45 Responses to “Card of the Week: 1975 Topps #512 Larry Milbourne”

1. MarkW Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:20 am

   I remember Larry Milbourne quite well... he was the sort of speedy, no-hit middle infielder we thought was the way it worked in those days. By the same token, I can guarantee that all topps did was look at ".279" and say, "oh, that's good." That's the way we ALL thought about stats in those (prehistoric, pre-BR) days!

   The 75 set is far from my favorite, probably in large part because of the stats deficit -- meager even by topps '70s standards. And I don't see how this can be the perfect card if he's not wearing the famous Astros sunrise uniform from a little later in the decade!

2. steven Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:25 am

   That was the era of the Astros' best-looking uniforms. Almost all of the teams now suffer from "uniform schizophrenia." The Indians had a doubleheader a few days ago and had different sets of uniform styles in each game.

3. Matthew Glidden Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:29 am

   Larry spent 5 total years in Seattle, so M's fans knew of him. On July 15, 1978, he homered from both sides of the plate, and they turned out to be his only two dingers for the year--another trivia answer for Milbourne.

   http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA197807150.shtml

4. Pete Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:37 am

   I was born in '69, and I actually own this card. Judging by his 1974 stats, it must have been a very weak crop of rookie 2B. I wasn't an Astros fan, but my first Little League glove was a 'Cesar Cedeno' model.

   I'm ready for a scavenger hunt. Are there any other rookie 2B from 1974 who were more deserving of the 'Topps All Star Rookie' honor? There MUST have been someone with better stats. Milbourne only batted .279 with 0 HR and 9 RBI in only 136 AB's.

5. Andy Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:40 am

   Pete, maybe you should actually read my post.

6. Mr. Dave Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 7:54 am

   I had heard of Milbourne simply because I have a card of his from another Topps set (1981 Topps).

   I love how the little bio on the bottom of the card tells you that his season got him to be a Topps Rookie All-Star (you know, just in case you couldn't figure that out from the front). I guess he didn't do anything else particularly memorable that year.

   The photo for this card is amongst my favorites. Photography is a hobby of mine, and when I snap pictures of people, that is one of the angles I traditionally go for. It's just a simple pose, but if done right, the sky can add a completely different dimension of depth.

7. Pete Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 8:09 am

   I read your post. However, I wanted some independent research into whether Milbourne actually had the best 2B rookie stats. After all, you listed Jorge Orta, Davey Lopes, and Jack Brohamer as "other candidates Topps had to choose from" in 1974. Orta had 469 PA in 1973. Lopes had 615 PA in 1973, and Brohamer had 567 PA in 1972.

   Jack Brohamer was the Topps All Star rookie at 2B in 1972, and Davey Lopes was the Topps All Star rookie in 1973, so I doubt they would received that honor twice.

8. Andy Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 8:10 am

   You've got all the rookie 2Bs from that season listed in my chart, so take your pick.

   And Topps has given the trophy to the same guy in consecutive years before...

9. Leatherman Says:
   July 21st, 2010 at 8:21 am

   First of all, Andy...you owe me another cup of coffee for making me spit out mine from your comment.

   I am a 1975 Topps aficionado. I have been carefully assembling my set for the last 7 years, and my absolute favorite card in the set (after the George Brett rookie card, my all time favorite player) is the Claudell Washington rookie cup card. Here is a scan of my current copy: http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n51/dsbranson/1975%20Topps%20PSA%20cards/81950915.jpg

   Much like the Milbourne card, the borders on the CW card match his uniform, specifically his cap. He only batted .285 in 1974 in 237 PAs, but still managed a 108 OPS+. He was 3 for 11 in the ALCS and 4 for 7 in the World Series. Not too shabby for a rookie. He picked it up a bit in 1975, batting .308 with 10 HRs and 77 RBIs to go along with 40 stolen bases.

   His glare on the card, while holding the bat vertical, is classic as well. It truly is an amazing card to look at.

10. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:24 am

    What comment of mine made you spit out your coffee?

11. Pete Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:26 am

    We're discussing two different things, then. I'm talking about actual rookies while you are talking about rookies and maybe some 2nd and 3rd year players.

    I vote for Duane Kuiper and his .500 BA and 1.133 OPS in 22 AB's. They may as well have honored him because he never had any chance of seeing those numbers again.

12. Leatherman Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:27 am

    Comment #5

    The Frank Tanana rookie cup card is gorgeous as well: http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n51/dsbranson/1975%20Topps%20PSA%20cards/11832007.jpg

13. Johnny Twisto Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:33 am

    I don't think anyone mentioned that there actually were three rounds of playoffs in 1981.

14. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:34 am

    oh snap JT! I forgot about that!

15. Jeff H Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 8:51 am

    Wow, that was a monster post season for Paul Molitor in 1993!

16. JR Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 9:50 am

    Andy, how did you come to choose Larry Milbourne over pinch runner extrodinare Herb Washington. His position on the card was listed as pinch runner.

    The 1975 Topps set is one of my favorites. The mini versions were a nice addition and hard to find. If I am correct, there are 4 HOF'er rookie cards in that set (Brett, Yount, Rice and Carter)

17. Frank Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:02 am

    I have been less impressed with uniforms ever since Ted Kluszewski started the sleeveless thing back in the 'Fifties. But the 1975 set was indeed a good 'un.

18. Frank Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:04 am

    Seven --don't forget Seaver, Morgan and Bench.

19. BIimey Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:19 am

    Baseball Digest picked Rick Burleson As their rookie 2B that year although he played more games at SS.

20. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:28 am

    Oh yeah, the Herb Washington card from that set is awesome. Night Owl did a post on it a while back right here:

    http://nightowlcards.blogspot.com/2008/12/cardboard-appreciation-1975-topps-herb.html

21. JDV Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 11:26 am

    I'm confused Andy. While Topps has listed a player as a 'rookie star' more than once on its multi-player cards, I know of no example of a player actually getting a spot on its all-rookie (trophy) team more than once. So most of the players on your list were not eleigible to compete against Milbourne. It was just one of those seasons that didn't produce a full-time rookie 2nd baseman, so Milbourne got the nod.

    I was familiar with Milbourne as both an Astro and Mariner, primarily because those were big card-collecting years for me. Oddly, I didn't remember that he later went to the Yankees where he had that great post-season.

22. JDV Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 11:30 am

    Separately...did you mean to say that you prefer verticle-oriented card backs? That is what diminishes the stat lines. I have always been strongly partial to verticle fronts and horizontal backs.

23. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 11:39 am

    When I was a card collector (I am no longer) I preferred vertical fonts and horizontal backs, just as you say. This is because I liked upright close photos on the front and lots of stats on the back. Now that I can photos of players and stats elsewhere, I prefer action shots on the front, and the best action shots are horizontal. I prefer vertical backs mainly because they are so much less common and usually result in something different--a second photo, a comic, etc.

24. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 11:44 am

    It looks like I am mistaken about a guy being named more than once. Only Cal Ripken was ever picked twice by Topps for the All-Star Rookie team, and in those year (1982 and 1983) they didn't print the trophies on the cards.

25. JDV Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 12:20 pm

    I had not been aware that Ripken was both a 1981 and 1982 selection. In '81, he had only 40 PA in a Sep call-up. I don't know who else could have been considered that year, but that is hardly star-power. Thanks.

26. tmckelv Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 12:37 pm

    When I was finishing up this set back sometime back in the late 70's/early 80's, Milbourne was one of the last cards I needed (along with Winston LLeneas) and it did not disappoint. I have collected cards for the last 35 years and this is one of my favorites. Partially because it helped me complete a tough set, but also for many of the reasons Andy listed in his post. The Topps All-Star rookie cards are always my favorite...and just look at those side-burns. The card is beautiful.

    The look of the 1975 set is not one of my favorites however, I do like the color borders, but I am more of a symmetry guy, so I would have preferred all team members having the same color combo. But I do love some of the features included with the set...

    1) The Highlight cards seem especially "hilight-y" with mostly superstars (Aaron HR record, Brock SB record, Ryan on 2 HL cards, Gibson 3000 Ks, Kaline 3000 hits, & also Marshall's 106 games)

    2) This was the first set to include the "Topps All-Star" designation on the players' actual cards (as opposed to All-Star team subsets). My initial collecting years were 1975/1976 so I didn't really know any better and because of that I absolutely love this feature (although they only kept it from 1975 through 1981) - other than the rookie trophy cards (that they stopped in 1979 through 1986) I liked seeing the card for the all-starts (usually Garvey, Morgan, Bench, Rose, Carew most years including 1975)...But there are 2 special ones, The Hank Aaron (where they included his All-Star on the Hilight card mentioned above (presumably because his regular issue card showed him on the Brewers) and Bobby Murcer (who shows him as an AL all-star from his time on the Yanks even though his card already showed him on the Giants).

    3) the all-star rookies with some of my favorite second tier stars (Dent, Madlock, Tanana, Hargrove, Claudell Washington) and of course the Milbourne sideburns. All this while Brett and Yount have their rookie cards in this set, but never had a cup on thier cards.

    4) finally some of the other strange occurrences like the Herb Washington Pinch Runner card mentioned in an earlier post, and Frank Robinson having a regular card "Des. Hitter" and was featured as the manager on the Indians Team Card. this is the first set where the Manager's picture is on the Team Card. This also lasted from 1975 through 1981.

27. Detroit Michael Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    I had heard of Larry Milbourne, but he was just a Strat-O-Matic card before I read your post. I didn't have a sense of how he was or why he might be memorable.

28. Mike Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 2:15 pm

    So many great cards in that set, but the #50 Brooks Robinson has to be my favorite. It was the first old card I bought at a baseball card show. I love the narrow brim on the helmet, and the look on his face seems like he's noodling through what the pitcher is about to toss to him. It's also what I learned what a high can of corn is!

29. Andy Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    Brook Robinson:

    http://www.checkoutmycards.com/Cards/Baseball/1975/Topps_Mini/50/Brooks_Robinson#

    Frank Robinson (with DH as position):

    http://www.checkoutmycards.com/CardImages/Cards/267/870/04F.jpg

    Indians team card, also showing Robinson:

    http://www.checkoutmycards.com/CardImages/Cards/214/396/09F.jpg

    WOW that last one is awesome, with the horizontal layout and still using the two-color-block format!!

30. tmckelv Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 2:25 pm

    Boy it is easy to pick out Oscar Gamble in that Indians Team Card. He was shaved bald last week at the Yanks Old-Timer's game. His ultimate "afro" card, though is the 1976 Topps Traded, which can only be outdone by James Silas 1976-77 Topps All-Star card.

31. tmckelv Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 2:31 pm

    1976 Topps traded Gamble (note: the trophy is NOT part of the card):

    http://www.baseballcardbust.com/2009/07/oscar-gamble-1976-topps-traded.html

    1976-77 Silas all-star:

    http://www.checkoutmycards.com/Cards/Basketball/1976-77/Topps/134/James_Silas_AS

32. Kahuna Tuna Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    By the time he reached the majors in 1974, Milbourne was playing for his fifth different organization. He signed with the Orioles in 1969 as an 18-year-old undrafted free agent, played rookie ball for a year, got released, and simply didn't play pro ball in 1970. In 1971 he hooked on with the Giants' Class A team in Decatur, Illinois, batting .301 and stealing 21 bases in 23 attempts. He was chosen in the minor-league draft in each of the next two years, first by the Angels, for whom he played in 1972 at AA Shreveport, and then by the Cardinals, for whom he played in 1973 at AAA Tulsa. He finally got his shot in '74 after the Astros chose him in the Rule V draft.

    Milbourne also figured in one of those rare trades in which a player winds up being traded for himself. Milbourne was traded by the Mariners, along with a player to be named later, to the Yankees on November 18, 1980, for catcher Brad Gulden and a bunch of cash. The following May the Mariners sent Gulden back to the Yankees as the PTBNL.

33. nightfly Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 3:27 pm

    Oscar Gamble! Fabulous. I still think of him every time I see Eddie Griffin in "Undercover Brother."

34. Pete Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 3:59 pm

    Somewhere, Paul Serna is stewing about being snubbed in favor of Cal Ripken, Jr. for the 1981 Topps All-Rookie Team.

35. Mincher5 Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 6:35 pm

    I remember collecting a few '75 Larry Milbourne's.
    And I remember him playing for the Mariners.
    Two different stints if I recall corecctly.
    Got his autograph and a bunch of other guys too at the
    opening day parade before the inaugural game in '77.

36. Mr. Dave Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 9:43 pm

    That James Silas afro is excellent! The beard with it is a nice touch. Too bad I can't get my hair to do that, or I'd try to emulate that look. 🙂

37. Bosox Dan Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 9:53 pm

    I had forgotten Milbourne until I saw this card. Then I remembered him with the M's, but not the Yankees.

    Unfortunately, I never liked the '75 set. The colors were loud and seemed to be thrown on the card at random. It would have helped had all the Astros, for instance, had the same colors, something to match their uniform colors. A logo would have been nice. This set was just too psychedelic for my taste. But that's just my opinion.

38. Jacques Strappe Says:
    July 21st, 2010 at 10:47 pm

    Am I missing something here? It looks to me that Marty Barrett is the one on that list who has the most hits in a single postseason, 24 in 1986, not Steve Garvey, who had 23 in 1981 spread across three rounds.

39. night owl Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 1:58 am

    Thanks for the double shout-out, Andy.

    I had heard of Larry Milbourne from the time I was 9 because of this very card. I pulled it out of a pack on a hot summer day in July while on vacation in a small town in southwestern New York. I remember thinking: "what a strange-looking man."

    No matter what Larry Milbourne did after that, whether with Seattle or the Yankees, he was always that strange-looking man with the rookie cup on that 1975 card.

    And, yes, the '75 set rules fully and completely, as anyone who would start a blog about the set would say.

40. rico petrocelli Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 3:59 am

    Shell Pile

    Guys, importantly, Milbourne was born in 1951 in Port Norris NJ,coming out of its two towns Bivalve and Shell Pile. In the Port Norris area are the towns of Bivalve and Shell Pile. They were both centers of the oystering industry, described in this 1939 excerpt of a WPA Guidebook to New Jersey:
    "Shell Pile is named for the great heaps of oyster shells stacked outside the packing sheds. This is a community of about 1,000 Negroes living in wooden barracks erected on stilts over the salt marshes. Negroes here live their own lives in their own way, and present a united and rather hostile front from the rest of the world. Strange whites are not welcomed in Shell Pile."

    Hence the badass look on the 75 card.

    The oystering industry reached its peak in 1955, declining by 1957 due to a disease called MSX which killed 90 percent of the oysters. Bivalve and Shell Pile are now mostly ghost towns, with a combined population of less than 50.

    So Larry was 6 when his family's way of life disintegrated, the irritating grain of sand that may have grown into the pearl of his baseball career.

    There to this day, at the very outer limits of the New Jersey sub-continent, stands the mother of all shell piles. A gleaming white mountain, at least four stories in height, covering several acres. The mounds are quite breathtaking and a full robust stench of rancid clams is pervasive (even in the dead of winter).

    Two other LM notes:

    1. In 1979 he led the AL with 12 pinch hits (in 30 at-bats) in his only successful season in that role.

    2. Born on Valentine's Day and nicknamed "The Devil" for his smooth ways

    3. He excelled in the 1981 postseason for the Yankees, playing every game in place of the injured Bucky Dent at shortstop. Milbourne hit .316 with four runs scored in the five-game divisional playoff against Milwaukee. In the LCS against the A's, he scored the first run of the series in Game One and tied Game Two with a fourth-inning RBI single, batting .462 with four runs as New York swept in three. He dropped off to .250 in the World Series as the Yankees lost to Los Angeles, but he drove in the first run of New York's Game Two victory with the only extra-base hit of the game, a fifth-inning double.

    4. A bivalve is an aquatic mollusk of the class Pelecypoda ( "hatchet-foot" ), with a laterally compressed body and a shell consisting of two valves, or movable pieces, hinged by an elastic "yommy John" ligament.

    5. Most of the oysters eaten by Americans start their journey to the gullet in the Gulf of Mexico. But with the Gulf now awash in oil, the supply is down, prices are up, restaurants are going oyster-less, and there appears to be no quick fix to the crisis.

41. rico petrocelli Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 4:23 am

    PORT NORRIS PICKINGS Saturday, July 28, 1888

    An excellent game of ball was played here yesterday between the Cedarville and Port Norris clubs, the latter winning the game. The playing was good on both sides, some of the plays being equal to professional. The battery for Cedarville was Stathem and Ewan, while the Port Norris had McConnell and Bailey, whose excellent work was much admired. The game was played with two umpires. Asher Robbins being the principal and Harry Pierson being umpire in the field, and both gave satisfaction. The score by innings was:
    Cedarville………1 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 - 5
    Port Norris………2 1 0 0 3 2 2 0 x – 10

42. Andy Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 4:53 am

    Jacque, you are right about Barrett, thanks.

    Rico, very interesting stuff, thank you too.

43. tmckelv Says:
    July 22nd, 2010 at 11:16 am

    "So Larry was 6 when his family's way of life disintegrated, the irritating grain of sand that may have grown into the pearl of his baseball career."

    definitely my new favorite metaphor

44. EarlCamembert Says:
    July 29th, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    I'm pretty sure they have to be official rookies to get on the All-Rookie team. I don't think they have any 2nd or 3rd year players (not counting cup-of-coffee years) on it or else they'd call it the Young Players All-Star team or something. How Cal Ripken made the 1981 team is a mystery unless there is an error somewhere but he still had, of course, rookie eligibility.
    So, to be snippy with someone who was not going to choose from an obviously flawed "Candidates List" is, I guess, a bloggers usual weapon used to make them look superior when they really don't know what they're talking about.
    Too bad, it was a good post til then.

45. Andy Says:
    July 29th, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    I don't think I was being snippy. The guy asked for information to be posted that was already in my post. My list is clearly flawed as I fully admitted later in the comments.