A Photograph, A Memory

Further to last week's post featuring invitations and other ephemera from some 1960's Topps Rookie Banquets, today we have some snapshots taken, presumably, by Paul Dolembo.  These photos look like they were taken behind the scenes and after the banquet ended as several players are seen holding their rookie award trophies.  There's a half dozen in all and I'll kick it off with a guy who didn't win a rookie award, namely Alva (Al) Cicotte, who was the 1960 Minor League Player of the year at age 30 following a stellar season with the Toronto Blue Jays.  Check out the trophy he got, it is MASSIVE:

If his last name seems familiar, Alva was the great-nephew of Ed Cicotte, permanently banned by MLB in 1920 as one of the Black Sox and arguably on track for eventual Hall of Fame enshrinement. Alva did not have the talent of his grand uncle unfortunately and his biggest claim to fame may have been being traded to the Cardinals for Leon Wagner (who went to the Angels then in the AL expansion draft) a couple of weeks prior to the banquet. Cicotte, would end up having his contract sold to the fledgling Houston franchise about a year after he received this award and became an original Colt 45. According to SABR, he signed with the Detroit Tigers for the final week of the 1977 season in order to qualify for his major league pension.

Next we see Cicotte flanked by Tony Curry of the Phillies and Julian Javier of the Cardinals, both rookie award winners in the outfield and second base, respectively.

Javier makes another appearance, this time with Dick Stigman, the left-handed pitcher rookie award winner from the Indians.  Check out Javier perusing the 1960 program, which looks like so:

Stigman again, with Chuck Estrada to the far right.  I whiffed on ID'ing the fellow in the middle as he didn't match up with the notation on the back of the photo ("Jim Gentile?") but Keith Olbermann was able to figure out it was Marv Breeding, a second baseman with the Orioles, being flanked. Breeding's rookie season with the O's in '60 was pretty good and looks to have been superior but Javier got the nod at 2B. Breeding was a whiz with the leather from what I can find.

Ron Hansen, the rookie award selection with the Orioles at shortstop, relaxes with Breeding:

Think about how good the O's farm system was.  They had three guys make the all rookie team in 1960 and yet all were gone when the "Baby Birds" won the 1966 World Series with yet another crop of youngsters!

Closing things out, MC Joe Garagiola gets a laugh out of Tony Curry and his Phillies teammate Jimmie Coker, the rookie award catcher for 1960.

Unfortunately, there are no shots of the other rookie award winners for the year: the aforementioned Jim Gentile (1B, Orioles), Ron Santo (3B, Cubs--HOF 2012), Frank Howard (OF, Dodgers, or Tommy Davis (OF, Dodgers). All-in-all, the 1960 winners were pretty representative of the rookie teams over the years.

Fall Invitational

Last fall I managed to BIN a nice lot of Topps Rookie Banquet related ephemera on eBay. I've finally gotten around to scanning the items and this week will show some of the non-photographic items (as I'm still working on player ID's).

I'll start with my favorite item:

I believe Sy Berger typed this letter himself-there's no secretarial initials, a load of personal detail, a host of typos and when I googled the recipient it revealed he worked in the Auto Industry (not audio). Even if he didn't, it's a pretty neat item. It seems this little trove was Mr. Dolembo's-Sy must have invited friends as he was the guy spearheading the whole thing.

There were three Rookie Banquet invitations.  I believe these all came in the envelope for 1960's bash:

The reverse is supposed to be blank but someone noted the address of the Rookie Team Committee:

I don't think that's where Major League Baseball was headquartered, it's probably the office of one of the committee members, which counted 17 members, including Jackie Robinson!

Here's an RSVP card and envelope, note the address, which looks to have been constant since this is from 1964:

The invitations did not really change all that much, did they?  I'll spare you the 1965 version as it's almost identical.

Finally, here's a business card for Sy. I believe it's from 1960 as the Blony logo was featured on the program that year.  Not sure who wrote "Wood Gelman" but I don't think it was Sy (or Woody).

The lot I won was part of a larger archive previously auctioned by REA in 2011.  Next week, I'll share the half dozen snapshots that came in it.

Top Hat

I'm not sure exactly how many Topps All Star Rookie Awards trophies have popped up for auction over the years but it would surprise me if the total has hit double digits.  So it was noteworthy indeed when one was hammered down in a Hunt Auctions offering recently. The trophy in question belonged to Tommy Harper, who had a solid but relatively unspectacular career that spanned 14 seasons and started off quite well in CIncinnati.

He was an original Pilot, selected from Cleveland after a season there and was probably Seattle's best player. He made the move to Milwaukee and held best player distinction there as well before getting traded to Boston after the 1971 season in a massive ten player deal you don't see the likes of anymore.

Harper recently consigned a number of items from his playing days to Hunt and happily for us it included his 1963 trophy:

It's a really nice piece but the top hat is a real head-scratcher, isn't it? Described as being just under ten inches tall, it's had some small repair work done but looks remarkably well preserved.

Included in the lot was a photograph of the ten award winners for 1963:

Going left to right, front to back, that's  Gary Peters, Jimmie Hall, Pete Rose, Jesse Gonder and Harper rounding out the front. Rusty Staub, Al Weis, Pete Ward, Ray Culp and Vic Davalillo are mostly all smiles in back.

Here's Harper in 1964, with his card sporting the little trophy Topps usually added for the award winners:

I say "usually" because the left it off poor Jesse Gonder's '64 entry:

Totally uncool.

Before signing off, here's the cover of the 1963 Banquet Program, which is my favorite of the eight issued from 1959-66:

A Tale Of Two Banquets

Over the course of this decade, as my collecting interests have moved more and more toward Topps Chewing Gum, the company (as compared to the cards they sold) I've accumulated a few old PR photos of various events, many of which have appeared on this blog over the years.  Two of my favorites are from the Topps All Star Rookie banquets, which were held from 1959-66 (and thereafter renamed the Baseball Achievement Awards, which continue on to this day).

The first picture has a mysterious element to it as I cannot identify two of the dais-sitters nor the year of the event:

Tilting rightward from the lectern, we have a waiter laying out rolls (the butter is already on the table), Sy Berger of course, then a gentleman who looks familiar to me but I can't identify, Shag Shaughnessy, Joe Garagiola (the ever-present MC for these events), and finally another unidentified man.  The banner behind the dais portrays a generic All Star Rookie Trophy and reads:

TOPPS

All Star Rookie

Young America's Favorite

As we can see here, the players name, team, position and year would be engraved as well, thanks to an offering from Lelands awhile back:

I'm not certain there was always such a large wood component in all years and have to confess I never realized the ballplayer icon stands atop well, a top hat!

Friend o'the Archive Keith Olbermann thinks the dating would be no later than 1962 based upon how Joe Garagiola looks. I can state it's not from 1966 as the setting was different for that luncheon, namely the Hotel Americana in NYC:

That dais has no mysterious element at all, except maybe what kind of cheese was being served. Even if it wasn't obvious to me who was who, the back is helpfully captioned:

It's also not the 1960 Banquet.  As Mr. Olbermann helpfully pointed out, the 1961 program has some photos of the 1960 event, which was held at the Hotel Manhattan. Here Joel Shorin is presenting MC Joe Garagiola with an oversized 1960 Topps card they created especially for the occasion:

Below,  Shag Shaugnessy is presenting a trophy to pitcher Al Cicotte, who was the Topps Rookie Player of the Year for 1960. Cicotte went on to have a mediocre major league career and his biggest claim to fame turned out to be his lineage: he was the grand nephew of Black Sox pitched Ed Cicotte. Shag was an integral part of the selection committee and retired as President of the International League in 1960.  Did you know he's a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame?

Here's the 1960 All Star Rookie selections:

I can also state it's not the 1963 Banquet, which had a different banner (Fifth Annual). It's also not from 1959 despite there being no mention of the annual progression on the banner but maybe they did not show it each year. The 1959 luncheon was held at the Hotel Manhattan.

So we have a checklist of sorts for the annual luncheon honoring the All Star Rookies (and now updated thanks to our comments section):

1959 Hotel Manhattan

1960 Hotel Manhattan

1961 Waldorf-Astoria 

1962 Waldorf-Astoria 

1963 Waldorf-Astoria 

1964 Waldorf-Astoria 

1965 ????

1966 Hotel Americana

If anyone has thoughts on the first picture's mystery subjects and can confirm the year of the event, I'm all ears!