Wallace Johnson

TRIVIA QUESTION: What do Wallace Johnson and Danny Ainge have in common, other than playing Major League Baseball for teams in Canada and looking resplendent in powder blue? (Answer below.)

 

As I work on Project87, Wallace Johnson recently got me to 230 cards that I've gotten autographed from the 1987 Topps set. He also signed the '89 Topps card for me, and I thought both looked great in blue! 

What made the return even better though, was the fact that he also filled out the short questionnaire that I've been sending with recent autograph requests. I generally ask players what their favorite baseball memory was, and ask who their favorite manager and teammate(s) were, and ask them about the toughest opponent(s) they faced.

 

Johnson's most intriguing answer revealed his favorite baseball memory: His team's 1979 MVC Championship season of 1979 while he was at Indiana State. I found it incredibly interesting for a number of reasons. First, it surprised me that a guy who played in the big leagues for nine seasons and had one of the more memorable hits in Expos franchise history (more on that later) would consider his senior college more worthy of such mention.

 

There was another thing though. When someone mentions Indiana State and 1979, you can't help but think of Larry Bird, who led the Sycamores to the NCAA championship game in basketball that year. Just an instant after that came to mind, I recalled that I had once seen a picture of Bird in an Indiana State baseball uniform, and I began to wonder if he and Johnson had perhaps played together. That sent me off on a spree of research that culminated in this blog post.

First, the story behind Bird's foray into baseball. He did indeed play in a doubleheader for Indiana State's baseball team against Kentucky Wesleyan on April 28th. He struck out in his first at bat, but later rapped out a 2-run single. More to the point, Indiana State had (by far) their largest baseball attendance of the season!

TRIVIA ANSWER: Both Ainge and Johnson were (at least for a time) teammates with Larry Bird!

That wasn't the only memorable part of that season for Johnson and the Sycamores though. Individually, Johnson was one of the leading hitters in the nation, batting .491 to set what still stands as an ISU record. His success wasn't just personal though. He was captain of a Sycamore team that had a great season, going 41-11, winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship (with Johnson as Tournament MVP), and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. Johnson was inducted into the ISU Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.

After being drafted in the 6th round, Johnson spent the 1979, '80 & '81 seasons in the minors. He started the last of those seasons with the AA Memphis Chicks, before moving up to the AAA Denver Bears, who were coached by Felipe Alou to an American Association championship.

When MLB rosters expanded on September 1st, Johnson got the call to join the Expos who were in the midst of a race for the second-half NL East title in the strike-split 1981 season. He didn't see a lot of action, only coming to the plate ten times, but facing New York Mets closer, Neil Allen on October 3rd (the second to last day of the season), he hit a two-run triple to put the Expos ahead 3-2, on their way to winning 5-4, and clinching the only postseason berth in Montreal Expos history. Johnson would be added to the postseason roster, and subsequently had an RBI single in one of his two pinch hit at bats.

Johnson would go on to put together a solid nine-year career as a pinch-hitter, spending his entire MLB career with the Expos except for eight plate appearances with the Giants in 1983. He retired as the Expos' all-time leader in pinch hits, with 86.

After his playing days were over, Johnson spent a number of years coaching, first in the Braves' minor league system from 1995-97, followed by a five year stint (1998-2002) with the Chicago White Sox as their third base coach. 

One final thing I found interesting about Johnson was from a newspaper article from all the way back in 1979. In it, Johnson stated, "I was a paper boy in Gary when I was younger and sometimes when I'd get enough money together, I'd go to see the Cubs and White Sox play in Chicago." Johnson continued, "I still have autographs from Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo."

How crazy is it that all these years later, guys like me are still excited about getting HIS autograph!

The Southpaw Knuckler

Most of the time, the cards I send out are from the 1987 Topps set (sometimes with cards from other sets included as well) as I work on “Project87.” I’ve always thought this was kind of a cool looking card though, so when I saw that Wilbur Wood signed through the mail, I thought I’d send it out.

In my opinion, ’78 Topps cards generally look good signed, due to the simple design and large photo. This one certainly turned out to be no exception! The blue autograph looks great, and unlike many collectors (since I have no intention of ever selling them), I actually prefer personalized autographs. 

Very unique as a lefthanded knuckleballer, Wood was virtually rubber-armed. The first ten years of his career (1961-1970), he pitched almost exclusively out of the bullpen, averaging 124 IP with a 2.49 ERA over the last four of those years. In 1968 he pitched In a (since eclipsed) league record 88 games, registering 1.89 ERA over 159 innings pitched.

He then moved to the White Sox rotation in 1971, and over the next five years, he averaged over 336 innings pitched per season, topping out at 376.2 innings pitched in 1972, when he started 49 games. The following year, he started 48 games and tallied 359.1 innings pitched. On one occasion that season, he pitched the final four innings in the resumption of a suspended game, followed by a four-hit shutout in the scheduled game, to pick up two wins in one night. On another occasion that season, he started both games of a doubleheader, becoming the last pitcher to accomplish the feat. 

Regardless of all that, I think we can all agree to this much: MLB needs more players wearing red windbreaker shirts underneath their collared jerseys.

The Hawk

When I first started this blog, it was for the purpose of reminiscing and sharing items from my childhood. The more I reminisced, the more I got bit by the collecting bug once again! I needed to figure out a project to focus on though, and I settled on trying to get as many 1987 Topps cards signed as possible. After a couple years out to players, I got up to almost 200.

Due to a lot of reasons, I got away from the project. I've decided to get back to work on it though, and the first new additions were these two of Andre Dawson (one from the base set, one from the "traded" set). In 1987, Dawson won the MVP despite playing for a last place team AND tying for 25th in the National League in WAR. But he led the league with 49 home runs and 137 RBIs. He had two other seasons where he came in second in the MVP voting (1981 & 1983) and won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1977, on his way to a Hall of Fame career.

A Couple Strong Arms

8x10 of Neil Lomax from my favorite Big Red team (1984)

Another 8x10 that Mr. Lomax kindly added to my request

Hall of Famer, Don Sutton

95 and Counting...

Now up to 95 autographs for Project87. Here's the latest update:

A few months ago, I sent three cards to Ron Cey. He signed two of the three, one of which being the Cubs Leaders card that featured him and Steve Trout. I sent that card to Trout, and didn't hear back from him. Fearing that it might be gone for good, I sent Cey another one of the Cubs Leaders cards as well as the one he didn't sign last time. He signed both of them and returned them quickly, getting them back to me in just nine days!











Just ten days later (74 days after I'd originally sent them), I got these back from Steve Trout! Trout was a solid starter for the Cubs in the mid-80s, after having started his career with the White Sox. His best year was probably 1984 when he went 13-7, 3.41 for the NL East champs. The southpaw finished up his career with a few months with the Yankees and two seasons with the Mariners.











 Mike Fischlin was a solid, versatile defender who managed to have a ten season career despite not having much pop in his bat. His best season was 1982 when he had a .351 OBP in 322 plate appearances for the Indians.










While I still consider myself very much an amateur, my friend, Alex Hyde is a serious autograph collector. Not long ago he contacted me and asked if I still needed Dick Schofield for Project87. Indeed I did. Schofield was going to be signing at a show the next day in St. Louis, and Alex offered to get me his card signed for me.

Schofield had a very respectable 14 year career that spanned much of the 80s and 90s. He played mostly for the Angels, with short stints also with the Blue Jays, the Mets, and the Dodgers.  From 1986-88, he averaged a WAR of 3.3 per season, the two best seasons of his career coming in '86 & '88.

Schofield's father also played 19 years in MLB, including eight with the Cardinals.

I got a lot of six cards from Tom Tessier. They included:

Bobby Meacham was a first round draft pick of the Cardinals who was traded to the Yankees along with fellow prospect Stan Javier as a "make-good" for Bob Sykes, who ended up injured when the Yankees acquired him in October of 1981 in exchange for a young outfield prospect named Willie McGee. Sykes never pitched for the Yankees in 1982, while McGee starred for the World Champion Cardinals. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner threatened legal action so the Cardinals agreed to deal him two of their top prospects. Meacham was a starter for most of the 1984 and 85 seasons, leading the AL in sac bunts each season. He would only last six years in the MLB, but would stay in baseball and ultimately became the 2017 manager of the Blue Jays' AAA affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons of the International League.

Tracy Jones came up with the Reds and played for five teams in his six year career.

Tom Lawless is famous for two things: First he was the only player to ever be traded for Peter Edward Rose, having been sent to the Expos by the Reds when they acquired Rose to become their player-manager. Secondly, Lawless is the possessor of the most ridiculously epic bat flip in MLB history. In 1987 he had only two hits (in 25 at bats) for the Cardinals, but still found himself in the starting lineup of World Series. His fourth inning home run not only broke a 1-1 tie, but represented the only three RBIs he would get all season long. Even though it BARELY cleared the wall, Lawless acted as if it were out of the stadium completely.
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Chris Codiroli spent six of his eight years in MLB with the Oakland A's. In 1985, he led the AL with 37 games started as he went 14-14 with a 4.46 ERA.

Denny Walling spent 18 seasons as a corner infielder/outfielder, 13 of which were spent with the Astros. His best season was 1986 when he hit .312 with a career-high 13 home runs for the NL West champs. At the trade deadline in 1988, he was shipped to the Cardinals in exchange for one of my personal favorites, Bob Forsch, who I've written about elsewhere. Walling would spend the next two seasons in St. Louis before finishing up with a season with the Rangers and a few final at bats for the Astros.



Dane Iorg was a pinch hitter extraordinaire for the Cardinals in my earliest memories (1977-1984), and hit .276 throughout his ten-year career.

Available for Trade

When I was a kid, one of the best parts of collecting cards was trading cards with friends. In working on Project87, trades have been a fun way to reconnect with my youth. So I thought I'd post some autographed cards here that I have available for trade in hopes that a willing trade partner have some of the 1987 Topps cards I need. All autographs received TTM unless otherwise noted.

IP at a game in 1987

Two Number Ones and a Super Cooper

TTM Update

 This 8x10 glossy photo of Ron Gant was one I've had for close to 20 years. I saw that Gant works in TV in Atlanta and was a great TTM signer, so I dug up the photo, sent it to him, and was pleased to get it back quickly. Gant played for eight teams over 16 years, spending the first seven of those years with the Atlanta Braves. For Cardinals fans like me though, he is perhaps best remembered for the two home runs he hit off of former teammate Tom Glavine in game three of the 1996 NLCS, the highlight of his three seasons wearing the Birds on the Bat.








 

I was thrilled to get this one back from one of the greatest third basemen of all time! Brooks Robinson was a 15-time All Star and a 16-time Gold Glove Award winner. Robinson's Hall of Fame career was of course filled with amazing performances, but the highlight would have to be his performance in the 1970 World Series. Brooks hit .429 with two home runs and six RBIs in leading the O's to a dominant 4-1 Series win over the Reds. That combined with spectacular defense throughout the Series (including his iconic play against Lee May in game one) earned him the Series MVP.

Bruce Benedict is perhaps best remembered for his Chris Berman nickname, "Eggs."

  

Dan Plesac now works for MLB Network.

Ron Roenicke

 Rich Bordi

Floyd Bannister

In a post a couple weeks ago, I mentioned Tony Pena. He played in 74 games for Pittsburgh between 1980 & 1981, coming into his own for the Pirates over the next five years. During that span, he was a four-time All Star and a three-time Gold Glove Award winner. After leaving Pittsburgh with a .286 career batting average, he would play for five different teams over the next eleven years, winning just one more Gold Glove and being named to only more All Star team, compiling a .239 batting average over that span.

Lance Parrish was another catcher who moved to a new team in 1987. I had a previous post with his regular card, but today we feature his All Star card and his card from the Traded set.
The eight-time All Star team, six-time Silver Slugger, and three-time Gold Glove Award winner played for seven teams over 19 years. Much like Pena though, his greatest success and longest stay was with his first team, which for Parrish was the Detroit Tigers.

Rod Booker

Still Call Them "Trading Cards"

I was looking through some things and just realized that I forgot to enter a blog post for a big trade I made last month! One of the real fun parts of working on Project87 these past few months has been connecting with a community of people who are also collecting '87 Topps autographs. Through Twitter, I've "met" a bunch of people who are further along than I am and some who are just getting started. It would seem that none of them is pursuing this goal with quite the tenacity that Ryan Schear is. Ryan lives in Arizona and (like me) just started going after 87s this year. Unlike me though, he has already accumulated 450 of them!

As sort of a "project within a project," I'd especially like to get all of the Cardinals cards signed in the set. When Ryan heard this, he mentioned that he had duplicates of Jack Clark, and asked if I had any that I'd be willing to trade. I looked through my old cards I had gotten signed at games back in the 80s and found two that I had "doubles" of that he needed: Tom Hume and Luis Aguayo. He said he'd include another of his extras (Ken Schrom) and we had a deal! We sent each other the cards through the mail and in a couple days the trade was completed.

Clark was the one big bat in the Cardinals' pennant-winning lineups of 1985 & 1987. In '85, he only hit 22 home runs, but Andy Van Slyke was the only other player on that team with more than 10, and he only had 13! In 1987, Clark was the most dominant offensive player in the National League with a 1.055 OPS. Unfortunately, with 24 games remaining in the season he injured his ankle and was unable to start another game. Cardinal fans were left to wonder how things might have been different if only they'd had "The Ripper's" big bat for the World Series, which they would lose to Minnesota in seven games.

What Clark is best remembered for though is the two-out, ninth inning blast he hit off Tom Niedenfuer in Game 6 of the NLCS to send the Cardinals to the World Series. The image of (future Cardinal) Pedro Guerrero slamming his glove to the ground and Clark's tortoise-like trip around the bases will forever be cemented in the minds of fans of the 1980s Cardinals!

As for the second card in the deal, I honestly didn't even remember Schrom as a player. Turns out that he pitched exactly 900 innings in his seven year MLB career, going 51-51 with a 4.81 ERA. Mostly used as a starter, he pitched for Toronto, Minnesota and Cleveland, representing the Indians in the 1986 All Star Game. 1987 would turn out to be his final season in the majors.

Getting Caught Up

What a great run I've had lately in terms of TTM returns!


Lance Parrish played the first ten years of his 19 year career with the Detroit Tigers, but this was his last card with them as the 1987 season would be his first in a different uniform, playing for the Philadelphia Phillies. The second half of his career was nowhere near as accomplished as the first, but all told, he put together quite a career. Parrish made the All Star team eight times, won the Silver Slugger six times, and was a three time Gold Glove winner.

I'm not exactly sure why I sent this card to Parrish without sending the All Star card that is also in the 1987 Topps set. Regardless, I did. Turns out there also is a Parrish card in that year's Traded set, so I guess we'll send those to him together.

My favorite team ever is the 1985 Cardinals. Perhaps more than any of the Whitey Herzog-led teams of the 1980s, they embodied what came to be know in St. Louis as "Whitey-Ball," relying on speed, pitching and defense. The team's only true power hitter was Jack Clark (and he only had 22 home runs). But as for speed, boy did they have speed! The team stole an amazing total of 314 bases, almost two per game. Three players (Ozzie Smith, Tom Herr & Andy Van Slyke) exceeded 30 stolen bases in addition to MVP Willie McGee, who had 56, and Rookie of the Year Vince Coleman, who stole 110! Defense-wise, Ozzie and Terry Pendleton gobbled up basically every ground ball hit on the left side of the infield, while Herr played a steady, if not spectacular second base. In the outfield, hardly anything dropped in as Coleman, McGee and Van Slyke comprised perhaps the fastest outfield ever. Pitching-wise, Danny Cox won 18 and Joaquin Andujar won 21 (topping 20 wins for the second straight year), but the star on the mound was first-year Cardinal left-hander, John Tudor. Tudor started out the season 1-7, but from June 1 on, he was virtually unhittable, going 20-1 with a 1.37 ERA. In his 26 starts over those four months, he averaged over eight innings pitched per start. Perhaps the most amazing stat that season was how successful he was pitching on three days rest. Going into the seventh game of the World Series, he had started on three days rest eight times. In those eight games he went 8-0 with a 0.66 ERA, while averaging 8.5 innings per start. Unfortunately, nothing went right in game seven, and the Cardinals fell to the Kansas City Royals. Tudor would never quite return to the level of success he had in 1985, but he was very good for the remainder of his career. In his five years pitching for the Cardinals, he went 62-26 with a 2.52 ERA, and he will forever be one of my favorites to don the Birds on the Bat.

When I first started collecting autographs through the mail a few months back, I noticed that NBA Hall of Famer and former US Senator, Bill Bradley sometimes signed through the mail. I didn't have any pictures or cards of his, but I decided to send a couple index cards his way in hopes that I might get them back. Over three months later, I was thrilled to open my mail and find the index cards signed and returned! Bradley is a native of Crystal City, Missouri, not far from St. Louis. The father of one of my high school friends/teammates actually played with him there. And my uncle Jay went to Princeton to play basketball with him as well

About ten years ago, I read the Roger Kahn classic, The Boys of Summer. Though my dad had grown up a New York Giants fan, I must admit that the book more than piqued my interest in the Dodgers of the 1950s. Of course there were the mong the Hall of Famers (Robinson, Campenella, Reese, Snider) as well as other greats (like Newcombe & Hodges), but for some reason, Carl Erskine grabbed my interest. A 20-game winner in 1953, Erskine started seven World Series games, including three in 1953, a season in which he went 20-6.  I picked up this card at a card show in Fort Worth, and was thrilled to not only get it back signed from the 90-year old Erskine, but to receive it with a note thanking me for writing him!

In 1987, I had one of the great summers of my life. That baseball season I was perpetually at Busch Stadium, going to a total of 25 Cardinals games. The Redbirds rewarded me with an NL Pennant, and once more made it to game 7 of the World Series, before falling to the Twins. One of the key players on that Minnesota team was slugging outfielder, Tom Brunansky. The Cardinals would actually acquire Brunansky early the next season in exchange for Tom Herr. He would be a key component to a 1989 Cardinals team that would battle the Cubs all season long for the NL East title, but would be dealt to Boston early in 1990 for closer Lee Smith. In retrospect, it seems like Brunansky was with the Cardinals for more than just 24 months, and looking at the numbers, it's amazing that they were able to get Lee Smith for him!

Another member of the 1987 world champion Minnesota Twins was manager Tom Kelly. Along with his 1987 Topps card, I sent a Fleer team sticker to have him sign. I think it turned out nicely and was a kind of neat, unique item. Kelly twice won the World Series with the Twins (1987 & 1991).

For a ten year period from 1985-1994, Jimmy Key was one of the best lefties in baseball. For that decade, he averaged a 15-9 record with a 3.32 ERA. He played with the Blue Jays and went 2-0 in the 1992 World Series, starting game 4 and then picking up a win in relief in the 11-inning game 6 clincher. After the season, he signed a free agent deal with the Yankees, where he experienced continued success, and was ultimately a member of the 1996 world champs, before moving on to the Orioles for the final years of his career.











Jim Acker had a solid ten year career, spent mostly with the Atlanta and Toronto. He was drafted by the Braves with the 21st pick of the 1980 draft. Two years later, the Blue Jays acquired him in the Rule 5 draft. In 1986 they traded him back to the Braves, who three years later traded him back to the Blue Jays.


After bouncing back and forth between the two teams for more than a decade, Acker signed a free agent deal with the Seattle Mariners heading into the 1992 season. Ironically, that October the Blue Jays and Braves would meet in the World Series, thanks in part to the NLCS-clinching hit by Francisco Cabrera, who just happens to be one of the players for whom Acker was once traded.