The Strange Life of Lowell Palmer (with a guest appearance from some lovely OPCs of him)

 I found some exquisite OPCs in a lot of random cards I bought a few weeks ago. Vintage O-Pee-Chee cards are always welcome, but these were of bloggers'-favorite Lowell Palmer, the man who pioneered wearing cool sunglasses on baseball cards.

If you're living in the Matrix, run if you see Lowell Palmer coming for you.

While researching this post I found a great article on Lowell Palmer from MLB.com: 

The Story behind the one-of-a-kind sunglasses-wearing Lowell Palmer

Lowell's big-league success was limited (5-18, 5.29 ERA) due to terrible control, but he was an interesting guy, even apart from the slick shades. 

Lowell raised pigeons for fun, and worked as a private detective in the off-season. 

His one major-league home run came on July 19, 1969, off Bill Hands of the Chicago Cubs, and as pitchers are prone to do he messed up his home-run trot. I'll quote the article:

"He throws me a fastball. It was on the outside corner of the plate and I swung and just about took my shoes off," Palmer said. "I hit it and it was a line drive right at shortstop. Well, I just trotted a little bit because I said, 'He's gonna catch it.' And it went over his glove. So, I took off running like a jackrabbit. I hit first base. My helmet came flying off. I'm going to second, I look over at my coach, and he's got his hands up. I thought he was giving me the 'get down' sign!"

So, Palmer slid into second base -- thrilled to have just picked up his first big league hit. Cubs shortstop Don Kessinger then walked over to Palmer as the pitcher dusted himself off and said, "Hey, kid. You hit a home run."

"I looked at him and said, 'Oh bull!'" Palmer remembered. "I thought he was trying to get me to step off the base so he could tag me. I wouldn't get off the bag."

After finally being convinced that, no, he really had hit a home run, Palmer finished his trot around the bases.

"There was about 10 guys standing hopefully laughing their [butts] off. And here I hit a home run! I'm filthy, dirty, no helmet, and these guys are all laughing at home plate," Palmer said.

He was once sent down to the minor leagues for dating his manager's daughter, and in his last two pro seasons he combined to walk 184 batters in 192 innings. In other words, he was a flake. 

I was ecstatic to see his 1971 OPC in the lot; it's a high number, and the high numbers from that year are extremely hard to find. 

It's always nice to have odd-balls in your collection; O-Pee-Chee cards of Lowell Palmer qualify as odd-balls two times over.

Old man, young man; which is which?

 The fact that I'm asking this question gives away the answer, but based on their pictures alone, who do you think looks older: Howie Koplitz or Art Fowler?

Fowler looks young and strong. Koplitz looks like he should be sitting in a rocking-chair on the porch, spitting tobacco out of his bird-thin lips. 

Art Fowler was 41 in 1964. Howie Koplitz was 24 in 1962. Not only was Koplitz younger, he was seventeen years younger. Koplitz's premature elderliness is honestly frightening.

Their careers were likewise dissimilar. 

Art Fowler was a late-bloomer. He was 31 years old when he debuted for the Cincinnati Reds in 1954, after an unspectacular minor league career in which he had won only 4 games above AA, but over the next three years he was a solid starter for the Reds. He was eerily consistent, winning 12, 11, and 11 games with ERAs of 3.83, 3.90, 4.05, though he did lead the NL in Fielding Independent Pitching in that third year with a mark of 3.09. But he had a 6.47 ERA in 1957, a 1958 spent in the PCL, and a 5.31 ERA in 1959. His career seemed to be over.

But after two solid years in the American Association in the Dodgers' system in 1960 and 1961, he made it back to the majors with the Angels in 1961 at the tender age of 38. He was excellent from 1961 to 1963, with ERAs of 3.64, 2.81, and 2.42, but after a 10.29 ERA in 4 games in 1964 he returned to the minors, this time for good. He continued to pitch well in the Pacific Coast League and in his last season, 1970, at 47, he had a 1.59 ERA and saved 15 games for the Denver Bears. For his career, he won 259 games and appeared in 1037. 

Howie Koplitz's career was out of pro ball when he was 28, three years younger than when Fowler reached the major leagues. His star season for the Birmingham Barons in the Southern Association in 1961 (23-3, 166 K's, 2.11 ERA) catapulted him to the majors, but once there he didn't do much. He did have a 2-0 record for the Tigers in 1961, which gave him a record for the year of 25-3, but for his major league career he only had a record of 9-7 with a 4.21 ERA. In 1964, he had a shocking record of 2-12 for Toronto and Tacoma in AAA, though his ERA was 2.92. 

Who's the little guy in the suit?

 I was idly looking through my 1964 Topps cards when I stumbled upon the 1964 Milwaukee Braves team card, and wondered, "Who's the small man in the black suit on the far left?" 

It turned out be a man named Don Davidson, who was the Braves' traveling secretary at the time.

Davidson suffered a bout of sleeping sickness when he was five which stunted his growth, and he grew to only 4'2". He began his life in baseball in 1939, as batboy for the Boston Braves, and joined the Braves office in 1948. He held various jobs with the Braves, among them public relations director and assistant to the president, until he was fired by Ted Turner in 1976. 🙄

He served with the Astros for a few more years, and died of cancer in 1990 at 64.

Davidson is supposed to have given Henry Aaron his nickname of "Hammering Hank." 

His autobiography was titled "Caught Short." 

As his obituary says, "Davidson received the New York Baseball Writer's Bill Slocum Award for long and meritorious service in 1971, was honored by the Houston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America in 1986, and received the Robert O. Fishel Award for baseball public relations excellence in 1989."

When the small suited gentleman on the far left of the Braves' team card caught my eye, I had no idea how much history was behind him. 

Speaking of history...

I wrote two other blog posts today for my two baseball history blogs. (This is my first time to turn the hat trick of writing posts on all three of my blogs.) One was about a player named George Ely, a one-armed left-handed second baseman who starred in Los Angeles semi-pro baseball for several years, and the other was about Bernard Hannegan, who may have thrown the first curveball.

https://semiprobaseballhistory.blogspot.com/2023/11/george-ely-one-armed-wonder.html
https://johnsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/2023/11/did-bernard-hannegan-throw-first-curve.html

Coin on card: Cliff Johnson's Silver Half-Dollar

 Hi y'all. It's been a really long time since I last posted. I haven't stopped collecting, but my focus has been elsewhere. 

But lately I've been looking through my cards and finding things I want to talk about, so here I am, starting up this blog again after a year-long hiatus.

Looking through my stack of 1975 Minis this week, I noticed that Cliff Johnson wore a Benjamin Franklin silver half-dollar on a chain around his neck. This is the first time I've ever noticed money making an appearance on a baseball card.

     A slightly closer look:

                                                                                                                                                                                                   
And here's a Benjamin half-dollar for comparison:

That's really all I have for tonight.

I'll probably keep posting "stuff I noticed" posts like this, and I might also chronicle some of the cards I've acquired while my blog was sleeping.

Thanks for reading!