Twinkies were fine, but the cards were better

I confess there was some sadness when I learned this week that Hostess was filing for bankruptcy.

It's not a love for Twinkies, you understand. I haven't enjoyed one in years.

But from 1975 to 1979, I'd rush to the Twinkies section of Dan's Supreme and Pathmark to turn over box after box, scanning the bottom for elusive Mets. There were cards issued in 1993, too, but that was different. We'll get to that.

But during the Topps baseball card monopoly, the company issued one set of cards. That's different from today, when the company also seems to have a monopoly but issues many, many sets.

But back in the 1970s, the only other cards out there were linked to the occasional food items, printed on the bottom of the box.

It wasn't easy to find the Mets. It was an epic search.

Consider that there 150 cards in the sets. These were some of the Mets “quiet years,” so there were not many of our players in the sets. There were three cards to a box. It's not like there were unlimited of Twinkies boxes.

On a great day, Mom needed something on the store when the shelves were stocked, and I could overturn the entire display searching for Tom Seaver, who was always the priority, or other Mets.

There were some difficult choices. Buying multiple boxes was not an option. And the stock was picked through pretty quickly given all the Mets fans in Massapequa Park.


On the bright side, I could make purchases confidently since the cards were plainly visible on the box bottoms. I didn't have to buy a box merely hoping that Bud Harrelson was nestled under a “golden sponge cake with creamy frosting inside.”

Let's look at each year's cards, starting with the 1975 set. The design in as plain as can be, which stood in sharp contrast to that year's wildly colored Topps issue.




The Seaver card is, of course, spectacular, even with the tape marks. Cut me some slack, I was 11.

I also rounded up a Harrelson and a John Milner. Tom and Buddy were snapped in spring training, and Milner has the beautiful Shea batter's eye in the background.

The Staub card was acquired later. Two years ago it was the subject of some magnificent sleuthing by my friends in the Crane Pool Forum.



I wondered if this was just the worst case of airbrushing ever. Topps back in the day would paint uniforms on traded players. And sometimes, well, let's just say no one was fooled.

There was a long-suspected photo connection between Hostess and Topps.

Note that the Expos logo is still clearly visable on Rusty’s chest. Topps often would leave collar trim in plain view, but never an entire team logo.

Then it appears an artist started adding Mets pinstripes on Rusty’s unstriped Expos jersey, then got distracted and stopped.

And keep in mind, this card is from 1975. Rusty was traded to the Mets at the start of the 1972 season.

Crane Pool Forum poster batmgadanleadoff offered a theory that maked great sense.

Rusty, it is known, had some kind of beef with Topps, because his cards do not appear in the 1972 and 1973 sets. His first Mets card is in the 1974 issue.

His guess is that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line.

“I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team,” he wrote. “In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.”

That makes sense to me. And I was convinced when the fine people behind the Ultimate Mets Database created this mock-up of what an air-brushed 1972 Topps Staub card might have looked like.


There are no such horror with the 1976 set, which we'll tackle next.

For every hello, there is a goodbye: Metdom painted over

Having solved the Rusty Staub airbrush mystery, we can now head over to the other side of the equation. For every new Met added to the roster, there has to be a farewell – some sadder than others.

Like the incoming Mets with poorly disguised paint jobs, there are outgoing players still showing evidence of Metdom on their Topps cards of the 1970s.

The Mets made a lot of moves after the 1971 season, sending Topps artists into overtime.

Lots of heartbreak here, the most famous being the Nolan Ryan card. No reason to rehash that disaster.

Almost as sad is the sight of Ron Swoboda on a Yankees card with his regal Mets blue cap and pinstripes. Rocky in my mind is forever diving in Shea’s right field, but he was actually traded to the Expos with Rich Hacker at the end of spring training in 1971 for Don Hahn.

He went to the Yankees in June of that season, so his Topps card is actually two teams old, and without a decent excuse since the vile ones play right there in the Homeland, where Topps is based.

The Ron Taylor and Art Shamsky card in that set doesn’t elicit as much sadness, since they were going to places not as tainted. But they are reminders of he dismantling of the 1969 team, which continued into the next season.

Taylor went on to be the team doctor for the Blue Jays, which is pretty cool.

Shamsky gets points for continuing to keep the memory of 1969 alive, and is behind several of the anniversary efforts.

Then there is the sad case of Bobby Pfeil, shown here with a hint of his Mets lettering with his air-brushed Red Sox cap. The light-hitting mostly infielder only played in the majors in parts of two seasons, 1969 with the Mets and 1971 with the Phillies.

But note his transactions, as documented by baseball-reference.com:

April 7, 1965: Traded by the Cubs with Hal Gibson to the Cardinals for Bob Humphreys.
Before 1968 Season: Sent from the Cardinals to the Mets in an “unknown transaction.”

May 26, 1970: Sent by the Mets to the Phillies to complete an earlier deal made on April 10, 1970. The Mets sent a player to be named later to the Phils for Ron Allen.

February 8, 1972: Traded by the Phils to the Brewers for a player to be named later. The Brewers sent Chico Vaughns (minors) (March 25, 1972) to the Phils to complete the trade.

March 20, 1972: Purchased by the Boston Red Sox from the Brewers.

A couple things to note here. Pfeil played for two teams between the Mets and the Red Sox, so Topps was using a really old photo.

And second, what the heck is “an unknown transaction?” Did Bobby stow away with the Mets equipment bags? Did he just kind of show up in spring training like Willie Mays Hayes? Imagine the conversation in the Mets front office.

“Hey, nice move getting Pfeil. But who did we give up for him?”

“I didn’t make a deal. I thought you did.”

“Well, might as well let him stay, since he’s got a uniform and everything.”

The dismantling of the champs continued with the 1973 set. Newcomers Felix Millan and George Stone got what Will calls the nostril treatment, shot from below the chin to the cap logo can’t be seen. But the departing Mets had no such luck.

Gary Gentry has his new Braves cap painted on, but still his Mets pinstripes. And poor Dave Marshall.

The light-hitting outfielder went to the Padres, where his career died in mustard yellow. Topps painted his cap, and even gave him a yellow collar – put left the Mets blue pinstripes, as if to say, “We started to give a darn, but got distracted by lunch.”

Alas, they set the stage for the abomination that is the Tommie Agee card..
Picking up Agee was one of the Mets most inspired trades, snagging him, and fellow World Series hero Al Weis from the White Sox for Tommy Davis, Buddy Booker, Jack Fisher and Billy Wynne.

Alas, his departure yielded no great returns. Tommie became an Astro for Rich Chiles and Buddy Harris, neither of whom would leave their mark on the franchise.

But apparently the deal could have been worse. In what can only be described as a mass air-brushing in the 1973 set, Topps also colored Astros uniforms on Rusty Staub and Ken Boswell or Buddy Harrelson, I’m not sure which one that is. This is, in fact, Staub’s only appearance in the 1973 set.

Rusty, of course, came up with the Astros, and Boswell would end up there after the 1974 season. At least he got to see how he'd look as an Astro.

The glorious 1974 set was without incident, but the trouble picks up again in 1975.
Ray Sadecki was traded for Joe Torre just after the 1974 season.

What I never realized was that he became a Met again, signing as a free agent at the tail end of spring training in 1977, pitching only three innings before being released in early May.

Sadecki’s faux Cards card is another schizophrenic Topps effort. The Mets pinstripes are gone, but the buttons remain – along with a Cardinals pull-over collar.

And, finally, we end up back at poor Rusty Staub. Traded by the Mets at the end of the 1975 season, we see Rusty in the traded set with a painted on Old English D. It’s actually a decent job by Topps standards. The pinstripes are gone, replaced by the Tigers road gray with the orange and navy blue collar.

The card, of course, is the reminder of one of the Mets worst trades. The tragedy of the Ryan deal is not that he was sent out, because he didn’t like New York and was never going to be as successful here. It’s that the team didn’t get more than the broken down Jim Fergosi in return.

The Staub deal was just a fiasco all around. The Mets thought Mike Vail’s hot tail end of the season – pre basketball injury – would easily replace Rusty, who went on to be an All-Star for the Tigers.

The Mets got an older player in Mickey Lolich who, like Ryan, wanted no part of the Big Apple. Which just shows that you can airbrush a logo, but not a smile.

Solving the mystery of the horrific Hostess Rusty Staub

I fondly remember turning over box after box of Ring Dings and Twinkies at the Dan’s Supreme supermarket in downtown Massapequa Park, looking for baseball cards on the bottom of the boxes, searching for the rare Mets player who might appear.

These memories were stirred by a post on Paul Lukas’ awesome Uniwatch blog showing an ad for the cards.

That, in turn, brought back horrific memories of what might be the worst Mets card ever rendered – and a potential mystery solved by members of the even more awesome Crane Pool Forum.

First, some background. Baseball card lovers know that it stinks to have a player wearing the wrong uniform on his card. It just looks bad.

This is a problem because players get traded, especially during the winter. And Topps back in the day the sole producer of cardboard glory, sometimes wanted to get cards produced without having the time – or the desire – to get a fresh photo of the guy in his new threads.

The company worked around this problem in two ways.

First, it would ask each player to remove his cap for a headshot, known in card circles as a “big head, no hat” photo, or BHNH.

Or, the company would either paint over a cap logo, and, in some cases, attempt to paint a new logo on the cap.

The 1962 set had a ton of BHNH cards, since it was the Mets' first year, and manager Casey Stengel appeared with his Yankee logo painted over.

But after that, it wasn’t unusual to see a player or two get the brush treatment. Sometimes the artists did a fairly nice job. Sometimes, not so much.

Logos got more complicated over the years, and the 1977 expansion Blue Jays players no doubt hoped and prayed that the squishy bird heads painted on their cards would bear only slight resemblance to that their actual caps would look like.

That brings us to our horror story and Hostess. The Mets had experienced some awful air-brush jobs over the years, but the 1975 Hostess card of Rusty Staub is the worst of the worst.

Hide the children, because this is nasty stuff.

Wow. For starters, the Expos logo is still clearly visable on Rusty’s chest. Topps often would leave collar trim in plain view, but never an entire team logo.

Then it appears an artist started adding Mets pinstripes on Rusty’s unstriped Expos jersey, then got distracted and stopped. Or, he was in a sugar frenzy from eating too many Ring Dings. Either way, there is a whole section of Rusty that is without stripes.

And keep in mind, this card is from 1975. Rusty was traded to the Mets at the start of the 1972 season. You telling me Hostess couldn’t get a current shot of Rusty after three years at Shea?

Something went horribly wrong, and there must be a reason. Crane Pool Forum poster batmgadanleadoff has a theory that makes great sense.

He’s thinking that Hostess used Topps’ archives for the photos. Clearly they reached out to someone because there were a lot of cards in the sets and the bakery folks probably didn’t shoot the players themselves.

Rusty, it is known, had some kind of beef with Topps, because his cards do not appear in the 1972 and 1973 sets. His first Mets card is in the 1974 issue.

“I'm guessing that Hostess licensed their pictures from Topps and that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line. I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team. In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.”

That’s very plausible. And I was convinced when the fine people behind the Ultimate Mets Database created this mock-up of what an air-brushed 1972 Topps Staub card might have looked like.

That’s very much in line with what other air-brushed Mets of the ear looked like. So what we likely see before us is Hostess folks not cropping old photos as intended.

Now, equally frightening is the physical cropping of the entire card from the box. I will not accept blame for this. This is the way the card was when I found it at a show – the only time I’ve ever seen it.

Maybe Rusty bought up all the boxes to prevent this nightmare from getting out in public, but I don’t think Twinkies would appeal to his gourmet tastes.

Speaking of treats, the Ultimate Mets folks have a whole bunch of modern Mets in pretend cards using designs from the 1970s. If you, like me, love the cardboard treasures from that era, you'll love the handiwork on display here.

And here's some less-than-glorious artwork from Topps, a gallery of air-brushed shame.


I don't know if it's coincidence or design, but a lot of air-brushed Mets didn't last with the team more than a year. This Jerry Robinson from the 1971 and Phil Hennigan from 1973 are good examples. At least Phil got a full logo on his cap.

Bob Miller was an original Met, then came back for a cameo in the 1974 set. Alas, Topps didn't bother to the hide his Pirates collar.


Joe Torre got the air-brush treatment in 1974, with Topps even adding the pinstripes and a button on what was a Cardinals jersey.


Finally, we have the sad case of Mickey Lolich. He lasted a season with the Mets, appearing in this 1976 traded card and a in a real photo in the 1977 set.

I met Lolich at a card show near Detroit years later and asked him about his short tenure at Shea.

"Hated it," he said. "I'm just an ole country boy and didn't like living in the city."

Of course, Mickey was involved in one of the worst Mets trades ever, coming from Detroit in exhange for -- you know it -- Rusty Staub.

Baseball Place No. 41: Chappell's Restaurant and Museum; and 41A: Rusty Staub's on Fifth

Sports restaurants are pretty much the same, no matter which jock has his name on the door.

There are jerseys on the walls, helmets on shelves, televisions hanging from every column and chicken wings and fingers on the menu. You know the place.

But it sounds like Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum in Kansas City, Mo. is a bit different. At least Josh Pahigian says so. He picked it as spot No. 41 in his “101 Baseball Places to See Before You Strike Out.

Josh said Chappell’s has more than 10,000 pieces of memorabilia. But it’s not all baseball stuff, though there are some pretty special treasures, like the 1974 World Series trophy.

I’ve been to Kansas City twice, but never to Chappell’s. But I have been to a sports bar and restaurant that also a little different than the others. That would be:

Alternative Place No. 41A) Rusty Staub’s on Fifth.

Rusty had several restaurants, but we went to his fancier, Fifth Avenue place twice.

I knew it would be more expensive than the typical place my wife and I went to at that stage in our young relationship. Of course, Pizza Hut was a big night out back then.

But I figured we owed Rusty.

Back in 1986, the year after he retired, Rusty had some kind of vague front office post with the Mets. We went to a game at Shea, and were standing at the window when an amazing thing happened. Rusty Staub walked through the ticket office.

I guess he was picking up tickets for friends or somebody, but there, on the other side of the glass talking to the attendant was the unmistakable Mr. Staub.

“Hey! There’s Rusty Staub!” I said aloud, excited to see a Met hero right there.

Then my fiancée uttered the phrase that brought shock, shame and pain. It’s an incident discussed only in hushed tones these days, some 20 years later.

“Who’s Rusty Staub?”

Yes, he heard it. The friendly smile went to a quick frown, and off he went.

So a year or so later we went to the restaurant, which was in a glass-walled building scanning two levels.

The entrance and bar shared a level with the Mets Clubhouse Shop, which seemed like an incredible place because it had real, game-used caps, jerseys and bats. We visited months later to pick up a game-used, cracked Barry Lyons bat.

We could have enjoyed snacks at the bar, but I was taking my wife out for a fancy meal. We were brought to a table in the lower level, up against a glass wall with a view of the atrium and escalator.

We opened a menu and were somewhat surprised to find entrees that cost more than what we used to paying on a total bill. That was the first time we had a dined at a place where the salad cost extra.

I ordered Rusty’s famous orange chicken – his grandmother’s recipe, I believe – and we at a lot of bread until our fancy meals arrived. It was delicious.

Our next visit capped off an amazing night in Manhattan. The University of Missouri School of Journalism hosted a reception in what was then the Pan Am Building for alumni to meet the new dean.

We were the youngest people there. The event was hosted by Good Housekeeping Editor John Mack Carter, who must have sensed we were uncomfortable because he came over and graciously spent a lot of time with us and pointed out the most expensive things in the food spread and told us to enjoy it all.

After the event we walked over to Rockefeller Center and had desert in the shadow of Prometheus on a spectacular New York evening.

Since we were in that part of town, we walked over to the Mets Clubhouse Shop. It was closing, but we went into the atrium to take a peek in Rusty’s. And there, through the glass in a corner booth, was Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling with a pair of ladies.

I knew better to interrupt that gathering. Keith looked up. I smiled and waved. He nodded and winked.

This time I was careful to whisper. “That’s Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling.”

This time, my wife knew who they were. We headed up the escalator and off into the night.

"El Duque" joins Mets all-nickname team

Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez has been with the Mets for a week, and he’s already assumed a valuable spot.

Of course, I’m talking about the Mets’ All-Nickname team.

Nicknames are an important part of baseball, the Mets have had some of the best, especially in those early years.
But first the ground rules: No one makes the team with a lame Chris Berman name. By and large, I think they’re dopey and not something an average fan would throw out there.

A proper nickname has to roll off the tongue and be universally recognized and even stand on it’s own. When you say "The Franchise," everybody knows who you are talking about.

Another rule: Shortened last names don’t count. Sorry "Straw" and "Maz." There's one near exception, and we'll get to that in a minute.

First Base: “Marvelous Marv" Throneberry
If there was ever a man destined to be a Met, it was Marvin Eugene Throneberry. His play left something to be desried. OK, a lot to be desired. But Marv was a colorful guy, and all we had in those early years was color. The other option was Dave "Kong" Kingman, but I just don't like him very much.

Second base: Elijah Jerry “Pumpsie” Green
Green is famous for integrating the Red Sox, but he closed out his career by appearing in 17 games for the 1963 Mets, hitting .278 with one homer. He came in a trade with Tracy Stallard for Felix Mantilla, a trifecta of unusual names. The Sox later restored blandness by adding a guy named Al Moran as the player to be named later.

Third base: Howard “HoJo” Johnson
As you have no doubt guessed, this is the near exception to the no shortened last name rule. In this case, we get the shortened first and last names. This guy was so good they named a restaurant after him. Seriously, what were his parents thinking? And once the Mets had a guy in their minor league system named Ronald McDonald. Imagine if HoJo and Mickey D were ever on the same team?

Shortstop: Derrel McKinley “Bud” Harrelson
Truth is, shortstop is the weak spot in the lineup. I love Buddy, don't get me wrong. It's not just the strongest nickname out there.

Outfield:
Daniel Joseph “Rusty” Staub, "Le Grande Orange"
Mr. Staub was such a good player that he needed two nicknames, one in French. I’m guessing the names stem from his red hair, but we should never assume too much. Rusty of course had two runs with the Mets, the second of which inspired a third name, “Guy who doesn’t run or play in the field.”

Roger “You Suck” Cedeno
I confess I am perplexed by this one. But it seemed like every time mild-mannered Roger was introduced, I’d hear “You Suck Cedeno!” which seems like an unusual nickname. Perhaps it comes from Cedeno’s magical power to turn opponent's routine flyball outs into triples.

Lenny "Nails" Dykstra and William Hayward "Mookie" Wilson
They were platooned on the Mets, so they share that fate here as well. Dykstra liked to think he was tough as nails. I met at a card show once and asked him to sign the glorious Mets book. As he was signing I asked him if he could write "Nails" there as well. He misspelled it, looked up and sheepishly said "Oops" and tried to fix it. So that goes to show you that while Dykstra might have been tough as nails, he was not sharp as a tack. Mookie, who had no trouble spelling his name, has transcended sports with a name that has since been bestowed to countless pets.

Back-up outfielder: George Basil “Stork” Theodore
Stork was a monster in the minors but his time at Shea is probably best remembered by his horrific collision with Don Hahn in 1973 that broke his hip. Stork ended up hitting just .219 with two homers in his career, but was fondly remembered a colorful character. And as the cartoon on the back of his 1974 Topps card says, “George likes marshmallow mikeshakes.”

Catcher: Clarence “Choo Choo” Coleman
“Choo Choo” was a bit of a mystery. He called everyone “Bub.” There’s a famous story about Coleman appearing on Kiner’s Korner, and Ralph, frustrated by the short non-answers he was getting, tried to lighten Coleman up by asking “Choo Choo, what is your wife’s name, and what’s she like?” His response: “Her name is Mrs. Coleman, and she likes me, Bub.” The real mystery is how Coleman got on the show in the first place, since it was reserved for the stars of that day’s game. Coleman appeared in 106 games in 1963 despite hitting a whopping .178. And it’s not like he was any good in the field, he had 15 errors. But his name was good enough to beat Don Robert "Duffy" Dyer.

Starting rotation
George Thomas Seaver "The Franchise"
Any Mets rotation begins with Seaver, of course! He was probably called "Tom Terriffic" more often.

Wilmer David "Vinegar Bend" Mizell
I assume he is called that because he was born in Vinegar Bend, Alabama. Mizell had some nice years with the Pirates, but like the rest of the 1962 team, there was very little left in the tank and he was released after 17 games and a nasty 7.34 ERA. He later went on to join an even more suspect group of misfits -- the U.S. Congress!

Dwight "Dr. K," "Doc" Gooden
Gooden's nickname became so oft-mentioned that Topps actually replaced Dwight with Doc on baseball cards. Gooden for a time wanted another nickname, "Uptown." No kidding. There was a story in the program and everything. Thankfully, that ended in a hurry. But in hindsight it shows that Doc was more messed up than we ever suspected at the time.

Frank "Sweet Music" Viola
I suppose that when your last name matches a stringed instrument, this is about as good of a nickname as you are going to get. But Frank was a Long Islander, so that makes him A-OK with us. Some might say that Kenny "The Gambler" deserves a spot in the rotation, but I'm still not forgiving him for the infamous walk to Andruw Jones.

Bullpen: Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw
My cat is named after Tug McGraw. It's true. My wife decided that she would get final say over names given to children, and I'd get final say over names bestowed on pets. She might have made this rule after I wanted to name our first-born "Mookie." My goldfish is named "Costco."

Manager: Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra
Yogi's suffering at the hands of the Yankees is well-documented, and he didn't get the respect he deserved as manager of the Mets, either. But he gets on this team, well ahead the colorless group of manager names we've trotted out there, from Wes to Joe to Davey to Art.

There you go! Let me know if I've missed anybody.

In other words...

Fellow out-of-state Mets fan Dan Ziegler has moved his site to a new place. You can find him at www.lonestarmets.com