One of the main reasons I started collecting the 1964 set last year is because I happened to acquire several cards from the set when I was a kid in the 1980s. This is one of those cards. “Sox Sockers” is one of a number of special combo cards that Topps produced in ‘64 that pictured two or more players together. Some of these are great (like the “Tops in NL” card with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron) and some are completely inexplicable (like “Bill’s Got It” which features Pirates Danny Murtagh and Bill Virdon just standing around). This card features two young Red Sox hopefuls whose careers would take much different paths.
This card lists for about $25 in NM condition. Mine is probably something in the VG-EX range because of the fading on the back and some wax stains on the front (clearly this was the top card in the wax pack it came from).
By 1964, Carl Yastrzemski was a budding star, and led the AL in batting average (.321), OBP (.428), hits (183), doubles (40) and walks (95) in 1963 — his third full season. He wasn’t a big “run producer” yet, as he tallied just 14 home runs and 68 RBI. Yaz also won his first of seven gold gloves in 1963. We now know, of course, that he would go on to be one of the great players ever, ranking sixth on the all-time hits list with 3,419.
Chuck Schilling also made waves when he debuted with the Red Sox in 1961. In fact, he was named the team’s MVP that season as a rookie, and finished third in the AL Rookie of the Year voting (Yasztrzemski got no votes). That was mostly based on his fielding at second base, where he made just eight errors in 846 chances. That’s how he got away with posting a .666 OPS in 738 plate appearances (in his defense, he did have a .340 OBP, higher than Yaz’s .324).
But then things went really wrong for Schilling. He hurt his wrist in 1962 and his offense went even more in the tank. After a lackluster 1963 season he lost his starting job. He played in just 47 games in 1964 and 71 in ‘65 and never played pro baseball again.
Schilling retired at the age of 27, while Yastrzemski played until he was 43.
I’m picking the cards I write about randomly, which is why I’ve had the spectacular luck of pulling two checklists in the first 40 cards I’ve documented. Any time you can get a checklist that’s in good shape and isn’t marked off you’re doing pretty good, so I was fortunate to acquire this card. But still, there’s nothing all that fun about a checklist.
This checklist includes, by my count, five Hall of Famers (Walter Alston, Don Drysdale, Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Billy Williams) and one very notable non-HOFer (Pete Rose).
What else can I say? It looks like the guy in the top left of the card is committing an error.
An unremarkable example of an unremarkable card featuring an unremarkable player. Probably a VG-EX, and most certainly a common card.
The trivia answer is rubbed off, so you can plainly see that it was in fact Whitey Ford who threw 32 consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series. Which is true. He also threw 33 consecutive scoreless World Series frames, but since 32 is a smaller number then Topps is technically right here. The discrepancy comes from the fact that Ford followed up his 18 shutout innings in 1960 and 14 shutout innings in 1961 with a single scoreless inning to start the 1962 Series, which Topps didn’t take into account for this question.
Garry Roggenburk was a promising young lefty out of the bullpen for the Twins who had a nice rookie year in 1963. His ERA of 2.16 in 50 relief innings was impressive, though his FIP registered at a much less impressive 3.92 (due to bad walk and strikeout numbers). But still, he looked to be a part of the Twins staff going forward.
And even if baseball didn’t work out, Roggenburk was a standout basketball player in college for Dayton and led the Flyers to the 1962 NIT title. He was even drafted by the Golden State Warriors (well, San Francisco back then).
But then, just before the ‘64 season, he underwent elbow surgery and missed the entire year (but he would be featured on this card anyway). When he returned, he never re-established his footing in the majors. After 21 ho-hum innings in 1965 and 12.1 bad innings in 1966, the Twins sold him to the Red Sox.
In three-plus seasons in Boston, he threw just more than 18 total innings in the bigs. He ended his career as a Seattle Pilot in 1969, where he started four games and posted a 4.44 ERA in 24.1 innings. He was just 29 years old when he bowed out.
For his career, he was 6-9 with an OK 3.64 ERA and not-so-OK 1.56 WHIP in 126 innings.
Despite being with pennant winners in 1965 (Minnesota) and 1967 (Boston), he never appeared in a postseason game.
After retirement, he worked for many years in the Red Sox organization. He’s now 69 years old.
There’s nothing particularly notable about Frank Bolling’s 1964 Topps issue. It’s the second-to-last card issued in his career. Mine is probably a VG-EX. No creases, but some soft corners and bad centering. This is a common card from the second series.
Frank Bolling played 12 seasons from 1954-66. He debuted with the Tigers at age 22, then missed the 1955 season due to military service. He returned in 1957 and had his only season with an OPS+ over 100 (107 that year). Of course, second basemen were not expected to be productive offensively, and Bolling was not a particularly good hitter. He did hit 15 homers twice (in 1957 and 1961) and hit double digits in two other seasons.
Bolling was, in certain seasons, a very good fielder. He won a Gold Glove in 1958, when he also drove in a career-high 75 runs. His 3.4 WAR (wins above replacement) that year was the best of his career.
Bolling was traded to the Braves in 1960 in a multi-player deal that brought center fielder Bill Bruton from Milwaukee to Detroit. Bolling was decent in 1961 and ‘62, earning trips to the All-Star Game in each season. He regressed in 1963 (but led the league in sacrifice bunts — whee!) before cratering in 1964.
How bad was Bolling’s ‘64 season? He posted an OPS+ of a whopping 47. Ouch. His batting average was .199 in 387 plate appearances. It was so rough that he was eventually benched and used sporadically down the stretch. His WAR was a dreadful -2.1. He improved somewhat in 1965, hitting .264/.295/.363 with 7 homers. One of his homers was a grand slam off of Sandy Koufax — one of only two slams Koufax allowed during the dominant five-year stretch that ended his career.
Bolling moved with the Braves to Atlanta in 1966, but was horrendous at the plate in limited duty. He retired following the ‘66 season. He batted .254 for his career with 106 home runs and an OPS+ of 85. He played every one of his 12,982 innings at second base. His older brother, Milt, played seven years in the majors, and they were teammates with the Tigers in 1958. Their uncle, Jack Bolling, played briefly for the Phillies and Dodgers.
Frank Bolling returned to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, after his retirement. He’s now 78 years old.
Curt Flood’s not only an fascinating guy who’s famous for making a bold stand against Major League Baseball in the late ’60s, but he’s also the subject of one of the more perplexing cards in the 1964 set.
While this card is “officially” listed as a common card in all price guides, it’s anything but common in terms of the price it commands on the open market. At some point, this card was deemed “tough” in the sense that it was supposedly hard to find, as if it were a short print card even though it’s from the early second series.
The Sports Market Report (PSA’s price guide and magazine) still lists the card as common, but has added a note to the bottom of the ‘64 Topps price list, mentioning that #103 is among a handful of cards that are “considered tough in NM-MT 8 and sell for a premium.” SMR also notes that PSA 8 versions of the card had been fetching $250-280 in 2008.
The notion that it is a rare card is supported by the fact that none are available to purchase as a “buy it now” on eBay, and the few that make it to auction are bought for a much higher price than a regular common, regardless of the condition. But one wonders if the driving force behind the high price of the card is the fact that it has a reputation for being rare. So is it really rare, or are those who have them hoarding them because they think it is? I’ve also heard rumors that a small number of collectors have been buying them up and hoarding them to keep the market small.
The card is fairly rare in PSA 8, judging by PSA’s population report, but it’s nowhere near the rarest in the set. There are 52 PSA 8 examples of the Flood card, but there are a decent number of common cards with a PSA 8 population between 30 and 40. There are just 4 PSA 9s out there, but again there are a couple dozen cards of which there are 4 or fewer PSA 9 examples.
I was lucky, I suppose, to acquire mine as part of a lot of common cards for a small price. It’s in quite good shape. The corners are only slightly softened and the centering is particularly outstanding. The surface still has a lot of gloss, but there are what appears to be some print defects in the green bar containing Flood’s name and position. I can’t imagine it’s any worse than an EX, and I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of EX-MT. Which means that it could probably command $15 up to maybe $25 in auction.
The trivia question (which is not rubbed off) asks which pitcher has won 511 games. If you don’t know the answer to that, you aren’t a baseball fan.
Curt Flood is best known for refusing to report to the Phillies after he was traded there by the Cardinals following the 1969 season (it was a muti-player deal, with Dick Allen being the major player coming to St. Louis). He argued that since his contract with the Cardinals had expired, that he had no obligation to sign a deal with Philadelphia even though he had been traded there. He launched a one-man challenge to the reserve clause, which since the beginnings of professional baseball dictated that a player was to remain the property of a team as long as they chose to offer contracts. The free agency we now take for granted didn’t exist.
Mostly, Flood wanted to play in 1970 (he was only 32) but didn’t want to play for the Phillies, partly because they weren’t very good and Flood had won two World Series titles in the ’60s with the Cards, and partly because he was appalled at the way Allen (and other black players) was treated by the fans in Philadelphia and did not want to face such over racism from his home fans.
Flood’s challenge of the reserve clause made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but eventually was turned down. Likening the system to slavery didn’t sit well with many people, especially since Flood was making a lot of money ($90,000) compared to the average worker.
While the advent of free agency wasn’t directly connected to Flood’s actions, he is still considered an important catalyst in the eventual elimination of the reserve clause in the mid-’70s.
On the field, Flood was a big part of three NL pennant winners with the Cardinals. But in terms of OPS+, he was exactly average for his career. Such was the case in 1964 as well, when he posted an OPS+ of 100 despite a batting average of .311. Flood’s OPS was always hurt by the fact that he didn’t walk much and he also didn’t hit very many home runs (just 85 in 6,958 career PA).
He was known as a great defensive center fielder, and won seven consecutive Gold Gloves between 1963 and 1969. In 1966, he played the entire season (159 games) without making an error.
Flood’s best seasons at the plated were 1965 and 1967. In ‘65, he hit 11 homers and drove in a career-high 83 while batting .310. He also walked a career-high 51 times. According to FanGraphs, his wRAA (runs above average) was 24.7 in 1965, which means he was worth about 2 1/2 wins to the Cards that season offensively. According to Baseball Reference’s fielding runs calculations, he was slightly below average in ‘65, but was often worth a win or more per year in the field.
In 1967, he had a career-best 128 OPS+, which included a .335 batting average (aided by an unusually high .361 BABIP).
Flood didn’t perform well in the postseason. In his three World Series, he hit .221/.287/.267 in 94 PA.
His career ended relatively early, as he chose to sit out the 1970 season rather than report to the Phillies. The Phils then traded him after the season to Washington, and he decided to join the Senators. But after struggling through 13 games, he retired at the age of 33. He quit with a total of 1,861 hits and a .293 batting average.
After his retirement, some lobbied for Flood to gain entry into the Hall of Fame, but he never got more than 15.1% of the vote. He died in 1997, just after his 59th birthday. His death was commemorated in Congress by two bills that lifted baseball’s antitrust exemption in respect to player labor.
The Hubbs card is one of the key cards from this set, because it’s an unusual acknowledgment of a player who died during the offseason. Because of that, and because of Hubbs’ promise as a young player, the card is valued along the lines of many Hall of Famers in the set. It’s also from the high series, which adds to its value. My version is actually a pretty nice one — slightly soft corners and a little lost luster — and probably is in the EX to EX-MT range.
This is the third, but, oddly, not the last regular-issue Topps card to feature Ken Hubbs. He was featured in 1962 and ‘63 — the only two years he played. But, embarrassingly, Topps inadvertently put his picture on Dick Ellsworth’s card in 1966. This is somewhat inexplicable, given that Hubbs had been dead for two years and Ellsworth had been featured for several years on Topps cards, so it wasn’t as if he was a new face.
Ken Hubbs made a big impression on the Cubs, and all of baseball, in his short Major League career. He wasn’t much of a hitter, as his 70 OPS+ over 2+ seasons indicates, but he set a then-MLB record for second basemen by going 78 straight games and 418 consecutive chances without committing an error during his rookie season. That led to him becoming the first rookie to be awarded a Gold Glove. He won the NL Rookie of the Year award despite a somewhat ugly .260/.299/.346 line with 5 homers and 49 RBI for a team that went 59-103. He led the league with 129 strikeouts.
Hubbs’ offensive statistics actually regressed in 1963, though because of lower league averages his wRAA (weighted runs above average) “increased” from -19.4 to -15.6, according to FanGraphs. But, as you can see, he wasn’t good. Costing your team 15 runs a year isn’t insignificant.
The good news was that he had already played two full seasons in the big leagues and was only 21 years old. We can assume that Hubbs would have improved over time, but we’ll never know. The Cubs had a good young core at the time, with Hubbs, Ron Santo, Lou Brock, and Billy Williams — in addition to a pretty decent first baseman named Ernie Banks. But, as we all know, that never went anywhere.
Hubbs decided to combat his fear of flying by taking flying lessons. He successfully completed them between the 1963 and ‘64 seasons and earned a pilot license in January 1964. Just a few weeks later, Hubbs decided to fly with good friend Dennis Doyle from their hometown of Colton, Calif., to Utah to surprise Doyle’s wife, who had taken the train there with their newborn child to visit her parents. After spending the night in Utah, they attempted to fly back to California the next day, thinking they could get through a snowstorm that had started. They didn’t make it far, crashing into frozen Utah Lake just a few miles from where they had taken off.
Hubbs was 22 at the time of his death, and Doyle was 23. Hubbs had met Ralph Flores, a man who survived 49 days in the Yukon after crashing his plane, at a Mormon conference just about a year before his own accident. Here’s coverage of the accident from the St. Petersburg Times.
Hubbs’ brother, Keith, is an Elder with the LDS church, and there’s an article about their connection here.
In Ken’s honor, I’ve sponsored his Baseball-Reference page.
From their inception in 1961 through the 1965 season, Southern California’s AL franchise was known as the Los Angeles Angels. Of course, it was accurate back then, as the Angels actually played in the city. In fact, they shared a stadium with the Dodgers, but instead of accepting its name like the New York Jets do, the Angels referred to the ballpark as “Chavez Ravine,” a name that lingers as a nickname to this day.
On this card, Mel Nelson is wearing the original Angels uniform — Los Angeles written across the front, with an interlocking “LA” on the hat (nearly identical to the Dodgers logo). And he’s acting out one of the worst “action” shots in the whole set.
This card has some corner wear and is off-center from top to bottom. Probably an EX. This is a common card.
The trivia question (untouched on my card) asks who holds the Colts’ record for hits in a season. The Colts, of course, are what the Houston Astros were known as from 1962 through 1964. But since they had only played two seasons to this point, it’s a pretty easy question to answer. Roman Mejias was the first “star” for the Colts, and he collected 162 hits in their inaugural season. That record would stand until Joe Morgan had 163 hits in 1965. Mejias’ franchise mark of 24 home runs would last until 1967, when Jimmy Wynn hit 37.
Mel Nelson had neither a long, nor illustrious, MLB career. In fact, he didn’t appear in a big-league game in 1964. This after posting a 5.30 ERA in 52 2/3 innings for the Angels in 1963. He didn’t make the team out of spring training in ‘64, and was purchased by the Twins in May.
He spent the rest of the year in AAA, but pitched a career-high 54 2/3 innings with pennant-winning Minnesota in 1965. He didn’t get into a World Series game, though.
After not appearing in 1966, he threw 1/3 of an inning in 1967 and was purchased by the Cardinals — the team with which he made his brief debut in 1960. He pitched fairly well in 1968, and even mopped up the final inning of a 13-1 loss to Detroit in Game 6 of the World Series.
After a few brief appearances in 1969 with St. Louis, Nelson was done with the major leagues. He pitched in AAA for Atlanta in 1970, but never earned another call-up.
Nelson had started his career as an outfielder and hit 27 homers in C ball as a 19-year-old. Perhaps the pitching thing wasn’t the best career move.
He went on to become a scout after his playing days, working well into this decade. As of 2005 he was living in Highland, California. He’s currently 73 years old.
I have a number of team cards, but only a couple that could be considered even EX or better. I don’t know if people tended to abuse team cards back in the because they weren’t that exciting (oh hey, here’s how my favorite team looks from 500 feet away!) or what, but this is a pretty brutal specimen. It is intact, so it has that going for it.
Of course, it’s also possible that most Phillies team cards from 1964 ended up in similar shape after their fans threw them in the garbage. The Phils were rolling to what was going to be their first World Series appearance since 1950, leading the Cardinals by 6 1/2 games with 12 games left in the season.
Then, the infamous “phold” happened. Starting on September 21, the Phillies lost 10 games in a row — 3 to the Reds and 4 to the Braves, followed by a season-killing 3-game sweep by the Cards. After the game on September 30, the Phillies had dropped to third place. A 2-game sweep over the Reds to end the season wasn’t enough. Though they did catch Cincinnati in the standings, they finished a game behind St. Louis, which went on to win the World Series.
Despite the collapse, it looked like the Phillies had a pretty bright future. 22-year-old rookie Dick Allen (still Richie in those days) had a huge year, hitting 29 homers with a .939 OPS and leading the league in runs and triples. Johnny Callison, just 25 years old, hit 31 homers and led the team with 104 RBI. Jim Bunning, who came over from Detroit in an off-season trade, was 19-8 with a 2.63 ERA and 1.03 WHIP and still in his prime. 26-year-old Chris Short was even better than Bunning, posting a 2.20 ERA and 1.02 WHIP while allowing just 7.1 H/9.
But it never added up to another serious run at the pennant. The Phils never finished higher than fourth over the last four years of non-divisional play. Fans at the time often blamed Allen for the problems. After a fight with veteran Frank Thomas in 1965 that led to Thomas’ release, fans directed their ire at Allen (who is black) for causing Thomas (who is white) to be shipped out of town. Allen became the team’s scapegoat despite putting up huge numbers year after year.
It should also be noted that the Phils were managed at this time by Gene Mauch, who was at the helm of another classic meltdown in 1986, when his Angel team couldn’t get the final out of Game 5 of the ALCS against the Red Sox and ended up losing the series. That was the closest Mauch got to a World Series in his 26 years as a big-league manager.
The Phils eventually made it to the World Series, in 1980. That year, they won the championship for the first time. The team had been in existence since 1883.
Not one of my finest specimens. The excellent centering, which is always tough with these cards, is ruined by staining, a big crease, a rubber band dimple, AND soft corners. The bottom right of the card is kinda hanging on for dear life. Might only be a G if graded out.
Because Pinson isn’t a Hall of Famer, his relative star status at the time hasn’t held up as well over the years, and this card lists for just a slight premium over a common card — $10 for NM.
The trivia question is dumb so we’re just not going to discuss it.
Vada Pinson was a terrific player for 11 years and looked possibly headed toward the Hall of Fame. While he had some fleeting success over his last seven seasons, he declined enough that he became one of those players just on the outside looking in. Of players currently eligible for the HOF who aren’t in it (so, not including active players, recently retired players, and Pete Rose), only Andre Dawson and Harold Baines have more than Pinson’s 2,757 career hits.
By age 30 (the end of the 1968 season), he had 1,881 hits, 186 HR, 342 doubles, 96 triples, a .297 batting average, and 119 OPS+. In other words, he was really good. He couldn’t keep it up, though.
Pinson was signed by the Reds and made his debut at age 19 in 1958 and played in 27 games. He attended high school in Oakland with Frank Robinson, who would be his teammate until 1965 in Cincinnati.
In Pinson’s first full season, he led the NL in runs (131) and doubles (47) while batting .316 with 20 homers an .880 OPS. He leveled off somewhat in 1960 but still hit 20 homers with an .811 OPS. In 1961, he hit .343 and let the league in hits (208). He finished third in the MVP voting that year. That was also the only year he played in the World Series, but he went just 2-for-22 in the series as the Reds lost in five to the Yankees.
1962 was another good year, and Pinson hit 100 RBI for the first time and set a new career high in HR with 23. 1963 was arguably his best season, leading the league in hits (204) and triples (14) while racking up 37 doubles, 22 homers, 106 RBI, and 27 stolen bases.
Pinson kept piling up quality seasons through 1967, but faded a bit in 1968 (though all hitters did in the “year of the pitcher”). Following the ‘68 campaign, the Reds decided to make a big move, trading Pinson to the Cardinals for 19-year-old relief pitcher Wayne Granger and 22-year-old outfielder Bobby Tolan. It was a great deal for the Reds. Pinson had a ho-hum year in St. Louis, while Granger would go on to set a then-record with 35 saves in 1970 and Tolan turned in a couple of great seasons that replicated what Pinson had given the Reds in his younger days. The Reds made the World Series in 1970 and 1972.
After the one disappointing year with the Cards, Pinson was traded to the Indians for Jose Cardenal, and in his return to Ohio had a great season. In fact, Pinson set a career high with 24 homers in 1970, and while he was losing his speed he still had 28 doubles and 6 triples. But, he regressed the following year and was shipped to the Angels in 1972. He spent two uneventful years there before being traded to the Royals, where he had two more uneventful years.
After retiring in 1975, Pinson went on to be a coach with three MLB teams. He died in 1995 at the age of 57.
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.
