are nicely done. I also like the Bazooka ad at the bottom.

BIG Cartoon
1959 Topps #535 Orlando Cepeda also happens to be a landmark card. I believe 1959 Topps All-Stars are the first subset to include the full-size cartoon. There are actually 2 cards that precede Cepeda in the 1959 ASG Subset, but those are both managers, The first of which is Fred Haney who is the first oversized cartoon back. However since he is not a player, and neither is #534 Casey Stengel that makes today's featured guest Orlando Cepeda the first player to have an oversized cartoon back - PIONEER! Thanks to Fuji for getting my wheels rolling in this direction.

Other Voices
CommishBob covers this over at his 1959 Topps Blog

Orlando Cepeda Index
1975 Topps  #205 1967 MVP  (with Carl Yastrzemski)


Sources and Links
1959 Topps All-Stars Index 
1968 Topps Blog
1959 Topps 1 f/g card at a time
SF Gate
baseball-ref

Updates
2018 0321 - Added Big Cartoon Paragraph, Thanks Fuji