Next up in our look at #23 is Jimmie Hall. He is one Cubs player that I have absolutely no recollection of. But there is probably a good reason for it. He joined the team on September 11, 1969. But by then my seven year old heart had already been crushed. The Cubs were in second place and I was back in school, a third grader trying to forget the season.
When I put my first Cubs team sets together in the late '70's, I was shocked by this card. I had no idea who Jimmie Hall was or that he played with the '69 Cubs. I remembered every other player with a Cubs card from the '70 set, but not this guy.
The Cubs were Hall's third team of the 1969 season, having also spent time with the Angels and the Yankees. It would be safe to say that your career is on it's last legs when you play for three teams in one season.
Hall came to the majors with the Twins in 1963 and hit 33 home runs, yet finished third in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting, behind Gary Peters and Pete Ward of the White Sox. He was an All Star the next two seasons, but his home run numbers were dropping. After his average dipped to only .239 in 1966, the Twins traded him to the Angels. His first season with California was his last as an everyday player. After that he was a pinch hitter and reserve outfielder.
Though he played in only 11 games for the 1969 Cubs, Hall got a card in Topp's 1970 set. He returned to the team in 1970, but played in only 28 games and hit .094. In late June the Cubs sold him to the Braves, where he played in another 39 games. The Braves released him after the season and he never played major league ball again.
Hall was the second player to wear #23 in 1969. Earlier in the season, Manny Jimenez wore it. His stay with the team was barely a month long and Topps didn't make a card for him. He made only six pinch hit appearances and was held hitless.
Both Hall and Jimenez give you an idea of just how bad the players in #23 were. I put all of the players who wore the number in the '70's and '80's (except Ryne Sandberg) into a spreadsheet to total up their stats.
Here's what they look like:
Games...602
AB's...1360
Hits...302
Home Runs...37
RBI's...167
Walks...187
Strike Outs...267
Batting Average... .222
Those are some really horrible stats. We'll see if the guys from the '50's and '60's did any better.
So the challenge is to spent $50,000 in fifteen minutes.
Here's how I would do it:
I've got three objectives: Replacing reprints of older cards with the originals, adding more Cubs team sets, and then going for some Topps complete sets.
The very first card I would get is my white whale, Topps 1954 Ernie Banks, his rookie card. I just haven't gotten the nerve to spend so much for one card...until now. This is more than I would ever spend with my own money, but with free money, its a PSA 9 for $2925.00.
Next, I play a little loose with the rules and leave ebay to head to this page at Teamsets4u. He's got 1,634 different Cubs team sets. I already have several of them, but I don't have time to pick and choose. I'm just sending him an email that says, "One of each of the Cubs sets please," for a total cost of $9,373.00.
Then its back to ebay. My 1952 Topps Cubs are reprints and I'd like to get the real things. Because of the 15 minute time limit, I'm just going to grab the nine Cubs in the set that are high numbers. They will run $2,981.00.
So far, I've spent "only" $15,279.00.. The rest of the time and the money will be used to add to my Topps complete set collection, starting with 1968, and working backwards. This will take care of the rest of the money pretty quickly:
1968...$2,760
1967...$3,500
1966...$2,570
1965...$3,300
1964...$1,525
1963...$3,205
1962...$3,750
1961...$4,200
1960...$3,300
1959...$3,500
1958...$2,500
If I can click fast enough, then by the time I get the 1958 set I'll have spent $49,389.00.
Well that was fun! Now if I could just convince Mrs. Wrigley Wax to let me trade in a chunk of the retirement fund for some cardboard so I can do this for real. "It's an investment, honey, and the cards will keep their value, really." Think she'd buy that??
Thank you to SCU for bringing back the Blog Bat Around.
Two days ago I made some tweaks to the 1973 set to satisfy a lefty slight.
Today, I'm getting a lot more daring. I'm going to mess with the classic colors of the 1975 set.
What's bothered me about the set is the mish-mash of colors and how some really do not match at all with the colors of the player's uniform.
In 1974, Topps used consistent, matching colors for each team. For the Cubs, the two colors were a pinkish red and a blue. These colors seemed to go with the blue and red on the Cubs uniform.
In 1976, the exact same colors were used on all of the Cubs cards.
But 1975 had no consistency at all. Now please don't get me wrong. I love the 1975 set. As Night Owl would say, "Its far out, man!" I bought a ton of cards as a 13 year old. It's just the inconsistency that bothers me.
This combination would work well with the A's, not the Cubs.
And this card would work for the Cardinals.
The orange and brown say Giants or Orioles to me, not Cubs.
So I thought I would take a stab at fixing it.
I wanted to use consistent colors on all of the Cubs cards. The colors I choose were the same ones Topps used in 1974 and 1976, the pinkish red and blue. I went with the red on top and blue on the bottom.
I've got four cards made up.
And here's a look at 1974, 1975, and 1976 all together. I really like the way they share the common colors.
So what do you think? Would this have worked better or have I desecrated a classic?
Which 1975 colors would work best for your team?
This 1974 card is Garrett's only one in a Cubs uniform and its from his second stint with the team. That is why you see #25 on his back, not #23.Our next #23 is Adrian Garrett. He wore the number during a brief stay with the Cubs in the 1970 season. Originally a Braves farmhand, Garrett had moved through the Braves, Mets, and Phillies organizations before the Cubs obtained him off of waivers in December, 1969. He played in only three games for the 1970 Cubs in September and was 0 for 3 in three pinch hit appearances.
He went back to AAA for the 1971 season and was traded to Oakland in late August. A little more than a year later, in mid-September, 1972, the Cubs reacquired him. He would spend parts of the next three seasons with the Cubs and their AAA team. Like Pete LaCock, each time he got to Chicago he was given a different number. Since Carmen Fanzone had joined the team and was wearing #23, Garrett wore #25, #5, and #28.
During his four years with the Cubs, Garrett hit an anemic .163 in 86 at bats. After his time with the Cubs, he was just as bad for the A's and the Angels. When the Angels released him after the 1976 season, he tried his luck in Japan. There he finally found some success, belting 102 home runs over three seasons for the Hiroshima Carp.
And any post on Adrian Garrett has to have the obligatory mention of his little brother Wayne, who was an infielder for the lousy, no good dream wreckers, the 1969 Mets.
In between Garrett and Fanzone, Ramon Webster wore #23 for a very brief 16 game stint with the 1971 Cubs. He was released during the season and Topps never issued a card for him in a Cubs uniform.
I was looking through my Topps 1973 set and had a "Duh" moment.
The cards all have a silhouetted player for the featured player's position. I guess I never paid too much attention to them. So yesterday I noticed something that I had missed for 37 years.
The silhouette of the pitchers are either left or right handed, to match the player on the card. Duh!!
Here is righty Bill Bonham's card, with a right-handed silhouetted player.
Now look at lefty Larry Gura and notice that the silhouetted player is a lefty.
The color of the circle changed too. All the righties have a red circle, while the lefties' circle is blue. I don't know how I missed that over all these years, but, I did!
I'm left-handed (any other lefties out there??), so maybe I'm a little too sensitive about this, but....
...the silhouettes on all the position players' cards are right handed. Even if the player was a lefty, the silhouette is a righty.
Well, that is just plain wrong!
There were three left-handed position players among the Cubs in the set, so of course I had to fix their cards. Allow me to show some love to the left-handed position players,
Billy Williams, after all, he is in the Hall of Fame, shouldn't his card be accurate.
Rick Monday, shown batting left handed, so we might as well have the lefty outfielder to match.
Joe Pepitone, another lefty batter, now with a lefty first baseman.
There, I feel better!
