Meet the Brewers #26: Mike Hershberger

On April 22, 1970, the Brewers debuted a new starting rightfielder. Mike Hershberger was finally healthy again, and he found himself batting third against the California Angels and its starter, Clyde Wright, in front of only 5,120 fans in Anaheim. Hershberger went 1-for-4 -- a single in the midst of three straight hits in the sixth inning against Wright that plated the only run Milwaukee scored in the game.

During Spring Training in 1970, Hershberger was impressing the Brewers' staff and front office with his hitting. He was set to be the Brewers starting rightfielder. Then, Hershberger pulled his right groin muscle and found himself watching the first two weeks of the season from the bench.

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Norman Michael Hershberger was born in Massillon, Ohio, on October 9, 1939. He was a great athlete in high school, as one would expect, and he starred in both baseball and football. Indeed, he logged one year of college at the University of Cincinnati after high school on a football scholarship. After his freshman year, however, and despite being slated to be the starting tailback for the Bearcats the next season, he signed to play professional baseball with the Chicago White Sox.

Hershberger got married to his high school sweetheart Judy in the fall of 1959. Those two stories are odd in that Judy Hershberger seems to have gotten more press coverage than most anyone else's wife that I have seen so far. The first link is from a Sarasota newspaper in 1959 and is titled, "Think You'd Like To Be A Baseball Player's Wife?" (subtitled, "Reporter Interviews Five 'Unusual' Visitors"). The second is from the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1970 and highlighted the fact that five Brewers' wives lived within two blocks of one another in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The weird thing about that second story is that it comes across about 150% more sexist than the first article -- providing first names for only two of the women (they are otherwise known as "Mrs. [fill in ballplayer's name]") and calling Ted Kubiak's wife, "a long legged Canadian beauty" -- again, without providing her first name!

1971 O-Pee-Chee [Back]

By the time he turned 22 years old, Hershberger had already made his major league debut for the White Sox in 1961. He spent four years on Chicago's South Side and, like the remainder of his baseball career, he showed very good contact skills -- striking out in less than 10% of his plate appearances (Hershberger regularly featured in the top 10 most at-bats per strikeout between 1963 and 1967) -- but not much power. Add in the fact that he was not a very successful base stealer (74 of 110 for his career), and you have someone who best fit the role of a fourth outfielder. Still, he had a strong arm and led the AL in assists in 1965, 1966, and 1967.

1971 Topps/O-Pee-Chee

His career with the White Sox ended before the 1965 season when he was a part of a big three-team trade. He went to the Kansas City Athletics with Jim Landis and, eventually, Fred Talbot from Chicago. The A's sent Rocky Colavito to Cleveland in the deal. The White Sox sent Cam Carreon to the Indians as well. Cleveland sent Tommie Agee, Tommy John, and John Romano to the White Sox.

His career with Kansas City and, then, Oakland, went well until 1968. In 1968, the A's started forming the base of the team that would become the back-to-back-to-back World Series Champions from 1972 to 1974. The base of the team to which I'm referring is their outfield, comprised of 21-year-old Joe Rudi, 22-year-old Rick Monday, and 22-year-old Reggie Jackson. Of course, that 1968 A's team has a bunch of guys who would later play with Milwaukee/Seattle in the next two-to-three years, so that tells you that they weren't quite ready for primetime yet (that list includes Hershberger, Jim Pagliaroni, Ted Kubiak, Phil Roof, Jim Gosger, Lew Krausse, Jack Aker, Ed Sprague, Diego Segui, Ken Sanders, and George Lauzerique at least).

1970 Flavor-est Milk Set (1986 Reprint)

Hershberger's time in Milwaukee did not last past 1970. Hershberger pulled another groin muscle -- this time on his left side -- near the end of July, causing his season to end after a 1-for-3 performance on July 26. How he pulled the muscle underlines what an unlucky season it was for him: According to the July 29, 1970, Milwaukee Journal, Herschberger was attending a family picnic on an off day after the July 26 game against Boston. The skies opened up, and the family ran for the car. As Hershberger ran for his car, he slipped and pulled the muscle.  In the end, he started just 28 games in 1970, and the team released him after the season. He caught on for one more season in Chicago before retiring.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

After his baseball career ended, Hershberger ended up in sales in the toy industry. He worked for Hasbro Industries -- the company that gave us the excellent game that killed many folks, "Javelin Darts" or "Jarts" or, simply, lawn darts. Accompanying that nightmare game was another game called The Hypo-Squirt -- described on Wikipedia as "a hypodermic needle shaped water gun tagged by the press as a "junior junkie" kit.

Any of you guys who collect toys own a "Hypo-Squirt"?

Anyway, Hershberger left Hasbro in 1975 and went to work for The Ohio Art Company -- which produced and owned the "Etch A Sketch" toy for over five decades until it sold the product to Spin Master Corp. in January of 2016. 

From there, he moved on to working in sporting good sales for the rest of his life. He spent his spare time working with charities such as the St. Joseph's Orphanage, the Special Olympics, and The Massillon Boys Club, among others. Hershberger passed away at the age of 72 on July 1, 2012. 

Hershberger appears on 8 cards/items as a Brewer (counting the original and the reprint Flavor-Est Milk sets as two separate items). I have the ones I have shown here, and I am missing the 1970 Mike Andersen Postcard (which features the same photo as the Flavor-Est set again...) and the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers Picture Pack of Hershberger.

Have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Meet the Brewers #25: Phil Roof

When the Brewers began the 1970 season, manager Dave Bristol seemingly had decided that veteran catcher Jerry McNertney would be his regular catcher. McNertney had been the starter in Seattle the year before, so perhaps there was a bit of incumbency bias going on there. As a result, it took Phil Roof until the sixth game of the season to get into a game -- and then only because the Brewers and White Sox played a doubleheader, with Roof starting game 2 of the doubleheader.

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

By the end of the season, however, Roof had played parts of 107 games behind the plate and McNertney had played in 95 as the backstop. It wasn't a platoon -- both bat right-handed. The two men were the only players to appear at catcher that year for the Brewers, making catcher a strange island of stability (along with shortstop) when compared to rightfield (12 different players appeared), leftfield (11), and first base (10, including both catchers).

The back of Roof's 1971 O-Pee-Chee Card

Phillip Anthony Roof was born in Paducah, Kentucky in a baseball-playing family. His cousin Eddie Haas appeared in 55 total games in the big leagues in the late 1950s and in 1960, and his brother Gene Roof made 48 total appearances in the 1980s (mostly for the Cardinals but also 8 games with the Expos in 1983). Additionally, Roof brothers Adrian, Paul, and David all played minor league ball as did Gene's sons Shawn, Eric, and Jonathan.

By far the most prolific of the family, Phil played in 15 total major league seasons. Roof has a number of strange distinctions. He is one of just three players to appear for both the Milwaukee Braves and Milwaukee Brewers (2 games for the Braves, 1 in 1961 and one in 1964). The other two are Felipe Alou (who hit three times for the Brewers in 1974) and Hank Aaron. A fourth player, George Brunet, appeared for the Milwaukee Braves and the Seattle Pilots, but he never made it to Milwaukee.

1971 Topps (or 1971 O-Pee-Chee, your choice)

Roof also appeared for the first iteration of the California Angels in 1965 after their name change from being the LA Angels. He was a member of the first Oakland A's team after their move from Kansas City. He stayed two seasons in Oakland before he was traded. Phil joined the Brewers organization while it was nominally still the Pilots, coming to the Brewers with Mike Hershberger, Lew Krausse, and Ken Sanders from Oakland in exchange for Ron Clark and Jaybarkerfan idol Don Mincher in a January 1970 trade.

Finally, he also made 5 plate appearances in his final season as a member of the inaugural Toronto Blue Jays. Amidst all those interesting places, he spent the most time with the Minnesota Twins -- parts of 6 seasons, starting in 1971 and ending 1976. Through it all, however, Roof was definitely more of a member of the backup catchers' and defensive specialists' union than any kind of star.

1970 Flavor-Est Milk (Reprint)

After his retirement as an active player, he spent eight seasons as a major league coach with the San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, and Chicago Cubs. Then, the Twins came calling and asked him to serve as a minor-league manager. He did that for 16 years before retiring in 2005. Finally, he pinch-hit as the bullpen coach for the Twins in 2011 while regular bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek recovered from eye surgery.

1994 Miller Brewing Set

As recently as 2013 (that's as recent as I can find), the then-72-year-old Roof still was coming to Twins spring training and throwing batting practice. In various interviews with Roof -- whether in 2000 when he managed the Triple-A Salt Lake Buzz, in 2011 when talking about his pal Bert Blyleven's induction into the Hall of Fame, or later that same year when Roof himself was inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame -- he comes across as someone who understands how lucky he has been to be able to spend his entire life in and around a game he's loved since he was a kid.

Counting the "milk" set, Roof appears on a total of 9 cards as a Milwaukee Brewer (10 if you count the original Milk set and the reprint separately). Of those, I have the five I've shown here. I'm missing the 1970 Mike Andersen Postcard, the 1970 and 1971 Brewers Picture Packs, the original Milk set card, and the 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp.

Meet the Brewers #24: Bobby Bolin

The 1970 Milwaukee Brewers started the season in a four-man rotation. The number four man in the rotation -- Bobby Donald Bolin -- made his debut on Saturday, April 11, 1970, at "White Sox Park" in front of just 2,696 fans. As an aside before jumping in to the Bolin story, it's no wonder with attendance like that why the Chicago White Sox explored moving to Milwaukee in the late 1960s. The White Sox threatening to move was a consistent theme from the mid-1960s through the late 1980s -- until the "new" Comiskey was built.

Back to Bolin. His debut with Milwaukee was not all that successful personally. He pitched just four innings and gave up 4 earned runs on 4 hits and 2 walks including a solo homer in the first inning to future Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio. However, the Brewers rallied to score 2 runs in the six, 2 more in the eighth -- all on two two-run homers hit by Danny Walton -- and then adding 4 more runs in the 9th inning. All together, that scoring barrage couple with the bullpen holding the White Sox scoreless led to the first ever win in Milwaukee Brewers history. John O'Donoghue got the win, and Bob Locker got the save.

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Bobby was traded to the Seattle Pilots/Milwaukee Brewers in December of 1969 by the San Francisco Giants in exchange for Dick Simpson and Steve Whitaker. Bolin spent nine of his major league seasons with the Giants. In those years, he was fairly effective as a fifth starter/swingman. In every year with the Giants, he made at least 2 relief appearances and at least 1 start. Only once -- 1966 -- did he pitch more than 200 innings (he threw 224-1/3 innings that year and was quite effective, finishing 9th in the league in ERA that year). 

Here's a "rare sports film" of Bolin in action for the Giants:

He was a Brewer player for only a little over five months. In that time, he made 20 starts -- the last of which came on August 29 -- and appeared in 32 total games. He even notched a save. But, as was the case for the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers team, everyone was subject to being traded if the right deal or just about any deal came along. On September 10, the Red Sox came calling and told Milwaukee that the Sox would gladly pay them Tuesday for a Bobby Bolin today. In October, the Brewers received outfielder Al Yates in return.

1994 Miller Milwaukee Brewers Commemorative Set

Bolin retired after three more seasons with the Red Sox in which he never once started a game and, in fact, after a 1973 season in which he finished 7th in the league in saves with 15. Based on his comments last year at a lunch for former baseball players from Rock Hill (South Carolina) High School, it sounds like he didn't so much retire as he was retired: "I loved the game and would have played until I was 90 if they had let me."

A very long, detailed interview with Bolin in a Christian magazine talks in depth about his career and his faith. His time in San Francisco saw him managed for his first four years by Alvin Dark -- a man known for his strong beliefs in God and his proselytizing through various means for years afterward. A humorous story about Bolin mentions how he helped his church as a big leaguer. He gave 10% of his salary to his local Baptist church. The pastor got paid through getting the offering every fifth Sunday and pocketing it. Bolin sent the tithe to his mother, and Bolin learned only much later in life that his mother made sure that the tithe never went into the offering on that fifth Sunday!

If you're interested in hearing Bolin speak, here's a half-hour talk he gave at the Textile Sports Reunion in Piedmont, South Carolina, on March 16, 2013.

As best I can tell, Bolin appears on just three cards as a Brewer -- the two shown here and the 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp. He didn't make the cut for that Flavor-Est Milk set, apparently.

Meet the Brewers #23: Wayne Comer

Wayne Comer did not play until the Brewers' third game, serving as a pinch hitter for Russ Snyder before playing right field against the Chicago White Sox in a 5-4 loss in the third game of the season. 

In 1970, Wayne Comer was coming off a very successful rookie season with the Seattle Pilots. In 147 games (573 plate appearances), he put up good numbers: 15 HRs, 54 RBI, 18 SB (in 25 attempts...not so hot), and slashing .245/.354/.380. He walked more than he struck out -- 82 walks, 79 strikeouts -- at the age of just 25 years old. And yet, he played 57 more games in 1969 than in any other season in his career.

Why the 26-year-old who was coming off a fairly successful season did not get to start is a big question: the other options were the 36-year-old Snyder and 33-year-old Ted Savage, amongst others. 

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Perhaps it was this: during an exhibition game just prior to the season that took place in Oakland, Comer was at bat. He fouled a ball off straight down, and it bounced up and hit him in the head. Oddly, his SABR Biography does not make note of this and calls Comer the Brewers' starting centerfielder. This clearly was not true as he made only two starts -- only one in centerfield -- for the Brewers during the first month of the season.

Even though he was a rookie in 1969, he already had a World Series ring. He served as a pinch hitter for the Detroit Tigers in 1968, going 6 for 48. But, he was on the World Series roster against the St. Louis Cardinals in that last World Series before the addition of divisions and the League Championship Series. He batted once in the 1968 Series and singled, meaning he had a perfect post-season career.

Despite the very good 1969, it seems that his talents were not appreciated in his day. Yes, this is another example of baseball people focusing on batting average rather than on-base percentage. His major league OBP in 807 plate appearances was .331, but his batting average was just .229. His minor league OBP was .367 versus a batting average of .275. 

1988 Reprint of 1970 Flavor-Est Milk Set 

The other thing going on here may be as simple as someone actually understanding park effects. Sick's Stadium in Seattle was a bandbox -- just 305 feet down the left-field line. It was a terrible stadium -- just read the Wikipedia entry about it to hear all the problems. For instance, on opening day 1969, some people had to wait to sit down for three innings because workers were still putting the seats together.

Comer did not last long in Milwaukee. He went hitless for his first fifteen at-bats, got a pinch-hit single in the first game of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators on May 10, then made an out pinch hitting again in the second game of that doubleheader. That was his last game in Milwaukee, as Comer was traded to the Senators on May 11, 1970 for Hank Allen and Ron Theobald.

1994 Miller Brewing Milwaukee Brewers

Comer played in the minor leagues until the age of 30 in 1974. Thereafter, he first went into sporting goods sales. After that, he became a local teacher and baseball coach in his hometown of Shenandoah, Virginia -- a small town along the South Fork of the Shenandoah River near Interstate 81 in western Virginia -- and in nearby Harrisonburg, Virginia. 

Comer was certainly a local celebrity -- to the point where one reference to him came up on a church website for the Vision of Hope United Methodist Church. The reference is in a sermon overview, and it provides something of a window into what Comer really was like:

Many of you know the name of Wayne Comer. A resident of Page County, Wayne was a super-talented baseball player who made it all the way to the Show -- the major leagues. He was a utility infielder on the 1968 World Champion Detroit Tigers, and also played for the Seattle Pilots. . . . Wayne spent several years operating a very successful sporting goods franchise here in Harrisonburg. And upon retiring from that, he did a short stint as coach of the Spotswood High School Trailblazers baseball team.

The sermon continued by comparing Comer to Bobby Knight and the "my-way-or-the-highway approach" and described Wayne's personality as follows:

Now anyone who has ever known Wayne will agree he has no lack of confidence. And many will tell you he's an arrogant ol' cuss.

Yet, as the sermon continued, it talked about how long after retirement, Comer agreed to come help a struggling second grade boy who needed someone to keep tabs on him and provide a control and a role model on how to act properly in class and school. It worked like a charm.

Wayne Comer has just 11 cards of him from his playing career on the Trading Card Database. Of course, that Broder-type "Flavor-Est" milk set is not in the Trading Card Database, so make it 12. Out of those 12, four show him as a Brewer -- the three I've shown here along with his 1970 Mike Andersen Postcard -- the photo for which is the same as this Flavor-Est card.

Meet the Brewers #22: Gene Brabender

I haven't done a "Meet the Brewers" post in a while, and who better to get me off the schneid than Black Earth, Wisconsin's own Gene Brabender (pronounced "brah-bender," as if you're bending a woman's undergarment). Brabender was the third starter in the Brewers opening rotation, and he was the first Wisconsin native to play for the team. 

There have been a few Wisconsin-born players to play for the team -- Jim Gantner, Jerry Augustine, Damian Miller, Bob Wickman, and Paul Wagner, for example (while current manager Craig Counsell went to high school in Whitefish Bay, he was born in South Bend, Indiana). For a while, the Brewers chased Wisconsin-raised players like the Expos chased Canadians. But big Gene Brabender was the first -- starting the third game of the season in front of just 1,036 fans for a Friday afternoon game against the Chicago White Sox. Keep in mind -- no one in Milwaukee really knew that they would have a major league team just a week earlier, so perhaps that attendance is somewhat understandable.

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Brabender was born in Madison and raised near tiny Black Earth -- about twenty miles west of Madison -- on a farm with 6 other brothers and sisters. When Brabender was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, the village had between 531 and 784 residents -- the kind of place where everyone pretty much knows everyone. 

As his incredibly detailed and well-researched SABR biography notes (and that is my source for most of this information), Brabender growing up on a farm meant that he helped milk cows -- humping the huge milk cans by hand from the barn milking area to the cooler for pickup -- and he helped clear trees. Along the way, Gene would find timber rattlers nesting in the groves and, since they were not a protected species, Gene would dispatch the snakes -- which, when grown, average between three and five feet long -- by grabbing them by the tail, swinging them like a lasso, and then breaking them up with a whip-crack to kill them. 

All that hard work on the farm led him to be a big, strong kid, filling out his 6'5" frame. He excelled at baseball and was a very hard thrower. That got him noticed, and he signed initially with the Los Angeles Dodgers midway through his freshman year of college. He had started school at what is now the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with plans to become a teacher, but baseball and a $10,000 signing bonus beckoned. 

Brabender's career was sidetracked for two years in the mid-1960s by him getting drafted. During that time, he was drafted in the Rule V draft by the Orioles in 1965 -- freeing him from being behind Koufax and Drysdale. His first year in the majors was 1966, and he was a member of the World Series-winning Orioles that year -- though he never got the opportunity to face his former club in the Series.

Brabender achieved notoriety by being a member of the 1969 Seattle Pilots. In many respects, outside of Jim Bouton, Brabender was really the star of the book Ball Four. Whether it was his jokes in nailing Bouton's shoes to the floor and ruining a new pair of spikes or throwing a shutout against Kansas City while pounding a beer in the clubhouse after each inning, he came away as being both the gentle giant and the man you did not want to cross.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

Brabender came with the club to Milwaukee, but results for the big man were not good -- 6-15 record, 6.02 ERA (though with a 4.26 FIP), with 127 hits, 79 walks, and 76 strikeouts in 128-2/3 innings. He hurt his leg early in the year and, perhaps, that helped add to the sore shoulder he fought through 1970. He was traded after the 1970 season to the Angels, but he never was the same player and 1970 ended up being his last season in the major leagues.

But, it did allow him to live out his childhood dream and promise. He grew up a Milwaukee Braves fan, and on one visit he told his father, "I'll play here someday." Unlike most kids who make that promise, Brabender got to live it out.

He went through hard times after his career ended. He had significant financial problems, got divorced, and even had to pledge his 1966 World Series ring for a loan. He worked in small-time construction jobs for years as well. Then, at the age of just 55, he collapsed outside his home from a brain aneurysm. Passers by found him thanks to the dome light in his truck being on, and he was rushed to the hospital. It was too late. On December 27, 1996, he passed away.

Brabender has appeared on a total of 18 cards on Trading Card Database, which includes the 2014 foil stamp of his 1967 card. So, with the McDonald's card above that isn't listed on TCDB, that's 19 total. Of those, four -- the two here, a 1970 Mike Andersen Postcard, and the 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamps -- show him as a Milwaukee Brewers player.

He is buried today in the St. Barnabas Cemetery in Mazomanie, Wisconsin.

Marking a Milestone: Post #500

I know I sort of did a "state of the blog" post back when I hit my two-year anniversary of blogging. Doing another retrospective so soon after that for post #500 would be a bit lazy, I think. Heck, I even did a bit of a look ahead in that post to try to set some goals.

Nope. Can't do another retrospective.

Also, it would be a little anticlimactic to do a straightforward trade post. I have a bunch to get through thanks to the generosity of SuperTraders and non-SuperTraders alike, but I feel like I need something a little bit more than just that. 

So, what to do? What to do?

I'm actually going to try to do something I have never done before: identify my five favorite oddball Brewers cards or sets. After all, I love oddballs. I love the Brewers. Add them together, and you have what I love in baseball cards!

One rule: the set can only be composed of Brewers players. So, no Kellogg's, Hostess, or Jays Potato Chips discs, even though I do love those cards.

One more thing: it has to have music, right? Yes. It must.

#5: 1985 Gardner's Bakery/Topps Milwaukee Brewers

The colors pop. The design reminds me of a 1980s version of the 1955 Bowman set. All of the cards are horizontal. The only letdown is that the 1985 team was not all that good. 

Still, 1985 was a pretty good year generally. It was the year that saw the team welcome a Mexican lefty to the fold in Ted Higuera. It was Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers's final year in the major leagues, and it was a year that I got to attend a pretty good number of Brewers games thanks to the "Brewers Pepsi Fan Club" and the still reasonably priced tickets.

It was a year that I paid attention to music a lot too, especially this classic by Dire Straits:

#4: 1982 Milwaukee Brewers Police

The first Brewers Police set, which got me to convince my mother that we had to go to that game in May of 1982. Buck Rodgers was still the manager of the team at that time.  It was a team that was playing listlessly, underperforming and playing tightly. It was a team that needed to loosen up, because it was a veteran team. 

It took Harvey Kuenn taking over the reins and basically saying, "let's just have fun and play ball, boys" for the team to start performing the way people expected. I went to several more games that season, including Game 3 of the ALCS and Game 5 of the World Series. We felt utterly over our station financially because we had to pay the king's ransom of $10 (the equivalent today of $25.16) for a Standing Room ticket for that World Series game. 

1982 was also the year that I first won something in a radio call-in contest. Well, to be fair, it was the first luck-based contest that I'd ever won. I was caller #7 one Saturday morning, and my prize was the full 33-1/3 RPM album Rio by Duran Duran. So, I remember the song "Hungry Like The Wolf" with happiness.

#3 2000 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Brewers All-Decades Teams

This is a set that I've caught up with after getting back into collecting. In 2000, the local Milwaukee paper -- the Journal Sentinel -- used internet voting to allow fans to vote on their teams of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. It is a well-designed set with good, contemporaneous photograph (meaning that 1970s Robin Yount is a teenager and 1990s Robin Yount is a middle-aged man) and even a little gold foil too. 

I quite like them.

The year 2000 saw me having a great job with a good law firm and having more money than I had ever had in my life. As any mid-to-late-20s man who is single and has too much money would do, I blew a lot of it on liquor. 

That differs from today because I'm married and I don't have too much money because I'm married.

Going back to 2000, though, the song Kryptonite brings back a very specific memory for me. I was on a business trip with a young partner at my law firm whom I drank a lot with and hung out with. He and I were in New Orleans for a document review, so we had to have some fun. So, what I recall specifically was a very cute stripper dancing to this song doing a dance for me purchased for me by the partner (he had his own dancer). Seriously, I can't think of this song without thinking of being in a strip club in New Orleans. That same night, we randomly happened to run into Steve McNair in our hotel as he was in town for Essence Festival or something like that.

Strange days indeed.

#2 1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Yes, these last two may seem a bit predictable. But I love the 1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers for being the very first set of the MILWAUKEE team in the American League and not the Seattle Pilots. Some of the drawings look more like the result of a courtroom sketch artist rather than someone actually trying to draw the players -- like this Tommy Harper.

This song doesn't really have any memory from 1970 for me, since I wasn't born until the end of 1971. But, it reminds me of college a lot. I had a good friend in college (he's still a friend, and he lives in Atlanta as I do, but life gets in the way for us and we don't see each other much) who really liked CCR and a lot of other random music. For whatever reason, it allowed me the freedom to like the music without caring if it is "cool" -- it seemed cool because my friend and I both liked it. So, I still like it, though I don't listen all that frequently to it.

#1 1994-1995 Miller Milwaukee Brewers

This was an easy selection as number 1, at least until the Brewers do a complete 50th anniversary or commemorative set in 2020 to mirror the one that came out in the 1994/1995 season to commemorate 25 seasons in Milwaukee for the Brewers. I, for one, would welcome that comprehensive 2020 commemorative set because it will be the only way for me to ever get cards of probably 30% of the Brewers that played for the team in the past 20 years.

"Snoop Doggy Dogg needs to get himself a jobby job."

I love that line, and this song is a classic from 1994's charts to go with it. Snoop had his real fastball in this song. He's been working as a junkballer for so long that it's sometimes tough to remember these 98 MPH zingers.

Special bonus #1: Favorite Custom Card

Again, this is probably no surprise if you can recall the emotions that this custom card from Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown stirred in me -- once again taking me back to 1982 in a way that only a photo of a specific event that I remember well could possibly do.

No music for this one though -- only the warm feeling of it being 45 degrees, sunny, and the future looking fantastically bright for my favorite team.

Special Bonus #2: Favorite Card Since Returning to Collecting

Maybe this is a surprise, and maybe it is not. I love the celebration on Jonathan Lucroy's 2014 Topps card -- so much so that I have 17 different versions of it including the pink bordered version serial numbered 49 of 50 in that lower right hand corner. As you can see, though, there are plenty of other variations that I am still trying to find.

What do I need?

Well, Lucroy was not in the Opening Day set that year, so what I need are:

Mini Gold, Mini Pink, Mini Black, Mini Printing Plates, Mini Platinum 

Chrome Blue Refractor, Black Refractor, Gold Refractor, Red Refractor, Atomic Refractor, SuperFractor, Printing Plates

Base Parallels: Yellow, Black, Clear, Platinum, and Printing Plates

That's an awful lot of 1/1 cards, certainly, so I know I'll never completely Luc out. 

And music to go with this?

I like the song, and, well, if "Team" doesn't express what that Lucroy card is all about, I don't know what does.

Thanks for putting up with my often self-indulgent writing for 500 posts. Here's to many more trades, many more posts, and a lot more fun. Once it's not fun, I'm done. But it's a lot of fun for me to write these, to look up music, and to be creative.

It entertains me. And, if it entertains you even once every 10 posts, well, that makes me feel good too.

Thanks.

Meet the Brewers #21: Bob Locker

In the Milwaukee Brewers second game as the Brewers, manager Dave Bristol got a very good start from starter Marty Pattin. The hitters squandered chances in the early innings -- Angels starter Tom Murphy (Brewer #112 and the Brewers closer for 1974 and 1975) allowed seven hits and four walks in 6-2/3 innings -- but the Brewers could only push one run across the plate. 

Once Bristol went to his bullpen, though, the game got out of hand. First, reliever John O'Donoghue allowed 2 batters to reach on a single and a run-scoring triple (after a flyout), then Brewer #21 -- Bob Locker -- came in and allowed inherited runner Bill Voss to score. Then, in the ninth inning, Locker got one out quickly. He then hit Aurelio Rodriguez and let Ken Tatum reach on an error. After Sandy Alomar Sr. grounded into a forceout, Jim Fregosi and Bill Voss had back-to-back hits to score two more runs -- unearned, mind you.

I've always thought that runs caused by pitcher errors should be calculated as earned...

1994 Miller Milwaukee Brewers 

Robert Awtry Locker was a Midwesterner by birth -- born, raised, and educated in Iowa, attending Iowa State University. He pitched three minor league seasons spread over five years -- pitching in 1960, 1961, and 1964 while spending 1962 and 1963 in the military. As a minor leaguer, Locker started in 63 of his 78 appearances. In the major leagues, however, he appeared in 576 games as a reliever and never started a game. 

Locker's career was spent mostly in Chicago and Oakland. He pitched in five seasons for the White Sox, beginning the 1965 season as a 27-year-old rookie with the club and staying there until being traded to the Seattle Pilots in June of 1969 for Gary Bell. With the White Sox, he saved 48 games over the parts of five seasons he spent with the club and led the American League in appearances in 1967 with 77 and finishing second in saves that season with 20. 

He spent just over one calendar year with the Pilots/Brewers -- arriving on June 8, 1969, and departing on June 15, 1970 when the Oakland A's purchased his contract. 

That began a series of back-and-forth moves between Oakland and the Chicago Cubs for Locker. He was a part of the A's first World Series Championship team in 1972 before he was traded to the Cubs by the A's after 1972 for Bill North. He spent 1973 with the Cubs, only to be traded him back to Oakland for the 1974 season. 

Locker missed 1974 thanks to an injury in spring training -- but that didn't stop the Cubs for trading for him again when the club sent Hall of Famer Billy Williams to Oakland in exchange for Locker, Darold Knowles, and Manny Trillo after the 1974 season. Locker was released by the Cubs midway through the 1975 season -- probably because Oakland did not want to trade for him again -- and he called it a career after that.

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

As an aside, I'm not sure quite where the McDonald's set got his birthplace from. Hull is right outside Athens, Georgia. It's nowhere near Iowa, obviously, and as best I can tell, there was not another Locker anywhere near baseball at that time.

Since his retirement, Locker settled in California where he hunts, fishes, and serves as the webmaster for a website called "Thanks Marvin." Locker established the website to thank longtime MLBPA leader Marvin Miller for his hard work on behalf of the players to allow them to treat baseball like a year-round career rather than something that interrupted "real" jobs. Locker served as the Brewers player representative for the short time he was in Milwaukee, and he remained involved with the Players' Union for much of his career.

He also established the website to lobby for Miller to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Inexplicably, despite the indisputable facts regarding Miller's positive impact on the game for both players (financially) and fans (without question, the quality of play has improved since players are now professional baseball players all year), Miller still is not a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Thanks both to the late move to Milwaukee in 1970 for the Pilots and his midseason trade to Oakland, there are very few Bob Locker cards showing him as a Brewer. In addition to the two shown above, there are two or three others: the 1970 Mike Andersen Postcard of him, perhaps the MLB PhotoStamp from 1970 of him, and the 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamps which still shows him as a Brewer.

Meet the Brewers #20: John O'Donoghue

A major-league veteran who was once an all-star in the same season that he led the American League in losses, John O'Donoghue was the twentieth Brewer to play in 1970. He made his appearance in relief of Marty Pattin in the 8th inning of game two. O'Donoghue coaxed a fly ball out of Sandy Alomar, Sr., before Jim Fregosi singled and Bill Voss tripled to drive Fregosi in. 

O'Donoghue was yanked, and Voss scored on a single from Alex Johnson immediately thereafter. That left O'Donoghue's ERA at 54.00 after facing three batters and pitching one-third of an inning.

1970 McDonald's Brewers

John Eugene O'Donoghue was another short-timer in Milwaukee. O'Donoghue signed with the Kansas City Athletics in 1959 as a free agent out of the University of Missouri. Looking at his minor league record, it's a bit of a question as to how he actually made it to the major leagues, except, perhaps, that it took him a while to show he could pitch at all. His best minor league work -- in the Double-A Eastern League in 1963 -- led to him getting called up to the majors by the end of the year. 

He stayed in the major leagues in 1964 for the entire year, and results for him were not great, as he sported a 4.92 ERA in a league with an overall 3.63 ERA. Somehow and for some seemingly inexplicable reason, he served as Kansas City's (seemingly) sole All-Star representative despite first-half results of 4-12, 4.08 ERA, 30 walks and 36 strikeouts in 92-2/3 innings. By the end of the year, O'Donoghue had racked up 18 losses, good enough to lead the league.

Perhaps recognizing that he wasn't very good, the A's traded him in April of 1966 to the Cleveland Indians for Ralph Terry. After the 1967 season -- his best year to date at 8-9, 3.24 ERA (3.10 FIP), the Indians packaged him in a deal to Baltimore. One year after that, and in April of 1969, O'Donoghue joined the Island of Misfit Toys in Sicks Stadium in Seattle. He was cited by Jim Bouton in Ball Four as being the "chief kid-shooer" around the stadium, with Bouton claiming O'Donoghue enjoyed the work.

1994 Miller Milwaukee Brewers

He pitched very well in Seattle as a reliever. That success did not carry over to Milwaukee, as O'Donoghue was bombed to the tune of a 5.01 ERA (4.91 FIP) in 23-1/3 innings. The Brewers dumped him on the Montreal Expos on June 15, 1970 in exchange for a utility infielder (Jose Herrera) who never played in the majors for Milwaukee. O'Donoghue pitched for the Expos in 1970 and 1971, at which time his career came to an end at the age of 31. He coached a couple of years (at least) at Bowie in the Eastern League in 1993 and 1994.

Other than that, I have three other things about him. First, he participated in an "Elderhostel" vacation series in the Bradenton/Sarasota area several years ago, where 25 or so folks over 55 paid $569 for four game tickets in spring training with five nights of meals and lodging and the opportunity to meet former Negro Leaguer Leon Harris along with O'Donoghue. I don't know if he still does that.

Second, he can be seen here standing on second base for some infield drills with a coach that I can't hear.

Finally, his family is also pretty athletic. O'Donoghue's son, John Preston O'Donoghue, was an amateur free agent signed out of LSU by the Orioles. Against many of the odds, John Jr. made it to the major leagues in 1993 at the age of 24 and pitched 19-2/3 innings in his major league career. His grandson is Landon Archangelo, who is a quarterback on the football team at Shippensburg University. 

As best I can tell, there are a grand total of four cards/items showing him as a Brewer. He has two Mike Andersen Postcards from 1970 with two different photos along with the two cards I've got.

Meet the Brewers #19: John Kennedy

On the same day -- May 18, 1970 -- that Brewer #18 Greg Goossen was sent to the minor leagues outright, another Brewer was placed on waivers and sent to Triple-A: John Kennedy.

Kennedy did not make his debut as a Brewer until the bottom of the 7th inning in the second game of the season. He debuted by pinch running for Goossen, who had pinch hit for Mike Hegan. Kennedy then played first base for the rest of that game. 

1970 McDonald's Milwaukee Brewers

Kennedy was a 28-year-old utility infielder with the Brewers when the season started. Marvin Milkes, the GM who quit at the end of the 1970 season -- likely allowed to resign before he was fired (interesting side note: Milkes went next to be the GM of the New York Raiders in the World Hockey Association in 1972 for 8 months, then, nearly 10 years later, he became the GM of the Los Angeles Aztecs in NASL just before it folded) -- sold Kennedy's contract to the Red Sox in June of 1970 rather than getting a player. Perhaps Bud Selig needed to pay for a new shipment of used Buicks.

Anyway...Kennedy. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1941. Coincidentally, he shared this May 29 birth date with a more famous John Kennedy, the future president who turned 24 on John Edward Kennedy's birthdate. Even more coincidentally, as his SABR biography points out, the baseball player was signed by the Washington Senators in 1961 and broke in with the Senators in 1962.

It was a rather auspicious debut. Pinch hitting in the bottom of the sixth inning against the team that was the Senators previously -- the Minnesota Twins -- Kennedy stepped up and promptly homered in his first major league at bat and, in the process, broke up a no-hitter. Still, JEK was never a power hitter; his career high came in 1964 when he hit 7 homers in 521 plate appearances. 

The highlight of his career came in 1965, when Walter Alston used Kennedy as a late-inning defensive replacement for much of the season (104 games played, 120 plate appearances). The Dodgers went on to win the World Series that year, and Kennedy was on the field at the end of the seventh game when the Dodgers won.

1994 Miller Brewing Milwaukee Brewers

Two stories seem to have followed Kennedy around for his career. The first is one Kennedy probably told hundreds of times: that, on one occasion, a letter meant for him went to the White House; by 2010 when the SABR biography writer asked, the letter was from Kennedy's fiancee.

The second story is, as you might guess, one of infamy from Ball Four in an entry dated June 18:

John Kennedy flew into a rage at Emmett Ashford over a called strike and was tossed out of the game. Still raging, he kicked in the water cooler in the dugout, picked it up and threw it onto the field. Afterward, we asked him what had gotten into him. He really isn't that type. And he said, "Just as I got called out on strikes, my greenie kicked in."

Kennedy told that story to some 250 kids and adults at the Elks home in Rockland, Maine, in December of 1971.  Kennedy claimed that the remark had been made in a joking fashion, saying, according to the newspaper, 

that he had vowed that anywhere he spoke he would relay the tale and try to impress upon young people the evils and dangers of taking drugs. He told the young ballplayers that it would be physically and mentally impossible for any athlete to perform effectively if he took drugs.

Ah, that 1950s mentality still in full force and effect.

Kennedy repeated his statement about that being a joke in 2010 to his SABR biographer as well, saying that he and many of the 1969 Pilots -- and, by extension, a number of the 1970 Brewers -- felt violated by Bouton's book. Kennedy admitted, though, that "Now, though, looking back on it, it all seems pretty tame."

Kennedy went on to manage here and there in baseball -- a couple of years in the Red Sox system in the late 1970s and four seasons in two different independent leagues in the mid-2000s in particular.  In the time in between, he served as a scout who admittedly did not sign anyone who made it beyond Triple-A. As of 2010, he and his wife were living in Peabody, Massachusetts.

There are three to four cards of Kennedy as a Brewer. I say three to four because his Mike Andersen Postcard from 1970 probably calls him a Brewer but it features him with a logo-less helmet. Otherwise, he also appears with the Brewers on his 1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp and the two cards that I have, shown above.