White Sox tried to sell Indians "jinxed" souvenirs

Early Wynn notched his 299th major-league win with the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 8, 1962, with a 6-3 complete game victory over the Washington Senators at Comiskey Park.

It was the seventh win for the 42-year-old American League veteran that season, balanced against 12 losses. At the time, the White Sox were in fourth place in the then-10-team American League.

To maximize the gate attraction of a White Sox pitcher winning his 300th game before the home crowd, the team interrupted Wynn's usual five-day rotation by holding him out of a six-game Minneapolis-Washington road trip Sept. 12-16. In doing so they may have spoiled Wynn's chance to win his 300th game that season, or possibly hit that magic number at all.

When the White Sox returned to Comiskey on Sept. 18, the team promoted the possibility of the milestone with an "Early Wynn '300 Club' Night". The Tuesday night crowd of 14,498 that turned out was nearly a 45% increase from recent home games.

Besides having the chance to see baseball history made, the fans were given a four-page commemorative program. They also had the opportunity to purchase a 2" blue-and-white steel tab featuring a portrait photo with a facsimile autograph and "300 CLUB".

The souvenir was union-made by the Green Duck novelty firm in Chicago. It featured a tab that could be bent over to attach the button to a pocket or lapel. I'd guess it was offered at the concession stands and by vendors for 25 or 50 cents.

Gus went just five innings against the visiting Red Sox, giving up 12 hits and a walk and being charged with a 10-5 loss, his 13th of the year.

Five days later, on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 23, the visiting Yankees avoided a three-game sweep, by winning 5-1. Gus gave it his all, pitching a 10-inning complete game. He allowed just one run in the first nine innings when Phil Linz singled to open the game, stole second and then was doubled home by Tom Tresh.

On the mound for New York was Bill Stafford, who shut out Chicago until the bottom of the ninth when Joe Cunningham doubled, then came home on Floyd Robinson's ground-rule double.

Button sales probably jumped among the 30,032 fans as they saw the chance for Wynn to earn his 300th win.

Alas, in the top of the 10th, Wynn gave up four runs as Bobby Richardson singled, Mantle walked and both came home on a single by Hector Lopez and an error by right fielder Mike Hershberger. Elston Howard homered, bringing Lopez around.

The White Sox went three-up, three-down in the bottom of the 10th, and Wynn lost his 14th game of 1962.

Chicago ended its season with a road trip to New York. Wynn got the start in the first game, Sept, 28, going the whole way for the White Sox but losing 7-3. One game short of the 300-win mark, Wynn was released by the White Sox after the season.

In 1963 it looked like Wynn might never achieve the milestone. He went unsigned for all of April and May and most of June. On June 21, the fourth-place Cleveland Indians signed Wynn and gave him the ball that night to face the visiting White Sox.

He was a fan favorite in Cleveland, having starred on  the mound there from 1949-1957, winning 163 games in nine seasons, including four seasons of 20 or more victories.There were 19,177 on hand, hoping to see Wynn gain his 300th against the team that had cut him loose.

It was not in the cards, though. Wynn pitched the entire game but came up on the short end of a 2-0 score.

After three no-decision appearances, Wynn finally notched his 300th win, on the road at Kansas City on July 13.

He started the game and got a run to work with in the top of the second. In the 5th Wynn opened the inning with a single and was one of four runs scored. In the bottom of the 5th, he gave up four runs himself. Jerry Walker came on in relief at the top of the 6th. He kept the A's from scoring again while Cleveland added two more runs. Wynn was credited with the 7-4 win and became the 14th major-league pitcher to join the "300 club."

Wynn never won again in the bigs. He appeared for Cleveland 15 more times, all but once in relief as the Indians remained solidly in the second division of the AL. He was 300-244 when the season ended.

The Indians released him as a player on Oct. 14 and signed him as the pitching coach. After two years in that role, he took a similar job with the Twins. In the 1980s he provided color radio commentary for the Blue Jays and White Sox.

The Cy Young Award winner (1959) and seven-time All-Star was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972, his fourth year on the ballot. He died in 1999.

In mid-1963, The Sporting News reported that Chicago White Sox general manager Ed Short approached the Indians in an attempt to sell them "several hundred" Early Wynn 300 Club buttons.

Cleveland gm Gabe Paul rejected the offer, reportedly telling Short the buttons were "double hexed" because White Sox fans wore them in two Wynn loses at the end of the '62 season.

Almost certainly, Paul refused the offer because Wynn was wearing a White Sox cap in the portrait on the souvenir.

Today's collector will have no trouble finding one of the Wynn/300 buttons. There are usually several for sale on eBay at any given time. Depending on condition they sell for $10-25 dollars.

It's winter; time for non-sports customs

Over the years my custom card creation efforts seem to have become somewhat seasonal.

I tend t make baseball cards in the spring and summer and football cards in the autumn.

Last winter it seems as if I spent most of my card-making time on non-sports issues. That trend may continue this winter.

I've just completed another card in my extension of the 1954 Topps Rails & Sails issue.

The new card features the Skytop parlor-lounge car that was a feature of the Milwaukee Road's Twin Cities Hiawatha streamliners from 1948 through early 1971.

With World War II shortages and restrictions largely gone by the wayside in 1948, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Rail Road undertook a major overhaul of its rolling stock.

One of the features of the project was the creation of the Skytop parlor-lounge cars that brought up the rear of the Twin Cities Hiawathas that ran twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon between Chicago and Minneapolis.

This is Brooks Stevens' original rendering of the concept of
the Skytop parlor lounge cars for the Twin Cities Hiawathas.

The Skytop cars were designed by Brooks Stevens, a Milwaukee industrial designer who created everything from custom cars, motorcycles and household appliances to the Miller Brewing Company's red "soft cross" logo still being used today. (I crossed paths with Stevens a time or two at car shows in 1978-79 when I was editor of Old Cars Weekly newspaper.)

The Skytop lounge cars were built in the Milwaukee Road's own shops. A total of four were produced. They were named the Cedar Rapids, Coon Rapids, Dell Rapids and Priest Rapids. The first three named cars still exist in various states of preservation while the Priest Rapids was scrapped in 1970.

This is a contemporary photo of the Skytop parlor-lounge car.

A companion line of Skytop sleeper lounges was built in 1948-49 by Pullman-Standard. There were a total of six built for use on the Milwaukee Road's Olympian Hiawatha runs between Chicago and Tacoma, Wash. That route was discontinued in 1961 and all six of the sleepers were sold to the Canadian National Railway. Three of those remain extant, the others having been scrapped.

My newest Rails/Sails custom reflects my personal interest in mid-century railroading. I have 10-12 images of great locomotives from the 1930s through the 1960s that may make their way onto custom cards in the future.

As I stated in my blog post of Dec. 13, I am unable to offer examples of my new card to collectors; physical limitations of my hands have made the actual printing and cutting of my cards too difficult an undertaking.

Browsing Around the Lot, Part 2

In my perusings of back issues of The Sporting News, I often encounter tidbits that I believe are worth sharing, but that are not of sufficient length to stand alone as a blog posting.

I'm going to present them, from time to time, in trivia compilations (I presented the first on Sept. 14)
.

. When a former colleague of mine did similar columns, he called it "browsing around the lot." hence my title.

* * *

Buzzy Wares, long-time St. Louis Cardinals coach, was left behind in Montgomery, Ala., by the St. Louis Browns in payment for the Browns’ use of the Rebels’ facilities during spring training.

Wares hit .275 for Montgomery that season, and was called up the Browns in 1913.

                                  * * *

Buddy Blattner was a world-class ping pong champion before he became an infielder in the National League (1942-49).

In high school Blattner won the St. Louis District table tennis championship. In 1936-37 he was the Missouri state champion in singles and doubles. Just before the outbreak of World War II he toured Europe as part of the U.S. table tennis team, participating in tournaments in London, Vienna and Prague.

                                  * * *

1940s Dodgers teammates Pete Reiser and Pee Wee Reese had “boring” names when their surnames were rendered in American Morse code by telegraph operators working the games . . . they were all “dots,” no “dashes.”

R . ..

E .

E .

S ...

E .

R .  ..

E .

I ..

S ...

E .

R . ..

                                 * * *

In 1962, L.A. Angels outfielder Ken Hunt became stepfather to a budding actor and future child star when he married Patty Lilley. She was the mother of Patrick Alan Caples, who became famous as Eddie Munster on the 1964-66 CBS-TV show The Munsters.

Hunt appeared in a 1965 episode of the show, Herman the Rookie. He played an L.A. Dodgers catcher who was supposed to warm up Herman Munster but was scared off the field by the big guy’s fastball speed.

For clarity, this Ken Hunt was Ken L. Hunt. Ken R. Hunt was also a major leaguer,  pitching for the Cincinnati Reds in 1961. Each appeared in the 1962 Topps set.

Butch Patrick by the way, is also a collector of 1960s-1970s pop culture memorabilia, specializing in items associated with the Beatles.

                                * * *

In the 1965 All-Star Game, the champion managers of the previous season did not manage the AL and NL squads. Johnny Keane who had won the World Series with the Cardinals had been fired and had joined the Yankees as 1965 manager. Yogi Berra, who had been skipper of the AL champion Yankees in 1964, had been fired as was picked up by the Mets as a coach.

For the 1965 All-Star contest, the team were managed by the skippers who had come in #2 the previous season; Al Lopez of the White Sox and Gene Mauch of the Phillies.

Not only weren’t the World Series managers of the previous year on the All-Star teams, but not a single member of either the 1964 Yankees or Cardinals had been picked as an A-S starter.

                                * * *

Washington Senators pitcher Jim Duckworth had a real fear of flying, avoiding air travel whenever he could. In an effort to ease his anxiety, the team paid for him to take flying lessons in the 1964-65 off-season and he earned his pilot’s license.

While Duckworth never appeared on a Topps card during his career (1963-66), he has two cards in the 1978 TCMA “The 1960’s” set. Both cards are portraits in a Senators uniform. Card #23 has on back only height, weight, etc. Card #151 adds a paragraph of biographical information.

                                                                  * * *

Ed Rakow (Dodgers 1960, K.C. A’s 1961-63, Tigers 1964-65) once lost his job to Johnny Unitas. Rakow was the quarterback and defensive end for the Bloomfield Rams, a semi-pro football team in Pittsburgh in 1955.

The following season, after Unitas was cut by the Steelers and joined Bloomfield, Rakow was relegated to defensive end, where he earned $5 a game until his hand was stepped on an broken while making a tackle.

In 1957, the Dodgers signed Rakow out of a semi-pro league and he was assigned to Class C Reno. After four years and a 55-38 record in the Dodgers’ system, he was called up to Los Angeles.

                                * * *

With the Seattle Rainiers in 1963, Bob Heffner was the starter in the night game of the season home-opener double header. In the first inning, three hits, an error and a walk gave the Denver Bears two runs, with one out and the bases full. The fireballer then retired the last 26 Bears’ batters in order for a 4-2 victory.

1956 "rookie" card for Colavito

As I've mentioned, creating 1956 Topps-style custom cards is a mixed blessing. 

The set was one of my childhood favorites, but the nuts and bolts of creating the cards make it one of the most difficult formats in which to work.

I had the good fortune while making a 1956 Rocky Colavito card to be able to repurpose the trio of cartoons that I had already used on my 1956 Bob Hazle, so the work went much easier.

Topps could have chosen to include Colavito in its 1956 set, as he ad made his big-league debut with a bang in late 1955. This custom should help make up for that lapse.



I'd already done a pair of Rocky Colavito customs. I used an original Topps flexichrome to make a 1960 Topps-style multi-player feature card with Harmon Killebrew and I did a 1978-style coach's card.

Colavito has always enjoyed a collector following that rivals many Hall of Famers.

There is a good baseball biography of Colavito on the SABR baseball biography site, written by Joseph Wancho: Rocky Colavito bio .

This does not exhaust the possibilities for future Colavito customs. I've got photos to work with for a 1982 or 1983 Kansas City Royals coach's card, and a good picture of Colavito in his last playing gig with the New York Yankees in 1968. 

So Rocky's fans can look forward to seeing those in the future.

38-year old Reds rookie on 1957 Topps custom

In the days before the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began scrutinizing foreign-born ballplayers' identification papers it was common for Latinos to take liberties with their birth dates.

To make themselves more attractive major league prospects they often promulgated a "baseball age" that was a few years younger than their actual age. If they made it in the majors, those missing years were generally recouped when it came time to apply for the players' pension benefits.

The player who is believed to hold the record for fudging his true age to make it to the majors was Pat Scantlebury, who got a cup of coffee with the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1956 as a "30-year-old" rookie. In fact, Scantlebury was eight years older when he made his big league debut.

Born in the Canal Zone, Panama, in 1917, Scantlebury was pitching for the national team by 1941. He came to the U.S. during World War II, pitching for the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues 1944-50. He appeared in or was named to the Negro Leagues' East-West All-Star games in 1946, 1948, 1949 and 1950.

He played winter ball in the Panamanian Winter League every season 1945-46 through 1963-64 except 1951-52, when he plied his trade in Mexico. He often distinguished himself in the Caribbean Series.

Here's a link to a good summary of Scantlebury's career:
www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Pat_Scantlebury

In 1952, Scantlebury was traveling with the Roy Campanella All-Stars barnstorming tour. He pitched or played first base for the Negro League All-Stars that provided Campy's big-league aggregation with competition all over the South and West for the month following the World Series. 

The major leaguers were so impressed with him that at least three of them recommended him to their teams. Monte Irvin was the most persuasive, convincing the N.Y. Giants to purchase his contract from the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League for $10,000.

The book on Scantlebury was that he had good control, a lively fast ball and a deceptive delivery on his variety of breaking pitches.

He debuted in Organized Baseball with Texarkana of the Class B Big State League in 1953. He led the circuit in wins (24) and strikeouts (177). He was second in innings pitched (286) and led in hits allowed (314). He tied for second in the BSL with five shutouts and paced the circuit with 28 complete games (in 33 starts). 

Scantlebury won 20 games again in 1954, 18 for Dallas in the Texas League and two with the Havana Sugar Kings of the International League. He pitched the entire 1955 season with Havana, winning 13 and losing nine with a 1.90 ERA.

He was invited to the Redlegs' major league camp for spring training in 1956, and had such a good spring that he made the club. Scantlebury was on the mound in Cincinnati to start the second game of the season against St. Louis on April 19. He went five innings, giving up eight hits including home runs to Stan Musial and Bill Sarni. The Reds won the game 10-9, but Scantlebury was not part of the decision,

Five days later in St Louis he got the start and took the 3-5 loss, giving up seven hits including a three-run homer by Ken Boyer. 

When teams had to cut their rosters in mid-May, Scantlebury was sent out to Havana. He was recalled on July 25 and appeared in relief in two games before being sent down to Seattle in the Pacific Coast League. The six games in which he appeared with Cincinnati were the totality of his major-league career. Redlegs manager Birdie Tebbetts was quoted as saying he didn't buy the fiction of Scantlebury's age.

He spent five more years in the minors at the AAA level. Back with Havana in 1957 he was 12-15. In 1958-61 with Toronto he was 36-23, mostly as a reliever.

It's easy to see why Pat Scantlebury never appeared on a Topps card, but they took a nice photo of him early in the 1956 season. The photo looks to have been taken at Milwaukee County Stadium and has the "feel" of a 1957 Topps cards . . . so I made one.

Scantlebury did, however, have a pair of career-contemporary baseball cards during his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He appears in team sets issued in 1960 by Shopsy's Frankfurters and in 1961 by Bee Hive Starch. Both are hard to find today.

He can also be found in a couple of modern collectors' issues such as the 1986 Larry Fritsch Cards set of Negro League Baseball Stars.

Ballplayers struck out as slumlords

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

Dozens of professional athletes, including major league baseball players, were shown they were not in the big leagues when it came to slimy Chicago politics in 1963 when their investments in “slum” real estate went south, leaving them holding the bag for up to a reported one million dollars.

The ballplayers were among the backers of Consolidated Investment Associates, an Illinois corporation that fell into receivership in early 1963.

That company owned or controlled 22 buildings in what a Chicago newspaperman termed “various Chicago slum areas.” CIA was headed by R. Patrick Wagner, who the reporter described as a “pal of many major leaguers.” The company was formed around 1957.

Wagner reportedly induced many of those ballplayers to put money into his corporation and, for a time, came through with the promised 20 percent annual dividends.

Then, as the 1962 baseball season was drawing to a close, Wagner went incommunicado, leaving the players in the dark as to the state of their investments.

Louis Wexler, an assistant corporation counsel for the City of Chicago, was in charge of prosecuting building violations cases against Wagner’s CIA. At one time city building inspectors reportedly found a total of 2,693 violations in 18 of the 22 buildings owned by CIA.

In late February, 1963, Wexler said, “It now appears that investments made in Wagner’s companies are a total loss.”

In his defense, Wagner was quoted as saying that “pressure men” had brought down his real estate venture. “There are 150,000 buildings like ours in the city, and we own 22 of them. It should seem obvious that we are the victims of harassment.”

The slumlord blamed the University of Chicago for his plight. “The university did not want buildings in this area repaired,” he charged. “The university wanted them torn down so the tenants would be driven into other neighborhoods.”

Wagner seems to have been able to induce the ballplayers and other investors into putting up money in a “sure thing.” Rentals of from $65 to $100 a month in the dilapidated buildings were being paid not by individual tenants, but by the Cook County welfare department, insuring a continued revenue stream.

While most of the ballplayer investors preferred to keep their involvement under wraps, CIA corporation papers at the time showed Walt Dropo, recently retired 13-year major league veteran, as executive vice-president, with Billy Pierce, Ken Boyer, Bob Shaw, Jimmie Dykes and Jim Rivera listed as members of the board of directors.

Two of the players, cited anonymously in an article by Jim Enright in the March 2, 1963, issue of The Sporting News, said they had lost $5,000 each in the venture. The headline on the TSN article was, “Slum-Property Deal Backfires on Ball Players”.

Mantle's changing sig caused contract controversy

The evolution of Mickey Mantle's signature, so well documented in the baseball card/memorabilia hobby, once created a kurfuffle among team owners.

At a press conference on Feb. 27, 1963, at the Yankees' spring training headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Mantle signed his 1963 Yankees contract -- as television cameras rolled -- calling for a salary of $100,000.

With Mantle's permission, the team had engineered the unprecedented publicity stunt to advertise the fact the Yankees were so successful that they could make Mantle the highest-paid player in baseball.

Later, "photostatic" copes of the contract were sent to the print media. 

Immediately, San Francisco Giants president Horace Stoneham questioned the legitimacy of the contract. He contended that the image of Mantle's contract promulgated by the Yankees was not the "real" contact, intimating that the Yankees were not paying Mantle $100,000 for the '63 season.

Stoneham had a vested interest in the matter because he had recently agreed to terms with Willie Mays for the 1963 season at a reported salary of $100,000. Mays, however, had not yet signed his contract in late February so Mantle was in actuality at the top of baseball's salary scale.

The Giants' executive no doubt felt compelled to question the Yankees' deal with Mantle because New York had garnered the publicity that Stoneham was expecting when Mays inked his 1963 contract.

It seemed to be Stoneham's contention that Mantle's "real" contract was at a figure less than 100 Gs. 

Writing in the March 16, 1963, issue of The Sporting News, San Francisco baseball writer Bob Stevens said Stoneham "indicated a slight doubt as to its authenticity by saying out loud, 'Mickey doesn't print his signature; he writes it.'"

Stevens commented, "A closer inspection (of the contract) supported this theory." 

Giants catcher Ed Bailey pointed out that on the contract shown to the media, the date of Mantle's acceptance had not been filled in, nor did the document carry the authorizing signature of  Roy Hamey, the Yankees' general manager.

At the end of the article either Stevens, or possibly a Sporting News' editor, wrote, "A comparison of Mickey's signature on the new contract with that penned in The Sporting News' annual book, 'The Baseball Register,' also strongly indicated that the Yankees had not shown the real McCoy to newsmen."

Accompanying the TSN article was a picture of the Mantle contract on which the paper's editors had superimposed the image of Mantle's signature from the Register. 

Today's collectors will recognize that the Register signature is consistent with Mantle's style early in his career; on his 1952 Topps card, for example. The signature shown on the body of his 1963 contract is in the style evolved later in his career and generally used for the remainder of his life.

Responding to Stoneham's veiled accusation, Yankees' exec Hamey told The Sporting News, "I've got the contract in my safe. And it's the same one he signed for the TV cameras that day.

"It's as real as the Rock of Gibraltar," Hamey added. "There never was a more legitimate $100,000 contract than the one Mickey signed at the press conference. When one of our ball players is good enough and box office enough to earn a $100,000 contract, we want the whole, wide world to know it's the real McCoy and not a publicity stunt."

Since 1963, the once-controversial contract has made its way into the sports memorabilia hobby. It was publicly sold as early as 2005 in an American Memorabilia auction. In a Grey Flannel Auctions sale on June 5, 2013, it sold for $17,216. 

The auction lot description addressed those 1963 Giants concerns that the contract was undated and did not bear G.M. Hamey's signature. "The procedure in sealing this agreement entails three separate, but identical, contracts - one for the player (signed by a franchise executive), another for the team's files (usually penned by the player only), and yet another (signed by both parties) submitted to the President of the American League, who ultimately sanctions the contract. This is presumably the team's copy as it bears Mantle's signature only."