Coolio's hosting a Cool Contest

Coolio is hosting a simple contest. Name your favorite player, what team they played for and why you like them. Official rules can be found at Coolio's blog. Help spread Coolio's generosity.

Baseball on the Funny Pages

There are a few comic strips that have a recurring baseball storyline or some regular baseball references. Peanuts comes to mind. Baseball Dad posted a few panels of Steve Moore's In the Bleachers. You can find many others here.

The two that I stumbled across are The Heart of Juliet Jones and Steve Canyon. Soap opera-y strips. These came from May 19, 1958. (click on the panel for a larger image).

Juliet Jones

Steve Canyon

No, I didn't search out panels from the following days. I don't know what happens. Don't ask.

Images snagged from the Plattsburgh Press-Republican.

Part of the Family

1983 Fritsch One-Year Winners, Ray Blemker (card #112)

In 1960 the Baseball Digest said of Ray Blemker,

Throws hard, has good control for novice, but needs more experience.

On July 3, 1960, fifty years ago today, Ray "Buddy" Blemker got some experience.

In the seventh inning of a game at Fenway, Ray Blemker came in to replace Don Larsen for the Kansas City Athletics. It wasn't a great outing for Ray. He got the first batter he faced to fly out. Then he hit the second batter he faced. Walks the next batter to load the bases. Walks the next batter to push in a run. Then gives up a homer to clear the bases. In the eighth inning he threw a wild pitch, allowing a runner to advance. He pitched 1.2 innings, giving up 3 hits and 5 runs, all earned. 27 ERA. He never pitched in the majors again.

Before being called up he played for the Sioux City Soos in the 3I league. And then the Shreveport Sports of the Southern Association. The next year, 1960, he made it to AAA Dallas Fort-Worth Rangers. And then he found his way to the majors. For just that one game.

He returned to the Shreveport Sports to finish out the season. 1961 found him playing for the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League. And then back to Shreveport. In 1962, as a 24 year old and a father of two young children, he played for the Binghamton Triplets and later for the Albuquerque Dukes. That was his last year with professional baseball.

Why am I featuring Ray Blemker today? I found out yesterday that he was the husband to my wife's 1st cousin 2 times removed. I'm interested in family history and have had Ray in my database for years. But I didn't know that he was involved in baseball until yesterday when my mother-in-law and I were talking about it.

Buddy (#45) with the 1953 Huntingburg Happy Hunters,

the 1953 Southern Indiana Athletic Conference high school basketball champions.

Ray is a member of the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame and also a member of Georgia Tech's Athletic Hall of Fame.

Ray passed away in 1994 in Evansville, Indiana. I hope to get hold of some photos of Ray from his family.

2010 Tennessee Smokies baseball cards

I received an email last week or so that the 2010 Smokies team card sets are now available.

The Smokies are doing well, sending some of their roster up to the AAA club in Des Moines and having to send a few down to their A club in Daytona Beach.

The Southern League North Division All-Star team, which will be played on July 12th will include the following Smokies as starters: Tony Campana, Robinson Chirinos and Blake Lalli. They will be joining their teammates Austin Bibens-Dirkx, Ryan Buchter, David Cales, Hung-Wen Chen and Steve Clevenger. The Huntsville Stars will host the game.

Tennessee finished 3 games ahead of West Tenn at the break with a 42-27 record. Bill Dancy's doing something right over there.

I'll be attending the Birmingham Barons / West Tenn Diamond Jaxx game on Friday, July 16th as part of the Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference. I'm looking forward to taking a few days off of work with my wife and experiencing the hospitality that is Birmingham. One of her crafty (read: quilting) friends is coming to visit her during the daytime while I'm at the conference. I don't think that her idea of fun is listening to lectures about the Negro Leagues. To each his (or her) own.

1974 Topps Team Checklists

I found a stack of these at my local antique store in south Knoxvegas several months ago. I wasn't familiar with them, but the price was right so I picked them up.


Here's the description from my copy of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards:

This set is a repeat of the 1973 set in the form of 24 unnumbered 2-1/2" x 3-1/2" checklist cards. Cards feature a team name on the front at the top with a white panel and a number of facsimile autographs below. Backs feature the team name and a checklist. The big difference between the 1973 and 1974 checklists is that the 1973s have blue borders while the 1974s have red borders. The 1974s were inserted into packages of the regular issue Topps cards and were also available in uncut sheet form as a wrapper redemption.

Since they are not numbered the SCBC lists them alphabetically. The number behind the team is the quantity of card I have. You see that I have some duplicates. The asterisks I will deal with later.

(1) Atlanta Braves - 3 *, **

(2) Baltimore Orioles *, **

(3) Boston Red Sox - 2 *, **

(4) California Angels *, **

(5) Chicago Cubs *, **

(6) Chicago White Sox - 1 *, **

(7) Cincinnati Reds *

(8) Cleveland Indians - 2 *, **

(9) Detroit Tigers

(10) Houston Astros - 1 *, **

(11) Kansas City Royals - 1 *, **

(12) Los Angeles Dodgers - 2 *, **

(13) Milwaukee Brewers *

(14) Minnesota Twins *, **

(15) Montreal Expos **

(16) New York Mets - 2 *, **

(17) New York Yankees

(18) Oakland A’s - 1 *, **

(19) Philadelphia Phillies - 2 **

(20) Pittsburgh Pirates - 2 *

(21) St. Louis Cardinals *

(22) San Diego Padres - 1 *, **

(23) San Francisco Giants - 1 *, **

(24) Texas Rangers - 3 *, **

Seeing Rico Petrocelli's autograph reminded me of the TV series, Petrocelli. My mom really used to like that. It came out in 1974 as well.

The cards I have are rather miscut. Okay, very miscut.



Some of the cards I have are partially filled in, others are not. I haven't figured out why Bucky McBallplayer is trying to shot-put the baseball, though.


Note the bottom of the Phillies checklist. **©T.C.G. PRTD. IN U.S.A.

Now note the bottom of the Dodgers checklist. *©T.C.G. PRTD. IN U.S.A.

Why the difference in the number of asterisks? If you go back to the list of teams, you'll see listed which cards I've verified as having one or two stars. By verified, I mean actually looking at the cards, or images of cards on ebay or CheckOutMyCards.com. This is not to say that if the list only has one asterisk that there is not a card with two. I just haven't verified it, yet.

This post will be my little checklist of checklists.

Another Unlicensed Product

You can see why Upper Deck said "no go" without an MLB license.


Further proof...

My thanks to Kevin, the Core Contrarian, for providing the Garret Anderson card and for providing the artwork for his card. He just doesn't know it. Yet.

More Boys (and a Girl) of Summer

Last summer I posted about Bisbee's Boys of Summer baseball cards. For Christmas this last year I received another installation of them. This is the second set of three sets total. The 3" x 4" cards can be purchased at the Friends of Warren Ballpark's online store.

I don't know that I've every had a proxy signature before. Bob Henry pitched in the Minor Leagues from 1946 to 1951, never making it to the Major Leagues. He went 39-59 with a 5.63 ERA. Bob was born in either 1923 (ball card info) or 1925 (baseball-reference.com info). He passed away in 1991.

As far as I know, Anne is still with us.

Jim "Boom-Boom" Bynon never made it out of the minors. He played for eight seasons, bouncing back and forth between class B and C clubs. He ended up with a .295 Batting Average and punched out 188 Home Runs. He passed away in 1991 at the age of 69.

Clarence Maddern was the only native of Bisbee, Arizona to make it to the Majors. He played for the Cubs and the Indians a few times. In 1948 he played 80 games with the Cubs. His baseball career ran from 1940 until 1957, with a few years off during the war. He served in Europe. He passed away in 1986 at the age of 64.

"Tuck" Stainback had a successful career in the Majors from 1934 to 1946, occasionally dropping back into the minors. He was with Bisbee in 1931 as an outfielder. He hit .315 and 7 Home Runs with the Bees that season. He passed away in 1992 at the age of 81.