Cards from suldog part two- the stars

In the Suldog trade post Part One I mentioned that I thought it would be pretty hard (or expensive) to finish this set considering how many stars were included in the set. A few of those hard to find cards were showcased in the last post.

In the last post I presented a bunch of cards that had cameos from other players or cards that had players obscuring their own cards. One card that I forgot about was this Steve Garvey card.



He definitely fits in the star category, but is only making a small cameo on his own card. Wes Parker is more prominently shown than Garvey. I was reading a blog the other day where they mentioned how the timing just seemed to be off a little on some of these action shots. I can't quite remember who mentioned that, but it's seems right. Quite a few of these action photos don't seem to be timed right. I guess working with film makes it a bit harder. I don't know what the frame rate on those older 35mm cameras were. I have absolutely no experience with the film rewinders on those older cameras. Thank goodness I have digital when I do action photography.

In this post I want to focus on solo shots of the stars. Coincidentally these are all posed shots rather than action shots. It should go without saying that the posed shots would feature just one player on the card and make them the focus of the card.


Just like with the action shots sometimes the posed shots are cool, sometimes they can be a little bizarre.

Here's one of the cool ones:


Jim "Catfish" Hunter, named by Athletics owner Charles Finley for an imaginary catfish that Jim had supposedly caught. Somehow the name stuck. A more interesting bit of trivia is that Hunter was the subject of a Bob Dylan song. I'm a big Dylan fan, but I didn't know this factoid. Joe Cocker also did a version of this song. I can only find the Joe Cocker version. Apparently this was recorded and was planned to appear on Desire. My favorite Dylan album.

The name of the song is "Catfish". I could only find the Joe Cocker version online. Here's a youtube link if you want to check it out.



Not really my type of song. Slow blues can be a little boring sometimes. He suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease and died while falling down the stairs at age 53. Too young.

I wish I had a poster of this card. Really nice clear sharp film photography. It looks like an early morning shot. Beautiful freshly cut grass and an immaculate stadium in the background. Really nice card.

It's cards like this that make me wonder if the older guys had better cards than the rookies because they were treated differently by the photographer or they had been around so long they knew how to pose and get in the mood of being in front of the camera so they wouldn't look so dorky.

There are a few cards that make me think this way.

One of which is this card of Jim Hickman. I don't know if it's the cartoon Cubs logo(which I like) or if it's the skinny neck. There's just something non-athletic about this guy. Looking at the stands it appears as if this photo looks like it was taken during a game.

One the back it mentions that he had pitched a game for the Dodgers in 67. Now that's an interesting story for a first baseman. Looking at the stat line he had been in the majors for at least 10 years at the time of this photo. So he had to be doing something right. I guess looks can be deceiving.



Manny Mota. One of my favorites in the 1980 set. Another set that I'm closer to finishing than this one. Nice pose and nice blue colors in this card.



His teammate Lee Lacy just looks insane. What a horrible trick to pull on someone on photo. "Hunker down and grunt like a psychopath while an imaginary ball bounces your way".

"Grrrrr"

"Yeah,that's a keeper. Next!"

When this picture was taken Lacy had only spent one year with the Dodgers. The other four years were spent bouncing around the minors. Safe to say at this point in his career he wasn't the star that Mota was. Could this be an example of picture day also being Haze the Rookie day?



Since we're on a Dodgers kick let's keep it going with the famous Tommy John. If memory serves (and it probably doesn't)Tommy started his rise with the Dodgers before getting hurt. According to the card back 73 was his second year with the Dodgers. 11 years previously spent in the minors as well as with the White Sox.

Pretty nice pose though.

A better fake follow through pose would be this card of Jerry Koosman. (you were wondering when the Mets would start making an appearance, didn't you?) Not to nitpick, but it would be a shade more cooler if there weren't a bunch of players playing catch in the background. Maybe they should do these fake pitching photos on the mound. That might be too revolutionary for 1973. Heck, it might be too revolutionary for 2012.

Back to the non-stars.



This one's a little hard for me. I've heard of Don Money, but from what I can tell from the front and back of this card he might not have been one of the bigger stars of the day. If you couldn't tell from the scan that's not his normal uniform. A little airbrushing has taken place. It looks so bad that he might as well be playing for Looney Tunes rather than the Brewers. I guess they couldn't erase the Philly pinstripes so they just painted them blue. The jersey looks so odd that it appears that his neck and head have been placed in someone else's uniform. That can't be right though, because then they could have just placed him in another Brewer's uni. It might have looked more realistic.



Vincente is from Mexico. You can tell from his cartoon that they all play baseball in their sombrero's.


Looking at the front of the card he might want to continue wearing the sombrero rather than this airbrushed brown dishrag on his head. He doesn't look to happy about it either.



Pre-windup shots = not so great photo.


Hands over the head = a little better. Might be a lot better if there wasn't that cluttered background. Not a great card for Ryan. He deserves better. Cool Angels logo though.

This post is getting a little sloppy going back and forth between fake pitching cards and fake batting cards.

I've got only two more cards to share and they're both fake batting shots.


First off is The Say Hey Kid. This was past his say hey day. A little older, but still had big biceps. He's wearing a black armband honoring Gil Hodges who had passed away in 72.


...and lastly a Joe Torre card. Mostly a Joe Torre sideburn card, but who's counting. More obvious than the sideburns is the big white building in the background. Takes the focus off of the players in the background taking off their windbreakers. Of course Joe still has on underneath his jersey. A lot of these posed shots have the jersey over the windbreaker theme.


Alright then. I guess that's all I have for this one. Not the best way to end a post, but thanks for reading anyway. And of course, thanks for the cards Suldog.