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.