1973 Topps Padres - Team Set Complete!

At the beginning of the year, I made a few goals.  One of them was to lose 30 pounds (as of yesterday morning, I'm halfway there).  Another was to complete a Padres team set from either 1969, 1971, or 1973.

Consider the 1973 Topps Padres team set in the books!

Now, I guess I need to preface this post by saying that I only went after cards that featured 100% Padre players, no multiple player cards.  I know that there are those who need to have every card that features a player from your team, but when the John Hilton rookie card is as expensive as it is, you learn to compromise.

Without further ado, here is a post dedicated to my first Padres vintage complete set.

First off, here are my top 5 favorite cards in the set:

First up, Clarence "Cito" Gaston.  Gaston was the Padres last pick in the 1968 Expansion Draft.  Went on to become a decent player and a heckuva manager, becoming the first African-American manager to win a World Series title, which he did with Toronto in 1992 and 1993.

There are times when I think about changing the color scheme with the blog.  This is a card that shows why I've kept it.  Look at all that yellow!  Team cards rule.

Coming in at number three on the countdown, Nate Colbert.  Gotta love Nate the Great, the first Padre star.  In 1973, he batted a career high .270 and had 22 homers and 80 RBIs.  His last year with the Pads would be in 1974, being traded to Detroit in 1975.

For a long time, I thought this would be my favorite Padre from the 1973 set.  How can you not love the full mustard uniform, the Wrigley ivy in the background, the diving third base silhouette, and the All-Star Rookie Cup?  Combined with a cool shot of Dave Roberts tracking down a pop fly, and it's a recipe for a classic card.  Roberts hit .244 with 5 homers and 33 RBI in his rookie season in '72, which was apparently good enough to be labeled an "All-Star Rookie".  Must've been a slow year for rookie third basemen, but I'll take it.

Is there a better looking Padre card than this one?  I'm not sure there is (trust me, that countdown is still in the making).  This was the second to last card from the set that I needed, one of the high numbered ones.  This is the first ever "play at the plate" card to feature a Friar backstop.  From a very reputable source, the Cub featured at home plate is pitcher Fergie Jenkins, and he was out.

After looking at all those fronts, lets check out the backs.  I am probably in the minority of people who prefer the cards to have vertical backs, and these are examples of cards that look good doing it.  I particularly liked that you could see the players' full names (not every day you see a guy who's middle name is "Elixbet"), though the cartoon headings steal the show here.  The Padres seem like a pretty interesting bunch, who's hobbies include "volunteer dentistry", "hypnosis", "amateur middleweight boxer", "playing checkers", and "building miniature racing cars".  Good stuff.

Here's a last and final look at all all 23 cards in the set...

Gaston and Fred Kendall are the only two Original Padres on page one.

Vicente Romo's awesomely airbrushed hat would've come in at number six on the countdown.  Colbert is a good fit as the centerpiece of the page.

Not quite a full page for the high numbers in the set.

Pretty pleased that it didn't take too long to get this mission accomplished.  '73 Topps is one of my favorite designs, and has some great photography.  It was also a pretty good year for Padre uniforms, though there wasn't a lot of star power in the checklist.  I'm still a ways away from completing the inaugural Padres team set from 1969, but I'm only one card short of completing the 1971 set, so if you've got an extra Preston Gomez #737 sitting around, let me know.

Go Padres!

The Padres have been hot and cold lately, seemingly either sweeping or being swept.  Last night they gutted out a 2-1 victory against the Nationals, behind the solid pitching of Eric Stults, a solo homer by Yonder Alonso, and an error by Nats pitcher Jordan Zimmermann.  Huston Street, fresh off a night where he gave up a go ahead solo homer in the 10th inning, came in for the save, though he walked two batters in the ninth.  John Baker threw out two baserunners, including one in the ninth to bail out the Padres.

Hasn't been a great season so far, but they're doing better than they did last season, and they're not in last place right now, so that's nice too.  With some good play and a little luck, I think .500 baseball is getting to San Diego soon.  Hopefully.

Anyways, speaking of heating up, I got the last card I needed for the 1973 Topps Padres team set over the weekend as well...

Clay Kirby #655 is the last Padre in the set, and fittingly, the last Padre I needed to complete the set.  It looks like he's pitching in a spring training game or at a high school field.

Anyways, I love the 1973 Topps design, look for a full write up of the team set tomorrow.  Hopefully the Padres can salvage a split of the series against Washington tonight as Andrew Cashner faces big money Dan Haren.  Go Padres!

Padre Backstops Vol. 5: Brad Ausmus

Haven't done a "Padre Backstops" post in a while.  Next up is a Padre catcher that I looked up to as a kid, and the first of the "Backstop" series that I ever got to see play.

Ausmus made his MLB debut for the Padres in 1993, but he spent time with two organizations prior to that.  He was originally drafted by the Yankees in 1987, and the Rockies selected him with the 54th pick of the '92 Expansion draft.  He made his way to San Diego with Doug Bochtler and a player to be named later in a trade that sent Greg Harris and Bruce Hurst to Colorado.

The PTBNL turned out to be a pitcher named Andy Ashby, who would go 70-62 with a 3.59 ERA over eight seasons in San Diego.  He was a back to back All-Star in 1998 and 1999.

Anyways, despite the five year gap between the time he was drafted and the time he made his MLB debut, Ausmus had an 18 year career with four different teams (Padres, Tigers, Astros, and Dodgers).  He was with the Padres from '93 to '96, when he was traded midseason to the Tigers in exchange for Chris Gomez and his replacement, John Flaherty.  As bummed as I was that he was traded, those two players were big contributors to the '96 NL West Championship team.

No borders here, just full bleed photos of Ausmus and the tools of ignorance.  I loved these uniforms.  I obviously love the vintage Friar unis from the 70s, but the orange and blue look sharp.  In most of our family pictures as a kid, my parents asked us what we should wear, and I suggested that we wear Padre colors, orange and blue (because, apparently you have to wear matching clothes to take a family picture).

Brad was a three time Gold Glove winner ('01, '02, and '06) and an All-Star in 1999.  He had a .251 career average, which was slightly higher with the Padres (.255).  His first three offensive years with the Padres were pretty good, but he hit .181 with a homer and 13 RBI in '96, which prompted the Pads to send him elsewhere.

But he wasn't known for his bat.  He was known for his defense.  When he retired, the only two catchers with more putouts than him were Ivan Rodriguez and Jason Kendall.  He led the league in fielding percentage five times and twice led the league in percentage caught stealing.

In his time with the Padres, he threw out 105 runners, good for a respectable 35.7% caught stealing percentage.  As a kid who wanted to be a catcher, I thought that was awesome.  Nobody else thought he was cool, though.  Kids dig the longball.

Ausmus ranks first all time among Jewish players in games played with 1,938, and is fifth in hits and eighth in RBI.  He was the manager for the Israeli national team that lost in pool finals and failed to qualify for the World Baseball Classic.  He is currently a special assistant for the Padres and has been working with their minor league players, most notably stud prospect Austin Hedges.

Other trivia:

On August 2, 1997, he was the first catcher to wear the FOX mini-camera in his helmet during a game.

He has also played every other infield position (besides pitcher) and never had an error.

21 Years Later...

I'm not sure that this is always the case, but if you run a blog about cards, chances are, you enjoy "showing off" a little.  I think most of us are prone to it in our everyday lives as well, but when you come across something that's rare or cool or a super-refractor-relic-parallel-serial-numbered-autograph card, well, you want others to check out how awesome it is.

Some posts from you guys have made me a little jealous.  I've read posts about finding Hank Aaron's and Mickey Mantle's in bargain bins, ripping autographed Stan Musial's out of packs, etc, etc.  All very cool stuff.

But there was one particular post a while back that made me think, "Man!  I gotta get that!"  Fortunately, my tastes are a little on the simpler side, so it was a purchase that didn't break the bank.

The cards I'm referring to are the ones from the 1992 D.A.R.E. Safety set.  I mean, I think that's what they're called.  I'm not sure that they have a technical name, since there aren't even numbers on the back, and the card stock is only slightly thicker than paper.  A post by Duff at Bleedin' Brown and Gold made me think about how much I liked this set.

Sure, it's nothing fancy.  Plain white borders, simple name and position at the bottom, team logo at the top.  But I remember getting one of these when I was a kid!  The D.A.R.E. police officers came to Garden Road Elementary and told us not to do drugs (D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education), and to hammer their point home, they passed out Padre cards.  How awesome was that?

Of course, I didn't get anybody good.  I wanna say it was Kurt Stillwell or Kevin Ward.  Tried to trade around, but didn't have any takers.  As a kid with good taste in cardboard, it was kinda hard to take such a flimsy card seriously, especially since there weren't any stats on the back.  "Fake" cards I believe I called them at the time.

I mean, how can you take something serious that has a mascot named "Bluepper" on it?  I need baseball players, none of this childish garbage!  I was in second grade!

Of course, as I've retraced my card collecting steps, I've fallen in love with all those things that I wasn't as excited about at first.  The brown and orange uniforms from earlier Padre days.  1991 Fleer.  And oddball sets that I didn't consider to be "real" cards.

I will say that I have always kept my D.A.R.E. pledge not to abuse drugs or alcohol, so that middle aged lady cop with the curly hair would be happy.

The Benito card at the top is the easy favorite of the set, but the "Padres Relievers" card is a close second.  The backs of the cards were a kick to read, between headlines like "BE A CHOOSER, NOT A LOSER" and lines like "Drugs are everywhere.  They're easy to get, easy to use, and even easier to get hooked on".  I mean, I get the idea of saying that it's easy to get hooked on, but easy to get?  I dunno, maybe I'm running in the wrong circles.

Or the right ones, I guess...

Clutch!

I had thought about doing another installment of my recently neglected "GWYNNsday" posts, but since the Padres pulled out a ninth inning comeback against the Orioles last night, a celebration is in order.

With the Friars trailing 2-1 in the top of the ninth with two outs, My Man Chris Denorfia lined a single back up the middle to tie the ballgame.  A few batters later, Everth Cabrera singled him home from second base.  Huston Street came in for the save, a game removed from his first blown save of the season on a walk off home run by Evan Longoria.  It was Jim Johnson's first blown save in 35 attempts.

Speaking of My Man Chris Denorfia, here are a few cards of his from his playing days as prospect for the Redlegs.  Love both of these Heritage cards, back before I was back in collecting and way before I even knew who Denorfia was, let alone how clutch he was.

Oh wait, there's a pair of non-Padre Benito Santiago cards on the blog?  That must mean that this is also a trade post from none other than Mark at This Way To The Clubhouse!  Dude is an awesome trader, blogger, person, etc.  And the hallmark of all of his trade packages are the non-Padre Benito cards, something that I didn't think I wanted at first, but now love to see.  Gotta love Benny in the Jays gear, though the slugger's pose with the Pirates looks sharp as well.

Here are a few other non-Padres that made it into the binders.  A beady-eyed Bud Norris gets me closer to finishing the Astros team set from this year's Heritage.  The Fernandoooooo! is from this year's Prizm set, which I actually kinda like.  I busted a few packs of the stuff over the weekend, but didn't get anything worth writing about.

Alright, enough of these non-Padre cards, onto the good old "SD" cardboard!  Aki Otsuka was a fan favorite during his Padre playing days, and the Caminiti also seems pretty cool.  The Bowman Chrome of Kyle Blanks is not only a rookie card, but very refractory and shiny.  It's super rad and looks better in hand than in this photo.

A few more additions to my player collections as well.  Khalil Greene isn't on any cards that are less than awesome, and speaking of shiny, this Yonder Alonso has it in spades.  Already had the base of the Alonso, very cool to have the diamond parallel.  I've seen heavily discounted 2011 Topps cards at Wal Mart and was tempted to pick some up, just to see the sparkly diamond cards.  Resist!  Resist!

Mark also sent me a slew of Darin Erstad cards.  I've read his recaps of the card shows he's gone to, and it makes me wish that we ran in the same circles, since my area of central Texas seems content with the one show that we have a year.  This is about half of the Erstad's that he sent.  How many cards did Darin have during his career?  A ton, and they seem to be readily available.  Thanks Mark!

Here is the final Erstad card I'll post.  A quartet of floating heads from the days when they were still just the Anaheim Angels.  A .355 batting average is nothing to sniff at, though 10 wins to lead your team isn't great.

Thanks again for the cards, Mark!  Always good to get cards from Delaware in the mail.  I've got a few PWE's coming your way... soon.  You know how the end of the school year can get.

I'm Just A Huge Manatee

I am a sucker for the last two Heritage sets.  I wasn't back into collecting for all of the previous issues, so I'm not really too high on the previous editions, but something about the '63 and '64 designs with today's players that I really like.

Especially cool are when the minor league players get their cardboard due.  I'm not talking about the slick, airbrushed prospects in the Bowman sets.  I'm talking about the actual teams that the players actually play on.

Here are two of my most recent minor league additions, both from last year's Heritage set.

Casey Kelly played for the Tucson Padres last year, and was a favorite to win the 5th starter job for the big club out of Spring Training.  However, he got injured and had surgery again, so it looks like we won't see him until 2014.  Still, the bright blue at the bottom of this card looks sharp with the Friar blue of the AAA Padres.

Taylor Jungmann is my first non-Padre addition from this set.  He's from Temple, TX, about a 40 minute drive from where I live now, and he pitched as recently as 2011 for the Texas Longhorns.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see him pitch for UT, but I listened to the games on the radio and he sounded good.  Plus, he's playing on the Brevard County MANATEES!  It was begging to be picked!

I haven't seen a lot of these minor league Heritage cards out there in the blogosphere.  I can't be the only one who digs these, right?  I haven't come across these in packs at any retail stores, so I'm assuming that you have to be near a card shop to get them, or snipe them off eBay or COMC, which is what I did with these.

Anyways, the Padres are playing against the Orioles today, hopefully we can stop the skids after getting swept by the Rays.  Go Padres!

Hey Whitey - AKA Mr. Indespensable

No, this isn't a post on Edward Charles "Whitey" Ford.  This is on another professional ballplayer with a colorful nickname (BTW, according to wikipedia.com, Whitey Ford got his nickname for his "light blonde hair").  I think it's safe to say that the days of having players with the nickname of "Whitey" are behind us - although there was a guy I played against in high school who's last name was Wightman and people called him Whitey.

Here is my latest addition to my vintage Pacific Coast League Padres collection, my third such card from the Mother's Cookies releases during the '50s.  Whereas the previous two have been from the '53 set, this is my first from the '52 set.

William Frederick Wietelmann played for the Boston Bees in the National League for two years (1939-'40) before they became the Boston Braves.  He stayed there until 1947, when he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he played his final year in the big leagues.  He finished a nine year career with a .232 batting average, six homers, and 122 RBI.  

Baseball-reference.com shows that he was predominantly a middle infielder, though he spent a few games at third and even one at first.  More interesting, however, is that he also pitched in four games as a Brave, from '45-'46.  Combined, he threw 7.2 innings, giving up 12 earned runs on 15 hits, with a wild pitch, a hit batter, and two strikeouts.  Total it up, he had a 14.09 ERA.

Not always great when your ERA resembles the start time of an afternoon game - in military time.

I'm sure that his team was behind at the time anyways, so it's not like they were counting on him to keep them in the game.

Wietelmann (pronounced WEE-tul-man) played for the PCL Padres from 1949-1952.  His first two years there, they were the AAA affiliate for the Indians, but his last year, they had no affiliation.  This was the year that this card was released.  Whitey's best season, numbers wise, was in 1951, when he hit .262 with 8 homers and 44 RBI.

Also worth noting is the "Treasure Hunt' feature for stamps.  "Individually, these stamps could cost about $2.00", but this "thrilling introductory assortment" could be yours for ten cents and a couple of Mother's Cookies labels.  Gotta love the idea of the chase, even in the 50s.

Anyways, welcome to the binders Whitey.  Hopefully I'll stumble across some cheap vintage Mother's Cookies cards soon, I'm beginning to think that now, all the ones I still need have been graded and cost a ton of money.

Okay, just before I hit "publish", I came across this article.  I usually always get all of my stats from baseball-reference.com, but typing in "Whitey Wietelmann baseball reference" into Google brought me this result as well.  Instead of paraphrasing, I'll just quote it all here, since I thought it was interesting enough to pass along.  You could do much worse than get your nickname from Casey Stengel, and I had no idea that he threw out the first pitch at the first Padres home playoff game in '84.  Even though I had no idea who he was before I got this card, Whitey was definitely a Padre.

Shortstop Whitey Wietelmann made his big league debut in 1939 with the Boston Bees, where he earned the nickname "Whitey" from manager Casey Stengel. After his major league career ended, he joined the San Diego Padres of the Pacific Coast League in 1949 and began a longtime association with San Diego baseball. He played for the Padres for four seasons (1949-1952). He went down to the Wichita Falls Spudders in 1953 as player/manager where he also started pitching. By 1955, he led the Arizona-Mexico League in games pitched and hits allowed while going 21-13 as player manager of the Yuma Sun Sox. He retired as a player and manager after the 1956 season in Yuma.

Wietelman was a coach for the Sacramento Solons in 1959 and the Padres from 1959 to 1965. After spending two years as a Cincinnati Reds coach, Wietelmann returned to Southern California as coach of the last minor league Padre team in 1968 and coach of the expansion San Diego Padres when they began play in 1969. He remained with the team in that capacity for eleven seasons and then spent the next fourteen serving the club in a variety of roles that included scouting, fixing equipment, and even cooking the team's meals and helping with the laundry. Over his years with the Padres, Wietelmann earned the nickname "Mr. Indispensable", and he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Padres first-ever home playoff game in 1984.

From http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Whitey_Wietelmann