Collective Troll Card of the Day, 1964 Topps Giants Ken Boyer

Welcome and good morning Trollites! It is time for another card from the really big set I have been working on, the 1964 Topps Giants. This is card # 57 of Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals and it is the Collective Troll’s Card of the Day. Before I share my take, here is what the folks at Topps Chewing Gum had to say on the back of the card.
KEN DOES IT AGAIN
BOYER PLAYS IN 10TH ALL-STAR GAME
The St. Louis Cardinals third baseman, Ken Boyer, played in his 10th All Star contest in 1964. Cracking a home run and two hits in the game last July, he upped his All-Star batting average to .347 against the American League’s top pitchers. Ken began his minor league career in ’49 as a pitcher. With Lebanon in the North Atlantic Conference, he won 5 games, but batted .455! Ken gave up the mound in 1950 when he hit .342 as a part-time outfielder for Hamilton in the Pony League. Since coming up to St. Louis in 1955, Ken has topped the .300 mark for five years. In 1961, the right-handed hitter batted .329, finishing third among the National League’s top batters.
Well, Topps summed it up pretty well. Boyer started out as a pitcher in the minors, became an outfielder and eventually one of the best third basemen in the National League. I did not realize that he began as a hurler, but as a teenager in the Cards system he pitched in 192 innings compiling an 11-9 record. Of course he would fame as a third baseman and not a pitcher, but he definitely made good use of his strong arm. For a decade’s length of time it was academic that Brooks Robinson would be on the American League’s All Star squad and Ken Boyer would be his counterpart in the NL. As a member of the Cardinals he was part of their World Championship team in 1964. As it turns out, Boyer’s best season came after this card was printed-actually it came the year that it was printed. In 1964 he started his 6th All Star Game at third base (11th overall). In addition to that, in 1964 he won the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award, the Major League Player of the Year Award and was awarded the National League MVP. In ’64 he batted .295 with 24 homers and a league leading 119 runs batted in. He also scored 100 runs, had 30 doubles and 10 triples while winning the National League pennant with the Cards and eventually winning the World Championship, beating his brother Clete Boyer and his team, the New York Yankees in 7 games. The Cards rode the fine pitching performances of Bob Gibson, but also remained alive courtesy of a game 4 grand slam from Boyer. Over his career Boyer had a .287 batting average with 282 homers and 1141 RBI. He appeared in 11 All Star Games and won 5 Gold Gloves. He had 2143 hits. He remained on the Hall of Fame ballot until 1994 after appearing on the maximum of 15 ballots. His highest level of support came in 1988 when he received 26% of the vote. After his retirement as a player, Boyer managed in the Minor Leagues for 7 seasons and also spent 2-1/2 years (1978-1980) managing his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals. Ken Boyer was a Missouri native who played in his home state with the Cards for most of his career; he was also 1 of 14 Boyer children. Two of his brothers played Major League baseball. His brother Cloyd was his teammate with the Cards in the early 50s while his other brother Clete was also a Gold Glove third baseman. 3 of his other brothers spent time playing ball in the minor leagues. Ken Boyer’s number 14 was retired by the Cards in 1984. He is the only Non-Hall of Famer to have his number retired in St. Louis. His 255 career homers in St. Louis ranks third in club history behind Stan Musial and Albert Pujols. He also ranks among the top-10 All Time among third baseman in games, assists and double plays. Boyer died of cancer at 51 years of age in 1981. The 444 homeruns that he and his brother Clete hit combined rank 4th all time among brother in the majors behind Hank and Tommy Aaron and Joe and Vince DiMaggio or Joe and Dom DiMaggio. His records as a member of the Cards and as a third baseman are vast, I could go on, but will end it here. Despite the fact that the writers failed to recognize him as worthy for Cooperstown, he remains one of the great third baseman of all time, at the plate and in the field. He will never be forgotten by fans in St. Louis, either. For now he suffers the same fate as Ron Santo, a great third baseman who played in the deadball era… By the by, Boyer's hat looks seriously airbrushed to me, but at this point he had only played for the Cardinals...Maybe he just had an ugly hat? Okay, there are plenty more Card of the Day posts to come on this set and other awesome vintage sets from the 50's and 60's on this blog and it's brother blog, The Nitty Gritty. Check em out cuz the Bradentucky Bombers (and their fans) say so. Go Rays! Troll out.

A Cardboard Rewind of Bob Gibson and the 1964 World Series!

By his incredible standards you could call 1964 an off year for Bob Gibson. He failed to win twenty games (19-12), he only struck out 245 that year and his ERA was a hefty 3.01. At the plate he only drove in 4 runs with no homers after putting up this line in ’63-.207/3/20. He only completed 17 games and didn’t lead the league in a single category. He didn’t even make the All Star team or receive a single vote for the Cy Young Award (Dean Chance won); by all accounts it was an off year for Hoot (but would have been a career year for a mortal hurler). It took career years from the rest of the St. Louis pitching staff (Ray Sadecki 20-11, Curt Simmons 18-9) to help the slacking Gibby lead the Cards to a 93-69 record and an NL Pennant.
Their foes in the World Series were the Yankees who had appeared in 14 World Series in 16 years. They had been the dominant team of the 40’s, and then the 50’s and it looked like they would do the same in the sixties. The Yankees fell to the Dodgers in ’63, replaced their manager with Yogi Berra and won the AL Pennant again to earn the chance to face the Cardinals in the Fall Classic. The Yankees beat Bob Gibson in game 2; Gibby came back and beat them in Game 5 in one of the most exciting games of the Series. Gibson had shut the Yankees down all day, but in the bottom of the 9th Tom Tresh hit a two-run homer to tie the game at 2 a piece. The Cards would come back in the top of the 10th when Tim McCarver hit a home run himself. Gibson shut the Yankees down in the bottom of the 10th for a 10-inning complete game. The series back to St. Louis and Jim Bouton won game 6 behind homers from Mantle, Maris and Pepitone to tie the series at 3 each and bring on a decisive game seven.
Game 7 was played on October 15, 1964 at the tiny Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis in front of just over 30,000 fans. After battling in game five Gibson and Mel Stottlemyre were both back on two days rest to square off in game 7. The title line on today’s card of the day gives away the surprise. Bob Gibson’s regular card in the set is number 320 and it shows a close-up of the great power pitcher in spring training before the first pitch of the season. Today’s card of the day is card #138 in the set and it shows Gibby on the mound in game 7 with the headline: Gibson Wins Finale. This is the 7th of 8 cards in the set that chronicle the ’64 World Series, one for each game, plus the final card, #139, titled Cards Celebrate.
Back to the main card of the day… The front shows that Gibson won, beating New York 7-5, a quick flip of the card shows the game’s box score on the back. The disparity between the sizes of the lineups in the box score makes me laugh. The Cardinals finished the game with the same 9 guys who started it. The Yankees on the other hand used 5 different pitchers and 3 pinch hitters. Gibson shut the Yankees down for the first five innings and had a pretty cushy 6-0 lead, but Mickey Mantle cut the lead in half with a 3 run homer in the top of the sixth. There was no scoring from either team until Ken Boyer (3-4 that game), who led the NL in RBI that year, hit a solo homer in the bottom of the 7th to set the score at 7-3, in favor of the Cards. That score held until the top of the 9th when the Yankees, backs to wall, unloaded against Gibson. Tom Tresh, who had homered earlier, struck out to lead off the inning, bringing up Ken Boyer’s (Cards) brother Clete Boyer (Yanks). This had to be a proud day for the Boyer family because both of the Boyer boys (both 3rd basemen) homered that day. Clete Boyer’s solo shot make it 7-4, Cards. With the pitcher’s spot in the order up, back-up catcher Johnny Blanchard got the call to pinch hit and Gibson struck him out for the 2nd out in the 9th. 25-year-old utility guy Phil Linz was the Yankees final hope. Linz started the game at shortstop (Tony Kubek was injured and missed the Series) and was the Yankees lead-off hitter. He had made an error earlier in the game and was looking for redemption. He got it, getting his 2nd hit of the day, a solo homerun to left field to bring the Yankees a little bit closer. With two outs in the 9th, the Yankees were down 7-5. Gibson remained in the game despite giving up two homers in the inning, he wanted this one. He still had a two-run lead and needed just one more out. All Star second baseman Bobby Richardson (.406 BA in Series) was the batter. Richardson popped one up, second baseman Del Maxvill pulled it in, the game was over and the St. Louis Cardinals were World Champions! Like the card told us earlier when it spoiled the surprise, “Gibson Wins Finale, Game #7-St. Louis 7, New York 5. This would be Gibson’s first World Championship-he pitched in 3 games, finished 2 of them and earned two wins. His final stat line for the Series was 2-1, 3.00 ERA. He went 27 innings, gave up 23 hits and struck out an incredible 31 Yankees-a World Series record. He was named the Series MVP and in 1965 he would return to his dominate self (winning 20 games and striking out 270) and would finish the decade as one of the most dominate pitchers ever. As for the Yankees, this would be their last World Series for 12 seasons-they would return in ’76 and be the victims of the Reds 4 game sweep. Perhaps it was Gibson’s game 7 toying with them that broke their winning spirit. That is my take on the game and the Series, but here is what the back of the card had to say: "St. Louis pitcher, Bob Gibson, survived a 9th inning rally by the Yankees as the Cardinals won the 1964 World Championship title. Pitching with just two days rest, Bob Gibson set a World Series strikeout mark, fanning 31 Yankee batters in 27 innings." I love this game, I love this hobby! As a collecting end note-as my friend Master Mike of JDs Wild collects cards of phenom pitchers, I collect Topps originals of my favorie dominate pitchers of the 50's, sixties and seventies-Billy Pierce, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal and Steve Carlton. The collection is pretty small, but I do love these '65 Gibsons! A '65 Koufax would be a nice addition, too... Troll out.