2017mfc Charley/Charlie Smith

2017 mfc Charley Smith•#65

1964 Topps

I never knew Charley Smith, the Mets third baseman in the mid 1960's, never saw him play, but I have a feeling I would have been a fan.

His twenty home runs that led the team in 1964 would have won me over pretty thoroughly, although his strike out rate would have drove me bonkers. Like with many Mets players over the years, I've learned to live with the bad and appreciate the good. So I would have been more excited about Smith's H.R.s than all his strikeouts. He'd fit right in with today's game where his strikeout numbers would be pretty average for his power.

1967 Topps

Charles William Smith, born on September 15, 1937 in Charleston, South Carolina, went by the nick-name Charley. Topps used two different spellings (Charley and Charlie) on his baseball cards over the years. The only indication I could find as to which is correct are his autographed cards, which he signed as Charley.

'64 mfc

Many of the old cards here feature the name Charlie because when I made them a while back I was going by the only baseball card of his I had ever seen. His 1964 Topps card, which was somewhat of a traded card when you think about it. No airbrushing, just the ChiSox pic and Mets border (above left). I thought this was so kool when I first saw the card (which wasn't until the late 1980's).
<Of course I had to mess with him for his mfc card. This might have been my very first attempt at simulating the Topps airbrushing done back in the day.

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You could say that during  Smith's career he was well traveled, and he was, but you could also say he was well traded. I was impressed when I saw the players Charley was swapped for. Here's a breakdown of Smith's journey through MLB:

>>Smith signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957 at age 19 as a shortstop and rose rapidly through their farm system, culminating in his selection as the Pacific Coast League's all-star infielder in 1960, with the Dodgers having moved to Los Angeles by this time.

>>Just a month into the 1961 season L.A. dealt Charley and Don Demeter to the Philadelphia Phillies for Turk Farrell and Joe Koppe. The Phillies made him their regular third baseman. Overall, he hit .248 with 11 homers and 50 RBI, earning a spot on the Topps All-Star Rookie team.

>>After the 1961 season concluded Smith was moved again, traded by the Philadelphia Phillies with John Buzhardt to the Chicago White Sox for former all star 1B/OF Roy Sievers.

>>After appearing in only 71 games in parts of three seasons with the White Sox, he was dealt to the New York Mets in April 1964 for Chico Fernandez and minor leaguer Bobby Catton. Smith had a dreadful start to his Met career going 0 for 25 before getting a hit.

>>On August 17, 1964, Charley had the first two-homer game in his career. He took Bob Veale and 
John Gelnar deep to account for four runs in the Mets 5-0 win over Pittsburgh.

>>He ended up batting .239 with 20 home runs and 58 RBI, leading the Mets in round trippers for the 1964 season. However, he struck out 101 times and walked just 19 times in 443 at-bats. 

Between Frank Thomas's 34 H.R.s in 1962 and Tommie Agee's 26 in 1969, Charley was the only New York Mets player to hit as many as 20 homers in a single season.



>>Playing regularly for another anemic Metropolitan team in 1965 Smith hit .244 with 16 homers and a team-high 62 RBI. He also established a Mets record for most strikeouts by a batter in a single season with 123.

>>After Smith's show of power in 1964 & '65 the Mets flipped him and pitcher Al Jackson to the St. Louis Cardinals for all star third baseman Ken Boyer. 

Ken wasn't quite over the hill yet, but close. He launched 14 long balls while leading the team with 61 RBI and also leading in doubles with 28, which was a new single season record for Metropolitan two baggers at the time.

>>Charley started 100 games at third base for St. Louis in 1966 and had a personal-best batting average of .266 with 10 home runs and 43 RBI.

>>Before the 1967 season Smith was traded to the Yankees straight-up for a declining Roger Maris. Smith carried a paltry .224/.278/.336 batting line in New York that season, only producing 27 extra-base hits (9 home runs) in 425 at-bats. 


>>On August 24, 1967 Charley had the second two-homer game of his career, this time with the Yankees. He again drove in four runs in a 5-0 victory. The opposing pitchers were Tommy John and Hoyt Wilhelm of the White Sox.

>>After playing sparingly for the Yanks Smith was traded to the San Francisco Giants for Nate Oliver after the season ended in 1968. He never played for the Giants however. Before the 1969 season began he was sold to the Chicago Cubs. Smith appeared in only two games for the Cubs, bringing his career to a close on April 22, 1969.

>>In parts of 10 seasons, Smith hit .239 with 69 home runs and 281 RBI.

>>I'm sure you recognized many of the names involved in the Charley Smith trades. Combined, all the players Smith was traded for were named to 19 All-Star teams, and Roger Maris (1960 and 1961) and Ken Boyer (1964) were Most Valuable Player award winners.

2017 mfc Charley Smith card back•stats

>> On November 29th 1994, Charley died suddenly in what I can only describe, for lack of information, as unusual circumstances. All my research can dig up is that Smith died at the Washoe (Nev.) Medical Center after knee surgery at the relatively young age of 57. 

Denise Yoxsimer, a hospital spokeswoman, had no immediate response when asked about the cause of death. An official cause has not been filed with the county vital statistics bureau.

I could not find any info beyond this obituary.

R.I.P. Charley Smith.
May you live forever on your baseball cards.

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Much of the information for this post was compiled by Kevin of the blog "THE SCOREBOARD". 
Thank you for that great page on Charley Smith!
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Charlie Smith's photo was colorized for use on his 2017 mfc card.
Photographer unknown.

That background was a beeeeeeatch!
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Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be, AKA 

Mets Fantasy Cards 

just topped 

300,000

 page views this past week. 

I would sincerely like to thank all who visit the blog and 

thank you for your continued support. 

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Merry Christmas : Granderson Met Fantazy Card and #14

___*The 2013 Fantasy UpDate "Blue-Silver Slate" Curtis Granderson ___

I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't give everyone a Fantazy Curtis Granderson Met card for Christmas. Merry Christmas to us all!

Thank you Sandy Claus!

It's a tough gig Sandy. You're doing a good job.

As you can see I chose to use the Daily News photoshop deal that had Granderson wearing number 14.

I don't mean this as a diss to Gil Hodges, for whom the number was rightfully retired. More a shout-out to the Daily News itself. A supposedly reputable New York newspaper! Actually, since 14 was Curtis's number on the Yanks it's an understandable miscue. Still, surprising that no-one picked up on that before it went to press. I have not seen this image on-line. Only in the newspaper itself.^

Granderson will in reality be wearing #3 in 2014 and I hope he wears it well. Here's a relic card I'd love to see:

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Using the #14 image of Granderson also makes the post more interesting because I can go over the other 14's in Met history, of which there were precious few.

Gil, of course, issued #14 on his return to New York in 1962. He wore the number all his days with the Brooklyn and LA Dodgers.

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In 1965 Ron Swoboda wore #14. He changed over to #4 in 1966 when Ken Boyer came aboard and remained #4 for his days as a Met. When he went to the Expos in 1970 Ron chose once again to wear 14. Very cool. Hard to find photos with Ron/#14 so I will use Swoboda's actual Topps 1966 baseball card, which is the finest shot I've seen of him in 14.

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Third baseman Ken Boyer was #14 for 10 very productive years with the St. Louis Cardinals. He smacked 32 home runs in 1960 and most seasons topped .300 in batting average. Ken also led the N.L. with 119 RBI as recent as 1964, winning the M.V.P. award. Two years later in 1966 he became #14 for the Mets and was only able to muster up 61 RBI, batting .266. Not awful (he led the team in doubles with 28) but indications that his career was wrapping up. In 1966 he hit 14 homers.

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When Gil Hodges returned to the Mets in 1968 there was no question what uniform number he would wear. And no-one has worn it since.

Make note of this New York Daily News.

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Curtis Granderson will wear uniform number 3 next season. Who were the other Mets to wear this number?
Learn all about the Mets by the numbers at METS BY THE NUMBERS.
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Update for future posts: Additions to the 60's section will include the following:
1) A Tom Seaver / Jerry Koosman page (the 71,72's will probably be posted first).
2) Fantazy cards for each Met opening day line-up 62-70.
3) Once again John Hogan from my favorite fan card site Cards That Never Were has given me a great idea.
Mets leaders for all seasons!
I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. Making them like the Topps cards from that year make for a funny card when you see the numbers. Lil' bit. Especially in following years when the team leader had 16 & less.
But if I just show the leader alone it doesn't look right.
He looks lonely.

I'll probably go with the group type.
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CREDITS:
The image of Ron Swoboda on the Expos is an image colorized and provided by Fat Jack of Baseball-birthdays.com

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HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY & SAFE NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

A special Merry Christmas to my brothers and my entire family!

1967 Mets Fantazy Card Opening Day Line-up

Welcome to the 1967 Met Fantazy Card Opening Day Line-up page. The 1967 Mets were beginning to turn that corner between the horrors of 1962 and the heights of 1969. New York's young pitching arms, led by lottery lad Tom Seaver and lefty Jerry Koosman, were beginning to attract attention. But these still were the Mets. They still were the butt of most baseball jokes. No one took them seriously.

In the header picture above, if you look close, you can see the outfield wall at Shea Stadium appears to be white in color (this is a photoshopped image). There has been some talk that on opening day of 1967 the outfield wall was white. Not for the entire season, but for a few weeks at the seasons start. This has been discussed at the CPF and since we can't find any incontrovertible proof that the wall actually was white, this discussion is on-going.
If anyone out there knows any information,details or photos regarding the outfield wall being white to open the 1967 season, please contact me.
zvon58@hotmail.com
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The Mets first game of the 1967 season was played on April 11th. The Mets hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates at home at Shea Stadium.

Leading off for the Mets 1967 campaign is the center fielder, Don Bosch. Really? Like I've said, most of these opening day line-ups have surprised me.
Bosch came to the Mets from the Pittsburg Pirates along with todays starting Pitcher Don Cardwell in December of 1966 for pitcher Dennis Riebant and outfielder Gary Kolb. Highly touted as the Mets center fielder of the future Bosch had a disappointing time as a Met. In 94 games spread over two seasons Don batted .157. His OBP was .210.
In 1969 he had some bad stuff to say about the Mets in Dick Schaap's book "The Year the Mets Lost Last Place", possibly leading to the 1978 tell-all book by Chico Escuela entitled "Bad Stuff 'Bout the Mets".

Batting second and playing right field is Cleon Jones. In 1966 Cleon batted lead off to start the season, and he was all over the line-up after that. He led off 23 times and batted 3rd, 4th, or 5th over 25 times each. To Jone's credit he took these things in stride and continued to show he could hit (.275) as the Met were figuring out what to do with him, where to use him. He bats 2nd and plays right to start 1967. He batted in the second slot the most, 49 times, and took a step back this year with a .246 batting average. I suppose many times, as far as where he batted and played the field, Cleon was a victim of circumstances.
The Mets committed 5 errors in this opening day game. Jones made two of them.

Batting third all-star third baseman Ken Boyer. Boyer started suffering back problems in 1965 while playing for the Cards. The Mets in their wisdom traded for him before the '66 season for fan favorites Al Jackson and Charlie Smith. Ken batted .266 with 14 home runs and 61 RBI for the '67 season. Not horrible. On May 10, 1967, he collected his 2,000th career hit, a single off Milt Pappas, and on May 20 he hit his 300th career double off Nelson Briles. On July 27, with Boyer batting .235, the Mets traded him to the Chicago White Sox along with second baseman Sandy Alomar, in exchange for third baseman Bill Southworth and catcher J. C. Martin.

Batting clean-up and covering left field, 1962 AND 1963 National League batting leader, the newly acquired Met, Tommy Davis. There were high hopes for Davis to be a star in New York. He did well enough, batting .302 with 16 home runs and 73 RBIs, but still was traded after the '67 season. Thus began Tommie Davis's journey in which he would find himself playing for ten different teams over the next ten years. On this day Davis would show Met fans he came to play, going 2 for 4 with an RBI.

"Rocky" Ron Swoboda will be batting fifth and manning first base. Swoboda primarily batted 5th or 6th and hit for a .281 average in 134 games in '67, smacking 13 homers. He played right field mostly, but to open the season he was platooning with Ed Kranepool at first base. After 20 games at first the Mets decided to discontinue that plan and never to try him there again. Ever. Yikes, he must have been pretty bad at first.

I'm going to start a page just for Met error cards. And I don't mean mistakes on the card. I mean cards that picture the Mets players making errors. Batting sixth and playing second base for the Mets, Jerry Buchek.

Met catcher and future all-star (yep, I get to say that) Jerry Grote will bat seventh. Grote did not have a great year at the plate. He did have a four hit day on June 24th, which raised his batting average from .189 to .192 on his tortuously slow climb to .195 (in 120 games). Behind the plate Jerry was showing Met fans how a great catcher conducts himself. He yielded a .990 fielding percentage and threw out would be base stealers 49% of the time. Jerry Grote, of all people, hit a home run in this opening day game. He also suffered two passed balls.

Batting eighth and playing shortstop is Buddy Harrelson. Buddy fit the classic mold of shortstops at the time. Small, fast, great in the field and good enough at the plate. This was, however, Buddies worst year in the field with a .958 fielding percentage, committing 32 errors.

Pitching for the Mets to start the 1967 season is Don Cardwell. Don is the only pitcher to get traded and pitch a no-hitter in his first game with his new team. During the 1960 season, Cardwell was traded from the Phillies to the Cubs (for Tony Taylor) and had his no hitter in his first Cubs start. Cardwell went 5-9 in '67, and was a spot starter for the Mets throughout '67,'68 and '69. In 1969 his 5 wins in a row during the late season stretch run for the N.L. pennant were big.

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I feel if I am going to make a card for a Met making an error, I should also make one of him making a nice play to balance it out. To be fair Jerry made more plays than he didn't.

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A special for the 1967 line-up page- The 1967 Mets/Sgt.Pepper album cover! This supposed to include every player or coach on the '67 squad plus two future Mets for a total of 67. If I've left anybody out please let me know.

Can you name the players without peeking at the UMDB? If you can you are a better fan than I was. But I know who they are now so I'm moving up the Met fan chain.


I thought to do this tribute at the last minute and figured it would take a few sittings. It took way more time than I expected and unfortunately delayed the posting of this page. Totally enjoyed making it though and hope you get a kick out of it.
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Special thanks to Batmagadanleadoff of the CPF and my bother Kevin for the suggested additions to the 1967 Mets Tribute.

1966 Met Fantazy Card Opening Day Line-up

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is Bob Murphy bringing you Mets baseball. Today is opening day of the 1966 baseball season and the Mets will be facing Hank Aaron and the Atlanta Braves here at Shea Stadium. Now for the starting line-up for the 1966 New York Mets.




Leading off for the Mets to start the season will be-

Batting second and playing second base is-

Playing third and batting third for the Mets is all-star-

Batting clean-up is the first baseman-

followed by the left fielder-

Batting sixth and playing rightfield, Rocky-

Doing the catching for the Mets and batting seventh-

Batting eighth, the shortstop-

And batting ninth, starting his first opening day for the Mets, the pitcher-

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I've been very surprised at most of the Met opening day line-ups.
CREDITS:
Mr. Rothenberg, again. Thank you sir, you initials are on a bench way behind Dick Stuart.