I had a feeling something was wrong with my friend Ray Peters all week last week. When I made my first post back blogging about Pete Koegel on May 4, the first thing I did after finishing it was send a link to it to Ray by email. I kept checking my email all week expecting to see a response from him. It wasn't like Ray to let an email go unanswered for that long -- he should have responded by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest in my mind. I hoped that he was alright.
My first autograph from Ray
Unfortunately, things were not all right. When the email came in yesterday from his account as sent by his wife, it surprised me how much loss I felt in many respects. I had never met Ray in person, but he had quickly become a friend to me through his many emails and through the multiple calls that we had.
As you can see above, we bonded over our love of history. Ray received a degree in Spanish and Latin American studies from Harvard, and I have a degree from Vanderbilt in political science but focused on Latin American politics and history, so we had that in common along with our love for baseball.
The thing that defined Ray to me was how much he wanted to make sure that his teammates were never forgotten -- especially their contributions to his success. For example, the card above was a photo of Ray having hit a grand slam homerun for the Portland Beavers after being sent down to the minors in 1970. He was quick to point out to me that he used Floyd Wicker's bat to hit the home run and gave Floyd credit for that.
Ray helped spearhead the Topps Heritage subsets of the Pilots in 2018. He told me a lot of things about how that whole process worked that he asked me not to share, and I will respect that.
I will say this, however: he loved his card in the subset for the 2019 Heritage set. As he said to me in an email in February, "I am ecstatic to say the least. Truly after 50 years I finally have a Topps baseball card from the team I played with in The Show! How fortunate am I ???!!!"
Funny thing was that the Brew Crew Autographs subset in 2019 Heritage was identified as being on the checklist long before Ray was asked to be a part of it. When he did find out, as you can see, it made him incredibly happy.
Ray was kind enough to send me both of the Heritage autographs that he signed. And whisper it, but I think I have a 1/1 from the 2018 Heritage: I believe I have the only one that Ray signed with a red sharpie instead of a blue one.
Ray was always generous with his time for me as well. Even when he should have been impatient with me, or when I went days or even weeks without corresponding, he never said a cross word to me. Not even when I delayed and delayed on writing the "Meet The Brewers" for guys that were his friends. Not even once.
I knew he was having some health issues. He mentioned them in passing in his emails and minimized their severity. But, you can tell just looking at his autograph on the 2019 Heritage card above -- as compared to its 2018 compatriot right next to it -- that he was starting to struggle a bit. His signature was shaky, and when I saw it, I actually started to worry about him. Even in my last email to him, I said that I hoped he was well and that I would get to talk to him soon.
I wish I had had that opportunity.
Ray was much too young to pass away. He was only 72 years old. I know -- that sounds like a long life, but it's not. Not these days.
All the things they say about telling people that you care for them before it's too late apply here to me. I wish I had gotten the opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated his thoughtful deep dives into Brewer history. I wish I had taken the time to tell him how much I enjoyed his emails and his calls. And, I wish I had another ten or fifteen years to get to know Ray better, to hear more stories, to learn more about him.
Yet, I know I'm lucky. Thanks to Ray, I spent an hour on the phone talking to one of his roommates from the minor leagues -- Jim Slaton -- just hearing about Jim's career. I hope someday to hear more. Thanks to Ray, I got to talk with Fred Stanley a bit about his career and to buy this incredible print:
Thanks to Ray, the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers went from being names on a piece of paper or on the internet to being wonderful, humorous, and even sometimes flawed human beings.
According to the email that I (and others) received from his wife Janis, Ray died on May 4, 2019. His younger son set up a website called Big Train Ray (https://bigtrainray.com/) to honor his dad. It's a great website, and it has numerous links to stories about Ray's career and life.
Though I never met you in person, I'll miss you, Ray.
When rosters expanded in September of 1970, the Brewers were quick to make some moves. One of the moves made no difference on the field but made every difference in the world to a long-time Milwaukeean: the Brewers signed Harvey Kuenn to a free agent contract and placed him on the active roster to allow him to accrue additional service time to max out his MLB pension. The 39-year-old Kuenn did not get an at bat -- unsurprising since he had been serving as a coach all year and had not played in the majors since 1966. But, it was the thought that counted to Harvey; he became a fierce supporter of Bud Selig from that point forward. Another more run-of-the-mill transaction also occurred on September 1: minor leaguers getting called up to get a cup of coffee in the majors. Such was the case for Brewers prospect Pete Koegel. Koegel came in to pinch hit in the bottom of the sixth inning for starting pitcher Lew Krausse against Twins ace Jim Perry, who won his 20th game that day and went on to win 24. Alas, Pete tapped out to Perry in his first ever major league at bat. Koegel went on to bat just 9 times total that September, but he did hit his first and only major league homer on September 25 against a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame -- Tommy John.
1971 Topps/O-Pee-Chee
Peter John Koegel was born and raised in Seaford, New York, which is on Long Island about three or four towns west of Amityville and south of the famous suburb Levittown. Koegel was drafted straight out of high school by the Kansas City Athletics in the fourth round of the first-ever draft.
Koegel was known for his prodigious power even in high school. He was voted the most valuable player in the Hearst Sandlot Classic, played August 21, 1965 in Yankee Stadium, after slamming a 420-foot triple just shy of the auxiliary scoreboard in deep left field in old Yankee Stadium. He received the MVP trophy from Lou Gehrig's widow, Eleanor, days before signing for a $45,000 bonus with the A's.
Thanks to that bonus and his hitting skills, Koegel was immediately assigned to the Midwest League for his first minor league experience. As an 18-year-old who was about 3 years younger than the average player, he slashed .233/.319/.450 and smacked 21 HR and even stole 10 bases. His team paced the league with 117 HR that season, so he may have been the beneficiary of a favorable home park -- the next highest was 93, and the worst was the San Francisco affiliate, which hit 23 as a team! Still, Koegel hit homers throughout his minor league career everywhere he went, finishing his career with 175 HRs in 1238 minor league games (4722 plate appearances, .248/.335/.429 slash line).
Koegel joined the A's at the time that they were putting together quite a good farm system. During spring training in 1967, he was vying for playing time against such notables as Joe Rudi and Reggie Jackson in the outfield and Dave Duncan at catcher.
Even in the Arizona rookie league in 1966, he had to contend with future big leaguer Ted Ford, and the A's also had future Brewer Sal Bando playing the position a step higher in the organization.That rookie league team was stacked. It included Rick Monday, Dave Nelson, Cito Gaston, Reggie Jackson, Duffy Dyer, and Rollie FIngers. Later in his career, he shared minor league fields with Vida Blue, Gene Tenace, and Skip Lockwood. The A's did some great player identification work in that 1965 draft.
1994 Miller Commemorative Set
As Koegel worked his way up in the A's system, the biggest problem he had was finding a position. He played third in Arizona, outfield in his first pro season, first base and outfield in his second season, and mostly outfield after that. But when you're behind and play the same position as Joe Rudi, Rick Monday, and Reggie Jackson, you become expendable quickly.
As a result, Koegel joined the Pilots organization in August of 1969 when the now-Oakland A's decided they wanted Jim Bouton's archenemy Fred Talbot and sent Koegel and Bob Meyer (Brewer #14) to Seattle. It was in the Milwaukee system that an attempt to put Koegel behind the plate as a catcher was tried -- just to get him on the field.
Koegel went on to play in just nine total games for the Brewers -- 7 in 1970 and 2 in 1971. He was then shipped out by Frank "Trader" Lane along with friend of the blog Ray Peters to the Philadelphia Phillies for John Briggs on April 22, 1971.
Nothing personal, Ray or Pete, but I think Lane got the better of that deal. Maybe it was due to Ray messing up his shoulder in 1971, but Briggs spent parts of 5 seasons with Milwaukee and hit 80 HRs with the club and sported an OPS+ of 131 (31% above league average) over that time.
2018 Topps Heritage Pilots Autograph
After that trade to the Phillies, Koegel appeared in a total of 20 games in the major leagues, with 12 of those appearances being at catcher. Thanks to those 12 games, however, Pete is still the owner of a major league record: at 6-feet-6-inches tall, Pete is tied with Don Gile and Grayson Greiner as the tallest players ever to play catcher in the major leagues. Greiner is the most recent of the three to play, making his debut last year in May.
Because Ray Peters is still in contact with Pete, I asked Ray to ask Pete if the measurement of 6'6" tall was legitimate or if it was like college football measurements -- you know, a little bit of "extra" getting added in to improve appearances. Pete passed along that this is a legitimate measurement -- and in fact shorts him by 1/2"! He was measured at 6'6-1/2" by the United States Government for his military draft physical -- and that half inch meant that he was too tall for military service!
For what it's worth, the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers in spring training had the beginning of a good pickup basketball team. With Pete at 6'6-1/2" tall and with Ray Peters measuring nearly exactly the same, the team also had Gene Brabender at 6'5" tall, Wayne Twitchell at 6'6" tall, and 1971 debutante Bill Parsons also standing 6'6". Add in Don Bryant, who was a Rule V draftee (who was returned to the Astros) and stood about 6'5" tall as well, and you can go 6 players deep!
Ray also passed along a great story that Pete told about height. Pete was watching the MLB game of the week, and Tim McCarver was interviewing Dave Winfield. Winfield also stands a legitimate 6'6" tall, and he made two innings of appearances at third base. Winfield then claimed to be the tallest ever third baseman, and McCarver quickly corrected him to say that no, Pete Koegel is taller than you and he played 4 games at third in 1972.
Finally, Pete was a prodigious hitter in the winter leagues. While I am not sure what records he set with Leones, this Pinterest page says he has some. Plus, it gave us this great shot of Pete after the 1970s caught up to his facial hair:
My thanks to Ray Peters for giving me some great stories from Pete and about Pete, and thank you for reading. Koegel's three Brewers/Pilots cards are shown above, and I am missing the autographed 2018 Pilots Heritage card from last year.
Yesterday was Ray Peters's birthday -- so everyone comment below and wish him a happy birthday! For those who do not know Ray, take a few moments to read my "Meet the Brewers" post about him as well as the update post I wrote after I had the pleasure of speaking with him on the telephone. Ray is a multifaceted modern-day Renaissance man, well versed in history, in literature, and as a professional athlete too. It's his Harvard background -- shared by current Brewer Brent Suter, whom I'm pleased to have put Ray in touch with through Twitter -- and his innate curiosity that causes him to be such an interesting person. Last month, Ray was taken with one of my music posts. I'm guessing it was my prog-rock timeline post from Strawberry Bricks. He undertook to send me a massive list of music that he enjoys. With it being Ray's birthday and with having received a bunch of cards from P-Town Tom of Eamus Catuli, I thought, "what a great way to post about both!" And away we go!
First out of the box is Jonathan King. King came to Ray's mind when he saw the first Genesis record hit my blog in that Prog-Rock post. King's song "Everyone's Gone to the Moon" was released four full years before the U.S. actually got to the moon and while King was still an undergraduate at Cambridge University. It was a big hit -- making it to #4 in the UK and to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- and it has been covered by everyone from Marlene Dietrich to The Flaming Lips.
King went on to discover Genesis and be their first producer. All of the members of Genesis were between the ages of 15 to 17 at the time he first produced them. Perhaps that is what drew King to the band -- I hope not, though, because King was convicted in 2001 of four counts of indecent assault, one count of buggery, and one count of attempted buggery committed between 1983 and 1987 against five boys aged 14 and 15. There were other charges as well relating to hundreds of Polaroid photos of teenage boys that were found in King's house as well. For that conviction, he served 7 years in jail.
In May of 2017, he was arrested again. This time, he has been charged by Surrey Police with 18 sexual offences relating to nine boys between the ages of 14 and 16 as part of an investigation into sexual abuse at the Walton Hop disco in the 1970s. He's free on bail right now, and his trial date is currently set for June 11, 2018.
To get away from talk of buggery, let's talk about police. Police cards, in particular, that Tom sent. He sent a bunch of different police department's cards, and as my post from Saturday made clear, that puts a smile on my face. These two came from Cudahy (pronounced Cud - uh - hay), which is found south of downtown Milwaukee and due east from the Milwaukee airport.
So, let's talk about Jaime (pronounced "hi-may" or "hi-me") Cocanower, a/k/a James Stanley Cocanower (so, is that pronounced "ha-mace" like the soccer player James Rodriguez?) -- a native Puerto Rican. Cocanower was a smart man like Ray, attending Baylor University and majoring in accounting. Cocanower rose to fame through his pitching in the College World Series for the Bears in 1977 and 1978, famously dualling 1977 National Player of the Year Randy Martz to a 1-1 tie through 9 innings in the 1977 series (Baylor lost 3-2 in 10 innings).
Cocanower was then signed as an amateur free agent by the Brewers in 1978 and made it to the majors in 1983. He never struck out more than he walked in any of his four major league seasons spanning 79 appearances (47 starts and 365-2/3 innings worth of pitching), mainly because his strikeouts per 9 innings never went higher than 4.4/9, which came in his final 44-2/3 innings in 1986. After his retirement and even during the offseason, he worked as an accountant. He eventually settled in Arkansas and has worked for years for Acxiom Corporation, a public company, for whom he is the "Functional Leader in Corporate Tax." I found his wife's Facebook page too, but I'm not going to post that.
"Ghost Riders in the Sky" is a very famous song, having been recorded in covers during every decade since 1948 -- the first version being the one on 78 RPM record in the YouTube video above. To me, the most famous version is Johnny Cash's take on the song in 1979, which hit #2 on the Billboard Country chart that year.
Some other versions include ones by Burl Ives (Billboard's #1 song for 1949), Duane Eddy, The Ramrods, The Shadows (with their Brit-Disco version), Elvis Presley, Dick Dale, Debbie Harry (whose version sounds like it was produced by Moby), Concrete Blonde, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and Buckethead. In addition, versions of the song have been recorded in Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, and Spanish (Ray, if you're reading, here's "Jinetes En El Cielo"...and I have to say, it's terrible).
By the late 1980s, the Brewers Police Card sets had taken on a life of their own, complete with corporate sponsorship from Sargento, a cheese manufacturer that is located in Plymouth, Wisconsin, and is one of the largest retail cheese companies in the country. It's still privately held and owned by the Gentine family.
Bryan Clutterbuck. The name just sounds weird, right? Clutterbuck was a Michigander who grew up in Milford, Michigan. He attended Eastern Michigan University, and the Brewers drafted him from there in the seventh round of the 1981 draft. He made his way to the Brewers in 1986 and provided 20 games of about league-average pitching out of the bullpen. He got sent back down to the minors, and came back to the team in 1989, making 11 starts. The Brewers shipped him out to El Paso that year, and that was the end of his professional career other than two years of independent ball in 1994 and 1995. Clutterbuck passed away a year ago last week (August 23, 2016) at the age of 56 from colon cancer.
As a child of the 1980s, this song is always associated with Soft Cell's electronic version of course. Yet, when you hear it here, it makes complete musical sense as a 1960s Motown-sound song. DJ Richard Searling took the song to the UK in the early 1970s and recorded it without making any impact on the charts.
Soft Cell heard Searling's version, changed the arrangement, slowed the tempo, and changed the key to record their version in a day and a half. If you know that version, you might remember that Soft Cell spliced in a cover of "Where Did Our Love Go" with "Tainted Love." Clearly, that decision makes much more sense now to me, since I had never heard of Gloria Jones's version. The song took a slow trip into the US charts -- starting on January 16, 1982 at number 90, moving up to #64, dropping to #100 for two weeks, then climbing again all the way to #8 in the summer of 1982. In all, it spent 43 weeks on the Hot 100 -- then a record. Goth/electronica/weirdo rocker Marilyn Manson also recorded the song in 2001, and it made a dent on the charts as well.
I call the 1990 police cards the "Big Blues" thanks to their blue borders. I decided to highlight at least one of the randoms, again, rather than focusing on the Younts and Molitors.
Billy Bates, for instance. Bates was tiny -- 5'7" tall, 155 pounds -- and went to the University of Texas in its 1980s heydays. He must have made the team out of spring training in 1990, because otherwise there is no way that he would have a baseball card in the police set. His Brewers career consisted of 21 totals games of 49 plate appearances with a .140/.208/.163 slash line (that is an OPS+ of 6 according to Baseball Reference).
Bates then was traded with Glenn Braggs to the Cincinnati Reds on June 9, 1990 in exchange for Ron "No I am not Timothy Busfield" Robinson and Bob Sebra. Bates got in 8 games for the Reds and went 0-for-5, yet he made the postseason roster and got a hit in his only at bat in the 1990 World Series -- which the Reds won -- and he scored the winning run in Game 2.
In addition, he also raced and beat a cheetah in a race. Trust me, I'd sure as hell run my ass off too if I were being chased by a cheetah in a baseball stadium.
Here's another song that became associated with a later act. Tiny Bradshaw recorded this version of the song in 1951 as a jump blues song. It really rips, too -- great sax solo in it by Red Prysock wailing and honking away.
Johnny Burnette updated the song in 1956 in a style that reminds me of Jerry Lee Lewis, and he brought an upbeat tempo to the song that the blues version lacked.
My mind immediately associates this song with metal, though -- Aerosmith. Their version helps show the tie between classic rock and the blues, certainly, with the bass line driving the song forward in the way that the back-beat drum did in the Tiny Bradshaw original. Yes, my apologies to those of you who thought of Led Zeppelin or the Yardbirds first -- my brain said Aerosmith.
Tom outdid himself finding all of these different police departments for the Brewers sets. Thanks to him, I am going to have to get my butt in gear and update my want lists for police sets so that I know what I have. Otherwise, I'll end up on eBay buying a third set from the 1986 Winneconne Police or something. And, that just won't do.
By the way, who else remembers Paul Householder being a decent Reds prospect in the early 1980s?
Cozy Powell was a drumming legend in the 1970s and 1980s. This song is "Dance With the Devil," which was based on Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun." On the studio version of this song, Suzi Quatro -- who appeared in the 1970s as "Leather Tuscadero" on Happy Days (though, to be quite fair, that was hardly her career highlight but it's what I remember) -- played bass.
Powell is revered in rock drumming circles for his playing style -- which you can hear on this song up front as very progressive and incorporating various musical influences within it. He played with everyone from The Jeff Beck Group, Whitesnake, Emerson Lake & Powell (he was . . . oh, I bet you don't need an explanation here), Michael Schenker Group, Black Sabbath, and Yngwie Malmsteen, among others. He died in a car wreck on April 5, 1998 -- driving too fast while drunk, talking to his married girlfriend on his mobile phone, not wearing his seatbelt, and having an underinflated rear tire.
I don't think he should have been driving.
This trio of awesome oddballs helped inspire my most recent post on my 1980s Oddball Blog about the 1981 Topps Scratch Offs. I think that the scratch off set is an underappreciated oddball, probably because it is sized weirdly no matter how you display it and it was a one-and-done set. Kellogg's get love everywhere (deservedly).
The Duracell card? Maybe if Panini could make cards like this rather than being forced into discoloration, they could make a card that looks this good. But I doubt it.
It's odd how one song can be taken in so many directions. The original "Walk Don't Run" is the top video -- a jazz piece by Johnny Smith that meanders over 10 minutes. Chet Atkins -- the important country singer -- created a 2-minute version that drew on his own influences from Merle Travis, Django Reinhardt and George Barnes. The John Barry Seven and The Ventures both recorded the song in 1960.
As an interesting side note, this song was recorded by the Ventures with George T. Babbitt, Jr. as the drummer. He had to drop out from the band because he was not old enough to play with the rest of the band in clubs. Thankfully for him, Babbitt did not miss out on life as a result. He went to the University of Washington on an Air Force ROTC scholarship to get his mechanical engineering degree. He stuck with the Air Force and retired in 2000 as a four-star general who served as Commander, Air Force Materiel Command (COMAFMC) from 1997 to 2000. He even got to reunite with his band in 1998 and play "Walk Don't Run" in full military uniform.
Nothing like a couple of awesome autographs to help push a package to be almost perfect. That's my first autograph for Trebelhorn. The big thing I always remembered about Treb was that he was dating the then-director of Summerfest, Bo Black. Bo was quite the hottie, having appeared on the cover of Playboy in the late 1960s.
Trebelhorn managed the Brewers from 1986 through 1991, and then managed the Cubs in 1994. After that, he worked for the Orioles for many years in the minors and the majors before being fired after the 2007 season from his job as bench coach. He went back to the minors to Oregon (where he lives today) and managed the Class A Salem-Keizer Volcanoes until 2012. He's probably retired now, at the age of 69, unless another team comes calling wanting his advice.
Perhaps Ray wanted to prove to me that he, too, has strange tastes in music. Okay, let me quote his email to me: "Needless to say I have eclectic musical tastes. Love it all."
You do indeed, Ray -- "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" played by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain can only be described as eclectic. I'll admit that I did not know that there was such a thing as a ukulele orchestra. But these musicians can play incredibly well. As a result, I feel compelled to include one of their covers of a 1990s song.
Holy crap that's really awesome!
I would have never thought that it could be good. Well, until the guy starts singing. He sucks. He sounds like a lounge singer on quaaludes.
Or, as one commenter on YouTube said, "This is the whitest thing I've ever seen."
Yes, I know it's intended to be humorous. And it is. But it's still the whitest thing ever.
To redeem myself, let's close with a card of one of Ray's Brewers teammates: Tommy Harper on his 1971 Topps Super. I was absolutely blown away when this showed up in the envelope from Tom. I don't think I've really ever seen a 1971 Topps Super before, and it's awesome. I didn't scan the back, but it looks like the 1971 cards.
Ray -- you should get one of these made for you! Happy birthday to you, sir!
Tom -- thank you very much for the fantastic cards (most of which I did not show here)!
Over the past few months, I've kept up an email correspondence -- and even spoken on the phone one time when I had a spare few minutes -- with former Brewers pitcher Ray Peters. Ray is a wonderful gentleman. He's been very forgiving of me when I go missing for several days and don't have the chance to respond reasonably quickly.
He is also a font of incredible information about the early days of the Milwaukee Brewers. I haven't done so yet, but I will be sharing soon some minor league team photos he scanned and sent to me. He's also been kind to me with his time and energy in reading and giving me more information about my "Meet the Brewers" series. I'm looking forward to bringing that knowledge into my series.
Recently, he topped himself. I got home from work late last week and found a package from Ray waiting for me. I was not expecting anything from him, so it was a surprise.
Now, if you have read about Ray, you know that he is a graduate of Harvard University. His major at Harvard was Latin American History -- unlike what this otherwise good biography from author Chris Zantow said, where it tried to limit Ray to studying only South America. I was going to ask Ray his position on the thesis I wrote in college -- specifically, whether Brazilian populist Getulio Vargas's policies of trying to play the US and the Allied Powers and Germany and the Axis powers off one another in the 1930s and early 1940s was a good policy or whether Vargas could have done better by siding with one earlier in the war. But I keep forgetting to ask.
I bring up Ray's historian side, though, to emphasize the fact that he knows how to research. Certainly, it does not take much digging on my blog to find that I like oddballs, but it takes at least a bit of reading. As an oddball lover, though, I greatly appreciated and enjoyed opening the envelope from Ray. It contained just one card -- but it is a doozy:
This is one of the Dayton Daily News "Bubble-Gumless Cards" that the newspaper issued in 1970 and 1971. Like all good oddball things, the Dayton Daily News cards have had things written about them elsewhere before. The blog "Uncataloged Baseball Cards" features a post from 2010 (just highlight the text so you can read it, since the black text on black background does not really work too well) which mentions that the author SSchauer spent a significant amount of time going through microfilm to document the whole set -- all 357 cards (other than card 196, since his library was missing that microfilm roll).
My research also led me to the frequently excellent Net54Baseball Forum, which posed the question I had: why is this considered a "card"? Hobby icon and Big-Book compiler Bob Lemke responded by saying that:
Back in the day' when the Standard Catalog had two people working full-time, virtually unlimited page counts and the notion of building up a database for non-card baseball player memorabilia for future catalogs, we routinely sought out this type of item. Today, not so much. If the need arises to cut back vintage pages on the print edition in the future, this type of listing would be among the first to go onto some sort of rotational publishing basis.
And that kind of thing is a shame. As our hobby has changed and become more corporate in nature -- with profit motives outweighing hobbyist enjoyment for many and for the corporations issuing the cards and cataloging them on websites (like Beckett) -- these types of cards will fall by the wayside or will become relics of a foreign history that, perhaps, our children may never know.
It's thanks to historians like Ray and Bob Lemke and the folks at Net54, though, that we hopefully will not lose our hobby's past.
My thanks to Ray for this awesome piece of Milwaukee history. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before, so it's truly a pleasure to have it.
My love of history compels me to write about Brewers history. As a kid and as I've mentioned in the past, one of my favorite "books" to read was the Milwaukee Brewers media guide. I pored over those guides, memorizing players' full names (like James Elmer Gantner, for example). The one section I especially loved was the Brewers all-time roster. In those days before I had access to a Baseball Encyclopedia -- you know, the old 8-pound behemoth that perhaps was last issued in 1996 by Simon & Schuster after first being published in 1969 by Macmillan -- I was left only with the name of a player and the notation of what year(s) he played for the Milwaukee franchise. Names like Bob Coluccio and Dave May jumped off the page, but even names like Dick Selma, Bruce Brubaker, and, yes, Ray Peters stuck with me. It's what led me to my "Meet the Brewers" posts. When I started them, I guess I did not think that any of the players I was writing about would actually read the posts. Why would they? I mean, it's just some Brewers fanboy writing, right? And then I wrote about Ray Peters. If you have not read that installment, the short story on Ray is that he was drafted five times before he finally signed a professional contract. That happened because Ray was finishing up his degree at Harvard. He debuted the very next season in the major leagues -- 1970 -- and made two starts. But after suffering injury problems and being traded to the Phillies organization, he called it quits after the 1971 season. Writing about Ray was a very fortuitous undertaking. It led to Ray and me exchanging multiple emails and my getting to hear great stories about walking Al Kaline, meeting Arnold Palmer when Arnie redesigned Ray's local golf course, and his dinner with Jorge Luis Borges, the famous Argentine writer, poet, and essayist.
Oh, and a few stories about his classmates at Harvard -- Al Gore, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Wallace, and the late Gram Parsons. And, did I mention his internship with G. H. Walker & Sons brokerage firm on Wall Street? G.H. Walker, Jr. -- a/k/a Herbie -- was the second generation leader of the firm at the time, and Herbie was the one who told Ray that the Mets had drafted him in 1968. That led to Ray going to Shea at the All-Star break and meeting Gil Hodges, Yogi Berra, and later teammate Greg Goossen, among others. Herbie's nephew ended up doing pretty well for himself, what with getting elected as Vice President in 1980 and President in 1988. There's tons more that I've learned about Ray. He's an incredibly interesting guy to correspond with -- and one who even has ties to one of the guys who is a player collection for me. Indeed, one of Ray's roommates in Clinton is the Brewers all-time leader in victories: Jim Slaton. But I'm rambling now. Ray also was incredibly kind enough to indulge me a bit. He sent me some great custom cards of him. Let's start, though, with the photo of Ray with Bob Lemon:
Next, in honor of his time in major league camp in 1969, Ray has this 1969 Topps-style card:
The back of this card is awesome. Rather than describe it, let me show it to you:
For whatever reason, I've always like those sleeve cuffs. Because they carried over to the early years of the Brewers -- along with the color scheme, which Bud Selig had wanted to change to red and black to mirror his old Braves -- many of the early Brewers photos show players with those same sleeves. After all, ole Bud wouldn't get rid of all those uniforms that the team had paid for already! Like this one, on a 1970 Topps-style card:
I guess this card looks strange to me because it is literally the first 1970 Topps card of a 1970 Brewers player that I have ever seen in my life. Sure, the style was resurrected by people like Baseball Cards Magazine in the early 1990s and had Robin Yount and Paul Molitor on it, but having Ray is just better. Of course, the 1971 design -- with the bold black borders that are nearly impossible to find in perfect condition -- are still a big fan favorite. It appears that Ray agrees, having two different cards in that style: The one on the right is especially cool, since that 1971 set featured the facsimile signatures on them. I think, though, that the card on the left is closer to the actual fonts used. Both of them are awesome. They are not my favorites though. My two favorites are based on completely different card sets altogether:
The 1956 Topps cards were such a well-designed card. An action shot along with a portrait is just a great look. This one is particularly cool because the action shot featured on the card is from Ray's minor league season in Triple-A Portland in 1970, and it is the photo of his teammates congratulating him on hitting a grand slam (using Floyd Wicker's bat, in fact!). This is a Bobw card, of course. But, my absolute favorite is this one:
This card is in the style of a set from which I actually still have most of the cards. In 1983, Renata Galasso issued a Seattle Pilots set. For a couple bucks extra, you could get card #1 autographed by "infamous" author, Jim Bouton. I had read Ball Four twice by the time this set came out, and I talked my mom into buying it for me along with the complete sets from Topps, Donruss, and Fleer from that year. It wasn't a cheap buy -- probably $50 or $60 for all of those together -- but considering how that year's rookies turned out, it was worth it. Still, because of that purchase, I love this set. It's weird, it's strange, and it's perfect for the 1969 Pilots. Ray is a great guy, and he is willing to sign cards or possibly send you a thing or two about him. He even said I could share his address -- he truly loves the game of baseball! Here's his address: Ray Peters 11013 Southerland Drive Denton, TX 76207 And, since no post would be complete without a little music, how about "Return of The Grievous Angel" by Ray's departed classmate, Gram Parsons:
Many thanks to Ray for indulging my curiosity about him, for sending me cards, and for being so giving of his time.
Not everyone who plays major league baseball has a long career. Of the nearly 19,000 men who have been catalogued as playing major league baseball by Baseball-Reference.com, just over 1,000 players have clocked only one major league game. Now, it's very possible that that number will slip back under one thousand should a few of the 20 players who debuted in the past two years get another at bat, inning in the field, or one-third of an inning on the mound. One such player who did not qualify as a single-game wonder but who only got to pitch in two games is Brewers player #33, Ray Peters. Peters was called up to major league club from Triple-A Portland to make his debut start on June 4, 1970. He threw two innings and gave up 6 hits, 4 earned runs, 3 walks, and a strikeout in facing 15 batters before being pulled from the game after giving up a run-scoring single to Ray Fosse. Four days later, Dave Bristol handed Peters the ball again against the Detroit Tigers. Peters's teammates handed him a 2-run lead in the top of the first inning as well. Peters had a very short leash, however. He gave up a single to Dick McAuliffe followed by walks to Elliott Maddox and Al Kaline. Bristol came out, took the ball and Skip Lockwood came in. Lockwood came in and struck out Norm Cash before giving up a grand slam to Willie Horton -- 1 run to Lockwood's ledger and 3 to Peters's. The walk to Kaline, though, was the last time that Peters would appear in a major-league game.
1994 Miller Commemorative Set
At the time, though, Raymond James Peters probably did not know that walking a Hall of Famer would be his last act as a major leaguer. Or, maybe he did. Peters is a very smart man -- a graduate of Harvard University, in fact -- but I don't think that being smart means one can foretell the future. But, being intelligent like Peters is may have led him to be more willing to give up more quickly on the dream of major league baseball. Of course, like most players whose career ended earlier than anticipated, he blamed injuries a lot for poor performance -- as he asked for being injury free as the one thing he would change about his career when interviewed in 2012 by the Baseball Historian blog.
Thanks to all the various draft phases that were in play in the late 1960s through the 1980s, Peters bears the distinction of having been drafted five times before finally signing a pro baseball contract. The Detroit Tigers drafted him in the 28th round of the 1965 June Draft.
Then, the Kansas City Athletics picked him in the 5th round of the 1967 June Secondary Draft after his sophomore year at Harvard. The A's liked what they saw and wanted to sign Peters, but Peters wanted his degree and stayed in school. So, the A's picked him again in the 2nd round of the 1968 January Secondary draft. Peters still wasn't interested in signing for whatever money was on offer at that point, so he was available again in the 1968 June Secondary Draft and was selected in the 3rd round by the New York Mets.
Even then, Peters did not sign. Only after the Seattle Pilots selected him in the 1st round of the January Secondary Draft during Peters's senior year did Peters finally sign a professional contract. The Harvard Crimson newspaper lamented the loss of their ace pitcher to pro baseball. His former coach, Norm Shepard, was quoted as saying that Peters's signing was a "tremendous blow to Harvard baseball."
For his part (from the February 22, 1969 The Sporting News), GM Marvin Milkes was very happy about signing Peters, noting that Peters would complete his senior year of college and get his degree in South American History before reporting. Not coincidentally, the Pilots had hired former A's director of personnel Ray Swallow -- who was responsible for the A's having selected Peters twice before. Peters rose quickly to the majors, yet he faded away just as fast.
After his major league debut, Peters went back to Triple-A Portland and finished out the 1970 season. He stayed in the Milwaukee organization until April of 1971, at which point he was traded along with C/1B Pete Koegel in exchange for a man who became a minor star in a Brewers uniform -- John Briggs.
Peters has embraced his time with the Pilots organization greatly. In 2015, he made a trip from his home in Texas to Cooperstown for his first visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the trip, he was decked out in a Seattle Pilots polo shirt.
The one thing I don't know is what Peters did with his life after baseball. In hobby circles, though, Peters may be known to you if you read Bobw's blog. Bobw has been friends with Peters for many years, and Peters has helped Bobw to get in touch with Peters's former teammates to get autographs. All Bobw does is make several custom cards for the player, some of which the player can keep and others that the former player will return autographed. Search for Ray Peters on Bobw's website and you'll see what I mean.
The thing about having a two-game career, though, is that you don't have many baseball cards of you issued. That was true for Ray Peters as well -- the 1994 Miller Brewers set featuring everyone ever to wear a Brewers uniform to that date is the only card of Peters that the Trading Card Database has. Bobw has made a number of custom cards, of course, but I don't have any of those of Peters.
