Custom baseball card of Sammy Baugh

One of the greatest nicknames in NFL history was that of Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, the TCU All-American, Hall of Fame Washington Redskins quarterback and arguably the best all-around pro football player of the 20th Century.

Most fans and collectors, however, don’t know that the nickname was given to him by a Texas sportswriter in tribute to his ability to throw a baseball, rather than a football.

Baugh was All-Southwestern Conference third baseman at Texas Christian in 1936-37.

In the summer of 1937, between graduation and reporting to the Washington Redskins, Baugh took a job at a Pampa, Tex., lumberyard owned by the mayor and played semi-pro baseball for the Pampa Oilers.

The team went to the prestigious Denver Post Tournament where they met the best semi-pro teams in the country.

At the tournament, Baugh was scouted and signed by Ray Doan of the St. Louis Cardinals, to report to spring training in 1938.

As a rookie quarterback, Baugh’s Redskins defeated the Chicago Bears for the NFL Championship in 1937.

Following the title game, the Redskins and Bears embarked on a post-season barnstorming tour. In the last game of the exhibition tour, Baugh separated his throwing (right) shoulder, but was good to go when he reported to Cardinals’ manager Frankie Frisch at St. Petersburg for spring training in 1938.

He said that if he made good in the major leagues he’d give up football. While he was a terrific drawing card in the exhibition season, Baugh was farmed out to the Cardinals’ American Association team at Columbus when the season started. Early on in spring training he was being projected as the St. Louis Cardinals opening day third baseman, but as his baseball weaknesses began to show, the team decided to convert him to a shortstop and sent him down.

Writing in the Dec. 17, 1942, Sporting News, Merrell Whittlesey of the Washington Post, recalled, “His lack of experience, weak hitting and his bad shoulder left him too much of a risk for the Cardinals to carry him into the regular season.”

Columbus installed Baugh at shortstop. For the first two weeks of the season Baugh led the Red Bird hitters, then opposing pitchers began to curve him and throw change-ups. He lost his starting spot.

After a month with Columbus, Baugh was traded to Rochester of the International League in a five-player deal between the Cardinals’ AA clubs.  With the Red Wings, Baugh found himself playing backup to future MVP and perennial All-Star Marty Marion.

Whittlesey said of Baugh, “His fielding was fair and his arm was good in throws across the diamond.” Baugh hit only .183 with Rochester, bringing his season’s average down to .200, with little power (two doubles, a triple and a home run among his 26 hits).

In August he left the team to report to the Redskins.

Baugh was assigned to Sacramento of the Pacific Coast League for the 1939 season, but the Cardinals’ organization said he would not be allowed to leave Aug. 1 to join the Redskins, so he opted to end his professional baseball career.

The rest is football history.

It's not surprising that there are no career-contemporary baseball cards of Baugh. He played only a single season of pro ball and never got into an official major league game.

There are, however, a decent number of black-and-white 1938 spring training photos of Baugh in the uniform of the St. Louis Cardinals. One of those was so compelling that I recently decided to stretch my usual custom-card "rules" to create a 1940 Play Ball-style card of Baugh. 

It would have been less of a stretch to work in the format of 1939 Play Ball, but that design is just so . . . plain.

I'm currently working on another Sammy Baugh baseball card. It, too, is a bit of an anachronism, but it provides a good excuse to expand my repertoire. Watch this space for future developments.  

Fourth Bob Hazle custom done in 1957 format

I've recently completed my fourth -- and probably final -- Bob Hazle custom card, in the 1957 Topps format.

You can't fault Topps for not having produced such a card in '57. Back then Hazle had only played six games in the majors, with the 1955 Cincinnati Redlegs.

After coming to the Braves in the pre-season 1956 trade with Corky Valentine for George Crowe, Hazle had been assigned to Class AAA Wichita for the year, and had begun 1957 there.

To go back to the beginning to understand why I've done four Bob Hazle custom cards, please read my blog post of Sept. 18, 2014, Why Bob Hazle . 

My first Bob Hazle custom card was done in the format of 1955 Topps, as a Cincinnati Redlegs rookie. It was originally on the blog on July 4, 2014: 1955 Topps Hazle .

On Sept. 19, 2014, I presented my 1959 Topps-format Bob Hazle card, reflecting his sale to the Detroit Tigers: 1959 Topps Bob Hazle .

The next day I introduced my 1956 Topps-style Hazle card: 1956 Topps Hazle .

This 1957-style card was not an easy build. I had a nice portrait photo of "Hurricane," but it was in black-and-white with a plain background. For my card front I had to colorize the photo and find an appropriate background.

After looking over all the original 1957 Topps Milwaukee Braves cards, my decision came down to those of Chuck Tanner and Dave Jolly. After looking at each version for several days I landed upon the Jolly background. I'm satisfied with my choice.

Actually, if the right picture came along, a 1952 Topps-style card wouldn't be out of the question. In 1951 he was hitting .280 at Tulsa and had been named to the Texas League All-Star team when he was reportedly called up by Cincinnati. Uncle Sam had a prior claim, however, and Hazle spent the rest of the 1951 season, all of 1952 and more than half of 1953 in the Army.

If a '52T-format card does come to fruition, you'll see it here first.

Song-inspired Rails & Sails train customs

Two of the most famous trains of the last half of the 20th Century achieved their renown based on popular recordings.

The song Orange Blossom Special was written by Floridian Ervin T. Rouse in 1938 and recorded the next year with his brother. Since then it has been covered by every male country performer of note.

My favorite version is Johnny Cash's, recorded in 1965, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Country Music Charts. While OBS has been called the "fiddle players' national anthem," The Man in Black took it in a different direction, substituting two harmonicas and a saxophone for the fiddle parts.

The 1955 Rails and Sails-style custom card I created is based on circa 1940s linen postcards, of which there are several types. Such cards were sold on the train itself and at every station stop along the route. I did a little cutting and pasting to get the final image for my card.

I don't remember when I've had as much fun doing the research for a card back. I lost myself for most of a day googling the internet and exploring the many tangents. I'd forgotten how much I love mid-century trains. (See my blog post of Oct. 29 for my first R&S train card and background of my personal interest in 1950s streamliners.)

My follow-up R&S train custom card was inspired by the 1972 Arlo Guthrie folk song City of New Orleans. The song went to No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Charts.

It has been reported that Guthrie first heard the song when he was approached by its writer, Steve Goodman, in a Chicago bar in 1971. Guthrie said he'd listen if Goodman would buy him a beer. He agreed to record it on the spot.

After the release of Willie Nelson's version in 1984, Goodman was posthumously awarded the 1985 Grammy for Best Country Song. 

I've been an Arlo Guthrie fan since my college days, based on his 1967 hit ballad Alice's Restaurant Massacree. (The 1969 movie . . . not so much.)

Again, a gloomy winter Sunday spent researching the City of New Orleans (the train and the song) was a high point in the creation process.

As long as I am on a train "kick," I've got a couple more Rails and Sails additions in the works. Watch this blog for the revelation in a week or two.

Wyatt Earp customs added to TV Westerns

I've just completed a major addition to my recent work on custom cards done in the style of Topps' 1958 TV Westerns bubblegum cards.

Presented here is my quartet of cards based on the long-running (1955-61) series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian.

The show was more "legend" than "life," but that's been the case for the past 140 years. I spent a lot of time on the internet researching Wyatt Earp and have come to conclude that much of what we have seen from Hollywood about the frontier lawman has been, shall we say, embellished. Even the first comprehensive biography, 1931's Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshal, by Stuart N. Lake, was largely made up of whole cloth. His fictionalized accounts have been picked up and reworked time and again ever since in movies and films.

The Wyatt Earp TV show drew heavily upon Lake's book. I've chosen to base my cards on the show, rather than strictly historical fact.

Fortunately for my process, there are lots of great color photos of Hugh O'Brian as the title character, so I had no trouble coming up with four cards.

Here they are . . .

While it is not at all pertinent to my TV Westerns Wyatt Earp custom cards, I want to put in a plug for the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership programs.

Inspired by meetings in Africa with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, O'Brian in 1958 founded an organization to inspire youth to take leadership roles locally and thereby positively affect the global future. You can read about it here: www.hoby.org/mission .

I became aware of HOBY when my daughter was a high school sophomore in the mid-1990s and was selected (heck, she may have been the only kid in her school interested) to attand a stateside HOBY conference.

That weekend seminar inspired many of the subsequent educational and career choices that have brought her to where she is today.

For that, I have to thank Hugh O'Brian.

Monitor, Virginia added to Rails and Sails customs

Last time I gave you the background of my childhood fascination with the Civil War that has, half a century later, spurred my desire to create a couple of cards for my custom additions to the venerable 1955 Topps Rails and Sails bubblegum card issue. 

Today I show you those results and offer a few notes about the creation process.

Unlike some subjects I've tackled in my sports and non-sports custom card work, there was no shortage of pictures among which to choose images for my cards of the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia. I had plenty to work with in choosing art that would fit my interpretation of what the Topps artists might have done in 1955.

For my Monitor card, I used box art from a 1:144 plastic model kit by the French company Battle Axe. I'm unsure of the vintage, but believe it is rather recent. Model kit box art was also the source for my Virginia. In this  case, it was from a 1950s Pyro kit inaccurately labeled "The Monitor And The Merrimac". 

There have been plenty of paintings of both ships, separately and together, over the past 150 years, but I believe the model kit box art comes closest to the style set by Topps artists in the 1955 card set.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in creating these cards was trying to present the history of each ship in about 90 words on the cards' backs, while trying to stay true to the tone that Topps' writers achieved 60 years ago when writing for their youthful target audience.

While I am in a Civil War "mood," one of my next non-sports custom card creations will be an addition to the iconic 1962 Topps Civil War News issue. It may not be the very next card I make, but it will be featured in this blog soon enough. 

Rails & Sails customs feature Civil War ironclads

The Civil War Centennial was right in my wheelhouse when I was a kid. I was 10 years old when the centennial began in 1961. Like most 10-year-old boys in that era, I was enthralled with the idea of war, at least in the abstract.

On the block where I lived there was a large -- about 6' x 4' x 1.5' -- red granite monument marking the area as Camp Hamilton, where Union troops gathered before being marched southwest to Madison to join the war. 

Nearby, the alley behind Mrs. Thompson's house, there was another piece of granite, roughly hewn and unmarked, that looked very much like a double headstone. It was rumored among us kids that it was, indeed, a gravestone, marking the final resting place for two Yankee soldiers who never made it out of Camp Hamilton.

I was very much into the Civil War. Of course I collected the 1962 Topps Civil War News bubblegum cards. I had the 1961 Milton Bradley Civil War board game Battle-Cry.

For Christmas one year I received the large Blue and Gray playset from Marx. I had a color-by-number set of Civil War pictures (I tried unsuccessfully recently to find one on eBay). For a couple of summers our games of Cowboys and Indians and Cops and Robbers were changed to Yanks vs. Rebs. 

One year for my birthday my Aunt Corrine bought me the huge American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War. I wore that book out. And while my oldest brother wound up with it when my parents sold their home, I was able to pick up another copy a few years ago at Goodwill.

Like any juvenile Civil War buff of the day, I was fascinated by the alliteratively appealing but inaccurately named battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack.

When I recently began working on creating custom cards for some of my favorite childhood non-sports card sets, I discovered that the original 1955 Topps Rails and Sails set had no entry in its checklist for these Civil War ironclads.

So I recently made it my business to make those historic warships a latter-day addition to the R&S set.


In doing my research for the ships' histories on my card backs I was surprised at how little I really knew about that historic naval battle. You can go into as great a depth of that story as you like with a little google-searching, so I'll just present my version of cliff notes on the subject.

*   *   *

When the U.S. Navy abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard to Virginia troops at the opening of the war, they scuttled the steam frigate U.S.S. Merrimack, burning it to the waterline.

The newly formed Confederate navy raised the hulk and, discovering that the hull and mechanics were still intact, refitted her as an ironclad ram. Up to 4" of iron armor was added, along with 10 cannons and a ram. 

By mid-February, 1862, renamed as the C.S.S. Virginia, she was commissioned to break the Yankee blockade of the Norfolk area.

Union spies had relayed details of the construction of the ironclad to Washington. The U.S. Navy rightly feared for the horrible vulnerability of its unarmored wooden vessels when facing a hostile ironclad. The Union press demanded immediate action, fearing that the rebels' ironclad warship would smash through the James River blockade, sweep the U.S. Navy from Chesapeake Bay and steam unchallenged up the Potomac into the heart of Washington, D.C. 

The navy plunged into construction of its own ironclad. In little more than 100 days, the U.S.S. Monitor left the Brooklyn Naval Yard on its way to Hampton Roads, Virginia. 

Due to perilous sea conditions, the Monitor was a day too late.

On April 8 the Virginia engaged the blockading U.S. fleet. She rammed and sank the sloop Cumberland, shelled the frigate Congress into submission and fired the Minnesota, which had run aground trying to evade the ironclad behemoth. Darkness prevented further decimation of the U.S. fleet. 

When the fog lifted the next morning, the Virginia set out to complete its mission. She was surprised when, from behind the still-burning Minnesota, the oddly configured Monitor steamed into view.

For four hours the ironclads threw shot and shell at each other, sometimes only a few yards between them. When the engagement broke off as the ships exhausted their supplies of ammunition, there was no structural damage to either ship and no fatalities among their crews. The Monitor had preserved the blockade and was hailed by the press as the "ship that saved the Union."

For several weeks the ships eyed each other warily, occasionally tossing desultory shots, but they engaged in no further significant action. The Monitor had taken refuge under the guns of the Union's Ft. Monroe. The Confederate ironclad had proven its invulnerability to the guns aboard U.S. Navy ships, but was unwilling to come under the fire of the larger shore batteries. The Virginia made repeated unsuccessful attempts to draw the Monitor into open water to effect a plan to capture the Yankee ironclad with a minimal boarding party.

When Confederate forces withdrew from the Norfolk area in early May, they scuttled the Virginia. The ironclad was too large to navigate the rivers and basically unfit to put out to sea. 

The Monitor did not survive the year, as well. She had remained in the Hampton Roads area to support Gen. George McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, then was ordered south in December to participate in the blockade of Charleston. In a storm at sea, the Monitor sank near Cape Hatteras, N.C.

*  *  *

Since this background has already run so long, I'll wait until next time to show you my Rails and Sails Monitor and Virginia custom creations.

Yes, my '65T Paige custom card is an anachronism

This is my fifth Satchel Paige custom card (previous cards have been 1935 Diamond Stars, 1951 and 1952 Bowman and 1952 Topps). And, yes, it is something of an anachronism.

While Paige did pitch his final game as a major leaguer -- after a 12-year layoff -- he appeared so late in the season that Topps couldn't have included a baseball card of him in its 1965 set.

Sure, if they had been so inclined, the bubblegum company could have issued a 1966 Paige card, but they didn't; and I chose not to go with that format. I simply prefer the 1965 style.

Topps may well have chosen not to do a '66 Paige card because his appearance on the mound for the Kansas City A's the previous season was strictly a money/publicity grab by Charlie Finley.

When Paige ambled to the mound at Municipal Stadium on Sept. 25, 1965, to start the A's penultimate home game, a Saturday night affair, last-place K.C. was 57-97; 40 games behind the Twins. They were facing the ninth-place (37.5 games out) Boston Red Sox.

Bringing Paige back to the majors in the city where he made his home and where he had starred throughout the 1940s for the Monarchs of the Negro American League, proved to be a fiscal home run for Finley. The attendance was 9,289. That number was greater than the total attendance (9,199) for the other six games in the A's final home stand against the Senators and BoSox. On Thursday afternoon, the A's had drawn only 690 on Washington's get-away day.

All in all, it can be said Paige had a successful major league finale. He pitched his contracted-for three innings (that was his standard appearance for most of his barnstorming and exhibition games in those days). While he didn't figure in the decision, he shut the Boston club out. Don Mossi took the 2-5 loss against Bill Monbouquette.

A double in the top of the first by Carl Yastrzemski was the only hit Paige gave up. He walked nobody and set the Red Sox down in order in the second and third innings. He had one strikeout, pitcher Bill Monbouquette, who himself had struck out Paige to end the home half of the second inning.

Finley had played up the spectacle of Paige (probably 59) becoming the oldest player ever in a major league game. He had a big ol' rocking chair for Satch next to the A's dugout, and a pretty "nurse" to rub down the pitcher's salary wing between innings. Speaking of which . . . I haven't found mention of what Finley had paid Paige. He had been signed as a free agent on Sept, 10, and was released after the season, on Oct. 15.

Surprisingly there are not a lot of color photos of Paige in a 1965 K.C. uniform; at least I haven't found them. But the profile portrait I chose is certainly acceptable for my faux '65T custom.

I am, by no means, done making Satchel Paige custom cards. On my to-do list is a remake of my 1952 Bowman-style, and I'm also planning a 1953 Red Man and a 1956 Topps minor league custom.

Bob Thorpe, '55 Cubs, added to my custom cards

            It's not surprising that Bob Thorpe didn't have any Bowman or Topps cards while he was active in pro ball. Despite an impressive minor league record, he played only two games in the majors, both with the Cubs in 1955.
           One has to be careful when discussing Bob Thorpe of the early 1950s; there were two of them in the big leagues. Benjamin Robert Thorpe was an outfielder for the Boston/Milwaukee Braves 1951-53. Robert Joseph Thorpe was a pitcher for the 1955 Chicago Cubs. It is the latter who is the subject of my most recent custom cards.

Thorpe had been named the outstanding high school athlete of Southern California in 1952, when his San Diego High School team won the Southern California state championship. He then pitched his San Diego American Legion Junior team to second place in the national finals and was named American Legion Player of the Year.

Signed by the Cubs for a reported $15,000, Thorpe pitched for Class C Stockton of the California League in 1953, with a 16-8 record. From his first year in pro ball, he was widely heralded as a pitcher, rather than just another teenage thrower. He didn’t have a great fastball, but kept hitters off balance with off-speed pitches and an outstanding change-up. He threw a curve that dropped off the table and he could deliver it with pinpoint accuracy.

Returning to Stockton in 1954, the young right-hander tied a league record with 28 wins, the most in Organized Baseball that season. He started 33 games and finished all but one of them, pitching 300.1 innings. His 2.28 ERA led the league. He was named California League Most Valuable Player.

That performance earned him a call-up from the Cubs for 1955, the first time the team had ever advanced a player from Class C to the majors.

The Cubs debuted Thorpe before the Wrigley faithful in the final game of the 1955 exhibition season, with the White Sox visiting.

Starting before the crowd of 19,504, Thorpe was only able to last two innings. While he struck out four, he walked five and gave up four runs on four hits.

That outing appeared to shake the confidence of Cubs manager Stan Hack and he limited Thorpe to mop-up appearances in two games with no decision before he was optioned to Des Moines on May 9, where he was 10-10.

He developed arm trouble and in the next two seasons in the Pacific Coast League was 14-22.

In the Rule 5 minor league draft after the 1957 season, the Pirates drafted Thorpe for 1958, but he spent the entire season on the disabled list after undergoing an operation to remove bone chips from his right elbow.

He tried a comeback with Columbus in the Sally League in 1959 but retired after three games.

Working for his father-in-law as an apprentice electrician on a power line near San Diego, Thorpe was fatally electrocuted March 17, 1960. He was splicing a high-powered 2400-volt electric cable. He instinctively jumped back as the power hit his palm and his elbow grounded against a metal transformer box. The force of the current burned his fingerprints into the metal base of the awl he was using to apply insulating fluid.
Thorpe had only one "real" baseball card during his playing days. He is found in the scarce 1955 Old Homestead franks team set of the Des Moines Bruins.
I chose to create two different Bob Thorpe cards. My 1955-format card is what might have been when he was a highly touted rookie. My 1958-style card is an optimistic look at what Topps might have done if Thorpe had not been injured.
As hard as it was to find suitable photos of Bob Thorpe to make the '55-style custom, getting the photo of Thorpe was a purely a stroke of good fortune. 
The spring training picture of Thorpe as a Pirate has been in my files for two or three years, if not longer. In fact, I don't remember now from whence it came. I do know that a google-search for Bob Thorpe photos does not return this image.
For those who have an interest in my custom card-making process, tomorrow I'll share some of the challenges I faced in making the 1955-style card.

More T.V. Westerns customs: Clint Eastwood and Rawhide

Continuing with my recent efforts at creating custom cards in the motifs of some of favorite non-sports bubblegum card sets of the 1950s and 1960s, I've recently completed two more T.V. Westerns cards. (On Aug. 13 I presented my trio of Maverick T.V. Westerns customs.)

My latest customs derive from the long-running CBS series Rawhide, which aired 216 episodes from 1959-65 and made a star of Clint Eastwood.

Until very recently, reruns of Rawhide were being broadcast on Saturday mornings on one or another of the cable networks. They've held up well over 50 years and I enjoyed the reruns as much as I'm sure I did the original showings. If the reruns aren't currently airing, dvd boxed sets of complete seasons are widely available for $20 or so.

You can find out all you ever wanted to know about Rawhide at various sites all over the internet, so I won't go into that here.

I'll just step back and show you what I've come up with.

Custom cards update 1954-55 World on Wheels

Yesterday I told you how a chance encounter with a stack of World on Wheels cards is a used book store rekindled my interest in card collecting.

On Aug. 13 I reported on the first of what is going to be an on-going custom/fantasy card project to create non-sports "cards that never were" from classic 1950s and 1960s Topps (and other) series.

Today I'm presenting the first of what I anticipate will be more than a handful of cards I'll be making in the format of Topps 1954-55 World on Wheels.

I may have mentioned it on the blog in some of my 800+ postings since 2009, but for one year of my 31+ years at Krause Publications, I served as executive editor of the Old Cars division. From Sept., 1978-Sept., 1979, I was editor of Old Cars Weekly newspaper, the Old Cars Price Guide magazine and the start-up monthly newsstand magazine Car Exchange.

Because I've always been a car guy, I look back on that year as the best of my time at Krause. 

Sports cars and luxury imports were never my thing. (I did have a Thing, actually three of them; 1974 Volkswagen Things.) I was more interested in vintage vehicles from Model T and other brass-era autos to late-1940s woodies, virtually everything made in the 1950s and the muscle cars of the mid- to late-1960s.
For most of the years between 1971-2001 my daily driver was a succession of 10-year-old Cadillacs.

Having neither the money nor the mechanical aptitude to seriously pursue old cars as a hobby, my interest was mostly voyeuristic. Today I could afford to indulge myself with a few pieces of old iron, but I'm too stove up to get in and out of bucket seats, to operate a stick shift or crawl under a car to change oil. And I'm a believer that if I can't drive a car, there's no use owning it.

I'd make an exception, though, for the car I chose as the subject for my first World on Wheels customs. 

I first encountered the 1956 Buick Centurian dream car in the spring of 1979 while on a backstage tour of the Sloan Museum in Flint, Mich. Press junkets like that were one of the big reasons my year at Old Cars is so fondly remembered.

The rocket-inspired Buick dream car is widely covered all over the internet, so I won't detail it here. If you're like me, I don't have to explain the attraction of a sporty silhouette, bubble top, fins, chrome and expanses of mid-century color scheme fiberglass. If you don't "get it" at first glance, nothing I can say here will sway you.

In keeping with Topps' original card set, I created my custom WoW cards in both a red-back and blue-back version. While Topps used the same pictures for both red- and blue-backs of its high-number (161-180) series, I decided to splurge on two views of the Centurian.

I could make a new WoW custom every week for a year and never run out of ideas that don't stray too far from Topps' original concept. However, I want to do some more TV Westerns and I've got plans to dabble in a few other favorite non-sports issues from my childhood; not to mention my on-going efforts in the fields of baseball and football custom cards. So, I'll probably limit my car cards to just a handful for the time being.

Watch this space in the coming months and you'll see them first.

A pair of 1968-style Reggie customs

I can see why Topps didn't include Reggie Jackson in its 1968 baseball card set.

He'd had only two years of professional ball under his belt and his two gigs with the 1967 Kansas City A's had been underwhelming. Jackson had been called up from Birmingham on June 9 and played in 26 games batting .189 without demonstrating any of the speed and power that had caused Charley Finley to pay him a reported $75,000-85,000 signing bonus as the No. 2 overall pick in the June, 1966, major league draft.

Jackson was sent back down to Birmingham in the first week of July, probably to bolster the A's Class AA team in the Southern League pennant race. Birmingham won the title by 3-1/2 games and then defeated Albuquerque four games to two in the one-year revival of the Dixie Series between the Southern League and Texas League champions.

Jackson returned to Kansas City on Sept. 15, with the A's in last place, 24 games in back of the American League leading Red Sox. In nine games he hit just .143, bringing his rookie season average down to .178. 

On Sept. 17, Jackson hit the first of his 563 major league home runs. It was a solo shot off of the California Angels' Jim Weaver . . . that is if you trust the data on baseball-reference.com over Jackson's own recollection. According to Reggie's official website, he remembers that first home run as coming off of Cleveland Indians pitcher John O'Donoghue, though both sources agree on the date.

I also noted a slight discrepancy concerning the car Jackson bought after his signed his first A's contract. Some internet sources claim that the car was part of his signing bonus; on his site Jackson says he bought the car. Jackson describes the car on his website: "Oooh, I almost forgot my 1st new car with my signing. A 'typical me' car. 1967 Pontiac Catalina, with a 421cu. inch 375 hp engine, a 2dr really cool ride, a 4spd transmission, Burgundy with a black vinyl top and of course an aftermarket 4 track stereo." 

Before starting work on my 1968 Topps-style Reggie Jackson custom, I kicked around some concepts for a 1967-style card. Two problems ultimately killed the notion, one practical, one conceptual.

On the pragmatic side, I haven't yet found a decent photo of Jackson in a Kansas City uniform. I messed around with adding a "KC" cap logo to an Oakland photo, and came up with a serviceable image. As I worked, though, it became increasingly apparent that a '67 Jackson card would be too much of an anachronism. While he'd a good debut pro season in A-ball in 1966, he really wouldn't have been a candidate for a 1967 Topps card. And I generally prefer to create "cards that never were" in the formats of cards that might have been.

With two decent late 1960s photos of Jackson to work with, I took the easy way out and used both. Thus you see two '68-style Reggie Jackson custom cards here.

These bring to five the total number of Reggie Jackson custom cards I've created. The 1977-style Orioles card shown here was the first custom baseball card I ever made, after months of working solely on 1955-style All-American football cards. The two 1976-style Orioles cards came soon thereafter.