Updating Topps' father-son set

The first baseball cards I got as a kid were from the 1985 Topps set. Those block letters set at an angle, colorful fronts and the moss-green backs with red lettering (like Christmas in every pack) still take me back to a specific part of my childhood, of the pharmacy down the street where I'd buy my packs.

Two years later, I started going regularly when, in 1987, I started chasing the complete set. Then in 1988, my collecting really took off as I bought Topps by the wax box and dove into the new Score set. (I never really chased after Donruss or Fleer as much, though whether it was because those sets didn't appeal to me as much or they weren't carried in my neighborhood, I'm not sure.)

But the '85 set stands out, because even though I didn't come close to collecting all of them, that was the first time I bought any packs regularly. Plus, it had two seminal subsets: the 1984 Olympic baseball team and the Father/Son cards. The Team USA cards, of course, took off when, three years later, the Mark McGwire card became his true rookie card.

But I didn't really get the concept of the Olympic team at that age (I don't recall any of the '84 Olympics, even though I was 8 years old; it wasn't until the '88 Olympics -- and Ben Johnson -- that my sports world expanded). So it was the Father/Son set that drew my interest, particularly the card of Yogi and Dale Berra -- the once and current Yankee, even though Dale's photo on the Father/Son card showed him with the Pirates. Probably because he was the Yankees manager at the time, Yogi Berra was to me everything the Yankees were -- the history and all that. We weren't (and aren't) a Yankee family, so my parents never told
me about Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle or even Thurman Munson. So Yogi stood out as the representative of the pinstripes. And because of that, the Berras' Father/Son card struck me as possibly being the coolest card in the set. (Plus, even then, I think I was aware that Yogi lived in Montclair, which though a long ways away -- at 9, I judged distances by whether or not we had to drive on a highway to get there -- was the town where my mom's aunt and uncle lived and near my grandparents' house.)

And so I got to thinking about some of the other Father/Son cards -- the Schofields, Bells, Kennedys, Boones, Laws, Skinners and Franconas. That led me to some of today's players whose fathers played the game and I wished that Topps would bring back the Father/Son cards. While I think some of their recent player pairings have been fun to see, I'd like a reprise of actual baseball lineage, more than just "Legendary Lineage" as Topps sees it.

I know others out there on this series of tubes we call the internet have Photoshopped some recent Father/Son pairings, but I wanted to do a whole set in the 1985 style -- 13 cards showing the father on a Topps card of yore and a photo of the current player in a pose with his current team. The restrictions of current players eliminated some recent offspring who played, like Brian Bannister (who's now in Japan) and Ken Griffey Jr. But I still found enough pairings for 13 cards, including some current stars and some past heroes. And true to the '85 originals, they can't all be studs, so there's even a direct descendant of the Berra card featuring a Hall of Fame dad and a well-traveled, role-playing son.

Ike Davis was the first card I wanted to (re-)produce. Hardly a week goes by without the Mets' announcers mentioning Ron Davis' career, which spanned 11 years and five teams, mostly the Twins and Yankees. And Ike, of course, seems to be the face of the New Mets, the future from here.

I'll go alphabetically for the rest ...

Michael Brantley is projected to be the Indians' starting left fielder this year. He was the player to be named later in the 2008 trade that sent CC Sabathia to the Brewers. Mickey Brantley played 302 games in four seasons with the Mariners. This 1989 Topps card records Mickey's best season in '88: .263/.296/.399, 15 home runs, 56 RBI and 18 stolen bases in 149 games.

Sal Butera spent four of his nine seasons with the Twins, but Drew was drafted by the Mets in 2005. (I recently discovered that I saw Drew Butera play for the Hagerstown Suns, catching for Jon Niese in a game in Lakewood in 2006.) The Mets dealt Drew to Minnesota as one of two players sent over for Luis Castillo, so if there's one good thing to come out of that deal, it's that it allowed the Buteras to become the first father-son duo in Twins history.

Robinson Cano is one of the biggest stars in this set, an All-Star second baseman for the sport's biggest draw in its biggest market. Jose Cano is one of the smallest, a right-handed pitcher whose entire career consisted of just six games with the Astros in 1989.

Other than Ike, Kyle Drabek is probably the baseball heir I'm most interested in seeing this season. A first-round pick of the Phillies in '06, Kyle pitched for the BlueClaws before being dealt to Toronto in the Roy Halladay deal. He made his debut last September, losing all three of his starts, but that was just a cameo. It'll be interesting to see what he can accomplish this season, particularly if he sticks in the rotation after Brandon Morrow returns from the disabled list. Doug Drabek, of course, pitched 13 seasons and won a Cy Young Award while with the Pirates in 1990, going 22-6.

Here's another well-known duo, though one that doesn't speak to one another anymore. I think that makes Prince Fielder's expression on this card very apt -- it's what he might look like if someone told him he were going to be on a baseball card with his father. Cecil Fielder made his name after his stint in Japan -- which followed his four seasons in Toronto from 1985-88 -- when he returned stateside to hit 204 home runs for the Tigers, Yankees and Angels. I was at Yankee Stadium for the final game of the 1990 season, when Cecil hit two home runs to finish with 51 -- the first 50-homer season since George Foster in 1977.

I nearly produced an error card in this set. After uploading all these images to the blog, I then went through to write the text and when I got to this one, I noticed I had neglected to change the player's name and team below Tony Gwynn Jr.'s photo; it still read Adam LaRoche, Nationals. This card is the equal of the Berras' card from '85: a Hall of Fame father in Tony Gwynn and a son who hasn't developed into a star. I'm not faulting the offspring here, just making a comparison.

It's a shame, but if there's one thing Adam LaRoche doesn't have, it's his dad's sense of facial hair style. Dave LaRoche remains in the game, most recently as the pitching coach in 2010 of the Las Vegas 51s, the Blue Jays' Triple-A affiliate.

Before he landed with the straitlaced Yankees, Nick Swisher had a flair for the hair, just like his dad. Nick has been known long before he broke into the big leagues, based on his good fortune to be drafted by the A's in 2002 -- the Moneyball draft -- out of Ohio State. Steve Swisher was a Bobcat, not a Buckeye -- he went to Ohio University.

Man, Will Venable looks happy to be a ballplayer! He has good reason to be, penciled in as the Padres' Opening Day right fielder. Last year, he and Gwynn Jr. roamed the PETCO Park outfield together. Max Venable spent eight of his 12 seasons in California, playing five years with the Giants and three with the Angels.

Neil Walker is, like the younger Drabek, a guy I'm interested in watching this season. It'd be nice if the Pirates had something good happen with another homegrown player. And I love this card of Tom Walker, primarily because it features the Cardinals' pillbox cap. If the Pirates have a throwback day in their pillbox lids, I may have to update this card.

This is the fifth card in this set with a Yankees connection (Ron Davis, Doug Drabek and Cecil Fielder also played in pinstripes, not to mention the two sons who currently do). This one might require an asterisk, because Dennis Werth is the stepfather to Jayson Werth, but the fact that Jayson has Dennis' surname is a good enough relationship to me.

And we close with EY and EY Jr., a pair of Jersey boys and a duo that played for the Rockies. Eric Young grew up in New Brunswick and played at Rutgers; Eric Young Jr. was drafted by Colorado out of Piscataway High School. I really wanted to use a Rockies card of EY, but the Google search did not turn up one suitable enough, and my collecting era ended before he joined the Rockies for their first season in 1993, so I don't have any in my possession.

We almost have a full starting lineup with the sons in this 13-player set -- only shortstop and third base are missing. I'm sure we could move Robby Cano over to short and maybe young Walker or Young could shift to third to fill the hole there. The roster of fathers is heavy on pitchers and outfielders, so we'd need to play several of them out of position in order to stage a father-son faceoff on the diamond.

Yogi's the first

1969 Mets reunion

I've met Yogi Berra a couple of times but never had a chance to get his autograph. I remedied that today at a show in Secaucus, immersing myself in a sea of Yankee fans to do so.

But rather than go with a black-and-white 8x10 photo in the true Yankee Stadium or the ubiquitous Hall of Fame postcard, I had the idea to recognize his Mets tenure, hence this photo. My hope is to fill it in with the other five -- Nolan Ryan, Jerry Grote, Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Duffy Dyer. I've got Ryan and Seaver separately on other items, but I'd love to get them all together here.

And so the quest begins...

And my mom wondered why I saved so many newspapers

As a guy who once thought being an investigative journalist or baseball beat reporter was his ultimate dream job, I kept a lot of newspapers. I thought about the historical value they might have and dreamed of some large game room or memorabilia display in the sprawling house I would have based on my book profits as a well-known author (in addition to my reporting duties, of course).

After Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris' single-season home run record, I asked my friends around the country to send me a copy of their local newspapers from the next day. One college friend -- also a newspaper and baseball buff -- happened to have been visiting his girlfriend in law school in St. Louis at the time and sent me the next day's (if not the EXTRA! edition distributed at the ballpark after the game) Post-Dispatch. I then did the same thing with friends in Knoxville and Austin the morning after the Bush-Gore election, which of course wasn't decided until a month later.

I still have some of the papers from those and other events, though I sorted through them a few months ago and recycled quite a few. At this point, do I really need to see how the Los Angeles Times covered McGwire's feat, especially now that it has lost so much of its luster? But I still have papers commemorating the Mets' 2001 NLCS clincher (which I attended), their World Series Game 3 win over the Yankees, the deaths of Joe DiMaggio and Harry Caray, the Nationals' first game in Washington (which I also went to), the first day-night doubleheader played in both New York ballparks, Tom Seaver's Hall of Fame induction and some significant moments in Lakewood BlueClaws history (as much because I wrote a lot of it).

There is also an assortment of non-baseball and non-sports events: Notre Dame football in Hawaii and the Fiesta Bowl, the women's basketball national championship, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the Devils' second Stanley Cup. Most of the papers are The New York Times and Asbury Park Press, but there are a few issues of the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, Arizona Republic, Washington Post and maybe even a New York Post.

Of course, the oldest of these events is the 1992 Seaver induction. Somewhere (I might not have come across it yet, or I might have ditched it because of the condition it was in), I think I have at least one of the New York tabloids from the 1986 postseason -- I believe it was Lenny Dykstra's Game 3 walk-off home run. I'm just not old enough to have anything as cool as the Daily News covering Don Larsen's perfect game. Who knows how many copies of that paper were burned up, used to wrap up fish for trucking uptown or dishes for a move, or used to cover someone's head during an unexpected downpour. But Gary Sangastiano saved his copy and soon will loan it to Montclair's Yogi Berra Museum to be put on display (Yogi, of course, caught Larsen that day).

I'll make a point to drive up Valley Road to see it, but I also hope they scan or photograph the inside pages, too. As a news nut, I'll be as interested in reading the coverage as I will be in seeing the cover in all its yellowed glory.

Yogi remembers George

I forgot to take my camera to the Yogi Berra Museum yesterday for the Hall of Famer's comments on the passing of George Steinbrenner, but it didn't matter -- there were so many TV cameras there that I didn't have much of a view. My one shot with my Droid turned out pretty well, though.

Yogi looked good, aside from his obvious sadness at Steinbrenner's death. He's 85, five years older than the Boss was, and was joined by his wife of 61 years, Carmen, and their youngest son, Dale, who I didn't recognize at first.

A few additional anecdotes from yesterday:

Yogi on Bob Sheppard:

Sheppard, he was great too. ... I loved the way he said the names, like a singer. "Mickeyyyy Mantlllle." He was a very nice man. When he came onto the field, he didn't say anything, didn't bother you that much.

Dale on his dad and Steinbrenner:

He would've liked to have played for him. My dad was one of the greatest players in the history of the game. It didn't matter who owned or managed the team when he was a player, he was going to be the best player on the field anyway. Who managed or coached was irrelevant. When you're a Hall of Famer, it doesn't manner who your manager or coach is. Just like Rickey Henderson and Winfield and Mattingly, the best players, their names are in the lineup everyday, they go out and play. It's irrelevant who the manager is. They go out and play. They respected George because he put the best players around them and gave them an opportunity to win.

Dale on his dad's firing in 1985:

Even when Dad was fired, I went into the office and he said, "Billy's going to be the manager. Play for him like you did for me. He's like an uncle to you. Same with George, go out and play hard. Don't worry about me, I'm going to be playing golf tomorrow." George is wonderful to play for. He gives you the opportunity to win and puts players together who can win.

Yogi on his job:

He called me up in the office one time and said, "Your team's not doing very well." I said, "Don't tell me this is my team. It's your team. You picked it. I didn't." [Laughing.]

Yogi on some of Steinbrenner's requirements:

Sometimes Billy would take the phone off the hook. [Steinbrenner] would call down and tell the guys to get a haircut. He didn't like long hair. Still didn't, I don't think. Swisher had that long hair and had to get it cut. And we always had to wear a jacket and tie on the plane.

In a change for baseball, A-Rod says something

An article in The New Yorker this week (and last week, this being a well-deserved double issue) sorts out some misconceptions when it comes to famous quotations.

Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Neither Ingrid Bergman nor anyone else in “Casablanca” says “Play it again, Sam”; Leo Durocher did not say “Nice guys finish last”; Vince Lombardi did say “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” quite often, but he got the line from someone else. Patrick Henry almost certainly did not say “Give me liberty, or give me death!”; William Tecumseh Sherman never wrote the words “War is hell”; and there is no evidence that Horace Greeley said “Go west, young man.”

Yogi Berra is mentioned in the piece as well, quite amusingly, in fact: "... when Yogi Berra said 'I didn’t really say everything I said' he was correct."

But at least it's refreshing to think that athletes and coaches once said something of substance when interviewed. Talking to high school football players after a game can often be painful for a reporter, and the media coaching scene in Bull Durham was funny because it's true. Baseball America does us a service when it recaps the minor league season each September with some of the best quotations from some of the game's best prospects.

So it was news today when Alex Rodriguez spoke frankly about his relationship with Derek Jeter and how it is no longer as tight as it once was. I particularly liked when he spoke freely about his contract: "I love being the highest-paid player in the game. It's pretty cool. I like making that money."

Personally, I'm not sure if this Rodriguez-New York relationship can work, but I did admire the player before he joined The Empire, and I'd prefer not to hate him, even if I hate the Yankees. Sadly, he'll enter the Hall of Fame as a Yankee, but at least he'll reclaim the all-time home run crown and remove the stain that is sure to affix itself sometime this season when it's no longer held by Hank Aaron. And then, by the time Albert Pujols is done, it might be held by a Cardinal for the first time since Babe Ruth knocked Roger Connor down a notch.

New Negro league candiates for the Hall

WAY too long since I've posted.

Must ... update ... more ...

With the Baseball Hall of Fame announcing that it is considering players from the Negro leagues and before for enshrinement, New Jersey may see itself represented further in Cooperstown. Among the Negro leaguers are one-time Newark Eagle William Bell Sr., former manager of the Newark Dodgers and Eagles Dick Lundy, Eagles manager Raleigh "Biz" Mackey, Eagles co-owner Effa Manley, and Eagles player and manager George Suttles.

A partial and by-no-means complete (as far as I can tell) list of Hall of Famers with Jersey ties include:

Those born here
Goose Goslin
Billy Hamilton
Joe Medwick

Those who died here
Dan Brouthers
Larry Doby
Harry Wright

Those who played here
Yogi Berra (Newark Bears)
Monte Irvin (Newark Eagles)
Ray Dandridge (Newark Eagles)
Leon Day (Newark Eagles)
Willie Wells (Newark Eagles)

I'm hoping to do more research on the history of New Jersey baseball, but I've got so many other various little side projects like that, I don't know when I'm going to get to it. Perhaps once I become independently wealthy and no longer have to work a regular job.

Mostly linkage

Did you know that you can just call up Bob Watson, the man in MLB's offices who hands out the suspensions? Very interesting.

Yogi Berra is 80 years old today. I got to meet him, briefly, yesterday. It was nearly 5 p.m. and he'd had a long day. Otherwise, it might've been a more in-depth interview. Which is to say, it would've been an interview.

I don't think John Rocker will ever make it back to the majors, mainly because he continues to open his mouth. If he'd just shut up and play baseball, he might be able to throw strikes again, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. After comparing himself to Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson, people are done giving him a fourth, fifth or sixth chance. Among the more interesting columns and responses are those from Buck O'Neil, USA Today, Newsday and the Daily News.

While watching some of yesterday afternoon's Red Sox-Athletics game, I saw an ad for a Sox travel package. A Boston travel agent has put together airfare, hotel and tickets to the Red Sox-Orioles series in Baltimore from July 7-10. The first game of that series overlaps with a Nationals-Mets game, and I'd imagine that the O's will win that head-to-head attendance battle. The Red Sox have also put together what may be the best baseball giveaway ever: They're raffling off three authentic World Championship rings, with proceeds going to charity. Massachusetts residents only, though.