The Nitty Gritty Card of the Day!

Today's Nitty Gritty Card of the Day comes from 1963 Topps Baseball, card #60 of New York Yankees catcher Elston Howard. One of the greatest catchers of All Time, Howard played on Pennant Winning teams in 10 of his 14 seasons in the Major Leagues. The back of the card mentions that he had hit 5 World Series homers. Playing in 10 different Series, Howard hit 5 homers with 19 RBI and won 4 rings as a World Champion with the Yankees in 1956, '58, '61 and '62. In 1963, the year of this card, Howard batted .333 in the Series, but his Yanks fell to the Dodgers in a 4-game sweep. Howard did have his finest year at the plate in power output hitting a career high 28 homers in 1963. It was his third straight year with 20 or more homers and his 7th straight season being named an All Star. Howard would take home a Gold Glove Award in '63 as well as American League MVP honors. Elston Howard was traded from the Yankees to the rival Red Sox in 1967 and became a veteran leader during their impossible dream Pennant run. Howard would retire after the 1968 season. Over his 14 year career Howard was a 12-time All Star and was a member of 10 different Pennant winning teams. After retiring as a player, Howard returned to the Yankees as a coach and would win two more World Series rings in the late 70's. He retired with a .274 batting average, 167 home runs, 1,471 hits, 762 RBI, 619 runs, 218 doubles, 50 triples and a .427 slugging percentage in 1,605 games. Any player who spent time in the Negro Leagues is automatically Nitty Gritty as are war veterans and World Champions. Howard was all 3 and a classy individual to boot. He looses some points for being a Yankee, but...

I love this game, I love this hobby! 47 years LATER!

The Nitty Gritty Card of the Day... Tall and Slick Edition

Today’s Nitty Gritty Card of the Day is a 1964 Topps Giants, card #7 of the Chairman of the Board Whitey Ford. This card came to me from legendary blogger and traded Wicked Ortega from the My Past Time, I Love It! Blog. The back of the card celebrates Ford winning his 10th World Series game. That event came in 1962 when Ford’s Yankees beat the Giants in 1962. He appeared in 2 more World Series with the Yankees in 1963 and ’64, but Ford was winless and the Yankees lost to the Dodgers and Cards those years. The ’64 loss to the Cards was Ford’s 11th World Series appearance. He was on the winning end 6 times out of 11. His career World Series record is 10-8 with a 2.71 ERA in 22 World Series starts. Thanks so much for this tall card Wicked! I love this hobby! I love this set! 46 years LATER!

The Nitty Gritty Card of the Day!

In keeping with the theme of showing nothing but catchers for the next seven days, today’s Nitty Gritty Card of the Day is of 1983 World Series MVP Rick Dempsey. The card I chose is from the 1974 Topps set, card #569, showing Dempsey as a young back-up backstop with the New York Yankees. I am a casual Baltimore Orioles fan and I have met Dempsey a few times before, I have even had the privilege of interviewing him when he was a coach with Baltimore. Like most people I loved his rain delay theatre and I remember his heroics in the ’83 World Series when he homered off of Charles Hudson in the 5th and final game of the Series which Baltimore won 5-0. I was aware of all of those things, but it turns out there was a lot I didn’t know about Rick Dempsey and most of it I learned from this very card. First off I had no idea that he played for the Yankees. He did, this card proves it. He was drafted by the Twins in 1967 and then traded to New York for Danny Walton in 1972. Of course the Yankees had an All Star catcher already in Thurman Munson which made getting at-bats difficult for a guy like Dempsey who was behind the plate than at it. He only started 25 games in 1974 and in ’75 only started 12 games behind the plate. In June of ’76 the Yankees sent him to Baltimore in big trade that also brought the Orioles Tippy Martinez, Scott McGregor and Rudy May. I think that Orioles fans owe the Yankees a thank you for that deal! Another thing I learned was that Rick is not his real name. I had assumed that, but thought his name might be Richard. It is actually John. His full name is John Rikard Dempsey. I had learned (not from this card) recently that Dempsey was the uncle of former Orioles (and Rays!) catcher Greg Zaunn. I thought that was really interesting, but more interesting was that the back of the card told me that Rick Dempsey is a relative of former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey. Baseball cards rule! There are more nuggets of info here, but you can read them yourselves. Another thing I learned (not from this card) was that Dempsey was a member of the 1988 World Champion Dodgers team and he also pitched in 2 games for the Brewers, making his MLB pitching debut at age 41. He owns a 4.50 ERA, he faced 10 batters over 2 innings and allowed 3 hits and no walks. Not too shabby. I am really going to try and find cards of catchers in catching gear to fill the rest of the week out. It hasn’t been an easy task. At least this one has a cartoon. Thanks for reading and don’t forget to cast your vote for the best catcher ever! Oh, there will be at least one, if not two more CardS of the Day today so stay tuned! 36 years LATER!

The Greatest Catcher EVER!!!

Greetings and welcome to the Nitty Gritty Card of the Day! My apologies for the sensationalistic title, but in addition to the card of the day, there is a poll added to this blog. It is for the Best Catcher Ever. Since catchers are the epitome of nitty gritty, it seemed fitting to have that poll up here. This poll will remain for 7 days and during that time the Card of the Day will focus on; yep you guessed it, catchers. Seven days of backstops from the 50s, 60s and 70s. During this time I beg of you, my dear readers, to vote for the top catcher and to also visit my 2 other blogs to vote for the BEST SHORTSTOP and also the BEST SECOND BASEMAN. Okay, with that out of the way, here is today’s Card of the Day: From the 1968 Topps set it is card #89 of New York Yankees catcher Jake Gibbs. Gibbs was a superstar college athlete who chose baseball over football thanks to a whole lot of bonus $$$ from the Yankees. Gibbs was an All American quarterback on the University of Mississippi football team. He led Ole Miss to a 10-0-1 record in 1960 as a senior and the Rebels were voted DuS/NWAA National Champs. He was drafted by both the Houston Oilers and Cleveland Browns, but opted for a bigger contract in New York to play baseball. He jumped directly to AAA ball and spent the next 5 seasons splitting time between the AAA Richmond squad and backing up Elston Howard in New York. He spent the entire ’66 season with the Yankees and when Howard was traded to Boston in 1967 he took over as the Yankees full-time catcher. He was a .230 hitter without much power, but his arm was amazing and he owned a career .986 fielding percentage behind the plate. In 1968 he had 55 assists and threw out 30 would be base stealers. His role as the Yankees starting catcher lasted less than 3 seasons. Thurman Munson arrived, won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1970 and took the job. Gibbs retired from playing after the 1971 season at the age of 32. He played in 459 games behind the plate and threw out 108 potential thieves at a rate of 44%. During his pro baseball career Gibbs was an assistant football coach at Ole Miss in the offseason and in 1995 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Immediately after retiring as a player Gibbs took over as Ole Miss’ baseball coach and held that post for 19 seasons. He served as a coach for the Yankees in 1993 and also managed the Tampa Yankees (A-FSL) in 1994 and 1995. He also used a very large mitt. Thanks for reading and thanks for voicing your opinion in the Best Ever polls! 42 years later.

A Story About My Family, Baseball and Tony Lazzeri

Yes, I am Italian. I am Mexican and Irish, too, but on my Mom’s side it is 100% Italian. Her mother and her parents arrived in Ellis Island from Sicily in 1928. A group of 16 family members including my Grandmother who was a young girl. When my sister lived in New York she was able to get a copy of the “sign-in sheet” from their arrival. The Tucciarone family settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut and most of their children remained there as adults. This country was super racist back then and many races of people were hated. It was not uncommon to see signs that said things like “No Italians Served” or worse. There were also many small communities that welcomed Sicilian immigrants. My family adjusted quick and became involved in construction and did well for themselves. They also became big baseball fans. The quickest way to Americanize was to learn their pastimes and baseball was huge in the 1920s. My family immediately adopted the New York Yankees. Not just because they were the best at the time, but because of their second baseman, “Poosh Em Up Tony” Lazzeri. He became the household hero. I am told that a photo of him hung on the wall with the rest of the family photos in my great-grandparents home. He was a pitchman for Lucky Strike and because of that, the whole family smoked and smoked Luckys. All of the Tucciarone kids were huge Yankees fans. This 1961 Fleer Baseball Greats is the only card I have of Tony Lazzeri, but I wouldn’t mind tracking down some more, especially the Diamond Stars card I show at the bottom of this post. He paved the way for many great Italian-American Yankees like Frank Crossetti, Yogi Berra and Joltin Joe DiMaggio, but he also made my own family feel at home. My Grandma Philomena loves the Yanks and she took me to my first game at the Stadium in 1981. They weren’t too good then. She took me to many more games from 1981 up till 1993 when I moved away. They were never very good. I never liked them either. I was that rare kid who grew up between New York and Massachusetts who didn’t like the Yankees or the Red Sox. I hated both teams, but I loved the times I spent with my family at Yankee Stadium. My Grandma took me most often. We rode the train to New York and took the subway to the Bronx to get to the Stadium. We never drove in a car. There were a few times that my Great-Aunts and Uncles would come, too. I will never forget going to the stadium in the mid-80s with my Uncles Julius and Jack and my Aunts Edna, Rita, Eleanor, Lena and my Grandma Phil. In the late 80s when Steve Balboni returned to the Yankees we went to a lot of games. My Uncle Julius was a big Balboni fan. He was big guy period. So was Balboni. He called him Baby Babe. We were there when big Steve hit a homer and you would have thought it won the WS the way my family carried on. He had loved the Yankees since he was a little boy and Tony Lazzeri was still winning World Series with the Yankees. He cheered for Frank Crosetti, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra and Joe D and he kept on cheering for Dave Righetti, Joe Peppitone and Joe Torre. Had he still been alive he would be nominating Joe Girardi for sainthood right about now. Much of my family (on both sides) were involved in politics. Uncle Julius was, too. When he passed away at his funeral there were 3 photos above his casket. He and Frank Sinatra, he and Joe DiMaggio and a photo of him and John F. Kennedy. Everyone there knew who Joe Dimaggio and Frank Sinatra were, but I heard a lot of people ask who that other guy was with Julius in reference to Kennedy. That was a long story for a little card, but I wanted to explain where my love of the game came from. I do thank my Mom’s side of the family for sharing their love of the game with me and taking me so often to the House That Ruth Built. They always called the Yankees our home team. I disputed this once because we lived an equal distance from Shea Stadium and Fenway Park. The response was “This is where we are, this is our home team”. Fair enough. I did take in plenty of games at Shea and Fenway and even Olympic Stadium, but when I was with a Tucciarone, we were always home at Yankee Stadium.
Moving back to Tony Lazzeri… He played in the big leagues for 14 seasons from 1926 until 1939, mainly for the Yankees, but also with the Cubs, Dodgers and Giants. He hit double digits in triples six times and topped 100 RBI 7 times. He went to 7 World Series, six times with the Yankees and once with the Cubs against the Yanks. He was on the winning side 5 times. He was an original All Star in 1933 and received votes for American League MVP in 5 different seasons. His best year statistically came with the Salt Lake City Bees of the Pacific Coast League in 1925. He batted .355 with 60 homers and 222 RBI. He had 512 total bases that year! At the big league level in 1929 he hit .354 with 18 homers and 106 RBI. He drove in runs from the top of the order on the powerhouse Yankees teams of the late 20s and was the smallest member of Murderers Row. His highest All Time ranking is in triples. He sits at 108th of All Time with 115 3-baggers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, 45 years after his death. The Veterans Committee realized what my family knew all along, that Tony Lazzeri was a hero.