Monday, May 13, 2019

Sometimes You Take A Lot to Get A Little

I found a Virdon Team Issue buried in an Astros Photo Lot.

1981 5x6 Virdon
Handwritten on the back is 1981.  Even though I can't find reference to a Team Issued cards issued in 1981.  That's what I'm going to go with.

Along with Virdon I got 16 other Astros Team Issues and photos.

1967 Arnold Umbach
Check out the specs on Arnold.  Can you imagine a current player having to tape his glasses and pose for a picture ontop of that.  Yeah, not going to happen.  This 8x10 has 1967 handwritten on the back.


1967 Grady Hatton
Another 8x10 with 1967 handwritten on the back, this time of Manager Grady Hatton.


1995 Complete Team
The Astros did these 8x10s with 8 players/managers for multiple years.  The only reason I know that is because I have one with Virdon on it from when he was the bench coach in 1997.



 A couple more 5x6s of guys I don't even know.  Woodeshick is hand dated March 1965 and Harrison is dates March 1966.


Another Grady Hatton this time in 5x6 from.  No hand written date on the back this time.  Instead typed on the back is:

Hatton, Grady                                                                                 5-2-1973
               Baseball Coach

That is the layout of the typing too.  Never before have I seen a Team Issue with anything printed on the back.

1986 Manny Hernandez
 This is the only 1986 anything in the bunch.  It is in 8x10 form.


The picture on the left has Sonny Jackson 1967 on the back and the right has Alonzo Harris OF 1967 on the back.

The Alonzo is strange.***  I can't see that he ever got a big league at bat.  At least I can't find it on Baseball-Reference.  But he did get a Topps RC card in 1967.  That seems out of place as back then Topps usually didn't give anyone a card until their sophomore season.

***EDIT:  Mystery solved, sort of.  Alonzo Harris is listed as Candy Harris (for no known reason)  He even has a Wikipedia page as Candy Harris that lists his name as Alonzo.  He made it to the Astros roster at 19 and played a part of one season where he got one at bat and was a pitch runner 5 times before his season and career was ended due to military service.

3 comments:

Mark Hoyle said...

Love team issue items but they are tough to date.

Fuji said...

I'd love to find me one of those mid 60's jerseys. Nice throwback.

AdamE said...

I never realized that the Astros wore the same uniforms for eleven years before they switched to the rainbow uniforms in 1975 which they also wore for eleven years.