Monday, September 22, 2014

Who's Who in Baseball - 1967



I found this magazine recently at an antique store in Avalon, NJ. I collected several of these back in the 1960s, including (I’m sure) this one. I may still have them stashed in my house somewhere, but for $1.00 I couldn’t pass up this one.

I briefly leafed through the magazine in the store, and although you can find the stats and trades on Baseball-Reference.com, this mag also notes the dates of players’ trips to the disabled list, which is a plus.

I examined each page a few days ago, and discovered that every player (except Athletics’ pitcher Bill Edgerton) has a thumbnail pic next to his stats. (This surprised me, because I recalled that many rookies did not have photos in some years.) For some reason, EVERY photo showed the player in a blacked-out cap.

The mag has the career major and minor league stats for every major-league player active at press time (which seemed to be sometime in December 1966, because the off-season trades of Maury Wills to the Pirates and Mike McCormick to the Giants are noted).


Almost every player that had a card (and about 3 dozen players on "Rookie Stars" cards) in the 1967 Topps set was included in this magazine, but I was also surprised to see the following players without 1967 cards included (maybe they were not released or retired by press time):

Robin Roberts (includes “released by Cubs 10/4/66”)
Joey Jay
Jim Duckworth
Bill Edgerton
Sandy Koufax (includes “announced retirement 11/18/66”)
Joe Adcock (includes “appointed Indians manager 10/3/66”)
Junior Gilliam
Harvey Kuenn
Bob Lillis
Roy McMillan
Al Spangler
Dick Stuart


At the back of the book is a list of “10-year veterans who played in 1966 who are not on a major-league roster in 1967”:

Ed Bailey
Don Blasingame
Frank Bolling
Smoky Burgess (later re-signed by the White Sox, and given a ’67 card)
Wes Covington
Del Crandall
Joe Cunningham
Gene Freese
Lenny Green (later re-signed by the Tigers, but no ’67 card)
Eddie Kasko
Marty Keough
Hector Lopez
Jerry Lynch
Frank Malzone
Felix Mantilla (later re-signed by the Cubs, and given a ’67 card)
Bobby Richardson
Andre Rogers (later re-signed by the Pirates, and given a ’67 card)
Bob Skinner
Frank Thomas
Roger Craig
Bob Friend
Ray Herbert
Billy Hoeft
Johnny Klippstein (later re-signed by the Tigers, and given a ’67 card)
Jim Owens (later re-signed by the Astros, and given a ’67 card)
Bob Purkey
Steve Ridzik
Ed Roebuck


On the back cover, and inside the 2 covers are full-page photos of Juan Marichal, Gary Peters, and Matty Alou.  I didn't scan any inside pages, because I don't want to flatten the magazine on my scanner, fearing the pages will detach.

A nice little reference guide for roster geeks from back in the day!
 

Sunday, September 14, 2014

RIP - Frank Torre

 
Frank Torre, former 1st baseman for the Braves and Phillies, and older brother of Joe Torre, passed away on September 13, 2014 of a heart attack at age 82.


Frank played for the Milwaukee Braves from 1956 to 1960, and played in the World Series in both 1957 and 1958. The Braves met the Yankees both times, winning in '57 but losing in '58. Torre played every game in both Series, and was a key contributor in the '57 Series, batting .300 with 2 homers and 3 RBI.

Although Frank and Joe were both in the Braves' organization at the same time, they were never teammates.

After spending 1961 in the minors, he resurfaced with the Phillies in 1962 and 1963.

Following his baseball career, Torre worked for the Rawlings sporting goods company, and was an executive for the Baseball Assistance Team.

Torre had been in failing health in recent decades, receiving a heart transplant in 1996 and a kidney transplant in 2007.

New York Times obituary

New York Daily News obituary

ESPN obituary