#243 Ron Kline - Pittsburgh Pirates

Ronald Lee Kline
Pittsburgh Pirates
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'3"  Weight:  205
Born:  March 9, 1932, Callery, PA
Signed:  Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent before 1950 season
Major League Teams:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1952, 1955-1959; St. Louis Cardinals 1960; Los Angeles Angels 1961; Detroit Tigers 1961-1962; Washington Senators 1963-1966; Minnesota Twins 1967; Pittsburgh Pirates 1968-1969; San Francisco Giants 1969; Boston Red Sox 1969; Atlanta Braves 1970

Died:  June 22, 2002, Callery, PA (age 70)

A veteran of 17 big league seasons and 736 games pitched, Ron Kline enjoyed a career as a dependable reliever for 10 different teams.  His longest stint with any one team came at the beginning of his career with the Pirates, his hometown team, where he pitched for eight seasons primarily as a starting pitcher.  Kline missed two seasons early in his career due to military service in 1953 and 1954.  Despite his record of 14-18, 1956 was probably his best season as he started 39 games and had an ERA of 3.38.  It wasn't tracked at the time, but his bWAR for pitchers in 1956 (4.9) was fourth in the National League behind Johnny Antonelli, Bob Friend and Warren Spahn.

As a reliever later in his career, Kline finished in the top ten in saves four times, topping the American League leaders list in 1965 with 29 saves for the Senators.  After retiring from baseball, Kline returned to his hometown of Callery, Pennsylvania where he served as the town's mayor for several years.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1956 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #238
March 12, 2023 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards)

In mid-March last year, Doug and I attended the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, held within the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  My main focus for this show was accumulating as many 1969 Topps commons as possible, which I did by adding a grand total of 193 cards to our set.  That's almost 30% of the entire set added in one enjoyable afternoon.  I wrote a full summary of the show in a post over at The Phillies Room, found here.

This is the 161st of the 193 commons and semi-stars purchased, pulled and stacked from the first two neon green binders housing 1969 Topps cards at the multi-table spread of Uncle Dick's Cards from Babylon, New York.  My method was simple - I pulled up a chair, found a card I needed, picked the best of the group from the binder page and set it aside.  After each 100 cards, I'd ask the dealer to tell me how much damage I had done so far.  With a budget in mind, I kept going twice, continuing after card #100 and card #200, and stopping at card #298.  The final amount due was 17% off the sticker price for the pile of 193 cards, with this card costing me $1.25.

The Card / Pirates Team Set / Accuracy Index -8

This is possibly the least flattering baseball card in the entire 1969 Topps set, and the 17-year veteran deserved better for his last contemporaneous baseball card appearance.  Identical photos were used for Kline's 1967 and 1968 Topps card, and for his 1969 Topps card, Kline is turning his head slightly away from the camera.  He's likely wearing a Senators jersey here.  His lengthy big league career doesn't leave room for anything but statistics on the back, and it's the rare 1969 Topps card with no cartoon.

Accuracy Index:  Kline drops five points for the Senators jersey and three more points for the lack of a hat.

1969 Season
Kline bounced around a little in his penultimate season in the majors.  He had returned to the Pirates in 1968, and began the 1969 season once again in their bullpen.  After 20 games with the Pirates, Kline was 1-3 with a 5.81 ERA, and he was dealt to the San Francisco Giants for lefty reliever Joe Gibbon (#158).  Kline's time with the Giants was brief, and after seven relief appearances he was sold to the Boston Red Sox on July 5th.  He'd pitch in 16 games for the Red Sox.  Overall, with three different teams, Kline was 1-5 with a 5.36 ERA in 27 games pitched.

1953 Topps #175

1956 Topps #94

1959 Topps #265

1963 Topps #84

1968 Topps #446

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1953 Topps #175
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (15):  1953, 1956-1969
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1991 Topps Archives 1953 #175
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  60 in the Beckett online database as of 2/12/24.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia

Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1956 Topps Blog / 1965 Topps Blog

#242 Frank Kostro - Minnesota Twins / #244 Indians Rookie Stars

#659 Johnny Podres - San Diego Padres

John Joseph Podres
San Diego Padres
Pitcher

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  170
Born:  September 30, 1932, Witherbee, NY
Signed:  Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent before 1951 season
Major League Teams:  Brooklyn Dodgers 1953-1955, 1957; Los Angeles Dodgers 1958-1966; Detroit Tigers 1966-1967; San Diego Padres 1969

World Series Appearances:  Brooklyn Dodgers 1953, 1955; Los Angeles Dodgers 1959, 1963
Died:  January 13, 2008, Glens Falls, NY (age 75)

Johnny Podres forever joined the ranks of Dodger greats when the lefty won 1955 World Series MVP honors for his two fantastic starts against the Yankees in the Fall Classic.  Podres started Game 3, pitching a complete game in the Dodgers' win, and then started the decisive Game 7, pitching a complete game shutout to give the team their first and only World Series title while in Brooklyn.  Podres settled in as a reliable starter for Brooklyn and then Los Angeles, winning at least 12 games over the next seven seasons and making four All-Star teams.  He led the league with six shutouts in 1957 while winning the ERA title with a 2.66 mark.  Podres attained a career-high 18 wins in 1961, and he'd win two more World Series rings with the Dodgers in 1959 and 1963.  He retired as a player following a half-season with the expansion Padres in 1969.  Podres was 148-116 over 440 career games, pitching 77 complete games and 24 shutouts.  He struck out 1,435 over his 15-year big league career, currently 254th on the all-time leader's list.  Podres' 136 career wins with the Dodgers currently ranks 10th all-time for the franchise.

Podres served as a long-time pitching coach in the majors, working for the Padres (1973), Red Sox (1980), Twins (1981-1985) and Phillies (1991-1996).

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1956 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #75
February 13, 2023 from Wenonah, NJ (Gar Miller Cards)
Given my chosen profession, I sit through an inordinate amount of work meetings, which are now almost all virtual in this post-pandemic world.  On some occasions, these meetings are admittedly a combination of boring, unneeded, too lengthy or some combination of all three.  During a recent early February virtual work meeting, and after it became apparent the meeting had derailed into matters unimportant to me personally, I bought a bunch of old baseball cards.  Gar Miller is a noted hobby luminary, and he still sells vintage baseball cards via his online store, Gar Miller Cards.  I navigated over to his website, picking up a small stack of cards from this 1969 Topps set build and a few bonus cards for our not yet officially collecting 1955 Bowman and 1959 Topps sets.  For those watching me on screen during the virtual work meeting, I had the appearance of someone smiling, nodding appreciatively and following along attentively.  But in reality, I was adding baseball cards to my online cart, including this Podres card which was $12.

The Card / Padres Team Set / Accuracy Index +10

It's Podres on the Padres!  This is Podres' last appearance in a Topps flagship set as an active player, and he'd show up as a Padres coach in the 1973 Topps card featuring manager Don Zimmer.  The back of this card is mostly statistics, although Topps points out Podres had won four World Series games.  The card was reprinted in the 2001 Topps Archives set.

Accuracy Index:  Collectors of the 1969 Topps set didn't have many opportunities to see what an actual Padres uniform looked like.  There are 25 Padres cards in the set, and only six of them show players in a Padres jersey and hat, including this Podres card.  Podres scores a coveted perfect 10 for showing up late in the set in his new brown gear.

1969 Season
Podres was out of baseball in 1968, having been released by the Tigers following the 1967 season.  Looking to make a comeback, he signed with the expansion Padres on March 21, 1969, and he was the second starting pitcher in Padres' franchise history behind Dick Selma (#197), who had started on opening day.  Podres threw perhaps the best game of his short season in that start, pitching seven shutout innings against the Astros on April 9th.  He'd get roughed up over his next several outings, and his final two great starts came on May 25th and June 1st.  On May 25th, he pitched a complete game against the Cubs, allowing one earned run.  On June 1st, he went seven solid innings against the Expos, again only giving up an earned run.  His final appearance would come on June 21st in relief against the Astros, and his final out recorded was a strikeout of the opposing pitcher, Tom Griffin (#614).  Griffin was seven years old when Podres was named the MVP of the 1955 World Series.

Phillies Career
Podres was hired as the Phillies pitching coach on October 31, 1990, after spending the prior five seasons as a minor league coach with the Dodgers.  He joined manager Nick Leyva's coaching staff as the replacement for Darold Knowles, who had departed after two seasons at the post.  Podres stuck around following Leyva's dismissal 13 games into the 1991 season, and he was a key member of new manager Jim Fregosi's (#365) coaching staff throughout the early 1990s.  Podres is credited with helping Curt Schilling, Tommy Greene, Ben Rivera, and other young Phillies pitchers find early success in their careers.  He went to his final World Series with the club in 1993, with the Phillies falling in six games to Joe Carter and the Blue Jays.  Podres left the team during the 1996 season to deal with health issues and was replaced on an interim basis by Jim Wright.  Following the 1996 season, and in connection with the hiring of new manager Terry Francona, Podres was replaced by Galen Cisco (#211) as the team's full-time pitching coach.

1953 Topps #263

1955 Topps #25

1959 Topps #495

1963 Topps #150

1967 Topps #284

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1953 Topps #263
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (17):  1953-1967, 1969, 1973
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2015 Topps Stepping Up #SU-4
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  367 in the Beckett online database as of 2/25/23.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia

Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1956 Topps Blog / 1965 Topps Blog / The Phillies Room

#658 A.L. Rookie Stars / #660 Reggie Smith - Boston Red Sox

#207 Roy Face - Detroit Tigers

Elroy Leon Face
Detroit Tigers
First Base

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'8"  Weight:  155
Born:  February 20, 1928, Stephentown, NY
Signed:  Signed by the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1949
Major League Teams:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1953, 1955-1968; Detroit Tigers 1968; Montreal Expos 1969

World Series Appearances:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1960

Roy Face was one of the best relief pitchers of his era, compiling an unprecedented record of 18-1 for the 1959 Pirates.  Only Max Scherzer has matched that mark since, going 18-1 for the 2013 Tigers.  He ended his 16-year career with 191 career saves and 802 games with the Pirates.  At the time, only Walter Johnson had pitched in that many games with one team, as Johnson had appeared in 802 games for the Washington Senators.

1969 Montreal Expos Postcards

Face was a three-time All-Star with the Pirates, making the National League squad in 1959, 1960 and 1961.  With the help of his forkball, he helped seal the 1960 World Championship with three saves in the Pirates' seven game win over the Yankees.  Face led the league in saves three times, including an impressive 28 save season in 1962.  He was baseball's all-time saves leader during the 1962 and 1963 seasons before being passed by Hoyt Wilhelm (#565) in 1964.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1956 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #49
January 17, 2023 from Greg Morris Cards - Los Angeles, CA
On the evening of January 8th, I found myself sitting in Terminal C of the Philadelphia International Airport waiting to board my flight to Dallas.  Earlier that day, I had enjoyed watching our oldest son Doug at a winter track meet as he pole vaulted for his high school.  I was in a good mood despite the the fact that like most flights that day, my flight had been delayed.  This was for a work trip, and I was doing my best to stay positive and keep myself in the post-holiday happiness hangover that had lingered into the year's second week.  eBay seller Greg Morris Cards, based out of Los Angeles, somehow seems to post cards from various vintage baseball card set breaks on a weekly basis, with the cards typically all in fantastic condition.  With time to kill, knowing that bidding on baseball cards was a surefire good mood sustainer, and having only 40 cards so far for our 1969 Topps set, I pleasantly passed the time by bidding on 62 commons, all with no previous bidders, and all ending within the next 30 hours.

The next afternoon, while on a break at our work conference in the Hilton Anatole, I checked on the auctions, noting I had been outbid on a few, but was still the high bidder for most of the 62 cards.  That night, as auctions were close to ending, and as I was enjoying a few adult beverages at the fine Rodeo Goat establishment across the street from the Hilton, my Apple Watch began vibrating every few seconds as I was outbid on dozens of auctions.  When the dust had settled, I had won 24 new cards at an average price of about $2.50 per card.  This Face card was $2.25, and arrived a week after I had made the return trip home from Dallas.

The Card / Tigers Team Set / Accuracy Index -10

This is Face's last Topps flagship set appearance, and Topps can be forgiven for not having a picture of the reliever in a Tigers uniform given he only pitched in two games for the team in 1968.  The back of the card is just 15 lines of major league stats.  The card was reprinted in the 2001 Topps Archives set, and Face signed another reprinted version of the card for the 2018 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs insert set.

Accuracy Index:  There's a lot wrong with Face's last Topps card.  He's hatless (-3), in a Pirates uniform (-5) and featured on a team he didn't play for in 1969 (-2).

1969 Season
The Tigers released Face at the end of spring training, on April 3rd, and a little over three weeks later he signed with the expansion Expos.  He appeared in 44 games for the Expos, going 4-2 with a 3.94 ERA in 59 1/3 innings pitched.  He converted five saves, including his last career save on August 12th against the Reds.  The last place Expos weren't going anywhere, and Face had been a reliable reliever all season, but they must have wanted his roster spot for a younger pitcher.  On August 15th, the 41-year-old Face was released by the Expos, ending his 16-year big league career.

Phillies Connection
Face was originally drafted by the Phillies and he spent the first two seasons of his professional career (in 1949 and 1950) pitching for the Class D Bradford Blue Wings in the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York (PONY) League.  Face pitched extremely well for the Blue Wings (32-7 with a 2.88 ERA), but the Phillies made the unfortunate decision to leave him unprotected in the annual winter draft.  Branch Rickey drafted the young right-hander and added him to the Dodgers stable of young pitchers.  In 1954, Rickey, who had moved on to the Pirates, drafted Face again beginning what would become a 15 year relationship between the reliever and Pittsburgh.

I'm not a huge fan of the modern day Bowman releases, but it's cool to think that if prospect sets had been around in the late 1940s/early 1950s, we'd have a card of Roy Face in the 1950 Bowman Draft set, photoshopped into a Phillies uniform.

1953 Topps #246

1956 Topps #13

1959 Topps #339

1961 Topps #310

1968 Topps #198

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1953 Topps #246
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (16):  1953-1954, 1956-1969
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2018 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-RFA
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  140 in the Beckett online database as of 2/3/23.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR

Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1956 Topps Blog / 1965 Topps Blog

#206 Phillies Rookie Stars / #208 Donn Clendenon - Montreal Expos