Thursday, March 10, 2016

Some Heritage of my own

Looking at everyone's recent posts featuring cards from the newest Heritage release, reminded me that I hadn't looked around for any of the Heritage Real One Autographs for at least six months to a year.

Since these are one of my favorite series of autographs, I decided to remedy this searching drought by scouring all the major sites for some cheap new additions. I found a seller on Sportlots who had five for sale at fairly reasonable prices and better yet they had the 'make an offer' feature turned on, so I promptly put in offers on all of them which were thankfully all accepted.

So for your viewing pleasure. Here are my most recent acquisitions, all from the 2013 edition.

1. Tom Brown:
Mr. Brown's career in the majors consisted of only 61 games for the Senators in 1963. He batted a meager average of .147 in 118 at bats with 17 hits, 4 RBI's, and 1 HR.

 He is much better known for the success he had playing in the NFL. As a safety for the Packers from 1964-68, he won three championships including Super Bowls 1 and 2. His biggest moment coming in the 1966 NFL title game against the Cowboys when he intercepted a fourth-down pass in the end zone by quarterback Don Meredith in the final minute, thus preserving the Packers' 34–27 victory over Dallas.


2. Hal "Skinny" Brown:
Mr. Brown played a total of 14 seasons in the majors with five different teams (White Sox, Red Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Colt. 45's) from 1951-64. Brown was a knuckleballer known for his outstanding control, unfortunately he didn't get a lot of run support for the majority of his career which resulted in a 85-92 lifetime record. His best season came in 1960 with the Baltimore Orioles when he went 12-5 and had a career low ERA of 3.06. Although the next season wasn't bad for him either going 10-6 and set an Orioles single season record of 36 shutout innings, a record which still stands by the way. Mr. Brown unfortunately passed away on December 17th of last year.


3. Jeoff Long:
Mr. Long played parts of two seasons with the Cardinals and White Sox from 1963-64. Originally a pitcher in his first two minor league seasons he converted to a first basemen after little success on the mound. In his 56 games played he batted .193 with 16 hits, 9 RBI's, and 1 HR. The reason for his limited time in the big league was due to an unfortunate incident on July 15th 1964 when playing left field he slipped on the wet grass and injured his knee at Fenway Park. He would spend the better part of three years trying to recover and after a brief attempt a comeback he retired in 1969.


4. Jack Spring:
In case anyone wondered about the minimalness of the autograph. Jack Spring had Parkinson's disease, so that would have obviously affected his signature.
Mr. Spring spent parts of 10 seasons in majors with seven teams (Phillies, Red Sox, Senators, Angels, Cubs, Cardinals, Indians) between 1955-65. Jack was primarily a relief pitcher for most of his career with 186 innings pitched he went 12-5 with a 4.26 ERA. Mr. Spring unfortunately passed away on August, 2015.


5. Pumpsie Green:
Mr. Green played five seasons in the big leagues, four with the Red Sox and some of his last season with the Mets. He is best known for being the first black player to play for the Red Sox in 1959. He was primarily used as a pinch runner and as a backup for multiple infield positions. Over his career he had a .246 average with 13 HRs and 73 RBI's.

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.

8 comments:

  1. It's a shame that they couldn't have given Mr. Brown a lighter pen - small potatoes though. This is a really nice lot of autos!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did mull over whether to buy it or not, but for the price I thought it was still worth it. Plus you can see it better in person, especially when tilting the card.

      Delete
  2. Love the Pumpsie. You have to read the story about pumpsie and Gene Conley

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm very familiar with their "incident", in fact it was the first thing I thought about when I saw the card. I was in a bit of a hurry trying to get this post ready to go for tonight and just plain forgot to put a link in here so people could read about it. I'm assuming anyone that is interested can probably just google their two names and find many a site that have articles all about it. Mark, I'm curious to know. Do they still talk about this story in Boston after all these years?

      Delete
    2. You see it mentioned occasionally in a columnist story. Also every once in a while it gets brought up on sports radio.

      Delete
    3. It's funny how stories like that never completely go away.

      Delete
  3. I love the Real One autos. Some of the early ones are getting hard to find.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, they do seem to be pretty popular with collectors. Even more so than I realized.

      Delete