1954 Topps Harry Agganis

So much has been written and said about "The Golden Greek," I quite frankly have little to add about this tragic athlete who is beloved by New England fans more than six decades after his untimely death. For this card, I used the head shot from his '55 Topps card and added a posed black-and-white shot. Considering Topps was in a war for player contracts with Bowman and was stuffing players who never played in the major leagues in its sets (paging Angel Scull), I'm mildly surprised no one made a '54 Agganis.

One other note: Agganis played football and baseball at Boston University, which named its hockey arena for him. Also, BU dropped football and baseball in the 1990s, which means the arena is named for someone who not just didn't play hockey, but played two sports the school doesn't even sponsor anymore!

1975 Hostess Burleson, Carbo, Wise

Here are three more fantasy 1975 Hostess cards, which were introduced in an earlier post. I took the Burleson and Wise photos from my 1974 Red Sox yearbook, while Carbo was an interwebs find. 

Carbo and Wise were, of course, two of the key figures in Game 6 of the '75 World Series; Carbo's three-run homer in the eighth inning tied the score, and Wise was the winning pitcher. For some reason, Wise was my mom's favorite Red Sox player in the 1970s. But hey, this is an Alex Cora fan writing this, and Wise had a much better career than Cora, so who am I to judge? Wise is also known for:

• His membership in the Buffalo Head Gang, the delightful, irreverent group dedicated to giving manager Don Zimmer headaches (Carbo was a member, too);
• Throwing a no-hitter for the Phillies while blasting two homers; and ...
• For being traded to the Cardinals from the Phillies even-up for some guy named Steve Carlton.

1941 Goudey Lefty Grove

During its short life on earth, the Boston-based Goudey Gum Co., made some of the most beloved and influential baseball-card sets of all time.

The 1941 set is not one of them.

The '41 set, Goudey's dying last gasp of a set, displays none of the hallmarks that made its cards so popular during the 1930s. Blank backs. Black and white photos. (And why are the logos airbrushed out? What is this, the King-B beef jerky set?) A cheesy "Big LEAGUE Gum" logo in the corner. A stark yellow background. Or red. Or blue. Or green. Each of the 33 players came with four different backgrounds. It's as if Goudey didn't have enough players and this was its way of padding out the checklist. Does this mean Goudey invented parallel cards?

Ah, the player selection. It sucks. Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell and the biggest names. This would be like a modern set whose only good players are Felix Hernandez and Giancarlo Stanton, and the rest of the player roster is filled out with the Jeremy Guthries of the world.

The lone Red Sox player in the '41 set is a pitcher named Emerson Dickman, who compiled a 22-15 record despite a 5.33 ERA (good run support, you say?). His main claim to fame is coaching Princeton to its only College World Series appearance, in 1951, which is pretty neat.

Here are my '41 Goudey creations of a Sox pitcher of slightly greater stature: Lefty Grove, who won his 300th and final game that year before retiring. The card is numbered 36. And where are Nos. 34 and 35? They'll pop up on this blog eventually. ...

1973 Topps Danny Cater

Danny Cater. I heard a rumor once that the Sox dealt a pretty fair pitcher for him.

All wisecracks aside, at least then-Red Sox GM Dick O'Connell admitted it was the worst trade he ever made (If one of my dog-eared, taped-up, pages-falling out Baseball Hall of Shame books from my childhood servers me correctly). Lou Gorman, on the other hand, continued to defend the Jeff Bagwell trade until his dying day, sadly.

Topps gave Cater a card in '73 worthy of his tenure in Boston: capless photo, Yankee pinstripes in obvious view, hair flying everywhere as if he were yanked out of the clubhouse for a photo before he could put a comb to it ... this card is truly worthy of someone who compiled a 2.0 WAR over three seasons while Sparky Lyle was 8.4 over that same span, and he probably sat in twice as many birthday cakes.

That said, we're going to give Cater a decent-looking '73 card anyway. Cater looks like one of those guys who was caught off-guard by baseball's switch to double-knits in the early 70s, kinda like hair bands who were swept away by grunge in the early '90s -- which didn't stop the crue-heads in my high school from sporting leather jackets and spiky hair during the Nirvana era. Cater here just looks as if he'd be more comfortable in baggy flannel. Nineteen-seventies skin-tight knits were never meant for doughy players; trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

The original Cater is on the left; the new version is on the right.

1975 Topps Red Sox Throwbacks (part 3)

Here is the third and final installment of our 1975-style Topps cards of current Red Sox in '75 uniforms, inspired by their two throwback games earlier this season. Since these games happened in May and June:

1) Mike Napoli was traded to Texas;
2) Jackie Bradley Jr., turned into Baseball Jesus;
3) Wade Miley chopped off his long locks;
4) Koji Uehara suffered a freak injury and was lost for the season. Woof.
5) The Red Sox became fun and entertaining again.

1975 Topps Red Sox Throwbacks (part 2)

As promised, the second batch of 1975 Topps Red Sox retro cards, inspired by the Sox' pair of games in '75 uniforms to honor the AL champs from that year. While Topps didn't give managers their own cards in '75 (they were lumped in with the team cards), I decided to give John Farrell his own card here.

The original Pedroia photo has a copyright line that I wiped out:

1975 Topps Red Sox Throwbacks (part 1)

 

    

Earlier this season, the Red Sox honored their 1975 AL championship team by playing a pair of games in spot-on '75 throwback uniforms, complete with pullover jerseys, elastic waistbands, red hats and striped socks. Even the lettering, ever-so-slightly different from the current uniforms, is reproduced with 100 percent accuracy. Which is good, because bitching about inaccurate throwbacks might be the Internet's favorite pastime.

Presented here is the first batch of '75 Topps-style cards of the Sox in their throwbacks. Parts 2 and 3 will appear over the next week or so.

And yes, I know the real '75s show pictures of the '74 Sox in their blue hats (the red hats didn't debut until the '75 season, after the cards were printed), but I opted to use the kick-arse '75 design anyway. I also slightly faded and pixelated the photos to give them more of a '70s Topps feel. Unlike the real 75s, these lack facsimile autographs. Just like the real '75s, there are centering issues.

Two other things:

1) Brock Holt has to be the only player with an "IF-OF" all-star designation on a baseball card;

2) Am I the only one who thinks Ryan Hanigan looks like that guy in Zack and Miri Make a Porno?

1967 Topps Sparky Lyle

When "Sparky Lyle" and "Red Sox" are brought up in the same sentence, the infamous Danny Cater trade with the Yankees in 1972 is usually always the first thing that comes to mind. But Lyle had a fine rookie year for the '67 Sox in limited duty (2.28 ERA, 156 ERA+ in 43 1/3 innings). Alas, is was limited enough that Topps declined to put Lyle on a card until 1969. Here's his what-might-have-been from '67, taken at his future home in the Bronx Zoo. We'll look at that Cater guy in a future post.