that which we call pee wee; by any other name would cause confusion

apologies to the bard.

i bring to you tonight, among other things, this 1958 topps pee wee reese card

now reese's real name is harold. harold henry reese, if we are being formal. keep that in mind as you look at the back of this card:

the first time i ever saw this card, the cartoon on the left confused me. it says that reese got his nickname "from his marble-shooting days as a boy". i was left wondering how "pee wee" was derived from marbles, but i thought maybe there was a "pee wee" competition or a brand of marbles or something like that. the only other nickname for reese that i was aware of was "little colonel" which doesn't seem to have anything to do with marbles at all.  

then a couple of years ago, i was reading joe garagiola's book "baseball is a funny game"

and in a section wherein he discusses nicknames of the 1950's, he notes that reese's nickname is actually "the champ".

while joe can't spell, he does reference marbles! mystery solved. now it is possible that this information was included in roger kahn's classic "the boys of summer" but if so the information didn't register between the time i read the book and first saw the back of pee wee's card. other nicknames garagiola notes in the book that you won't find on baseball reference include lee walls (captain midnight) and bill virdon (cyclops). both of those had to do with their glasses that they wore.

the pee wee card up top (and all the other cards you will see in this post) came my way from thorzul - now at death stare cards - as part of a vintage collection team break he hosted. it was an upgrade for my team collection, as were a number of cards that i received. cases in point:

1959 topps don zimmer

well, there's ol' zim!

1959 topps rip repulski

rip here was a good ol' minnesota boy whose real name was eldon. joe doesn't say, but i assume repulski was known as rip as a take on his last name. he also has one of the few non-yellow dodger cards in the 1959 set. maybe because he's a phillie in the photo.

1960 fleer joe medwick

i am sure that joe g. would want you to know that medwick's nickname was "ducky"

1960 topps frank howard

howard went by "hondo". 

1962 topps league leaders featuring wally moon

i don't know if moon had a nickname (maybe something to do with his eyebrow game?), but the name shenanigans here have to do with roberto clemente and topps' apparent refusal to use his real name.

1962 topps daryl spencer

according to baseball reference, spencer's nickname was "dee" or "big dee". maybe before he joined the dodgers, but there was just one "big d" on the dodgers.

1967 topps john werhas

i guess werhas was known as "peaches", at least according to baseball reference.

1976 topps league leaders featuring andy messersmith

now this card wasn't an upgrade for me, but it does feature some folks with strong nicknames. there's tom terrific, but john the count of montefusco takes the prize. as for messersmith, he was called "bluto".

1971 fleer laughlin world series 1949

the cartoon on the card features elwin charles roe, better known as "preacher"

names are a big part of these next two cards

thorzul offered the set checklists up for grabs, and i was able to upgrade a couple from my 1974 set. we see right at the start of that checklist a couple of players with some great nickames - hammerin' hank and catfish hunter.

the dodger team checklist features some signatures taken from topps contracts, so you get formal names like "david e." lopes and "ronald" cey and "william joseph" buckner instead of dave and ron and bill, respectively. "thomas" john surgery just wouldn't sound the same.

finally, i also came away with this card

that's a 1975-76 topps lakers team leaders card that features gail goodrich, cazzie russell, and happy hairston. of the three, only hairston is sporting a nickname - his real name was harold.

while i was hoping for a koufax or four in my lot, i was not disappointed by the return. thanks thorzul!

waning moon

yes, today begins a new cycle following last night's full moon.  that's not what this post is about, though. here's another card from my dad's collection.

it's a 1963 topps wally moon and it was part of his 1963 topps dodger team set. the signature is not as strong as it once was (waning - get it?), but that wasn't the point of the purchase.

my dad bought this card from our local lcs in the early 1980's. i know because we found a few signed cards mixed in the vintage 'commons' boxes that al the proprietor had available for us to look through. i picked up signed versions of both jim brewer and wes parker's 1970 topps cards, and my dad took home the moon, along with a jim gilliam card that i've shown before. we didn't pay any more than if they hadn't been signed. i kept both the parker and the brewer as part of my 1970 topps dodger team set for about 20 years before replacing them and adding the signed versions to my non-certifiied/in person/ttm autograph collection.

that's where this moon would have gone, i already have a 1963 topps card signed by the late 1954 rookie of the year from a ttm success, so this one is expendable. at any rate, even though moon's signature is not all there, the unibrow game is as strong as ever!

the missing link

buybacks are a divisive topic, and stamped buybacks may be even more of a polarizing idea.  i have pulled two non-stamped buybacks from packs during my near 40 years as a collector, and i was disappointed both times due to the fact that there was nothing distinguishable about the cards.  i was fairly oblivious to the stamped buybacks topps put in packs in 2014, but i went all-in on dodger buybacks in 2015.  i liked the "topps original 2015" stamp design (better than the variable sized topps logo used in 2014, i thought), and i liked the fact that the buybacks spanned from 1957 through 1980.

i began seeking out dodger buybacks with the goal to have at least one from each year and a complete team set of the 1978 club, but i quickly found that 1964 and 1965 were not included - most likely due to the heritage buyback inserts the previous couple of years.  i also found that the 1980 buybacks were limited to the first dozen or so cards in the set (but thankfully included the manny mota record breaker).  i fairly quickly had dodger buybacks from 1957-1962 and from 1966-1980.

you will notice that i did not have a 1963 dodger buyback. for about 18 months, i would check ebay and comc for these buybacks, and at one time found an auction for a lot that included johnny podres' 1963 card. i lost that auction, but shortly thereafter, the podres appeared on ebay as a single.  i lost that auction, too, with the single podres going for more than the lot had.  so, my search went on until about a month ago when a kind seller listed this card for sale on comc:

the wally moon buyback was only the second dodger card i had seen from 1963 in all that time spent looking.  i quickly scooped it up, and now my run of dodger buybacks is fully representative.  i'm still keeping an eye out for a few 1978 dodgers, but they may not have been included in the buyback program so i'm not too stressed about it.

that is not the only wally moon card that i have added to my collection recently, however.  nick at dime boxes sent me the unibrowed one's autographed card from 2017 topps archives

in a blind trade. topps did a good job with this card as it is pretty similar to moon's actual 1960 card, aside from the dodger logo.

nick also sent along a 2015 topps original 1970 topps alan foster

and some modern dodgers such as kenley jansen

 and justin turner

 from this year's archives, and another turner from 2017 topps bunt

turner, as you may know, won the final vote for an all-star spot.  he might be my favorite current dodger behind clayton kershaw these days.  i appreciate his play the same way i appreciated the play of the last dodger third baseman to make the all-star team.  that was mike sharperson back in 1992.

nick is a fellow double play collector, and he sent me some cards that were new to me, but i assume were duplicates to him.  they were all from 1993 upper deck sp, which has some great photography - double play or not.

rich amaral

is turning two on the front and back

as is benji gil

jeff blauser's card features an inaugural season marlin

while mickey morandini's card hits three of my mini-collections

double play, dodger stadium, and dodger lurker - brett butler is sliding in.

thank you nick, and thank you random comc seller, for some great additions to my collection!