A Giant Project: Update #6

I am still working on my 1964 Topps Giant set project, even if I am posting here less often. The last card I added to the set was Mickey Mantle, so I have had a limited a budget the last few weeks.  The Mantle card is not one of the short-printed cards in the set, but it's still way up there in price.

In case you missed it, here is the Mantle. 

 

Last week, I was able to add another pair of cards from the set. No Hall of Famers this time around, but two players I would classify as being in the Hall of Very Good Players if you followed baseball in the 1950s and 1960s.  

The first card is a short-print and cost a little more.  Not Mantle expensive, but more than the normal card for this player.  

 

 

I was a little thrown off seeing Bill "Moose" Skowron on the Senators.  Happens every time I see one of his mid to late 1960s cards at a show.  The 1950s and 1960s Yankees teams had plenty of Hall of Famers, which Skowron is not, but he was a very good supporting cast member on many of those teams.  Skowron was good for 20 home runs and 70 to 80 RBIs a year hitting 5th or 6th behind players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.  In all, Skowron played in 8 All-Star Games and won 5 World Series with the Yankees.  

 

His play in the 1963 World Series is actually the subject of the "news story" on the back of his card, only he was playing against the Yankees as a member of the Dodgers. This was Skowron's 5th and final World Series ring. 

Skowron was a really good Postseason player which is summarized on the back of this card.  The numbers speak for themselves. Skowron never won any Postseason Awards, but had some really good performances in years where the Yankees lost.  In the 1960 World Series against the Pirates, he had 12 hits in the 7 games for a .375 average with 2 home runs, 2 doubles, and 6 RBIs.  Not bad for a guy hitting 6th in the lineup.  Skowron jumped around at the end of his career.  He spent time with the Dodgers, Senators, White Sox, and Angels.  Again, I am always a little weirded out to see him in a uniform outside of the Yankees. 

Speaking of the 1960 Pirates, my second card is an important member of that team.  

 

 

 

Bob Friend was on the Pirates forever.  He played 16 years in the Majors, 15 of them were with the Pirates.  In 1955, he led the National League in ERA.  In 1958, he led the National League in wins. In an average season, Friend won a bunch of games and pitched a ton of innings.  Friend had some shaky years mixed in too, but ended his career with almost 200 wins and 2,000 strikeouts and a ton of innings pitched.  I looked up his comparable players on Baseball Reference, some of his similar players were Curt Simmons, Claude Osteen, Rick Reuschel, and Jerry Reuss.  Wins and innings.  

Here is the back of the Bob Friend card. 

All-Star Game stats are fine, but Bob Friend had a great year in 1960 until the World Series.  He was in the top 5 in the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts that season.  Nothing about that?