4 reasons to celebrate today

April 15th is designated as Jackie Robinson Day - the day baseball changed forever and is forever grateful for the courage, sportsmanship and athletic ability of # 42. The barriers of color were removed from the major leagues in 1947 and we do celebrate that !

Twenty five years later another barrier was broken - that of facial hair with Reggie Jackson appearing in a game on this date in 1972 with a mustache. Nowhere equal in its significance as Jackie Robinson but certainly worth celebrating.

Here are my latest mustache finds . . . thanks to Reggie.


April 15th also marks "tax day" - a reason to celebrate if you know any or are an accountant (I am not but do have friends that celebrate the end today)

And lastly today, April 15th, we celebrate a birthday; Woodie Fryman. A two time all-star (1968, 1976) Fryman played for 18 seasons; most notably with the Pirates, Phillies, Tigers and Expos. A career record of 141-155 with 1587 strikeouts, Fryman had a very solid career.
Fryman also played one season with the Chicago Cubs, 1978, going 2 - 4 and appearing in only 13 games. Fryman had four one hitters in his career and is my fourth reason to celebrate today.

April 15th . . . a day to celebrate for many reasons.

more from the show

this being my second (and last) post "showing off" my finds at the card show this past Saturday I want to remind everyone that I did remember my promise to stick to my budget etc . . . and most of my "to do" promises for the wife . . .

For starters, I did pick up several 1970 Topps cards (mostly mid-high numbers) in addition to the ever elusive Al Oliver # 166 (gold trophy topps all-star rookie card). Since I am chronicling this set card by card I will not post any scans . . . yet. I am now at 683 of 720 or 95 % complete; soon I will have to splurge on the Reggie Jackson (#140), Henry Aaron (#500) and the Nolan Ryan (#712). Those are my only missing big ticket cards. Getting closer I am . . .

At the last show I went to I was introduced to the 1995 Flair set with my the one only card, Sammy Sosa #334 - I really like this card / set and added them to my "look for" list. I found a small handful, actually 13 of these heavy card stock cards, in a bargain basket.

These three show off the fronts of my new favorite "modern" set. I really like the horizontal look, double photo, and scripted initials of the players (the scans may not be so clear for that ). Finding a future HOF'er (possibly two in Larkin and Johnson) as well as a Mark Grace was nice.

I also scanned a back for you to see. The backs show a third (different) photo of each player, is the traditional up/down orientation but only shows five or six years of stats (the only down side to these cards). I liked this Ryan Klesko photo . . . each hand holding a batting glove as he seems to be leading off of first base.

I also could not pass up on a few (actually found five) Ken Griffey Jr cards . . .

including two 1991's for my daughters binder and one for me with Griffey Sr and his two sons.

My real "splurge" came from the 1976 Topps set . . . The Sporting News All-Time All Stars !

This small (10 card) sub-set is a real classic. I added these three cards to bring me only one short of completion (missing Babe Ruth # 345). Who can resist these classic black and white photos of when baseball was so different.

I also picked up a few random Cubs cards to fill some gaps; including these two; a 1968 Lee Elia # 561, though more famous for his managerial days / tirade he did appear as a pinch hitting infielder for the Cubs (though appeared in only 15 games) and a 1968 NL Pitching Leaders #5 with Fergie Jenkins.

And I could not pass up three great mustache cards !

So, all in all, I kept all (most) of my promises, had a blast looking around, added cards to several parts of my collection and now Opening Day is here !

Thanks for allowing me to share my limited yet fun additions.

"It's a beautiful day for a ball game . . .

. . . lets play two". That is only one of so many "happy" quotes from Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks.

Today is April 1st (no pranks planned) and marks the 101st day of my blog. I do know 101 days is nothing to "shout about" in the world of the blogsophere but 101 is an important number (this year) for Cub-dome.

So I thought I would revert back to the reasons why I started this blog and do a post on a Chicago Cub of my youth, the one and only Ernie Banks.

This 1964 card, # 55 has several things I like about it. First, the 1964 set is appealing to me; the traditional white border and large team name offset by the usual portrait (or posed) photo of the day. This thoughtful head shot of Banks makes me think "what is he thinking about" ? Could it be that he is staring out to the horizon as he just completed his tenth year in the majors and saying to himself "awards mean a lot, but they don't say it all. The people in baseball mean more to me than statistics" (yes another quote from Banks himself).

The back of this card is that unusual orange (this scan does not do it justice, sorry) with a clever rub off question / answer panel. This card asks "Who was the last AL man to pinch hit 2 consecutive HR's ?" A rather odd question for the two-time NL MVP (1958, 59) and "super star" but . . . the answer is Johnny Blanchard of the Yankees in 1961 (as an aside, Blanchard recently passed away on March 25th, 2009 at the age of 76).
I also like the back of this 1964 card of Banks for this reason; he just completed his tenth full year in the majors and the stats are easy to calculate his career year-to-year averages (just divide by ten or drop the last number, you can do the math): 1500 games, 1617 hits, 250 doubles, 353 HR' and 1026 RBI's. Not too bad for the first ten years of his career.

While Banks would keep this pace up until age and injuries hit him during the 1970 and 1971 campaigns, his career numbers are pretty impressive; 2528 games, 2583 hits, 407 doubles, 512 HR's and 1636 RBI's.

Banks ranks fourth all-time for most homeruns hit for one team and playing for one team only. Only Mike Schmidt (548), Mickey Mantle (536) and Ted Williams (521) who spent their entire careers with only one team and hit more homeruns.

It is only natural to end this post with another quote from Banks himself: "Work ? I never worked a day in my life. I always loved what I was doing, had a passion for it."