1970 TOPPS JACK DiLAURO
In the annals of baseball cards that never were, this one ranks pretty low in terms of both execution and featured subject.
First of all, it must be noted that your humble blogger has the graphic-design skills of a chimp. And we’re not talking one of those super-smart sign-language chimps, either– we’re talking your garden-variety, amused-by-throwing-feces chimp here.
Second, with no intended offense to the man himself, Jack DiLauro is not exactly Joe DiMaggio, J. Di-ness notwithstanding. DiLauro’s big-league pitching career amounted to two seasons and two wins, one each for the Mets and the Astros.
But it should be noted that the one win for the Mets came in 1969, a season to which DiLauro also contributed 63.2 innings, a save, and a 2.40 ERA.
In other words, even though the team could not find a place for him on the post-season roster, Jack DiLauro made significant contributions to that most-unlikely of World Series champs.
And I’ve always kind of wished that Topps could have looked past his December 1, 1969 rule 5 selection by the Astros and seen fit to issue a 1970 card of DiLauro with the Mets…
Perhaps we could make a swap and keep Jack DiLauro on the Mets for this set and keep Ray Sadecki on the Giants and do away with two awful airbrush jobs.
In December of ’69 the Mets dealt Jim Gosger and Bobby Heise to the Giants for Sadecki and Dave Marshall. Gosger, Heise and Marshall are all on the Giants in the 1970 set and Sadecki is on the Mets. Marshall was in the first series, so it’s understandable why he was still on the Giants. The thing that gets me is that Gosger is pictured in a full Giants uniform. It’s either the best Topps airbrush job of all time or an actual photo.
Any thoughts as to how/why a journeyman like Gosger merited such royal treatment from Topps in this regard? And in a nice bit of irony, after Topps went through such trouble to get him with the Giants, they ended up selling him to the Expos in April of ’70. No good deed goes unpunished.
At age 8 in ’69, I had high hopes forJack. He was the original Mazzoni, the original Leathersich.
Brian, I think Gosger made it into the set in a Giants uni because he’s in the last series. Of course, so is Sadecki, and no one went to spring training to take a pic of him in his Mets finery…
And wow, I had no recollection of Gosger coming back to the Mets in ’73/’74!
Doug,
If you don’t know if you are familiar with it, but a guy named Warren Zvon creates “new” Mets cards in the tradition of old Topps cards. It’s called Mets Fantazy Cards or something along those lines. Great guy, and it’s pretty interesting what he does. I gather it’s one of those creative fringe subcultures that thrives on the interwebs. I interviewed him over at “2 Guys” last year. Check out his site, I think you’d enjoy it:
http://metsfantasycards.blogspot.com/
Thanks James! Our own webmaster pointed me to Warren Zvon’s site just the other day, and I gave him a heads up about this very post, and how it aligns with his talents/interests. And I should point out that I did this all without making a single Excitable Boy or Poor, Poor Pitiful Me crack…
I hear his hair is perfect…
Heres a nice story about Jack from not too long ago — associated with the 40th Anniversary of the Miracle of ’69. I couldnt get the pix to load, but the read is well worth it.
http://www.ohio.com/news/world-series-close-to-home-for-north-graduate-1.139166
Awesome story, Chris! So it sounds like he was actually on the post-season roster…