So, I have not made a post on this page since Jimmy Wilson was the Card of the Day for the months from January till July 2011. Its been a while... Two things inspired me to post here again and try to revive this dying page... First off my buddy Duane AKA the King of Allen and Ginter minis from Democratic Roadkill sent me an AWESOME package that not only included the normal super cool Allen and Ginter mini cards, but it also contained over 20 awesome Topps vintage cards that helped clear some space off of my 1963 and 1965 Topps want lists. I want to show off all the cool stuff he sent and there was a ton of it, so I thought I would post the vintage cards on this page and the other goodies over there...There is another reason... Its Dan Rather. This Friday he wrote a story for the Nation and used an image from this very blog to illustrate it. From this post on December 10, 2010 about Dodgers back-up catcher Rube Walker. Anyway, his editor contacted me a long while back and said that Mr. Rather was planning on writing a piece on Walker. He wanted to use a card as an illustration, but wanted a well-loved card, not a collector's piece. He wanted a card with some character. So, the editor did some surfing and found the Nitty Gritty and said they thought the card was perfect. I agreed. I really love well-loved cards and for some reason really like cards that have been drawn on... Go figure, so does Dan Rather... Ha. Link to the slideshow to illustrate every article on the Nation, including Dan Rather's piece on Rube Walker - it is slide number 6/14.
Anyway, check out his story, check out the Nation, check out the slideshow and the other stories and then come back here cuz I will be posting up really soon... Like today or tonight soon. I love this hobby! A HUGE thanks to Democratic Roadkill Duane, I will be posting his generosity very soon... 50 years LATER.
I love this set and I LOVE this card! 45 years LATER!
Borrowing a line from 
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 hobby! 60 years LATER. Nitty Gritty out.
After retiring as a player, Walker spent the next couple decades as a coach in the Majors. Most of his time was spent with the New York Mets where he spent 15 years as their pitching coach. He coached the staff featuring Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver on the Miracle 1969 Mets where he won his second World Series ring.
The team would succeed and the group led by Robinson, Reese, Snider and Campanella would win 5 NL Pennants in the 1950s, capped off with World Series victories in 1955 and '59, but Banta would be a part of those teams. 1949 would be his lone full big league season, but it was a good one, he was 10-6 with a 3.37 ERA, 3 saves and 97 strikeouts. He passed away in his hometown of Hutchinson, Kansas in 2006. I love this game, I love learning about all those who played it and I LOVE collecting little cardboard reminders of past greatness. This card has been handled ALOT, and hopefully enjoyed and appreciated. It is well worn. I made the scan extra large to show all the details of this cards long life. I love 1950 Bowman. I love the images and the backgrounds. I love Banta's expression. So young, eager and unsure of what is to come. 60 years LATER.
Today's 
Todays Nitty Gritty Card of the Day comes from 1956 Topps, card #117 of Detroit Tigers pitcher 
The rendering on the side shows him appearing to field a grounder from third base. Thanks for reading! I love this hobby! 64 years LATER!
McBean was at the peak of his career when this card came out. In 1964 he was 8-3 with a 1.90 ERA and 22 saves. He was named the Sporting News National League Relief Pitcher of the Year, an Honor that was awarded from 1960-2004. The year prior he was 13-3 in relief and pitched a streak of 22 straight scorless innings. 1963 was his first season in the bullpen-in '62 he was a part of t
he Pirates rotation and posted a 15-10 mark as a starter. McBean was born in the Virgin Islands and one of the first big league players from there. In fact, 50 years after his debut he is still the ONLY big league pitcher to hail from the Virgin Islands and is one of only 11 players from the Islands to make it to the Majors. At 5'11" and 165 pounds he looked more like an infielder than a pitcher and although he never played the position as a professional in the US, he was quite a shortstop and fielded that position during batting practice to the delight of everyone looking on. I love this game, I love it's history and I love all the stories behind every character to play the game and appear on a card in the hobby I love. 45 years LATER!
Those are very respectable numbers for a pitcher, but if you compare him to his teammates in '65 his homerun total equaled the total of Dick Groat, Julian Javier and Mike Shannon. Those 3 combined for 1181 plate appearances and totalleed 5 homers betweeen them. Gibby hit 5 in just 119. Thats just awesome. More Gibby to come. I love this game, I love this hobby! 45 years LATER!
There are a lot of different things that get you that status, being an aggressive rough and tumble player, playing down and dirty, being a certified bad-ass, being a catcher in full gear or having a vintage action shot or just being cool. Having a cool name or nickname can sneak you in, too. 
He was the 5th starter on the '63 Yankees team that won the AL Crown and repeated with them in '64, but had moved down the rotation to a spot starter and reliever. He became expendable in New York and was sold to the Cleveland Indians in spring of '65, right before this card came out. They mention him being dealt on the back of the card, but were not able to take a photo of him on the Tribe, so this is his '65 Topps card. He is clearly wearing Yankees pinstripes, Topps didn't bother hiding the NY on his jersey or taking out the other Yankees behind him in this pic that was taken in the spring of '64. They did black over the NY on his cap, but it still shows through. He is labeled as an Indian on the card. Big Daddy spent 4 years with the Tribe. He won 25 games and saved 22 more splitting time between the rotation and the closer role. He won 13 for them in '68, but was traded again after the 1969 season. He and Luis Tiant went to Minnesota in exchange for Dean Chance. At 33 years of age Big Daddy had one of his top years on the mound for the Twins. He pitched in 68 games, all in relief and posted an amazing 10-1 mark over 113 innings. He had a 1.99 ERA and saved 15 games for Minnesota. They lost to the Orioles in the ALCS that year, but Big Daddy was dominant. He appeared in relief in 2 games and pitched 6 scoreless innings 
It was his final postseason, but over his career he never allowed a run in the playoffs or World Series. He totaled 11 innings, allowed 4 hits and no runs. Not too shabby. After the Twins he made stops in St. Louis and Boston before calling it a career in 1972. He posted a career mark of 109-94 with a 3.48 ERA, 1305 strikeouts, 11 shutouts and 43 saves. He won a ring with the Dodgers in '59 and played against them in a losing effort with the Yanks in '63. He was also a part of the Yanks team that lost to the Cards in the WS in '64. After retiring as a player he spent many years as a coach in the big leagues, most recently with the Mariners up till 1999. It all started with me being fascinated by a lame airbrush effort from Topps, but opened up a story of a very interesting big league career. 
The other card I am going to show off today wasn't one on my 
Nixon spent 2 years as a Twin before returning to Boston in 1968 where he ended his big league career. Nixon spent 12 years in the Majors and played every inning behind the plate, catching for 5506 innings. That's alot of squatting! Nixon spent most of the 1970s managing in the minor leagues before he took over the job of being the Reds skipper in 1982. He would then replace Chuck Tanner as the Atlanta Braves manager before Atlanta ushered in the Bobby Cox era which began in June of 1990. Wow, this post went far longer than expected... Just think, I only posted about 10% of what Deron sent me! A huge thanks to Deron and to everyone who has helped me in my quest (again) for 1965 Topps! 
You can find my 
The Red Sox won that game and ultimately won the AL Flag. I got into the elder Tartabull after collecting Danny. Jose Tartabull was never an All Star and never really played full-time in the majors, but he was still a remarkable fielder, a great baserunner and an important part of baseball history. I just picked up a heap of vintage cards, so I hope to do a lot of quick posts here in the coming days and weeks. Go Rays! 43 years LATER.
The card(s) of the day are #298 of 
Apparently he was a hot prospect on the Dodgers farm. He won 2 games for the Dodgers over two seasons before being picked by the Colt 45s in the expansion draft. Golden was 7-11 in Houston in 1962. 
His MLB career lasted parts of 4 seasons. For his career he was 9-13 with 5 complete games and 2 shutouts. He was also twice traded for Hall of Famers-Nellie Fox and Sparky Anderson. 
Golden's modern day twin is 
Thats all the time we have folks, thanks for reading! I have 56 1961 Topps cards, so that means about 50 more of these posts as soon as I get the 2010 version. I am not going to collect this set, so any card I post is up for trade for a card from my '65 Topps list. I love this hobby! 49 years LATER!
Koufax’s perfect game was 
I am really drawn to “custom” cards of yesteryear. Mainly I want to know what inspired collectors back then to customize. Did this person just really not like Joe Morgan? Maybe he or she really liked Sonny Jackson and felt he should be solo on the card. I don’t think this is a Traded or update card because Jackson was traded to the Braves long before Morgan was traded to the Reds. Maybe the card owner was a big fan of Morgan and a friend or older sibling did this to the card to get back at them for something. Perhaps this person treasured this card for years and then vandalized it because they dislike Morgan as a sportscaster… Who knows, that is what makes this card fun and interesting to me. The story is most likely that a kid did it out of boredom, outgrew the cards and gave it to someone who passed it along to someone who eventually sold it to someone who sold it to me… 
I would guess that this cards original owner is in their 50s. I wonder if they remember doing it. I wonder if they followed baseball. I can almost this person using this card as dinner party conversation. “When I was a kid I had Joe Morgan’s rookie card and I blacked his face out with marker. It must be worth a fortune now. If only I still had it and hadn’t marred it”. I can totally imagine it. Either way, it is one of my favorite cards now, I love it! I have never done this to a card myself, but I imagine that it takes balls to do it. I wanted to try and see what kind of a rush I got. I dug around and found this rookie card of one of Morgan’s teammates on the Big Red Machine. 
I flipped it over and went to town with a black sharpie… Wow, that was a rush. 
Well, it would have been if I took the card out its top loader but I didn’t because I am not an idiot… Maybe I will try this experiment with a different card down the road. Back to Sonny Jackson. I keep on adding the middle name Man to his name when I think of it in my head, I don’t know why. 
Anyway, Jackson’s career got off to a quicker start than Joe Morgan’s did. In 1966 Jackson finished second in the Rookie of the Year vote. That was the year that Tommie’s swept the Award. Jackson batted .292 with 49 steals as the 45s shortstop. Morgan batted .285 that year with 11 steals, but made the All Star team. All things considered this card tells a story. Since I don’t know it, I guess I get to make it up. That is fun for me. Plus its pretty neat to have a blacked out rookie card of a Hall of Famer… I love this hobby! 45 years LATER
The Giants sent Bailey and Felipe Alou, Ernie Bowman and Billy Hoeft to the Milwaukee Braves in exchange for Del Crandell, Bob Hendley and Bob Shaw. Bailey and Crandell were both catchers at the end of their careers, but the impact players were Alou who would lead the NL in hits twice as a Brave and Bob Shaw who would win 16 games for the Giants in ’65. Ed Bailey only played in 95 games for the Braves in ’64, a year removed from a 21 homer year with the Giants in ’63. Bailey only spent a single season in Milwaukee before making another brief stop in San Francisco and then in Chicago with the Cubs. He was signed by the California Angels in ’66 but was released after just a few pinch hitting at-bats thus ending his Nitty Gritty 14 year career. I was drawn to the card because of the writing on it. It fascinates me when people (kids presumably) write on cards. In this case it was an update to his new team, but the card’s owner failed to continue the updates as he was traded several more times in the next two years. The front of the card has some serious wear to it, like it was out a lot. The corners are decent and so is the back. I would think the owner really liked Ed Bailey and viewed this one often. I didn’t know too much about Bailey, but after getting this card I did my research and affirmed that Bailey was both Nitty and Gritty in the life and on the diamond. He spent more time in the military than he did in the minors and was a big leaguer the year he was released (as a September call-up) and never went back down over the next 13 seasons. He was 5 times an All Star and started behind the plate for the National League 3 times, the last time in ’63. In 1959 he and his brother, pitcher Jim Bailey, were battery mates with the Reds. That would be Jim Bailey’s lone trip to the show; he was 0-1 in 11 innings. Ed Bailey led the ’62 Giants to the World Series, but fell to New York. 
Ed Bailey was horrible at the plate, going just 1-14, but his lone hit was a 2-run homer. He was a platoon player most often, but he reached double figures in homers in 8 out of 14 seasons and topped 20 homers three times, the most coming in 1956 when he hit 28. As an All Star he batted .250 with 2 walks and an RBI. He was a power hitter first, but also a great arm behind the plate. Even as a part time player he led NL catchers in base runners thrown out once (in ’56) and placed in the top-5 six times. In 1957 he led NL backstops in base runners thrown out percentage and placed in the top-5 in that department 4 times. Over his career he threw out 191 would-be thieves for a 39% rating. The back of the card tells us he hit 3 homers in one game in ’56. He added an 8 RBI game in ’65. He was behind the plate for many of Juan Marichal’s wins including his no-hitter in June of ’63. He made two unassisted double plays and hit 8 pinch hit homeruns including 2 grand slams. Baseball reference shows his 162 game averages as .256 with 21 homers and 72 RBI. Those are pretty great numbers from a catcher with an arm who knows how to call a game and field his position. Even though it’s posed, I like the pic on the front and the “catchers finding Jesus” pose in the circle adds to the cards Nitty Gritty look. Thanks so much for all the great cards 
Both were 6'2", around 210 pound right handed sluggers and both represented their respective Leagues as All Stars eleven times. 
The cards are #210 of Gary Carter and #135 of Carlton Fisk. 
I am not trying to compete with 
