Brooks Robinson, 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #89

Topps produced the All-Time Fan Favorites brand from 2003-2005, pairing a melange of card designs from their first 50 years with unused photos from the archives to replicate the thrill of pulling vintage cards of Hall of Famers. Of course it doesn't quite measure up to that feeling you get when you find some original gems in an unexpected place.

Last weekend I traveled back to Chestertown, MD for the first time in nearly a year. Washington College's drama department had invited me and the rest of Zero Hour Theatre back to campus to perform our play "7 Lessons on Suicide" at the still-new Tawes Experimental Theatre. It was a chance for them to book an inexpensive and ready-made show on an open weekend in the facility, and to give some alumni a wider audience for their work. We did shows on Friday and Saturday night and had good, responsive audiences. What does this have to do with baseball cards, you ask?

After we all checked out of our hotel rooms at 11:00 on Saturday morning, we had eight hours to kill before that night's performance. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day, so we bided our time in historic downtown Chestertown. This included a stop at a relatively new secondhand store called Primitive Finds. My eyes were immediately drawn to some baseball items in a display case, including an old mitt endorsed by Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, one of my favorite players and a native of nearby Sudlersville. There was also a magazine with Foxx on the cover, and a trio of artifacts from the career of Chestertown's own 1940s All-Star (and fellow Washington College alum) Bill "Swish" Nicholson: a Cubs newsletter, a newspaper caricature, and an AP photo of Bill rounding third base at Wrigley Field after hitting a home run. These treasures were all too rich for my blood (the mitt was $100 and the photo $80), but in the next display were some things that were just right.

I stopped in my tracks as soon as I saw the familiar banner design of 1965 Topps. There were two nine-pocket binder sheets full of vintage cards for $10 apiece. A third sheet was priced at $20, but I was feeling thrifty and the cards that I really wanted were in the $10 sheets, so I bought the following:

The real "get" for me here was the Ron Hansen card at top right. Night Owl recently featured this very card in a post about 1963 Fleer in his Card Back Countdown, and it occurred to me that I had yet to add any cards from that set to my collection. When I saw that exact card staring back at me, I took it as a sign. This sheet also features an incredibly weathered (and misspelled) 1951 Bowman of Del Crandall, a scribbled-up 1966 Topps Johnny Podres, a 1963 Topps Clay Dalrymple (whose number came up today on my 1965 Topps blog - more serendipity), and a 1967 Topps checklist featuring Mickey Mantle. The 1967 Topps Orioles team card is one I already had, but it never hurts to have some vintage dupes around for trading purposes.

Six Hall of Famers on one page is a pretty good ratio, huh? Obviously, I bought this one first and foremost for the 1965s. I'd forgotten that I already had Gaylord Perry, but again, that's a good problem to have. I did need Warren Spahn, who becomes card number 550 for my set - 48 to go! The 1968 Billy Williams is in especially crisp shape, and it's jarring to see Lou Piniella (top right) looking that young and trim. By the way, that's not his true rookie card; he was featured on a Senators Rookie Stars card in the 1964 set. The Hank Aaron commemorative card #1 from 1974 Topps is going to be a new favorite for me, too. Oh, and there was a bonus card on the other side of the sheet:

That's right, a 1959 Topps card highlighting Stan "the Man" Musial's 3,000th career hit, which came during the previous season! Sure, somebody took a bite out of it, but I'll give it a good home.

I've got lots of fond memories of Chestertown spanning the past ten years, and now I can add this one to the list: 19 vintage baseball cards for $20 ($21.30 with tax).

Davey Johnson, 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #55

Davey Johnson, Hall of Famer? If you ask me, it seems like a long shot, but he is on the ballot. Next month, the re-re-re-revamped Veterans' Committee will choose from an assortment of managers, umpires, and executives for Cooperstown's Class of 2010. The former O's second baseman and skipper is one of eight retired managers on the ballot (the list is here, and includes fellow ex-Oriole Whitey Herzog).

There's little question that Davey was a solid, above-average player, but his on-field performance alone would not qualify him for enshrinement. He was a four-time All-Star who won three Gold Gloves and once hit 43 home runs in a season, but he also hit just .261 with a .340 on-base percentage in thirteen seasons. He didn't quite have the longevity or the larger-than-life numbers to put him over the top.

But I really did underestimate Johnson's successes as a manager. In 14 seasons (12 full and two partial), he won 1,148 games and lost 888. His .564 winning percentage ranks 13th among all managers with at least 1,000 games managed. The most eye-opening stat: in his 12 full seasons, his teams finished in first place five times, second place six times, and third once. I may have overlooked him because he won just one World Series, with the 1986 Mets. Of course, Earl Weaver also piloted a single world champion, and there's no question that he was pretty damn good. Maybe Davey gets shortchanged because he was never a fixture with any single team; he helmed the Mets, Reds, Orioles, and Dodgers, and his longest tenure was the six-and-a-quarter years he spent in New York. Nonetheless, he was a winner wherever he went.

Best of luck to Davey and the rest of the candidates!

Mike Cuellar, 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #136

On the list of promising sights as the first full week of Orioles Spring Training commences, 71-year-old Mike Cuellar in an O's uniform instructing the lefthanded pitchers of today and tomorrow is right up there. No matter how far the team has fallen in the past decade-plus, it still has a rich and successful history to draw upon. Not only is the screwball-tossing southpaw sharing his knowledge and expertise with younger generations, but he is serving as a living bridge between the model franchise of the 1970s and the club that is now taking baby steps toward being a potential superpower in the 2010s.

Though you might expect that Cuellar has more to offer to the younger pitchers in camp, guys like Brian Matusz and Rich Hill, today it was 37-year-old Jamie Walker that spent the most time picking the Cuban's brain. Walker is a true rarity: a professional baseball player who is a student of the game's history. When he signed with the Orioles as a free agent two years ago, he apparently devoured a few books about the team's past. He was effusive in his praise of Cuellar and his storied career, and acknowledged that pitchers like him "set the foundation" for Walker and his contemporaries. He also expressed awe for the amazing durability of pitchers from that era, who often exceeded 300 innings and completed upwards of 20 starts per season.

It's really a breath of fresh air when the oldest pitcher in a team's camp (who is also one of the highest-paid), says something like, "I don't know it all." I'm not sure whether Walker is healthy and able to rebound from his miserable 2008 season, but I like his chances that much better with a 185-game winner offering suggestions for his release point and grip.