Vintage Fridays: Rick Dempsey, 1977 Topps #189

Good news, everybody! This is the last Friday without real, live Major League Baseball games for the next six months. I have my tickets for Opening Day, and I've gone ahead and taken a long weekend for myself. So on Monday afternoon, I'll be back in Section 340 in Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the first time in 2016, watching Rick Dempsey throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Then, hopefully I'll see Chris Tillman shut down the Twins.

Vintage Fridays: Mark Belanger, 1977 Topps #135

Wow. I didn't plan on a month of blogging silence, but then again, I'd forgotten what a colossal pain it is to move. Even as I write this, there are several boxes that need to be unpacked, and straggler items to be brought over from the old rowhouse. Then there's the matter of cleaning and maintenance on that house, so that we can rent it out for some extra income and...no, I'm not crying. Who said I was?

For the two and a half years that Janet and I (and our three cats and one dog) lived together under the roof of a much-too-snug 900-square-foot rowhouse, we would talk in far-off, dreamy tones about our "grown-up house" yet to come. For example: "In our grown-up house, we'll have enough cabinet space to store all of our pots and pans, instead of stacking them on top of the stove and storing them in the basement." Or maybe, "When we get a grown-up house, the master bedroom will have closets for both of us!" Yes, Janet's closet was in the spare bedroom/cat room/baseball card storage. Are you getting the picture?

Finally, enough was enough. We'd been talking for some time about growing our family, and the rowhouse was already too small for us and our four-legged creatures and all of our crap cherished belongings. There was no way another human, however tiny, would squeeze in there with all of its various and sundry accessories. In early August, we started the search in earnest. Let me tell you, I would not wish house-hunting on the worst of my enemies...not even Sidney Ponson. Each open house brought its own delightful surprises: overbearing real estate agents (Who argues with a potential buyer when they complain about smelling cigarette smoke?), slap-dash renovations, creepy basements...and wood paneling. So much paneling. I think one house in particular was sponsored by 84 Lumber. On one of our first days out, we did meet a realtor we liked enough to hire on as our buyer's agent. So she helped keep us on-task and dealt with selling agents so that we didn't have to do it ourselves.

Early on, we zeroed in on a completely renovated rancher with a fully finished basement that Janet and I both loved. After comparing and contrasting it to a few dozen more available homes, we decided to act; our agent had told us that there was another offer pending. After the three of us scrambled all night to put together a competing offer, the seller accepted the first offer - apparently without knowledge of our offer. Exactly what happened is unclear, but at the very least it was a breakdown in communication, and it was very discouraging. Have you ever been sniped on eBay? Well, it was like that, only with much higher stakes. I don't recommend it.

Though we might have found it hard to believe in the moment, our new home was still out there waiting for us, and we uncovered it just a couple of weeks later. This isn't just sour grapes, but the new place is a much better fit for us than the near-miss. It's a roomy two-story house with a finished basement, and it's not as ultra-modern as the other potential new house, but it was well-maintained by the previous owners. They lived here for thirty years and raised three children. There were little touches all over the place that made us feel like this house was meant for us: the slate patio, the storage nooks in every corner of the house, the wet bar in the basement, and of course the cat door cutouts. This is home.

(Tomorrow I'll tell you all about the joys of moving. I'm probably being sarcastic.)

Vintage Fridays: Tommy Harper, 1977 Topps #414

Things to appreciate about this card:

-The abbreviation of Tommy Harper's position as "des. hitter". It's hard to squeeze "designated hitter" into that tiny pennant.

-Harper's impressively fancy signature. Much more legible and aesthetically pleasing than that Derek Jeter scribbledygook.

-It's the final card of Tommy's 15-year big league career. He was a two-time American League stolen base champ, swiping 73 bases in 91 tries for the one-and-done Seattle Pilots in 1969 and going 54-for-68 in thefts for the Red Sox in 1973. In between, he was an All-Star for the 1970 Brewers, when he batted .296/.377/.522 with 35 doubles, 31 home runs, and 38 steals. He finished up with a 46-game stint in Baltimore in 1976, but started only 17 of those contests.

-I also have Harper's 1965 Topps card. Aside from the wide grin, he looks quite different. (No, I don't know why the scans are appearing in black and white. Photobucket is weird.)

-The fuzzy crowd scene behind Tommy looks painted on...very impressionistic. Plus, the fans are restrained by a chain-link fence. Pretty swanky!

Vintage Fridays: Rudy May, 1977 Topps #56

Rudy May has drawn his signature about him like a cape.

Vintage Fridays: Lee May, 1977 Topps #3

As I mentioned earlier this week, my 330-some 1977 Topps cards are now living in their very own binder, which means that I can officially get down to the Serious Business of completing the set. Now that it's all laid out pretty-like in nine-pocket pages, I see that this card is the first from the set that I happen to have. The fact that these two bad mamma-jammas were on the top of their games as leading run-producers tells you all you need to know about why this set is worth collecting. In the United States' Bicentennial year, George Foster led the major leagues with 121 RBI, a nice enough number but not quite up to Chris Davis' current league-leading total of 138. Lee May topped the American League with only 109 ribbies, a number that Adam Jones will reach if he can drive in a single run tomorrow. The 2013 O's top run producers have also outhomered 1976's chief RBI men; Davis hit his league-best number 53 tonight, and Jones got his 33rd for a personal best. May had 25 longballs, tied for fourth and trailing Graig Nettles' A.L.-high 32. Foster, a year before he would crank out 52 home runs, was fourth in the N.L. with 29 (Mike Schmidt led all of baseball with 38). The Orioles may not have made the playoffs this year, but at least they put up some gaudy numbers.

Vintage Fridays: Jim Palmer, 1977 Topps #600

Just as the Orioles are starting a road trip today, so am I. Of course, I'm not headed to such far-flung locales as Oakland, Seattle and Boston. My itinerary includes Chestertown and two Eastons (Maryland and Pennsylvania). I'm taking part in a reading and roundtable discussion for my alma mater's student writer's union. The piece I'm reading is a personal essay I wrote back in 2008 about my ongoing war with "sprickets", the scourge of my old apartment in Columbia. I'll be staying overnight, which will make tomorrow's drive to Easton (MD) much easier. That's where my friends Mike and Kimmy will be getting married. It certainly looks like they've picked a beautiful Saturday afternoon for their nuptials. I'll come back home tomorrow evening for a breather before driving to Easton (PA, near Allentown) Sunday morning for the final day of Chikara Pro Wrestling's King of Trios tournament. It's a smaller independent organization that runs out of the Mid-Atlantic, and it was founded by Mike Quackenbush. I had the pleasure of making Mike's acquaintance when we both wrote for a wrestling humor and opinions website in the early 2000's. But I've never seen one of his shows, which feature cartoonish characters (even by pro wrestling standards) and high-flying feats of athleticism. There's also a meetup for followers of the With Leather sports blog, which will give me the opportunity to put faces with some of the names that I've been sharing my guilty pleasure with every Monday night on that site's WWE RAW discussion threads. I'll probably be collapsing back into my own bed around midnight Sunday night/Monday morning. No rest for the wicked, you know.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a little extracurricular reading. Max (aka Jacobmrley) is one of the wittiest collectors/bloggers that I've interacted with in my travels in the sportscardblogosphere. If you're not already reading his Starting Nine blog, you best hop to it. His latest post throws a little love the Orioles' way, and shows off his nine-card mini-collections of Mike Mussina, Cal Ripken, Jr., Eddie Murray, Brooks and Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer. Spoiler alert: the above card of Palmer in his orange finery makes the cut. So happy reading, and I'll check in (however briefly) tomorrow!

Vintage Fridays: Baltimore Orioles, 1977 Topps #546

(Note: I don't actually return from the beach until tomorrow, but my attendance of last week's O's game kept me from doing a proper Vintage Friday seven days ago. Plus, I never really got around to mentioning that I was taking a true, no-blog-updates holiday this week. Mea culpa!)

Here's a head-scratcher for you: why is Jim Palmer's Floating Head superimposed on this team photo? Presumably the very orange main photo was taken at some point during the 1976 season. My first thought was that Palmer could have been injured, and was off on rehab at the time. But ol' Cakes actually made a career-high and league-leading 40 starts that year, so that's not it. With my only plausible theory out the window, it's time to resort to my old standby. Let's get silly!

-Perhaps Jim was double-booked, flipped a coin, and it landed on 'heads'. That meant that he went to the Jockey Underwear photo shoot instead.

-Earl Weaver made fun of Palmer's hair that afternoon, and the pitcher threw a hissy fit and refused to leave the clubhouse.

-He stopped outside of the ballpark to sign a few autographs and a young boy mistakenly recalled the time that he saw Jim give up a grand slam. The righthander got sidetracked explaining the boy's error to him in great detail.

-He was moonlighting as a bartender at the Dundalk VFW.

-Palmer made a fatal misstep; he looked at Lee May sideways. The massive first baseman crammed him in a locker and left him there.

Further guesses will be accepted in the comments.

Vintage Fridays: Pat Kelly, 1977 Topps #469

And now, a snippet of conversation between Pat Kelly and Earl Weaver:

KELLY: "Skip, don't you want me to walk with the Lord?"

WEAVER: "I'd rather you walk with the bases loaded."

Aaaand scene.

Vintage Fridays: Paul Blair, 1977 Topps #313

Although I consider myself a diehard Orioles fan, I've never had much interest in attending the annual FanFest, which takes place downtown prior to every season. But this year, I'm intrigued. The Birds open the 2010 regular season in Tampa, so rather than host FanFest at Camden Yards a day or two before Opening Day they're doing it at the Baltimore Convention Center next Saturday, January 23 from 11 AM to 6 PM. If you're not sure whether this is your idea of a good time, just check out the list of O's (past, present, and future) who are slated to attend:

In addition to practically everyone on the 40-man roster (including Brian Roberts, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Matt Wieters), there are almost 30 ex-Orioles who will be there to shake hands and sign autographs. This list is a veritable who's who of great O's teams of yore, as well as a few names for the truly knowledgeable fan. That includes Mr. Paul Blair, as well as Mike Bordick, Don Buford, Al Bumbry, Mike Cuellar, Rick Dempsey, Ken Dixon, original team member Joe Durham, Todd Frohwirth, Dick Hall, Ron Hansen, Chris Hoiles, Billy Hunter, Dave Johnson, Rick Krivda, Calvin Maduro, Scott McGregor, John Miller, Tim Nordbrook, Joe Orsulak, Jim Palmer, Boog Powell, Gary Roenicke, Larry Sheets, Nate Snell, John Stefero, B. J. Surhoff, Bill Swaggerty, and Fred Valentine. Yes, I got too lazy to link each player.

In the past year or two, I've started amassing a modest collection of Oriole autographs. This would be a great opportunity to add to that collection, and maybe even to meet some of my all-time favorites like Hall, Hoiles, Palmer, and Surhoff. So hopefully I'll have a chance to make it down to the Convention Center, and maybe I'll see some of you there too!

Vintage Fridays: Tippy Martinez, 1977 Topps #238

Earlier this week, there was a friendly debate on Camden Chat about which player was the best to wear #23 in Orioles history: catcher Chris Hoiles or reliever Tippy Martinez. It's a good question, and not necessarily one with any "right" answer; comparing a position player to a pitcher is an apples and oranges situation. Though Hoiles is one of my favorite Orioles, and was in his prime during my early years as a fan, I had to cast my vote for Tippy.

Many fans who were not around for the glory years may look at Tippy's modest save totals (115 for his career, single-season high of 21 in 1983) and yawn. I had a vague knowledge that the lefty had been a jack-of-all-trades out of the O's bullpen, so I pulled up the his game logs from 1979 - a very good year for both him and the Orioles. What I saw was just incredible.

Earl Weaver used Tippy every which way he could without starting him or inserting him as a pinch hitter. He was called upon in each and every inning possible, from the first through the eleventh. He was used to get one out, but would also be asked to throw an inning or two or three or four or...seven and two-thirds, as was the case in a no-hit, one-walk gem against Oakland on July 23. On that day, he bailed out a struggling Mike Flanagan in the second inning and stayed on for the rest of the game, turning a 4-2 deficit into a 7-4 win. Believe it or not, that was the second time Tippy had stifled Oakland in that manner in '79. On April 29, he replaced an ailing Jim Palmer four batters into the game and permitted only four A's baserunners in six and one-third innings. He struck out five batters before Tim Stoddard polished off a 13-1 victory with a couple shutout innings.

So did all of that shuffling around and stretching out have any negative effect on Tippy? Did his arm fall off, or did the lack of a defined role fluster him and cause him to lose his pitching mechanics? Not hardly. At year's end, Martinez had a 10-3 record with three saves, four holds and a 2.88 ERA. He allowed 59 hits and 31 walks in 78 innings, while striking out 61.

Sorry Chris, Tippy wins. He was a bullpen ace in the truest sense: he pitched when the team needed him the most.

By the way, Earl did start him once, in 1980...at designated hitter. Benny Ayala pinch-hit for him in the first inning. It was part of an ongoing strategy by Earl Weaver to create a favorable hitting matchup in the event that the opposing starter was knocked out of the game early, and it gave him a slight tactictal advantage; the other team couldn't prepare for the DH slot in the Baltimore lineup. Eventual Cy Young winner Steve Stone was "DH" in a dozen games. Tippy wasn't even with the team on the day in question, having flown to Colorado for his grandmother's funeral. Unsurprisingly, the American League soon amended the rules to require the starting DH to bat at least once before being removed. Read more about it here (scroll down to question #3).

Wow, this was more like two blog posts in one. Talk about versatility.

Vintage Fridays: Fred Holdsworth, 1977 Topps #466

Is it my imagination, or does reliever Fred Holdsworth look a little queasy in this photo? I blame it on his surroundings. After all, the entirety of Oakland-Alameda County Stadium appears to be a little crooked. Did the world suddenly tilt about fifteen degrees to our left, Fred's right? If so, why exactly are the Athletics still taking batting practice unabated, as though nothing is awry? Something serious is going on here; even the scoreboard has blacked out. Maybe this is one of those earthquakes that are all the rage in California, particularly in the Bay Area. "What if they want to whisk me away in an ambulance for further examination?" the O's righthander wonders. "Did I remember to wear clean underwear today? Wait a minute...am I even wearing underwear at all? These west coast road trips always throw me out of whack. Why won't he just snap the photo already?"

Or, you know, maybe the photographer just hadn't had his V8 yet that day.

Vintage Fridays: Mike Cuellar, 1977 Topps #162

As you can see, this card has a little surface wear. I like it, though; the tiny white divots that mottle Mike Cuellar's photograph make it look more like an oil painting on a bright canvas; it could have been crafted by one of the Old Masters. Cuellar was an Old Master himself at this moment in time; at thirty-nine years old he was the fifth-oldest player in the American League. 1976 had been his eighth season with the Orioles and his fourteenth overall. But the end was near. His won-lost record was an atrocious 4-13, his first sub-.500 win percentage in an O's uniform. He deserved every loss, as his 4.96 ERA was his highest ever for a full season. As Earl Weaver remarked, "I gave Mike Cuellar more chances than my first wife."

Cuellar would run out of chances the following winter. The Orioles released him four days before Christmas. By the time this card came out, the Cuban lefty would be attempting to prolong his career as a California Angel. Though he had climbed the ranks to become the AL's oldest active player, it was a short-lived reign. He was torched in his only two appearances for the halos to the tune of an 18.90 ERA, and his career ended with his release on May 16.

Nevertheless, when taken as a whole, the career of Mike Cuellar truly was a work of art.