Thursday, November 24, 2016

Final Card: Larry Miller

Here is the final card (#323) for Larry Miller, who I just discovered a few days ago to be the oldest living player (at age 79) having a card from 1966-70 not yet appearing on one of my blogs.

He is also "Back on Topps' Radar", with his first card since the 1965 set. (Miller spent most of '66 and all of 1967-68 in the minors.)


Miller was signed by the Dodgers in 1959, and played in their organization for 3 ½ seasons (plus a 2-year break for military service) before making his major-league debut in 1964. He pitched in 16 games over the second half of the season. He was 4-8 in 14 starts.

After the season he was traded to the Mets for OF-1B Dick Smith. Miller split the 1965 season between the Mets and their AAA team in Buffalo.

Larry was back in AAA for the 1966 season, followed by 4 late- September appearances for the Mets.

He was in triple-A for all of 1967-69, and was traded to the Giants' organization in mid-1967. Since his last big-league game was in 1966, I'm wondering "Why does he have a card?"

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Born on the Same Day - 12/17/1936

Recently I started a new series called "Born on the Same Day", featuring players who were born on the same day (!) and year. The scope of this exercise is those players (or managers) who have cards in the 1965-1970 sets (because that's what I dooze). Ideally, I should also have their cards. 

In researching this, I found 51 pairs and 2 trios. In a few pairs both are stars, some pairs have 1 star, and other pairs are just 2 guys named Joe. In a few cases, these players were also teammates. 

I am going to post these in chronological order, and distribute them across my 1966-1970 blogs depending on which cards I have for who. The series began on my 1968 blog


This is post #8 in the series, and the first on the 1969 blog: Jerry Adair and Roland Sheldon - both born on 12/17/1936.


Jerry Adair played for the Orioles, White Sox, Red Sox, and Royals from 1958 to 1970, and was the Orioles' regular 2nd baseman from 1961-65.

Rollie Sheldon went 11-5 as a rookie for the 1961 Yankees. He played for New York until midway through 1965, then made stops with the Athletics and Red Sox. He was in the Seattle Pilots' training camp in 1969 but did not make the team.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Wait, What?



Congratulations to Paul, David, and Cubs fans everywhere!




"The Giants Cubs win the pennant Series!"
"The Giants Cubs win the pennant Series!"
"The Giants Cubs win the pennant Series!"
"The Giants Cubs win the pennant Series!"