My Earliest Prince Fielder Memory

With Miguel Cabrera out of the lineup the last few days, Prince Fielder has become the main cog in the batting order.  It gives me a chance to tell you all of my first Prince Fielder memory. Was it an All Star game appearance while with the Brewers? His MLB Debut? From the Minors? or day he got drafted? It is none of the above.
Here is my first memory of Prince Fielder:

Card of Week: 1988 Topps Big Andre Dawson

A popular trend in trading cards now is using designs of sets from decades ago.  One of the earliest sets to do this was the 1988 Topps Big.  Topps released a "big" set in three series of 88 cards each in 1988.  It took the design of the popular 1956 Topps set including the slightly larger size. Here is a pic of a 1956 Topps:

As you can see it has action photo to go along with the portrait of the player. The backs contain a comic strip theme to tell some of career highlights of player. The past year's stats and career stats shown at bottom.
The 1988 Topps Big set doesnt have the exact same design as the 56 set, but uses it as theme and the backs are the same between the two.

1988 Topps Big

I picked the Andre Dawson because he coming off his MVP season of 1987. And the action photo reminds me of this recent commercial that always makes me chuckle:

Interview With the Greatest Hitter Ever

There is talk around baseball that Miguel Cabrera could be the greatest hitter of all time.  He is a tremendous hitter, but I do not think he is the greatest yet.  He could become the greatest right handed hitter.  To me, the greatest hitter ever is Ted Williams.
Willams finished his career with 521 career homeruns, 1839 RBIs and with an average of .344.  He also won two triple crowns, six batting titles and two MVPs.  He did all this while missing all of or part of five seasons because he fought in WWII and the Korean War.  These were prime years also, three of which came immediately following winning his first triple crown.  Here is his career stats
Couple other notes on Willams.  Beyond his baseball accolades, he was known as a very good wingman as a fighter pilot for John Glenn during WWII and also is a member of the International Fishing Game Association Hall of Fame.  Williams also was a tireless worker for the Jimmy Fund-a Boston based charity that helps cancer stricken kids.
Anybody wants to learn about hitting, he wrote a book called "Science of Hitting".
Here is a great interview Williams did reflecting on career and life with Bob Costas that originally aired in the summer of 1993:
part one
part two
part three

Card of the Week: 1976 SSPC Frank Robinson

Fellow baseball card collector and baseball historian/nerd/blogger, Keith Olbermann is back on ESPN Monday night with his new show, "Olbermann".  I have always enjoyed listening to him and learning about the game at the same time.  So this week's card is from a set that has Olbermann's footprint on it.

1976 SSPC

Prior to the 1980s, the Topps Co. had a monopoly on the trading card market.  The only other choices collectors had were either food issue sets such as Post or Kellogg's or regional team issue sets.  A couple collectors in New York decided to challenge Topps and released a 630 card set.  Issued as a full set or as individual team sets and used the 1953 Bowman set as an influence.  The '53 Bowman set featured a full colored picture front-no names, no words, no borders. Just a crisp clean photo.
The problem of the SSPC set is that was released unlicensed.  Topps sued the founders of SSPC set and led to the settlement to destroy all remaining cards that had not reached the market.  Topps lawsuit made the set become more legitimate among collectors.
Where does Keith Olbermann come into play? He wrote the bios of all the players on the back of the cards.

I personally only own a couple from the 1976 SSPC set.  I picked Frank Robinson because he is listed as a manager on the back of the card even though he did participate as a player for Cleveland also.  Robinson is the first black manager in MLB history.   He also is the last player/manager prior to Pete Rose in the mid 80s for the Cincinnati Reds. 

Others who broke barriers in MLB History

This Saturday is the annual Civil Rights game in MLB.   In honor of this game, I will list some of the people who broke barriers in MLB history.
First I will list the first black player for each baseball team in the pre-expansion era(pre-1961).  Also note, officially Moses Fleetwood Walker was the first professional black player in 1884 before the banishment of black players.

AL:
Boston Red Sox:         Pumpsie Green 7-21-59
Chicago White Sox:    Minnie Minoso  5-1-51
Cleveland Indians:       Larry Doby       7-5-47
Detroit Tigers:             Ozzie Virgil       6-6-58
Kansas City Athletics: Bob Trice          9-13-53
New York Yankees:    Elston Howard  4-14-55
St. Louis Browns:       Hank Thompson 7-17-47
Washington Senators:  Carlos Paula     9-6-54

NL:
Brooklyn Dodgers:      Jackie Robinson  4-15-47
Boston Braves:            Sam Jethroe        4-18-50
Chicago Cubs:             Ernie Banks        9-17-53
Cincinnati Reds:           Chuck Harmon
                                   Nino Escalera      4-17-54
New York Giants:        Monte Irvin
                                   Hank Thompson 7-8-49
Philadelphia Phillies:     John Kennedy    4-22-57
Pittsburgh Pirates:       Curt Roberts       4-13-54
St. Louis Cardinals:    Tom  Alston         4-13-54


1st black coach:  Buck O'Neil (Chicago Cubs) 5-29-62
1st black umpire:  Emmett Ashford 4-11-66
1st black manager:  Frank Robinson (Cleveland Indians) 4-8-75
1st black general manager:  Bill Lucas (Atlanta Braves) 1977

1st Japanese player: Masanori Murakami (San Francisco Giants) 9-1-64
1st Black Latino: Minnie Minoso (Cleveland Indians) 4-19-49
1st Latin American:  Esteban Bellan(from Cuba)  1871
1st Dominican player: Ozzie Virgil (New York Giants) 9-23-56
1st Cuban Defector:  Barbaro Garbey (Detroit Tigers) 4-3-84
1st Venezuelan:  Alex Carrasquel (Washington Senators) 4-23-39
1st Puerto Rican: Hiram Bithorn (Chicago Cubs) 4-15-42
1st Mexican: Mel Almada (Boston Red Sox) 9-1-33

In Case You Missed It: Intentional Walk Walk-off

Yes, you did read it correctly.  There was a walk-off run scored on an intentional walk just recently.  No, a team did not lose the game on purpose.  Here is what happened:  A minor league game between New Britain Rock Cats and New Hampshire Fisher Cats went to the last inning tied.  New Britain has the winning run on 3rd and another runner on 2nd base, so  the New Hampshire manager made a solid baseball decision.  Intentionally walk the hitter and create a force out at any base. The problem was the execution:

I know. Oops!  But, on a serious note, I have heard the argument one way to shorten the game is to have the batter automatically go to first when an intentional walk is called.  I am okay with this at the amateur level, but for the professionals, not so much.  The pros are trained and skilled in all aspects of the game or should be at least, so all possible plays should still be executed.
I have also seen where the pitch comes too close to the plate and the batter hits it for a base hit or a catcher fakes an intentional walk and pitcher throws a pitch for a called third strike. 
One of the beauties of the game of baseball is to have plays like this happen, even how rare they may be.  Fans could be talking about the play they witness at the ballpark the next day or kids trying it in the backyard or sandlots.

Card of the Week: 1970 Topps Ike Brown

This coming Saturday is Major League Baseball's annual Civil Rights Game. This game is played once a year and honors past African American and other minority players and promotes the game for future minorities.
With this game, I will make my card of the week of a player who is a bit of trivia among African American baseball players. We all know that Jackie Robinson was the first Negro League player in MLB history and I have written about some of the players who followed Robinson.  But, who was the last Negro League player to debut in the majors.  The answer is former Detroit Tiger Ike Brown.

1970 Topps

Brown originally signed with St. Louis Cardinals in 1960 as 18 year old from Memphis, Tennessee. But before playing a game in the minor leagues, Cardinals released him.  Without a team, Brown joined the Kansas City Monarchs Negro League team.  He played well enough for them to have the Tigers sign him the following year.
It took Brown eight years of minor league ball to finally make the Tigers team in 1969.  He was known as a popular utility player and pitch hitter among his teammates and fans. Sometimes confused by fellow Tiger Gates Brown(no relation to), but his eyeglasses was his distinctive look.   He also was known to say "its a beautiful day" every morning whether it was or not.
Brown played for Tigers for six seasons before his release.  He then, moved back to Memphis and became an umpire until his passing in 2001.

As for the card itself, many of the Topps cards of the late 1960s and early 70s feature players posing for the photographers at the ballparks. I especially like some of these as you can see part of the old stadiums in the background.   Here you can see some of the features of old Tiger Stadium such as the centerfield bleachers and part of the roof over rightfield.