Little Gridiron on the Prairie

I didn't watch a whole lot of TV when I was young. There were a handful of contemporary shows I followed, such as Boy Meets World, Full House, and Everwood, along with a few others. My dad was a Northern Exposure fan, and it remains a travesty that they can't get the licensing figured out well enough to add it to streaming services. But there was a lot that I missed.

This remains a challenge, because classic TV is one area where I definitely do not have encyclopedic knowledge. I remember a time when a coworker made a Webster reference about a decade ago and it sailed completely over my head.

Much of what I did watch at a younger age were among my mother's favorite shows, like Gilligan's Island, the occasional episode of The Waltons, and quite a bit of Little House on the Prairie.

So when a pair of 1975 Topps Football cards started navigating their way through the blog community, I knew I could come up with a relevant post, despite knowing less about the 1970s Los Angeles Rams than I do about 1970s TV.

1975 Topps Football #525 Merlin Olsen

That's because Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen, longtime Defensive Tackle for the Rams, had a co-starring role on Little House on the Prairie after his football career ended. He played Charles Ingalls's friend Jonathan Garvey for several seasons, filling the void left by the departure of Victor French's Mr. Edwards character. 

For the most part, his role consisted of normal 19th-century frontier farmer things, but there was the occasional reference to his famed NFL career.

One such reference came in the Season 5 episode, "The Winoka Warriors", in which Olsen, as Jonathan Garvey, coaches a youth football team. The episode's final game ended with a play in which the interpretation of a forward pass rule followed the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law.

Not a bad second act for a 14-time Pro Bowl participant.

I've never been all that interested in football cards, but I have a distinct memory of my dad taking me to a mall card show in the early '90s (remember those?), spotting a Merlin Olsen card in one of the glass cases, and pointing out the connection between Merlin Olsen the player and Merlin Olsen the actor. I never ended up owning one of his cards, but this one is briefly in my possession before I send it on to the next participant in this "Living Blog Bat-Around".

1975 Topps Football #60 Jack Youngblood

Accompanying Olsen on his travels is another 1975 card, this one of Olsen's teammate Jack Youngblood. Both defenders are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and both spent their entire careers with the Rams. Beyond that I don't have much more insight to offer, although it's remarkable how different the 1975 Topps sets were between football and baseball. The 1975 baseball set is far more colorful, but that little helmet in the lower right on the football set is pretty great.

Thanks for reading, and if you're interested in seeing Merlin Olsen's acting career, there are plenty of episodes of Little House on the Prairie available on Peacock Premium.

The Dawning of a New Age

We're three days into the 2021 season and it is already shaping up to be a wild one. Miguel Cabrera hit the first home run of the season into a blizzard. The Nationals and Mets had to postpone their opening series because we're still in a pandemic. The Rockies had a feral-looking feline visitor on Friday night. And, as I mentioned was a possibility in my previous post, the MLB has decided to relocate both the 2021 All-Star Game and the Draft, opting not to hold it in Atlanta in the wake of Georgia's recently-passed voting law.

A new host city has yet to be announced, although rumor has it that Denver is in the running. Such a decision is not without precedent, as we saw other sports leagues make similar relocation decisions in 2016 and 1991.

Even though it's still Opening Weekend, the All-Star Game is front of mind. The whole Cardsphere just wrote about the '83 Midsummer Classic a couple days ago. Night Owl was a participant in that, and he sort of blew us all out of the water with his post about how Whitey Herzog managed it, which effectively ushered in a new form of the All-Star Game. That, coupled with the news out of Commissioner Rob Manfred's office, got me thinking about the current state of the (almost) annual exhibition game.

Think back a ways to the summer of 2019. Long before the Nationals won that electrifying World Series. Before the pandemic that caused the cancellation of the 2020 All-Star Game. Before the tragic events that led to a rapid increase in our awareness of racial justice issues. Before the legislation in Georgia that led to MLB finding itself in the position of selecting a new city with barely more than three months to do it.

Who was the MVP of the 2019 All-Star Game?

2020 Topps Heritage New Age Performers #NAP-13 Shane Bieber

This guy. Everyone's favorite pitcher not named Justin.

Shane Bieber, featured on this card from 2020 Topps Heritage, part of the brand's long-running New Age Performers insert set, is our most recent All-Star MVP. He won the award in front of a hometown crowd in Cleveland. You can sort of see the commemorative patch on Bieber's hat.

In leafing through the contents of one of several blasters I bought last year, this card jumped out at me. Topps of course goes for a retro look with the Heritage set, but I feel like this card ended up inadvertently being a lot more relevant than they intended.

Because we are kind of in a new age, aren't we? An age where Major League Baseball will move the All-Star Game practically overnight in response to injustice. It wasn't that long ago when anything beyond a press release would be inconceivable. And when the 2021 All-Star Game happens, wherever that may be, we will all find ourselves in a dramatically different world than when we watched the 2019 game.

Shane Bieber might even be on the American League roster again, despite being the one who served up that snowy home run to Miguel Cabrera. Yet, a lot has changed for us all, and there are things that just won't fly anymore.

How many times have we said it? "Baseball is a business." Well, businesses have a responsibility to avoid liability. Surely this will cost the league millions, or at least their insurers. But are we under the impression that the MLB and other leagues aren't going to learn a lesson from this and perhaps be more cautious about site selection for future events? Might it be prudent for them to keep All-Star Games and Winter Meetings and expansion franchises and so forth in locations where the local legislature is less likely to manufacture what could charitably be called a PR crisis?

With similar laws in the works in Tennessee and elsewhere, this might very well affect Nashville's hopes for getting a team. And let's not forget, Atlanta might not have gotten teams in several sports when they did (if at all), had they chosen to continue the practice of segregation.

Just something to consider.

Maybe it feels like this is a brand-new thing, but it's really not. As we can see from the stories of Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Adam Jones, and Masahiro Tanaka, racism is baked into the fabric of America even more deeply than this great sport we all love. It takes different forms, yes. And there's still a long way to go.

What is changing, and what should give us all hope, is who's willing to stand up. There have been great strides made between Babe Ruth, allegedly, to Branch Rickey, to the league as a whole.

In addition to New Age Performers, Topps also includes a News Flashbacks insert set in their Heritage checklists. For the 1971 retrospective, Topps made a few cards about the later years of the Apollo program, the deaths of Louie Armstrong and Jim Morrison, and the advent of Starbucks, NASDAQ, and Walt Disney World.

2020 Topps Heritage News Flashbacks #NF-15 Louie Armstrong Passes Away

In 2070, what will they say about us? Who's getting a card in 2070 Topps Heritage News Flashbacks? Rob Manfred or Brian Kemp?

See you in 49 years.

Finding a Triple Crown Winner

Today is Opening Day.

It's been a while since I've been able to say that in the month of April. In both 2018 and 2019, the season began in the last few days of March, and 2020 was scheduled to do the same until, uh, events happened. Instead we got an Opening Day in late July.

But while much remains wrong with the world, far more than I have the heart to discuss here, at least Opening Day 2021 is in April.

To me, that's normal.

As you may have discovered by now, I and many of my fellow bloggers are participating in a coordinated Scavenger Hunt today, really more for an April Fools' Day prank than for Opening Day, but the two happen to coincide this year.

Last year, Matt at Diamond Jesters had us all write about Phil Niekro's 1988 Score card in honor of Knucksie's 81st birthday, which would sadly turn out to be his last. Niekro was one of far too many Hall-of-Famers that left us in that awful year of 2020, and while I doubt he ever knew about our little activity, it's comforting to know that at least he could have.

This year, things are a little different. Participants from last year's one-day Blog Bat Around were offered the chance to participate in this year's iteration, a complete look at the checklist of a particular 22-card insert set.

1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars #11 Carl Yastrzemski

With that, you can now check Carl Yastrzemski's card #11 off your list of 1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars.

I own none of the cards in this set, so Matt graciously supplied the above image. Consequently, I didn't have much of a claim to write about any one particular card, so by luck of the draw, I was assigned this very famous Hall of Famer. You've seen him on Infield Fly Rule before in vintage form. Many of us know that his grandson Mike plays for the San Francisco Giants, but in my research, I learned that Carl is second all-time in games played, trailing only Pete Rose.

As is usual with the nature of cards predating the existence of Topps Now, this set documents the prior season. In this case, that's the '83 All-Star Game. It was held in Chicago's Comiskey Park, and it was the last of eighteen that Yaz participated in. He looks weathered here at 43, and is listed as an "Honorable Mention" on the front, and an "Honorary Member" on the card back. Those have the same initials of "HM", but it seems that either Topps or MLB were a little indecisive about what that actually stood for. 

Presumably, he didn't get in via balloting, but was granted a spot anyway as part of a farewell tour. His only at bat resulted in a strikeout in the 7th inning.

As has happened throughout much of my baseball fandom, the American League was the victor in this one. As the home team, they won by a score of 13-3, thanks in part to the only grand slam in All-Star Game history. Whoever ended up with Fred Lynn's card #7 will surely tell you all about that.

I'm glad I have the chance to participate in this scavenger hunt. It's also a good reminder that there is such a thing as the All-Star Game, because that is one of many events that did not occur in 2020. At this point, it's still on for 2021, although where it will be held is perhaps up in the air. It was supposed to happen at Dodger Stadium last year, but we'll have to wait for 2022 for L.A. to get that chance again.

If you didn't already know this Blog Bat Around was happening, I hope you're pleasantly surprised. And if you've just now discovered Infield Fly Rule while hunting for #11, welcome!