This is a fantastic card because it shows the full A’s uniform, which owner Charlie Finley redesigned in 1963 to take on the now-familiar green and yellow color scheme still used by the team today — though the original green was made darker in the early ’80s. Topps, for some reason, used purple as the accent color on all cards featuring A’s players in 1964, even though purple was never associated with the team.
This card is horrifically miscut on the back, but otherwise is in pretty good shape. As a card from the semi-high series, this lists for $9 in NM condition in SMR.
The A’s previously had a red/white/blue thing going on, as you can see on Segui’s 1963 card. Also, it appears as if Topps might have used a photo taken like 2 seconds after his 1964 shot for his 1965 card. See below:
Diego Segui had a pretty fascinating career. He was originally signed by the Reds (then the Redlegs) in 1958, but released later that year. The A’s signed him when he was pitching in the Arizona-Mexico League, and he eventually made his debut with K.C. in 1962. He was 17-11 with an ERA+ of 106 over his first two seasons, a pretty remarkable accomplishment given the awful team he was pitching for.
But then it all went south, and he posted a 13-32 record with a 4.59 ERA (80 ERA+) over the next two seasons. He was purchased by the fellow doormat Senators for the 1966 season, but they grew tired of him by July and shipped him back to Kansas City for a terrible pitcher named Jim Duckworth.
Shifting primarily to a relief role, he was an above-average pitcher for the next seven seasons. He moved with the A’s from K.C. to Oakland in 1968 and posted a career-best 2.39 ERA that year (though that was the “year of the pitcher”). After the ‘68 season, he was picked by the Seattle Pilots in the expansion draft and went 12-6 with a 3.35 ERA in 66 appearances (the Pilots had a pretty good relief corp, but a terrible starting rotation). After the season, he was traded (by what were now the Milwaukee Brewers) again back to the A’s.
Strangely, Topps made cards for the Pilots in 1970 even though they were playing in Milwaukee that year, AND made a card of Segui in Pilots gear even though he was traded in December of ‘69.
He shook that off and led the AL in ERA that year with a 2.56 in 162 innings, then followed it up with a 3.14 ERA in 1971. He started game 3 of the ALCS in ‘71, but lost the finale of a sweep by the Orioles.
He spent the next four years with the Cardinals and Red Sox (pitching one inning of the 1975 World Series), before finishing up his career with the Mariners in 1977. He started the Mariners’ inaugural game, and is the only man to have played for both of Seattle’s MLB teams. Segui went 0-7 with a 5.69 ERA for the M’s and called it quits after the season at the age of 40.
For his career, Segui had a record of 92-111 with a 3.81 ERA (96 ERA+), which was not good enough for the baseball Hall of Fame but earned him entry into the Hispanic Heritage Hall of Fame.
His son, David Segui, was a pretty good hitter in ’90s but probably took lots of steroids. On that note, David was born on July 19, 1966 in Kansas City. Diego was in the middle of his half-season with the Senators at the time, so his wife clearly had stayed behind in K.C. When David was 11 days old, his father was traded back to the A’s. I thought that it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility that the trade was orchestrated to put him closer to his son. But then I realized that he was immediately sent to the A’s AAA team, which was in Hawaii.
Diego Segui is currently 72 years old.
Ah yes, the checklist. There’s no worse feeling than ripping open a pack of cards and seeing one of these sitting on top. You basically just got screwed. Nobody actually wants the checklist cards, but any complete set must have them. Sadly, this is one of the crispest cards I have in the set — sharp corners, great color on the back, and nothing marked off.
And helpfully, Topps just went ahead and put a check mark next to card #188 for you — since you actually have to have the checklist to check it off on the checklist. I always hoped that Topps would make a checklist for checklists.
Unsurprisingly, old checklists can command quite a price if kept in NM condition or better. Mostly, this is because a lot of people actually used the checklists for their intended purpose, and checked the boxes (and I have a few that demonstrate this). Of course, marking the cards instantly makes them virtually worthless, which most serious collectors figured out over the years. Thus, checklists are almost never used for utilitarian purposes, and really don’t make much sense anymore. This particular card lists in SMR for $12 in NM condition — $4 more than a common player from this series.
Seven Hall of Famers are listed on this particular checklist — Harmon Killebrew, Sandy Koufax, Nellie Fox, Carl Yastrzemski, Brooks Robinson, Al Kaline, and Frank Robinson. Also, Yastrzemski appears on #182 “Sox Sockers.”
What’s sadder than a card depicting a Washington Senator? How about a card with a picture of the whole team. The team cards from the 1964 set weren’t exactly design masterpieces, with the photos being shot from so far away that it’s impossible to tell who you’re even looking at.
The condition of this card, combined with its subject, might make it the least desirable card I have. But team cards, if in good shape, command a premium over commons. This is partly because they weren’t as collectible (given that you couldn’t make out any individual players), and partly because some of the good teams (like the Yankees) feature several star players on the same card. This card is a VG at best, due to a laundry list of issues that includes what appears to be a moldy spot on the back.
The back of the team cards list every pitcher that threw for the team the previous year, with each guy’s record against each team and some totals at the bottom. In a dismal 56-106 season, no Senator won more than 9 games (Claude Osteen). We’re told here than Don Lock led the club with 27 homers and 83 RBIs, and Chuck Hinton’s .269 was the top batting average (yikes).
The Senators didn’t have a winning record against any team, but went 9-9 against the Tigers, Red Sox, and Angels. They were 3-15 against Baltimore.
It should be noted that 1963 was just the third year of the “new” Senators. The previous Senators had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins for the 1961 season, so the Senators that began play that year were an expansion franchise. They moved to Texas in 1972 to become the Rangers, and nearly 50 years after launching, the franchise has won a grand total of one playoff game. And you thought the Cubs were bad.
One in a series of 12 league leader cards that show the top three finishers in a variety of categories from the 1963 season, this is the least valuable (along with #2, which features the AL ERA leaders) of the group. Perhaps it shows what collectors think of Jim Bunning as a Hall of Famer that he’s on this card and it ain’t worth much. In fact, 11 of the 12 cards feature Hall of Famers (with #2 being the only one that doesn’t).
This is among my finest cards, condition-wise. Crisp corners, some print smudging on the front and back, and the typical off-center cut. Clearly an EX-MT though. The league leader cards command a premium, largely because they were somewhat ignored at the time because they weren’t as important as having a star’s “real” card, so fewer were kept. This one lists in SMR for $15 in NM condition.
Camilo Pascual had a nice run in the early ’60s. He led the AL in strikeouts for three straight years — with 1963 being the last of the three. He actually increased his K number from 202 to 213 in 1964, but Al Downing edged him out for the league lead with 217. Pascual is only pitcher on all three league leader cards for the AL — he was third in wins and ERA.
Jim Bunning finished second in 1963 with 196 strikeouts, despite a 12-13 record and below-average 3.88 ERA. It was his last year in the AL, as he was traded from the Tigers to the Phillies after the season. So, Bunning is shown in a Tigers cap on this card but is a Phillie on his regular-issue card from the set.
Dick Stigman, the pride of Nimrod, Minnesota, had an above-average year with 193 strikeouts and a 3.25 ERA, but all it got him was a 15-15 record.
Looking at the back, it’s clear that the AL wasn’t exactly brimming with star power at the time. There’s just four HOFers in the top 50 in strikeouts in 1963, with one of them being the questionable Bunning and another the aging Robin Roberts. Only Whitey Ford was a truly dominant pitcher at the time (well, Hoyt Wilhelm was dominant, but not a starter).
By the way, the NL was led in strikeouts by Sandy Koufax with 306, 104 more than Pascual.
It’s badly off-center (bordering on miscut on the back), but otherwise a fairly nice card. Coker is shown here as a member of the Cardinals, but is not wearing a cap. That’s mostly because there are no pictures of him wearing a Cards hat as he never actually played a game for them. He’s wearing a Giants jersey in this shot (the orange and black stripe around the neck gives it away), but he only played a grand total of four games for them so this is a rare sight too.
The trivia question is not rubbed off, and asks what team holds the mark for escaping shutouts, which I guess is a fancy way of asking who went the most games between shutouts. The answer provided then is still the right answer now. The Yankees went 308 games without being shut out between 1931 and 1933. The National League record is just 208 games, set (oddly) by the Cincinnati Reds in 2000 and 2001.
Topps certainly had a way with names back in these days, and Coker’s actual given first name was “Jimmie.” So, naturally, none of the cards Topps made in his career lists him as Jimmie. All except for his 1967 card simply list him as “Jim,” and the ‘67 lists him as “Jimmy.” Well done, Topps.
Jimmie Coker was a catcher who had a career that spanned nine seasons, but he only appeared in 233 games. He was signed as a 19-year-old by the Phillies in 1955 and had a cup of coffee with them in 1958. In his proper rookie season of 1960, he played 81 games and hit 6 homers with 34 RBI and a .214/.289/.329 line in 285 plate appearances.
Over the next two years, he appeared in just 16 games with the Phillies and was purchased by Baltimore after the 1962 season. Three weeks later, he was traded to the Giants in a six-player deal. After the 1963 season that saw him get a grand total of 6 PA, he was traded to St. Louis for forgettable pitcher Ken Mackenzie.
But even though he was with the Cards long enough to get a baseball card made, he was traded to Milwaukee four days prior to the start of the 1964 season along with light-hitting Gary Kolb for another little-used backup catcher named Bob Uecker (who, astonishingly, managed to be much, much worse than Coker).
After not playing for the Braves, but posting a respectable .823 OPS with 16 homers with AAA Denver, Coker was finally purchased by the Reds for $35,000 in August 1964. He appeared in 130 games with Cincinnati from 1964-67. At the age of 31, he was out of baseball for good.
For his career, Coker hit .231 with 16 homers and a 77 OPS+. The native of tiny Throckmorton, Texas, moved back after his playing days and died there in 1991 at the age of 55.
Although Pappas was only 25 years old at the time of this card, he was already a six-year veteran of the big leagues. That’s why this is considered just a common card, and it is very abundant since it’s from the first series. A NM example lists for $8 in SMR. Mine is solidly in the EX range, and with better centering would probably grade out as EX-MT.
Milt Pappas was a pretty good pitcher for a long time. He debuted at age 18 in 1957 with the Orioles, and pitched his first full season in 1958. Pappas made at least 23 starts every year between 1959 and 1973, and was a key part of the 1962 and 1965 AL All-Star teams. He started the 1965 game.
A player like Pappas would never exist in today’s game. He was promoted from the minors after only three games and never went back. He was signed by Baltimore on the suggestion of Hall of Fame pitcher Hal Newhouser, who had seen Pappas throw in high school in Detroit.
Over his 17-year career, Pappas posted a 209-164 record and a 3.40 ERA. His stats compare favorably to Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Catfish Hunter, but Pappas never had any dominant seasons on which to build a case for the HOF. His best year was probably 1972, when he was 17-7 with a 2.77 ERA (137 ERA+) for the Cubs. He also threw a no-hitter that year, which was the most recent Cubs no-hitter until Carlos Zambrano did it last year.
Pappas spent the first nine years of his career with the O’s, and while they had some good years there, they never won the American League pennant. He was traded after the 1965 season, along with Jack Baldschun and Dick Simpson, to the Reds in exchange for superstar Frank Robinson. Robinson promptly had the best year of his HOF career in 1966, and Baltimore went on to win the World Series.
Pappas was a bit of a dud with the Reds, partly because the fans in Cincinnati never embraced him. He had the worst ERA of his career in 1966, and while he was better in 1967, the Reds decided to trade him to Atlanta in 1968 (although that was largely because he butted heads with management and Reds legend Joe Nuxhall). He spent parts of three years in Atlanta before heading to Chicago, where he pitched until he retired at the age of 34.
Pappas pitched in the postseason just once — the 1969 NLCS with the Braves. His legacy is unfortunately tarnished by being part of the lopsided trade for Robinson, which is widely considered to be one of the worst transactions of all time. But for close to two decades, Pappas was a reliable arm who posted above-average numbers.
Pappas, however, did have a reputation as being a bit difficult to get along with. Leo Durocher, who managed him in Chicago, said that Pappas was a “cancer” on the team despite being a good pitcher. Nuxhall claimed that Pappas didn’t give a full effort and skipped starts when he wasn’t really hurt. Some 35 years after Pappas’ no-hitter, umpire Bruce Froemming was still the subject of verbal attacks from Pappas. Pappas was one out from a perfect game that day, but walked the 27th batter on a 3-2 pitch. To this day, Pappas is enraged that Froemming didn’t call the last pitch a strike, saying that it was much too close to call a ball to end a perfect game bid.
Pappas also endured some personal tragedy after his career. His wife disappeared in 1982, and it was later assumed that she was murdered by a satanic group. Five years later, however, her car was found in a lake near their home, with her inside. She apparently drove into the lake and drowned.
Pappas is currently 70 years old and is said to be living in Illinois.
The corners are a little worn, but this is one of the glossiest cards I have from the set. It’s a very vibrant card, with the blue sky in the background for Allen’s photo. Note that it’s spelled “2nd base” on this card instead of “2d base,” like it is on some others.
This card is a “semi-high,” and thus is a bit scarcer than the lower numbers. The SMR lists this common card at $9 in NM condition.
The trivia question asks when overhand pitching was illegal, and as you can see, the answer is rubbed off on my card. Topps is right, as overhand delivery was not allowed until the 1883 season.
Out of the chute, it looked like Bernie Allen might turn into one of the best second basemen in all of baseball. He had a very solid rookie season in 1962, with a .269 BA, 12 HR, 27 2B, 7 3B, 79 R, and 64 RBI. He finished third in Rookie of the Year voting to Tom Tresh and Buck Rodgers. He also was chosen as a member of Topps’ All-Star team and had the trophy printed on his 1963 card.
But that was the highlight of Allen’s career. He declined in every category in 1963, and was even worse in ‘64, when he hit just .214 with 6 homers in a part-time role. He spent much of the Twins’ AL Championship season of 1965 in the minors, appearing in just 19 games with the big club. He did not play in the World Series.
Allen returned to a semi-regular role in 1966, but posted another dismal line of .238/.299/.348 in 350 plate appearances. The Twins had enough, and shipped him to Siberia, a.k.a. the Washington Senators, for Ron Kline after the ‘66 season. He was horrible in 1967 for Washington, but then posted respectable OPS+ numbers of 98, 109, 99, and 114 over the next four years. So, all in all, he ended up being pretty average on a terrible team.
He spent 1972 playing mostly third base with the Yankees, and was purchased from the Yanks by the Expos in August of 1973. He played 16 games for Montreal at the end of the season and then was released. Allen’s career was over at the age of 34.
For his career, he batted .239 with 73 homers and a 91 OPS+. He was also an average defender, with a cumulative -0.7 FRAA overall.
Allen is currently 70 years old.
Topps was diligent in making sure that every manager was represented in their sets, but apparently they had a rough time tracking down Ed Lopat for a photo in 1964. So they just used the exact same picture they used in 1963. I guess they figured if they zoomed in a bit we wouldn’t figure it out:
This is, thus far, the first card I’ve noticed that used an old picture, but I suspect there might be others.
My example is sharp, but cut pretty poorly. It’s a common card and lists for $8 in NM condition in SMR.
Ed Lopat was possibly not even the manager of the A’s when this card was released to the public (This is from the 5th series). He was sacked after 52 games, with K.C. holding a 17-35 record. He had managed them to a 73-89 record in 1963. After being fired from this job, Lopat never held another managerial position.
Lopat is best known for his solid career as a member of the Yankees. Had he started his career earlier (he didn’t debut until age 26) and spent all of it New York (his first four years were with the White Sox), he could’ve had a shot at making the Hall of Fame.
The difference between playing for the Sox and Yankees was quite evident. Lopat was almost exactly the same pitcher in Chicago that he was in New York (White Sox: 3.18 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 9.1 H/9; Yankees: 3.19 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 9.1 H/9). But his record with the White Sox was 50-49, while he was 113-59 with the Yankees (run support!). He won five consecutive World Series titles from 1949 to 1953 with the Yanks.
Lopat’s best year was 1953, when he was 16-4 with a league-leading 2.42 ERA. He also led the league in WHIP (1.13) and BB/9 (1.6). Lopat never struck out many batters, but was successful because he threw a steady diet of off-speed pitches that kept batters off-balance.
He got off to a bad start, by Yankee standards, in 1955, and was traded to the Orioles for Jim McDonald, who never even pitched for New York. Lopat was released after the ‘64 season and never pitched again.
He died in Connecticut in 1992 at the age of 73. Here’s his New York Times obituary.
I seem to have an inordinate number of cards featuring members of the Senators. I guess they’re the easiest and cheapest to find, since both incarnations were such dismal franchises. My example of this card is actually pretty good. Probably an EX or maybe a bit better. This is a nice shot of the full Sens uniform, though it’s pretty clear that this was shot in spring training, as I don’t know of too many palm trees outside of RFK Stadium. As a common from the semi-high series, an NM card lists for $9 in SMR.
Don Rudolph had a quite brief MLB career. In fact, 1964 would be his last season. He debuted in 1957 with the White Sox, but pitched just a grand total of 22 innings in three seasons in Chicago. He was traded to Cincinnati in mid-1959, but didn’t get much of a chance there, either. Eventually, he was claimed by the Indians in the 1961 Rule 5 draft. After getting just one out in a Cleveland uniform, he was shipped off to the Senators.
Rudolph was solid, if unspectacular, in 1962 for Washington. His ERA of 3.62 is actually quite a bit better than expected, considering he gave up more than a hit per inning and didn’t really strike anybody out (he did have good control, though). In 1963, things went south. His ERA soared to 4.55 and he finished with a 7-19 record in 174 innings. He continued to give up a lot of hits, but also started giving up a bunch of homers as well.
He was relegated to a bullpen role in ‘64 and continued to be mediocre. The Senators didn’t offer him a contract for 1965, and he went to the Reds’ organization, where he spent two more years pitching in AAA.
Rudolph was, according to Wikipedia, married to an exotic dancer named Patti Wiggin. After his retirement, Rudolph went into contracting. Tragically, he was killed when he was thrown from his pickup truck while driving on a steep road in suburban L.A. in 1968, at the age of just 37. Here’s a short obituary that ran in the St. Petersburg Evening Independent.
This is a great shot because you get to see the Senators cap logo, which is the same style “w” used by the Nationals today. As for my card, this is a pretty standard vg-ex. It’s crease-free, but has a lot of normal wear for a 45-year-old piece of cardboard. As a common in the semi-high series, a NM copy lists in SMR for $9. This is Valentine’s rookie card, as Topps did not produce a card for him the two previous years he had played in major league games.
The trivia question asks which club holds the longest winning streak ever. The answer provided is the original Cincinnati Red Stockings, and Topps says they won 69 straight games in 1869 and 1870. That’s somewhat misleading, considering there wasn’t really a professional league at the time. The Cincinnati club traveled around and played local teams in different cities. There’s also a lot of debate as to exactly how many games they won consecutively. We do know that they lost to the Brooklyn Atlantics on June 14, 1870, ending a winning streak that numbered at least 69 games and possibly as many as 92 (or more). The AL record for consecutive wins is 20, by the 2002 Oakland A’s, and the NL record is 21 by the 1880 Chicago White Stockings and 1935 Cubs.
Fred Valentine was a standout baseball and football player at Tennessee State University in the mid-’50s, and was signed by the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent in 1956. He played briefly for the O’s in 1959, making him part of the early wave of African-American players in the major leagues.
He didn’t make it back to the big leagues until 1963, when he had another brief stint with Baltimore. He was purchased by the Senators after the ‘63 season. He had a rough time in 1964, with a .226 average and only nine extra-base hits in 240 plate appearances. That performance sent him back to the minors for most of 1965, where he was great with Hawaii (.324/.406/.534 with 25 homers).
He returned to Washington in 1966 and had his best year, posting a line of .276/.351/.455 with 16 homers, 29 doubles, and 59 RBI in 146 games. He also stole 22 bases, and finished 21st in the AL MVP voting.
He was a full-timer again in 1967, but his OPS fell from .806 the previous year to .676. He still hit 11 homers, but his batting average and slugging percentage plummeted to .234 and .346, respectively.
After struggling through the first half of the 1968 season, he was traded back to Baltimore for young pitcher Bruce Howard. Valentine hit just .187 in 99 PA with the O’s and was done as a major leaguer. He had a decent year in AAA in 1969, but that was the end of his career. He’s now 74 years old.
