Vintage Fridays: Pat Dobson, 1973 Topps #34

Poor Pat Dobson. He pitched for the Orioles for two seasons, and had three Topps cards as an Oriole...and they were all highly unflattering. Since the O's traded for Dobson in December of 1970, he had a hastily airbrushed cap in his 1971 card. They also chose a portrait photo of Pat caught in mid-blink, for some unfathomable reason. In 1972, Topps rewarded Dobson for his 20-win season with a card featuring him in his actual orange, black, and gray Orioles uniform...as well as a dopey, open-mouthed gape. The Birds swapped the veteran pitcher to the Braves in the Earl Williams deal in November of 1972, which was too late for Topps to work their photo-doctoring magic on his first series card for the following year. This is the most appealing of Dobson's three cards from his tenure in Charm City, which is damning it with faint praise. He's not making an odd face, but he still looks disgruntled and rumpled. I'm also like 99% sure that this photo is not airbrushed, but the "Baltimore" script on his road jersey still looks off somehow, like it was hand-drawn. It's probably just some wrinkles and folds in the fabric that are making it sit in a certain way. Nonetheless, I'm left wondering who it was at Topps that had it in for ol' Pat Dobson.

Vintage Fridays: Earl Williams, 1973 Topps #504

When some enterprising and likely underpaid card artisan at Topps was tasked with turning Earl Williams' Atlanta Braves cap into a Baltimore Orioles cap, I wonder how he reacted. Did he relish the challenge and embrace the whimsy of the goofy little orange-and-black bird? Or did he grumble and roll his eyes, wondering why Earl couldn't have been traded to the Cubs instead? This task might have been dumped on his desk at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. He was just trying to run out the clock and then grab a few beers with the guys...and now this. No matter what the circumstances may have been, our anonymous Topps drone did a pretty good job with his thankless job. I mean, it's no 1975 Rudy May, but let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Vintage Fridays: Andy Etchebarren, 1973 Topps #618

Happy 71st birthday to Andy Etchebarren, the George Clooney of the Orioles. But Etch is more than just a pretty face. He was an All-Star in each of his first two full big league seasons (1966-1967); while he hit just .218/.295/.344 in that span, offense was at such a league-wide low that his OPS+ of 86 was only 14% below league average. Back then, catchers weren't held to a high offensive standard, generally. His defensive marks were pretty strong as well. The 39 runners he tossed out on the basepaths in 1966 were the most in the American League.

If you're looking for a single-game example of Andy's positive contributions to Baltimore, there's July 27, 1973's 5-2 win over Cleveland, when his bases-clearing double provided the margin of victory in a game that featured the O's being outhit 11-6. Or maybe his career-best effort on September 28 of that year, when the unibrowed catcher went 4-for-4 with a walk, three RBI, and three runs scored in an 18-4 thrashing of Cleveland. Have a cold one for the best pre-Ripken #8 tonight.

Vintage Fridays: Don Baylor, 1973 Topps #384

As promised, here's the fourth in a series of pictures from an early 1970s Orioles' photo day at Memorial Stadium. All had been in my grandmother's possession throughout the later years of her life.

If today's player is wearing number 25 (which is my best guess), this is a very young Don Baylor. "Groove" debuted with the O's in 1970, but played a total of just nine games with the big league club in 1970 and 1971. So my slightly informed supposition is that these pictures were all snapped on one day between the 1972 and 1974 seasons.

Baylor was already managing the Colorado Rockies by the time baseball caught my attention in 1993, and even the 1980s cards that I accumulated in adolescence showed him as a barrel-chested veteran slugger. It's almost surprising to see him as an athletic, streamlined prospect. But indeed, Don swiped at least 22 bags in each of his first eight MLB seasons, peaking with 52 steals in 1976. I imagine that whoever took these pictures, be it my grandmother or one of my aunts or uncles, they couldn't help but feel starstruck while milling around on the Memorial Stadium field in the presence of all-time greats like Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson, as well as stars of present and future like Boog Powell and Don Baylor. Some of them were close enough to reach out and touch. It was the 1970s, and the Baltimore Orioles were the class of baseball.

Vintage Fridays: Roric Harrison, 1973 Topps #229

I got another just-for-me item off of our wedding registry earlier this week: an Ultra-Pro three-ring binder for baseball cards. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get around to filling it with nine-pocket pages so that I can give Roric Harrison and the rest of my in-progress 1973 Topps set a proper home. Harrison had just completed his rookie season, the only year he'd spend in Baltimore. He pitched out of the O's bullpen in all but two of his 39 appearances, posting a 2.30 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, and four saves. The dark clouds behind the 25-year-old righty might be portending an unsatisfying career arc. Before the 1973 season he was dealt to Atlanta in the Earl Williams trade, and he had a so-so record in two-plus seasons with the Braves: 20-23, 4.45 ERA, 87 ERA+. He was swapped to the Indians in mid-1975 and broke even for his lone partial season in Cleveland: 7-7, 4.79 ERA. Roric spent the following two seasons in the minors before resurfacing with the Twins for a rocky nine-game stint in 1978. That was his last taste of the major leagues. But Harrison does have his own claim to fame, and it's not just that he is the only "Roric"to ever play in MLB. He had only 15 hits in 124 at-bats (.121 AVG), but six of those hits were home runs. In fact, he was the last American League pitcher to hit a home run before the designated hitter rule was introduced. His historical swing came on October 3, 1972 against Ray Lamb of the Indians. With that clout, Harrison helped his own cause in a 4-3 win over the Tribe. And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Vintage Fridays: Mark Belanger, 1973 Topps #253

This card pretty well epitomizes the 1973 Topps set: increased focus on action photography via action photos where the focus seems to be...nowhere at all. As near as I can tell, Mark Belanger isn't turning a double play against the Indians. If he were, that'd be the world's worst takeout slide attempt by the runner. Maybe the batted ball squirted through the infield and the Blade is trying to deke the mystery Triber by faking receiving a relay throw. Or maybe he's jumping back to the bag on a whirlaround pickoff attempt. Whatever it is, this is a compelling and thoroughly confusing photograph.

Vintage Fridays: Merv Rettenmund, 1973 Topps #56

As of today, full-squad Spring Training officially begins for the Orioles down in Sarasota, Florida. Of course, nearly all of the position players reported early this year. It's almost as if they're more eager to play in 2013 after the excitement of a 93-win season in which they fell two runs short of the American League Championship Series. Funny how that works.

Though it's starting to look like the cost of airfare is obscene enough to keep me away from Ed Smith Stadium this time around, I can still look at cards like this one and think warm thoughts. As is the case with several Topps cards from the 1970s, Merv Rettenmund's 1973 Topps photo shows him taking his practice cuts down south at Spring Training. Since he's wearing his road grays, I'm not sure that the Birds are being photographed at their old base of operations in Miami. But I see a blurry palm tree in the background, and a bunch of black and orange gear scattered in the grass, and both things make me happy in a simple way. Sometimes that's all that it takes.

Vintage Fridays: Jim Palmer, 1973 Topps #341

I thought this card, featuring a young Jim Palmer taking a dip, was perfect for a leisurely summer day.

Vintage Fridays: Boog Powell, 1973 Topps #325

Life is full of funny coincidences. Just last week, I was paging through my vintage Orioles binder and I came across this card. In my experience, there aren't many cards with such clear views of the batboy. I found myself wondering who he might be, especially since he also appeared on Don Baylor's card in the same position.

A few days later, my high school's alumni magazine arrived, and as I flipped through it I saw this Boog Powell card looking back at me. As luck would have it, the batboy was one Neil Cashen, 1972 graduate of Archbishop Curley High. Though he is the nephew of Frank Cashen (who was the team's general manager at the time), Neil's employment with the O's began in 1968 when he befriended clubhouse attendant Ernie Tyler's son. He spent four seasons as the visiting team batboy at Memorial Stadium before switching to the Birds' bench in 1972 and staying through 1974. His tenure coincided with five trips to the playoffs by the Orioles, three World Series appearances, and one world championship. He met baseball greats from Mickey Mantle to Roberto Clemente. He even performed odd jobs for the hometown players, including landscaping work for his idol Jim Palmer and a cross-country escort of Doug DeCinces' car from Baltimore to California. Not bad work if you can get it!

If you're curious, Neil spent 27 years climbing the ladder at PHH, a large fleet management company. He eventually attained the position of chief financial officer, and retired in 2007. He is now consulting and managing his personal investments, and also serves as chair of Curley's school board. That's all pretty impressive, but does it measure up to appearing on baseball cards as a teenager?

Vintage Fridays: Mickey Scott, 1973 Topps #553

There's a few things that I dig about this card:

-Mickey Scott's pose almost perfectly mirrors that of the "pitcher" silhouette in the bottom left corner of the card. If his back were a little straighter and his glove hand a little higher, it would be a match.

-Scott, whose birth name is Ralph Robert Scott, was born in Weimar, Germany. Not only is he the only German-born player in Orioles history, he's the only German player in all of Major League Baseball since 1947.

-Last, and certainly not least, a pitcher named Mickey is posing on a Spring Training field in front of an outfield advertisement for Walt Disney World. You can't tell me that the photographer didn't frame that shot on purpose.

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1973 Topps #278

I went looking for a team card today because no particular player was jumping out at me. As I perused the group shots of the entire Orioles club, there was a constant presence on the margins of each year's photo. Take a look at the rotund, white-haired man in the white pants and black Orioles jacket standing front row right. Longtime O's fans know him to be Ralphie Salvon, who got his start working in the St. Louis Browns' organization in 1953. He followed the team to Baltimore and worked his way through the ranks before becoming the head trainer for the big league club in 1968. He would stay in that position for two decades, right up until his death in 1988. He did a lot with a little - the trainer's room in Memorial Stadium was 10' by 5'.

According to Mike Flanagan, Ralphie was something of a confidant to the players, serving as a sympathetic ear when they were fed up with Earl Weaver's abrasive personality and then deflecting the tension by telling amusing anecdotes in his own genial, boisterous way. It also goes without saying that he was very skilled at his job. Under his care, Oriole arms stayed healthy enough to post twenty-three seasons of twenty wins or more.

But the most memorable stories about Salvon involve food, as you might imagine by looking at him. Jim Palmer wondered if "there was a maitre d' between Baltimore and Tokyo that Ralphie didn't know on a first-name basis". The squatty trainer was on such good terms with a restaurant owner in Milwaukee that he would call ahead when games ran late and get the guy to keep the place open for the team. Palmer also claimed that a friend was honeymooning in Puerto Rico, and even in San Juan, the mere mention of Mr. Salvon served as an international credit card: front row table, meal on the house, the whole nine yards. Flanagan mused about Ralphie having "sponsors". He would apparently wait around the lobby and intercept different players on their way out the door. Guys would be so honored to have his company that they would pick up the tab, and he was covered for three square meals a day!

Ralphie Salvon is one of the great characters of Orioles history, the unheralded working men that did the grunt work to make this team one of the model franchises in baseball.

Vintage Fridays: Tom Matchick, 1973 Topps #631

This card was recently sent to me by Andy, who rebounded from a false start with his 1978 Topps blog and has gotten back in his wheelhouse with a fun and informative blog about the 1988 Score Rookie & Traded set. It's a rare beauty, not because of utility infielder Tom Matchick and his awkward hunched-over pose, but because of the backdrop. In the days before action photos were all the rage in baseball cards, Topps did most of their photography either in Spring Training or in New York, when players from around the league came to town to play the Yankees (and later the Mets). But as soon as I eyeballed this card, I recognized Tom's environs. The ugly makeshift green fence. The red National beer sign on top of the left-center field scoreboard. And of course, the Orioles logo to the right of said scoreboard. This is indeed Memorial Stadium, the all-purpose jewel of 33rd Street in Baltimore, as it was in 1972. It's a sight for sore eyes, and it's almost enough to make me stop wondering why Matchick would be attempting to field ground balls near the righty on-deck circle.

Vintage Fridays: Eddie Watt, 1973 Topps #362

When I look at this card, the first thing that jumps out at me is the beauty of the orange "Baltimore" script across the front of Eddie Watt's gray road jersey. For the past thirty-five years, images like this one served as little more than a pipe dream of what once was, and what might be again some time in the murky future.

But this week, news broke that the long and discontented wait of a vocal portion of the Orioles' fan base will soon be over. The team's front office has filed the necessary paperwork with Major League Baseball to return "Baltimore" to the team's road grays in 2009. Whenever an O's fan brings up the issue of the city name branding, the first question always seems to be, "Why is it such a big deal?". I don't know that there is any one answer, but there a few that come to mind.

First and foremost, it's a reminder of better times. The Birds wore away tops similar to the one above from 1956 through 1972, and during that time they rose from a bunch of second division also-rans to the powerhouses of the American League. In those threads, they went to four World Series, including three in a row, and won two of the three championships in club history.

It's also important to note that most of us who have called Charm City home at one time or another are fiercely proud and territorial. Baltimore doesn't have a great reputation, and you'll usually hear the same taunts thrown around. It's one of the STD capitals of the country, it's full of blue collar white trash, it's riddled with crime and drugs. I've got news for you: that describes most of the major urban areas of the U.S.A. Sometimes, we even rally around the very same aspects of our city that other people bash. After all, folks in "Bawlmer" speak a language all our own and that makes life more colorful. But Baltimore also has a lot of reasons to hold its head high. The revitalized Harborplace area, which includes the National Aquarium, is a great destination. We also have two beautiful, state-of-the-art stadiums downtown, and a rich history that dates back to the American Revolution. Plus, you know, we're not Philadelphia.

The thing that probably hits closest to home is insecurity. Baltimore has been one of the smallest markets in professional sports for decades, especially when you consider the fact that Boston and New York are the major divisional rivals. Local fans have had a chip on their shoulders since the beginning, often convinced that the accomplishments of their home teams are marginalized while the smallest triumphs of the Big Brother teams are glorified and blown out of proportion. When former O's owner Jerry Hoffberger decided to remove the city's name from the road grays in 1973, many felt that the city and team had lost a piece of their identity. It was a cynical business move, likely intended to appeal to a wider geographical base. (It's worth noting that the second incarnation of the Washington Senators had just picked up and moved to Texas, leaving the nation's capital and points south ripe for the picking.) A large majority of MLB teams identify themselves by city on their away togs, proudly informing the fans of the home opponent who they are and who they represent.

When Bob Irsay packed the Colts into the Mayflower moving vans in the cold, dark winter of 1984, bound for Indianapolis, the loyal supporters of the city's remaining big league team would always be looking over their shoulders. After all, the Birds were owned by a hotshot D.C. lawyer, and they played in the rapidly aging Memorial Stadium, with no plans in place for a new venue. Eventually Baltimore was blessed with the classy, functional Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the park that is still setting the pace for new baseball facilities league-wide. But Charm City was taken for an anguishing ride by the NFL during the Expansion Derby of 1993, having its hopes dashed when a franchise was inexplicably awarded to ho-hum Jacksonville. Then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue rubbed salt in the wound by snidely suggesting that Baltimore use the money earmarked for a new football team to build a museum. Left with no alternative, the city accepted Art Modell and the former Cleveland Browns with open arms, and the rest is history.

This is all a long and complicated way of saying that we want "Baltimore" on the O's road jerseys because 1) that's where they play, and we want to make sure that everybody knows it, 2) that's the way it was when the Orioles ruled the roost, and 3) it just looks cool. By this time next year, it's a good bet that gray "Baltimore" tops will be selling like crazy all over Maryland.

Vintage Fridays: Terry Crowley, 1973 Topps #302

Today we see Terry Crowley chugging down the third base line in Yankee Stadium. Standing in his way is All-Star Yanks catcher Thurman Munson, whose life and careeer came to a premature end in 1979, when he crashed while trying to land his personal plane. Munson was 32. But here, in this action shot from 1972, he is in his prime and ready for battle. Though "The Crow" has all the momentum from his charge around the basepaths, there is an uneasy look on his face, as though he's about to hit a brick wall. His right hand is raised in the air; though he could be preparing to strike at Munson in an attempt to jar the ball loose, it's just as likely that his thoughts have turned to self-preservation. After all, the ball has not yet arrived. We see it just inside the frame of the photo, blurred with motion. Terry is close enough to the catcher that he runs a real risk of getting pegged in the head with the hard white spheroid. Adding to the sense of impending violence, this card has a mysterious red stain right between the heads of the two combatants. Sure, it looks more like ink from a bingo marker, but it could very well be blood. Whose blood? Thurman's, or the Crow's? Maybe a little of each?

I'm not sure what the outcome of this play, or even this game, might have been. I've searched the invaluable Baseball-Reference.com and it appears that the only game in Yankee Stadium in 1972 in which Terry Crowley was involved in any plays at the plate was a June 29 contest, which the Yankees won 4-3. The Crow scored twice: once from third base on a Brooks Robinson single to left field, and once from third on a wild pitch with Elrod Hendricks batting. He was also thrown out trying to score from third on a Brooksie grounder to third baseman Celerino Sanchez. By process of elimination, the ball is coming from the field of play, so this wouldn't be the wild pitch play. On the other run, Brooks hit the ball through the infield. I'd like to think that even Terry wasn't slow enough to turn a two-out hit to the outfield into a close play at home (he would have been running on contact with two outs). Sadly, I think he was out on this play, and the O's lost to boot. According to the box score, the attendance was 8,438, which would explain the sparse crowd that serves as the backdrop to this photo.

So buck up, Crow. At least nobody was watching this game.