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When viewing Steve Dalkowski's minor league pitching record, I don't really question why he never made the major leagues, but rather how he managed to hang on in professional ball at all.
From 1957-62 he never progressed higher than Class A on a 26-62 record and 6.15 ERA. Baltimore Orioles officials, however, were so enamored by his speed that they continued to hope, season after season, that he could learn some control -- both over his fast ball and hs thirst.
In 1962, despite a 3-12 record at Class B in 1961, Dalkowski was promoted to Class A Elmira in the Eastern League. There, he hooked up with manager Earl Weaver, who convinced him that by taking something off his fast ball, he'd be better able to control it.
Though his record with Elmira was only 7-10 in 1962, he dropped his ERA from 8.39 to 3.04. His rate of bases on balls per nine innings dropped from 17.1 to 6.4. His strikeout rate also declined, but much less dramatically, from 13.1 to 10.8 per nine innings.
When the Orioles took Dalkowski to spring training in 1963, Topps evidently believed he would make the big club, so they included his "floating head" portrait on card #496 "1963 Rookie Stars" in the high-number series.
Unfortunately, as spring training drew to a close, Dalkowski injured his arm, tossing a come-backer over to first base. He never reached the big leagues, though he pitched for three more seasons in the minors in the Orioles, Pirates and Angels organizations.
Topps might have just as easily given Dalkowski his own rookie card in 1963. Since they didn't, I've taken on the task.
There really aren't many good in-uniform photos of Dalkowski to work with; color photos are especially scarce. I decided to work with a black-and-white pose and colorize it for my card. I believe the picture shows Dalkowski in a minor league Orioles jersey.
In putting together my card back, I was fortunate to find a chart on the internet with his complete record. Even the usually comprehensive baseball-reference.com web site is incomplete for a couple of Dalkowski's seasons in the lower minors.
Dalkowski was certainly an inspiration in the mythical Sidd Finch character created as a 1985 April Fool's joke by George Plimpton in Sports Illustrated.
Here's a good summary of Dalkowski from the baseball-reference.com site:
Steve Dalkowski biography
Many vintage-card collectors know the story of why there are no Topps cards of Maury Wills as a Los Angeles Dodger.
The official line is that when Topps began signing players in 1951, their scout didn't think Wills had what it took to make the major leagues, and no contract was proffered to him.
For a number of years, it looked as if the scout was right, Wills was a banjo-hitting (also, coincidentally, a banjo-playing) utility player in the low minors. The Dodgers' farm people kept him moving around in an attempt to find a position that he could field without being a detriment to the defense.
But Wills always could run, and as he worked his way slowly up the Brooklyn-L.A. farm system, he became a proficient base stealer.
After nine years in the bushes, he was finally ready for The Show. He credited Spokae manager Bobby Bragan, for whom he played in 1958 with turning him into a switch-hitter, paving his way for promotion to the big club. Wills burst onto the big-league stage in time to help the Dodgers win their first World's Championship in L.A. He was integral to three more Dodgers pennants, piling up an MVP, multiple All-Star selections, a few Gold Gloves and six consecutive stolen-base titles before being traded to the Pirates for 1967.
While there were no Maury Wills cards to be found in Topps packs until 1967, kids still had a few options.
If you lived in SoCal, Wills could be found on a dozen or more local/regional baseball cards and team-issued collectibles. Nationally, he was available on Post cereal and Jell-O box backs 1961-63. When Fleer made a run at Topps monopoly on current-player bubblegum cards in 1963, Maury Wills,, fresh from his MVP win, was their main attraction.
Over the years I've been asked to create some of the "missing" Topps Maury Wills cards; it was never high on my to-do list. Besides, lots of other custom-card guys were filling the gaps (though few, if any, have undertaken to make the card backs).
Recently, however, one of my most regular followers made a good case, and the availability of a couple of really nice circa 1960 color photos compelled me to action.
Thus you have here my take on 1959 and 1963 Topps-style Maury Wills cards.
These will likely be the only Topps-style cards of Wills that I undertake, though it is tempting to see what I could do to improve what Topps did in 1969 making an Expos card of Wills with a heavily airbrushed Pirates uniform.
While working on my '63-style Wills card, I noticed that Topps was not entirely consistent in some of its details between earlier and later series.
For instance, on some cards the player position on front and back was spelled out, while on some cards it was abbreviated. On some Dodgers cards, the team name was spelled out, "LOS ANGELES DODGERS", while on some cards it was abbreviated "L.A. DODGERS".
In the biographical data, sometimes the birth date was spelled out, as "Oct. 2, 1932", and sometimes is was presented as "10/2/32".
Another curious inconsistency is that beginning with card #512, in the midst of the high-numbers, the cards included a vertical rule in the stats box between the TEAM and LEA. columns. Strange, eh?
For my 1963 Wills card, I picked and chose the options that best suited my design eye.
Since I've now created templates for 1959 All-Star Rookie and 1963 Topps cards, you may see more of them in the future.
