According to Hoyle

Edmund Hoyle was a renown expert on the rules and play of card games in the early-to-mid 1700s in England. From his knowledge and authority on card games, an idiom of the English language developed: "According to Hoyle" means "according to the rules; in keeping with the way something is normally done."

In the two-and-a-half centuries since Edmund Hoyle lived, his name has become synonymous with card games and gambling -- so much so that Hoyle is a trademarked name of the U.S. Playing Card Company. You know -- the folks who put out those playing cards with baseball players on them back in the early 1990s.

In our online world of baseball card collecting, the name Hoyle has become synonymous with generosity and vintage cards and items thanks to Red Sox supercollector Mark Hoyle. Mark has gotten active on Twitter (follow him @Markhoyle4) and has begun posting photo after photo of some of the incredible items in his Red Sox collection -- everything from a 1955 Topps Doubleheader Ted Williams to a World Series Program from 1967 to the 1964 Tony Conigliaro Topps Rookie All-Star Banquet card (of which only 6 have been graded; Mark has one).

Like I said -- the man is a Red Sox supercollector.

The most recent package I got from Mark actually combined both baseball and playing cards, so I had to go with the cliché.

Let's start with cards that would make Edmund Hoyle pleased -- but which might make his name's trademark holder upset.  There is this site called "Hero Decks" which probably violates a number of trademark laws but which feature original drawings/caricatures of baseball heroes from a number of cities. They also have football, college football/sports, hockey, non-sport, and a few other oddities. Each one is full playing card deck.

This box carries the disclaimer that it is "Not affiliated with the Milwaukee Brewers." Being the lawyer here, I don't think that's good enough to avoid potential liability.

At any rate, enough talk about work. It appears that Mark needed the Warren Spahn, the Cecil Cooper, and the George Scott from the Milwaukee Hero Deck, but he was kind enough to share the rest of that deck with me. Here are a few cards I've dealt off the bottom of the deck:



The suits were set up to have spades represent the current players in 2007, diamonds represented the 1982 era team, hearts picked up players from the 1987 run through the 1990s, and, then, clubs were the Milwaukee Braves players.  In addition to the full 52-card deck, the two extras -- jokers? -- were Bob Uecker and Bud Selig. 

In looking at the list of players included in the set, I don't have too many complaints. Maybe I cut out Carlos Lee and include Ryan Braun instead if these cards were produced late enough in 2007 to make that switch. How George Scott got included while Sixto Lezcano and Don Money were left out is interesting as well. Finally, the real Braves head scratcher was including Bob "Hurricane" Hazle over a player like Joe Torre or Wes Covington -- who both spent a good amount of time in Milwaukee as Braves (though not on the 1957 team).

About half the deck are cards I need for player collections (no surprise there, of course) so I'll probably buy another one or even two of these for the sake of completeness.

Those cards were sent to accompany a great addition to my oddball collection that actually finishes off an oddball team set.

This 1971 Topps Coin of Danny Walton was the last one I needed for my collection after I went to my local card show a couple of weeks ago. Mark immediately piped up that he had this and would send it to me.

Let's give Mark a bit of thanks musically with his favorite band:

Coincidentally enough, this song reminds me of Massachusetts. I had a summer job in 1993 traveling around with a guy and installing furniture in renovated dorms and the like. He picked up a cassette tape of driving songs at some truck stop we stopped at, and this great song by The Allman Brothers Band was on it. 

Thank you very much, Mark, for the great cards and the awesome coin!

The One-Man Acoustical Jam Vintage Card Show

Thanks to Dave, the Cardboard Junkie, I was able to find out about the very cool one-man traveling card show operated by a gentleman out of Norman, Oklahoma named Roger. Roger really doesn't keep his website all that up to date -- it hasn't been updated since 2011 -- but that's kind of unsurprising. Roger's very much a paper-and-postcard kind of guy.

He has a loyal following around the country. People hear about his shows initially like I did -- by word of mouth. Once you go, you get on his mailing list. He then drops you a postcard -- always green, I'm told -- that you look forward to seeing three or four times a year which gives you the heads up that he's coming to town with his boxes and boxes of cards.

It's a hell of a lot better than a mailbox full of realtor flyers.

Roger caters to the high-end collector, in many respects. In the boxes I saw there, he had top-of-the-line tobacco cards, rookie cards for multiple sports, and top condition commons and stars from the 1940s through the early 1970s. The box I flipped through is probably the same one Dave focuses on, though -- the more reasonably priced cards that Roger has bought over the years that have writing, or minor creases, or not quite perfect centering, or not quite perfect corners.

The cool thing to me was just sitting there chatting with Roger and the other guys who stopped in. This is a regulars-type crowd, but it's an incredibly welcoming crowd.

I added to a number of my player collections, so let's start with the Joe Adcock cards:

Thanks, Joe, for talking to the good folks in Tulsa. That interview was, I believe, done in 1957, as Adcock said that "this" season would be his eighth in the majors. Joe says that he was feeling great and hadn't missed many games the previous year (he played 133 in 1956). Unfortunately, he played only 84 in the Braves World Series season. Still, he was only 29 years old at the time. But for those injuries he encountered, it's entirely possible that he would have hit 400 HR in his career.

These two Adcocks were among the most expensive cards I bought. The one on the bottom is the 1954 Johnston Cookies issue, a Milwaukee Braves oddball that fits well with the city of Milwaukee. The one on the top is the 1953 Bowman Color set. I bought this one and left behind a bunch of other Braves from that set thinking, "why do I have them listed on my wantlist? They're all Boston Braves!"

Then I get home and see that Joe is listed on the back as a Milwaukee Brave. The moral of the story is that I should always trust my wantlist.

For the life of me, I can't find a YouTube interview with Harvey Kuenn anywhere. Just for that, I'll turn to this fantastic Shepherd Express article for a great photo of Harvey with Sy Berger.

Harvey deserves that respect. Just like these two cards give him:

Yup, two oddballs. I can't help myself. Of course, I also am not 100% sure whether the top card is a Jell-O or a Post card from 1963. The bottom one is definitely a 1961 Nu-Card Scoops with sharpish corners.

I picked up a couple of Eddie Mathews cards too. Let's turn to the official Hall of Fame biography video for Eddie:

I haven't picked up the first ever Sports Illustrated with Mathews on the cover, but it is on my list of things that I definitely want. A 1954 Bowman, though, is not on that list any more.

Well, okay, it still is because I need another one for my Braves team set, but man is that card a nice card for what I paid for it. Again, other than the Kuenn Nu-Card Scoop and the Adcock Johnston Cookie card, these all came out of the "bargain" bin with few cards costing more than $5 each.

One last video introduction:



The coolest little fact in this vignette comes from Joe Torre, who said that he had the distinction of pinch-hitting one time for Spahn and also having Spahn pinch-hit one time for him.

Roger told a story about Spahn while I was there. He met Spahn and got to know him a bit. Spahn, though, was one of those guys who never remembered a guy's name but remembered a face. To Spahn, Roger was always known as "Oklahoma." Since Spahn settled there and, eventually, passed away in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Roger felt that Spahn just liked him for being a fellow Oklahoman on the baseball card circuit.

Okay, two more cards to talk about, and then it's a scan dump for the rest.

I actually purchased two whole Milwaukee Brewers cards from Roger, and one of them was one of the more expensive cards I got.

Here's the one that was cheap:

Mini team card! Straight into the Yount collection with that one, seeing as I needed it there. You can see Robin in the second row from the top dead center -- right behind Charlie Moore and Jim Slaton.

Here's the one that was not:

What a fantastic Kellogg's card! It's a 1971 Kellogg's card of Danny Walton. I suppose I could update my "Meet the Brewers" page for him with this. Maybe another time.

Finally, I got a ton more Milwaukee Braves for my Braves collection. I think I'll save them for later rather than just dump them.

Thanks for stopping by.

Meet the Brewers #5: Danny Walton

Before I move on to Brewer #5, I would be remiss if I didn't share one further card from Brewer #3, Tommy Harper.  Harper was voted to be the second baseman of the decade for the 1970s for the Milwaukee Brewers franchise. I guess the 30/30 season was better to the selectors (and, throwing in his 1969 season of stealing 75 bases) than Paul Molitor's first two years.  Pickings were pretty slim in that regard.  But, here's the card from 2000 to highlight the achievement:

Now, onto #5.  The fifth Brewer in the April 7, 1970, Opening Day to find himself on the scoresheet caught outs number 2 and 3 in the top of the first inning. Both shortstop Jim Fregosi and right fielder Bill Voss (who found himself in Brewtown in 1971) flied out to left fielder Danny Walton.  

Walton was born and raised in California. Growing up, he was a switch hitter and idolized Mickey Mantle. Walton related and idolized Mantle so much so that his nickname on Baseball Reference is "Mickey." He was drafted in the 10th round of the 1965 draft -- one pick before the Los Angeles Dodgers selected Tom Seaver (but didn't sign him).

Though he struggled as a teenager in the minor leagues initially, Walton emerged as a prospect in 1967. At the age of 19 in the Single-A Carolina League and for a team that hit .231/.325/.363, Walton hit 25 HR and hit .302/.407/.533 -- and he was about 3-1/2 years younger than the average player in the league. He moved up quickly to Double-A and Triple-A. By 1969, he  hit 25 HR (nearly a fourth of the team's 107 HR), drove in 119 runs, and hit .332/.405/.587 in Oklahoma City (to be fair, the league hit .284/.354/.414, but that was still pretty good).  

1994 Brewers 25th Anniversary Commemorative

All that was good for, though, was getting him sent to Seattle with Sandy Valdespino in exchange for former Los Angeles Dodger Tommy Davis.  

For Walton, it was a great move.  He enjoyed his time in Milwaukee. From the stories about Walton that you read from the early 1970s, the way I can describe Walton in terms that I understand as a fan from a decade later is that Danny Walton was Gorman Thomas before Gorman Thomas was. In fact, Walton compared himself to Gorman in a later interview.

By this, I mean that Walton was beloved by the fans in the bleachers behind him for his huge home runs and his big strikeouts: "They gave me a car to drive. I got invited to hunting trips and there was always a place for me to hunt or fish. I'd strike out and get a standing ovation. I'd hit a home run and they'd go crazy."

Indeed, the beginning of his career in Milwaukee -- the first half of the 1970 season, at the age of 22 -- he was very good to start with on the surface: 15 HR, 51 RBI, 40 walks in 344 plate appearances, and hitting .254/.349/.452 in 85 games.  But, those numbers hid a quick decline as pitchers figured "Mickey" out -- .321 AVG and 7 HR in April; .287 AVG and 3 HR in May, and .156 AVG and 5 HR (in a 12 for 77 month) in June.

1970 McDonald's Brewers

Just like his hero, though, Walton's knees failed him. In an interview with Mario Ziino for Brewers.com, Walton stated that he twisted his left knee during batting practice one day -- and shrugged it off as just an ache and pain that ballplayers had to deal with.  In his interview with Todd Newville of Baseballtoddsdugout.com, Walton stated that he was hitting and his right foot stayed put while he landed on his left foot.  Newville said Walton tore up his right knee.  

I think Newville misunderstood Walton, but in any case, Walton's knees bothered him greatly. He was never the same player as he was in 1970. Perhaps that's because the league figured him out as an aggressive free swinger, and perhaps it's because he never played regularly again in the major leagues. 

The Brewers got tired of waiting for his health and ability to return, so they traded him in June of 1971 to the Yankees for Bobby Mitchell and Frank Tepedino.  The Yankees parked him at Syracuse in 1971 and 1972. He hit very well and played most every game -- perhaps disproving that his problems were with his knee and lending credence to his problems being his plate approach. 

His play in the minor leagues -- and keep in mind, even in 1972, he was still just 24 years old -- led other teams to want him. The Minnesota Twins sent Rick Dempsey to the Yankees for him, but he only appeared in 37 games in 1973 before injuries caught up again. He crushed Triple-A in Tacoma in 1974 at the age of 26 to the tune of 35 HRs. But, the Twins gave up in 1975 and sent him to the Dodgers for Bob Randall. 

1971 Topps

Walton pulled out his "I can crush Triple-A" routine again in 1977 in Albuquerque -- 42 HRs -- but let's be honest about those numbers: the term "wind-aided" comes to mind. He was traded to Houston for Alex Taveras and Bob Detherage in September of 1977, but was then released by the Astros during spring training in 1978. That led him to sign on with the Yokohama Taiyo Whales in the Japanese Central League in 1978. It was disappointing -- .215/.311/.431 with 9 HR in 164 plate appearances.  

But, Walton got a shot with Seattle out of it. He spent 1979 back in Triple-A, and even Seattle said, "no thanks, Danny." Proving, though, that people didn't understand park effects in the 1970s, the Rangers signed him up for the 1980 season. He spent most of the year again in Triple-A at the age of 32 and picked up his last 13 plate appearances during May and in one game in June that year.  The Rangers then traded him in a minor deal in December of 1980, but Walton never appeared for the Reds.

I have three cards of Walton, I think, that are shown above.