1956 Topps - 4th Series Phillies Alumni

After 10 years and exactly 342 posts for each of the 342 cards in the set, my 1956 Topps blog is coming to a close.  Within the next few weeks, I'll wrap up the final few posts and put the finishing touches on both a 4th Series review and an overall review of this wonderful baseball card set.  

As I've done with the prior three series, I wanted to display a gallery of Phillies Alumni from the set's fourth series, or cards #261 to #340.  Here are those 16 players who either played, coached or managed the Phillies.

 

#261

#266

#269

#274

#275

#282

#290

#293

#296

#297

#308

#321

#331

#334

#335

#337

Phillies Alumni in 1956 Topps Set

1st Series - 18

2nd Series - 14

3rd Series - 14

4th Series - 16

Game 89 - Suarez Hit Hard in Loss

1956 Topps #296

Braves 5, Phillies 1
Game 89 - Saturday Night, July 6th in Atlanta
Record - 58-31, 1st Place, 9 games ahead of the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Ranger Suarez didn't have his All-Star stuff in this 5-1 loss to the Braves.

What It Means:  The Phillies will go for the series win this afternoon behind rookie Michael Mercado.

What Happened:  Suarez struggled through five innings, giving up five runs on six hits and a pair of walks.  He allowed a pair of home runs and saw his ERA increase from 2.27 to 2.58.  The Phillies offense seemed baffled by Braves' starter Spencer Schwellenbach, scattering seven hits over his six innings of work.  The only Philies run came in the third when Johan Rojas, Bryson Stott and Trea Turner connected for three singles in a row.

Featured Card:  The Phillies didn't give me anything to work with here, so I'll use this opportunity to plug one of my other blogs, focusing on every card in the 1956 Topps set.  I started by 1956 Topps blog in 2015, and it looks as if it will come to a close in 2025 when I plan to publish the 342nd and final posts.  It's been fun taking a look back at each of the cards in this iconic set over the past nine years, and I'll be honestly sad to see it end.  Once it does end though, I already have plans for kicking off a new blog, looking at every card in the 1955 Bowman set.  If things stay on schedule, a 1955 Bowman blog should debut at some point in late 2025.

I recently posted the card seen here for Andy Seminick, and you can quickly view a visual gallery of the Phillies 1956 Topps team set here.

2024 Virtual Phillies Wall / 2024 Season Summary Index / 2024 Chachi Set Checklist

Game 123 - Turner Homers Twice in 8th, Phils Offense Explodes

Phillies 12, Nationals 3
Game 123 - Saturday Afternoon, August 19th in Washington
Record - 67-56, 2nd Place, 13 1/2 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Trea Turner homered twice in an eight-run eighth inning as the Phillies clobbered the Nationals, 12-3.

What It Means:  They'll go for the series win tonight in Williamsport, as these two teams face off in the annual Little League Classic.

What Happened:  The Nationals held a 3-0 lead after six innings, with the third run unearned as a result of a Turner throwing error.  In the top of the seventh, with two on, Nick Castellanos connected for his 21st home run of the season, tying up the game.  The Phillies offense took over from there.

In the eighth, with Nationals' reliever Cory Abbott on the mound, and seemingly no one else available out of the Nationals' bullpen, Turner led off the inning with a solo home run to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead.  Seven more runs would eventually score off Abbott.  Johan Rojas singled, Kyle Schwarber singled, Alec Bohm singled, Bryce Harper walked, Castellanos hit a sacrifice fly, Bryson Stott hit a three-run home run and finally Turner homered again, his second home run of the inning.  In the ninth, with infielder Jeter Downs on the mound, Jake Cave lofted a home run to right-center field, his fourth of the year.

Featured Card:  Turner became the third Phillie in franchise history with two home run in the same inning.  Andy Seminick did it first, back on June 2, 1949.  Von Hayes did it on June 11, 1985, with both home runs coming in the first inning.  And now Turner joins the club with his big eighth inning.

Transaction:  The Phillies placed Ranger Suarez (lhp) on the Injured List with a right hamstring strain and called up Andrew Bellatti (rhp) to take his place on the roster.

2023 Virtual Phillies Wall / 2023 Season Summary Index / 2023 Chachi Set Checklist

2023 Chachi #53 Michael Lorenzen HL / 2023 Chachi #55 Bryce Harper HL

A Look at What Santa Brought . . . with Help from My Mom (#SBWTMABCTJ)

This is a post I look forward to writing all year.  We're on the other side of another Christmas, and our family continued our tradition of turning Christmas into a 3-day event.  We celebrate in our house on Christmas day, at my Mom's house the day after Christmas and with my wife's family a few days after that.  It's a fun three days that leave me happy, slightly tired and stuffed with food.

At my Mom's house, I anxiously unwrapped a present to find a box of Fralinger's Salt Water Taffy.  There wasn't any salt water taffy inside the box, but instead I found the first card needed from my (now outdated) Ten Most Wanted list and a clue to the location of more cards.  With the help of my sons and my nieces, the clue was solved and my boyhood teddy bear was found holding a package with the rest of the cards shown in the photo above.  Once again, my Mom had made a Ten Most Wanted list obsolete!  It was another successful installment of Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim, and the hauls from past Christmases are linked below.

Here's a list of the treasures added in the 2019 Edition of #SBWTMABCTJ:

1949 Bowman #216 Schoolboy Rowe
1952 Topps #185 Bill Nicholson
1953 Topps #10 Smoky Burgess
1956 Topps #296 Andy Seminick
1957 Topps #314 Ed Bouchee
1965 Topps #474 Cookie Rojas
1966 Topps #585 Tony Taylor
1967 Topps #242 RBI Leaders
1970 Topps #645 Don Money
1972 Topps #690 Willie Montanez

These ten most wanted lists are going to be tougher to put together as I'm getting closer and closer to a complete run of Bowman and Topps cards throughout the 1950s and 1960s.  The 1965 Topps Cookie Rojas card completed my Phillies team set from that year, and I now have the pleasure of tracking down those Phillies cards all over again for our 1965 Topps set.

An unexpected surprise was the addition of the 1966 Phillies Yearbook and a Sports Illustrated from 1958 with outfielding and base running tips from Richie Ashburn.  My Mom once again did an amazing job and she already knows how much she means to me.

2011 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim

Part 1 - Continuing a Tradition

Part 2 - 1971 Topps Set - 13 More Down

Part 3 - 1952 Topps Phillies

Part 4 - 1951 Bowman Phillies

Part 5 - Curt Simmons - Two New Bowman Cards

Part 6 - 1955 Bowman and Topps Phillies

2012 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Part 1 - 1941 Double Play Litwhiler & May
Part 2 - 1963 Topps John Herrnstein rookie card (featuring Willie Stargell)
Part 3 - 1940 Play Ball Phillies - Part 1
Part 4 - 1940 Play Ball Phillies - Part 2
Part 5 - 1950 Bowman Del Ennis

2013 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Part 1 - 1998 Upper Deck Scott Rolen
Part 2 - 1968 Topps Phillies Team Card
Part 3 - 1966 Topps Bob Uecker
Part 4 - 1955 Bowman Robin Roberts
Part 5 - 1965 Topps Johnny Callison
Part 6 - 1954 Bowman Richie Ashburn

2014 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Part 1 - 1952 Bowman and 1953 Bowman Color Richie Ashburn
Part 2 - 1950 Bowman Roberts, 1951 Topps Blue Backs Jones, 1955 Bowman Wyrostek
Part 3 - 1995 Collector's Choice Hayes and 1999 Fleer Mystique Burrell

2015 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Seven Phillies Cards from the 1950s Crossed Off the List

2016 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Part 1 - 10 vintage Phillies cards added to the collection
Part 2 - 2 modern oddball Phillies cards find a new home

2017 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Vintage cards crossed off the list, 1959 Topps Phillies team set completed!

2018 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
8th annual haul completes 1953 Bowman Color Phillies team set

2019 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
1965 Topps team set completed, getting closer to most 1950s team sets

Thanks Santa! Time to Update My Most Wanted List (#SBWTMABCTJ)

1950 Bowman #121

1952 Topps #158

1952 Bowman #184

We made it!  It's 2017 and the sun is (sort of) shining, the coffee is hot and I've decided to spend the first day of the year sorting baseball cards.  My first order of business is to once again completely update my Ten Most Wanted - Vintage list on the sidebar, which until the day after Christmas looked like this:

For the past six Christmases, my Mom has been chipping away at my Phillies team set needs one card at a time.  For as long as I can remember, Santa (with help from my parents I suppose) has gifted me with amazing baseball cards each and every Christmas morning.  Through my college years, the Dark Times and even after I had married and had kids of my own, my Dad continued the tradition of hunting down baseball cards that would amaze me and become treasured additions to my collection. My Mom has continued that tradition since my Dad passed away in 2011.

She truly outdid herself this year for the annual Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim (SBWTMABCTJ) extravaganza, completely wiping out my Ten Most Wanted - Vintage list.  Here's a run-down of the 10 vintage cards from this year's haul.  (Click on any of the photos of the cards to enlarge.)

1950 Bowman #121 Andy Seminick
This brings me down to needing just two more cards to complete the 1950 Bowman 19-card Phillies team set.  Once I have the final two cards, I'll definitely be showing off the complete set in a gallery-style post.

1952 Bowman #184 Curt Simmons
I'm also close to completing the 16-card Phillies team set from 1952 Bowman.  After adding this Simmons card to my collection, I'm only four cards away.  The back of this card references Simmons' return from military service.  Although it's slightly miscut, this may be my favorite card of the bunch.

1952 Topps #158 Eddie Waitkus
The bio on the back of this card begins, "Shot by a crazed girl in June, 1949, Ed was close to death." Most of the remaining Phillies cards I need from the 1952 Topps set are from the scarce and pricey high number series.

1952 Bowman Black & White #58

1953 Bowman Color #133

1958 Topps #90

1959 Topps #8

1953 Bowman Black & White #58 Jim Konstanty
1953 Bowman Color #133 Willie Jones
It's always exciting to add cards of any of the Whiz Kids to my collection.  I've seen these two cards for years both at baseball card shows and online, and it's a fantastic feeling to have them both in my collection now.  Kids opening packs of baseball cards in 1953 had no idea how good they had it.

1958 Topps #90 Robin Roberts
1959 Topps #8 Phillies Team Card
With the exception of cards needed from the 1952 Topps set, I'm surprisingly close to having a complete run of Phillies cards from the Topps sets of the 1950s.  I'm pretty sure I have this Roberts card in my collection in reprint form, so it's nice to finally have the original.

1965 Topps #4

1967 Topps #560

1967 Topps #595

1965 Topps #4 N.L. Home Run Leaders
Johnny Callison's head appearing in the bottom left of this card meant that I needed it to complete my 1965 Topps Phillies team set.  It's also great to have an excuse to add a card featuring three Hall of Famers (Willie Mays, Billy Williams and Orlando Cepeda) to my collection.

1967 Topps #560 Jim Bunning
1967 Topps #595 Cookie Rojas
Wrapping up the vintage portion of the annual SBWTMABCTJ are two Phillies cards I needed for my 1967 Topps team set.  These are both from the tougher high-number series, and the Rojas card is a close runner up to the 1952 Bowman Simmons card as my favorite addition.

But wait, there's more!  My Mom also crossed off two extremely oddball wants from my Ten Most Wanted - Modern list and I'll feature those two cards in a future post.

Continuing a Tradition

1933 Goudey #21

I spent a lot of time over the holiday break discussing family traditions with my five-year-old son, Doug.  He loves hearing about the Christmas traditions I shared with my parents and my sister while I was growing up, and we often talk about how our little family is starting its own Christmas traditions.  After he fully understood the meaning of the word, he informed me that, "Traditions make me happy."

One of the Christmas traditions that always made me happy was the annual "Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim" tradition.  As a younger lad, I'd attend baseball card shows throughout the year with my Dad and he would always manage to sneak off and make a few secret purchases that would wind up under the tree on Christmas morning.  He'd also procure cards via mail order or, in more recent years, he'd scour eBay for cards for my collection.  He and my Mom would spend all year squirreling away cards in order to make the annual "Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim" tradition possible.

My Dad had been sick over the past few Christmases, so this tradition quietly faded over the past few years.  He passed away in October after a long, courageous battle.

1949 Bowman #30

My Mom, a reader of this here very blog, decided that some traditions should continue.  So, without me knowing it, she familiarized herself with my wantlists and she started making a few calls.  With the help of Kit Young, Dean's Cards and Dave's Vintage Cards, and with my vintage Phillies wantlists and 1971 Topps list in hand, she went to work.

You can imagine my shock and surprise this Christmas when I unwrapped a shoebox from my Mom and opened it to find a few dozen individually wrapped items with the exact dimensions of what must be baseball cards in top-loaders.  I spent the next half hour unwrapping each treasure only to find several 1971 Topps cards that I needed for my set and a wonderful collection of vintage Phillies cards spanning from 1933 to 1955.

The two cards featured here were the oldest cards in the lot, and I'm going to feature the rest of the cards in posts spread throughout the next few weeks.  My Mom told me she actually had fun tracking down these cards and I'm certainly extremely grateful for the continuation of the "Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim" tradition.

Dad would be proud of her.  Traditions make me happy.

1951 Bowman #51 Andy Seminick

One of the baseball card blogs I frequent recently closed a poll concerning former Phillies catcher Andy Seminick. 37 votes were cast in the poll and almost half the voters chose to vote, "Who's Andy Seminick?"

It would be difficult to answer this question more succintly and accurately than this passage from Boyd & Harris' wonderful and essential Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book:

Andy Seminick was the hardrock, fireplug catcher for the [1950] Whiz Kid Phillies. He was the one who directed - and catchers too rarely get credit for this - Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, and the reliever Jim Konstanty to their best seasons. He caught almost every game, and hit a strong .288 with 24 home runs.

Please also see JayBee Anama's original Andy Seminick post for his tribute to this underrated fan favorite.

1956 Topps #296 Andy Seminick

Andy Seminick made his debut with the Phillies in 1943 at the age of 22. He played with the Phillies from 1943 until 1951, and again from 1956 until 1957. (Andy caught with the Reds from 1952 to 1955). He was the Whiz Kids' starting catcher in 1950, a year in which he hit .288 with 24 home runs and 68 RBI. Following his playing career, Andy coached for the Phillies from 1957 to 1958 and again from 1967 to 1969. He remained with the Phils until the mid-'80s as a roving minor league instructor.

This was another August 1989 Bridgeton baseball card show purchase, acquired for $1.50.