#618 - Jim Mason

We’ve been doing a sort of back and forth between Traded cards and final cards and this card completes that loop, at least for a while. Jim Mason was pretty much the poster boy for light-hitting shortstops, even more so than the guy who’d be synonymous with that designation in a couple years. Here he strikes a tough pose in Oakland but I don’t think too many people were fooled. In ’73 he had his busiest MLB season to date, spelling Toby Harrah at shortstop and Dave Nelson at second. He would top that in ’74 in his first and only season as a downright starter before reverting to his backup role down the road. On his Traded card, which appears to be from the same day, Jim gets another nasty pinstripe airbrush job in one of those “looking up” photos. It seems Topps took those shots in case of that instance which may have grated a bit on the card subjects since there was an implication Topps knew something they didn’t. Jim sure does have a worried look on his face on that card, though he needn’t have been so concerned. In fact, Jim was able to wrangle a decent career out of not much wood despite a bit of traveling

Jim Mason came out of Mobile, Alabama, like a few other guys in this set. Jim was a good enough baseball player to be taken in the second round of the ’68 draft by the Senators. He’d also played basketball and football in high school and after graduating attended the University of Southern Alabama but didn’t play ball there. That first summer he didn’t hit too well but he fielded well enough to get up to Triple A in ’69, a season he missed a considerable part of due to military duty. In ’70 and ’71 he remained at the higher level, gradually getting more lineup time while his average escalated. His OBA both seasons was quite good at .377 in ’70 and .390 the following year. That September he made his debut in DC and was lucky enough to be on the field for the last ugly game there for a bunch of years. He began ’72 back in Triple A where he had his best offensive run before coming up to Arlington in late July on the heels of an injury bug to the Rangers. He spent a month-plus taking over the shortstop role and when Toby Harrah was healthy again spent the last couple weeks as the regular guy at third. In ’73 he was about the only infielder who didn’t spend time at the hot corner before he was sold to the Yankees in December.

New York had been having a pretty long run of light-hitting shortstops since pretty much Tommy Tresh’s rookie year. The latest of those was Gene Michael and in ’74 Michael ran out of gas a bit sooner than expected. So Mason stepped into the starting role and was a pleasant surprise on the offensive side when he hit .250. He was even more so of one when he rapped four doubles in one game early in the season. In ’75 he was expected to fill the starter role again but when his average tanked by almost 100 points Fred Stanley took over that role as he also did in ’76 when Jim hit .180. He did, though, have a rather surprising post-season that second year when he became the only Yankee to go yard against Cincinnati in his only Series at bat. In the winter he went to Toronto in the expansion draft. After hitting .165 in 80 at bats he then returned to Texas in a May trade with pitcher Steve Hargan and some cash for third baseman Roy Howell. Jim did a bit better the rest of the way for the Rangers, hitting .218 behind Bert Campaneris. He remained in that  role all of ’78 before closing things out with Montreal – he is one of few guys to play for both Canadian franchises – in ’79. Jim hit .203 up top and .252 in the minors.

I have no idea what Mason did once his career ended. Earlier this year a James Percy Mason was married near his hometown of Mobile, so if it is either this Jim or a junior one he apparently returned to his roots at some point.

I’d indicated a couple times that shortstops tended to be small during the time of this set, but outside of Luis Aparacio, that doesn’t actually appear to have been true. Look at Jim’s numbers: 6’2” and 185 isn’t too bad. That he worked for a moving company probably underlines my redaction.

Again Topps dispenses with the details of Jim’s acquisition. I wonder how immediate all that speculation was? I doubt this deal was a front-pager.

We are on the cusp of some big stuff in the whole Watergate scandal. Here are some more lead-ins:

4/23/73 – It was on this date that a third secret slush fund was disclosed. This time the fund was managed by President Nixon’s personal attorney, Herbert Kalmbach, and was reported to hold as much as $500,000. From Florida – maybe the White House staff was on spring break? – a release came that Nixon had no prior knowledge of the Watergate buggings before they occurred. Also on this date a new Grand Jury was convened to investigate news leaks purported to be coming from the sitting Grand Jury.

4/24/73 – The White House directly denied that any payoff or other offer had come from within its confines or from its staff to any of the five Watergate burglars, E. Howard Hunt, or G. Gordon Liddy in return for their silence. Both this and the above denial responded to earlier testimony from James McCord, one of the burglars.

4/25/73 – In what would become a pretty ironic development, especially given his own issues with credibility, Vice-President Spiro Agnew declared with “full confidence” that President Nixon had no involvement with Watergate and would find a way to resolve the Watergate “crisis.” Meanwhile John Mitchell let everyone know that his “conscience is clear” which, from everything out in public about the guy at that point, meant absolutely nothing.

So while Jim had at one time been in the DC area as a Nat, he was now down in Texas just looking for a hook-up with Mr. Ford, another name that would have a big DC profile in the near future. This one’s easy:

1. Mason and Ted Ford ’72 Texas Rangers.

#617 - Ted Ford

Just because this seems to be the theme lately we get another final baseball card in a rarity in this set of a Cleveland player at home. Ted Ford had completed round three of what was a back and forth career between the Tribe and the Rangers when this photo was taken. Unless this shot is from an earlier season – and I don’t think it is – Topps got lucky because Ted played precious few games up top in ’73. He’d begun the season hitting at a stellar clip for the Texas Triple A team in Spokane when he was sent to Cleveland with pitcher Dick Bosman for pitcher Steve Dunning in May. He continued his fine hitting at that level before a September call-up got him to Cleveland where he got a few starts in center and right field. Those would be Ted’s final at bats up top.

Ted Ford came out of Vineland, NJ, in the southern part of the state where he played football and baseball and was drafted by Cleveland as a first rounder in ’66. He was a speedy outfielder with a big arm who could hit and he spent his first summer in A ball before slowing down a bunch the following year in Double A. Then Ted got drafted again – this time by the Army – and did a military hitch that lasted the better part of two years. According to some sources he served time in Viet Nam though I have been unable to confirm that. He got back in ’69 in time to play some Instructional League ball and had such a good spring the following year that he made Cleveland’s opening day roster. After not hitting too great he went down to Triple A where he stung the ball at a pretty good clip that year and half of the next before a return to the Indians that summer. He had a couple nice moments but couldn’t get his average up to its minor league levels and after that season he went to Texas for former outfield mate Roy Foster and Tommy McCraw. After a short stay in Triple A Ted moved up to Arlington and led the team in homers as its starting right fielder. He also led the AL in assists from his position even though he only played about three-quarters of a season. By early ’73 he was back in Cleveland.

In ’74 Ford spent a few games in Triple A pounding the ball for the Tribe when he was traded to – guess where? – Texas for pitcher Charlie Hudson. He finished out the season at that level as a loaner to San Diego’s PCL franchise with another nice stat line of .311/17/72 with a .415 OBA. Then it was off to Mexico where he played ball the next eight seasons, most of that time for Mexico City. Ted was done following the ’82 season as a player and finished with the MLB line on the back of this card and hit .289 with 57 homers and a .355 OBA in the minors.

Ford would permanently relocate to Texas during his Mexican League time according to some articles about his grandson Darren who has put in some recent time with the Giants. Ted and Darren have not had much contact so that is a limited source of information but there has been a Ted Ford baseball school operating in McAllen for a number of years so it’s not a stretch to think it’s the same guy.

Ted gets some fielding props and nearly his whole career in The States on the back of his card. Apart from bowling he also had a band back in Vineland during the ’73 off-season. I wonder if he ever opened for Bruce?

At this point in the recap almost all Watergate news was coming via Grand Jury leaks:

4/19/73 – It was reported on this date that Jeb Stuart Magruder, a finance guy on the CREEP team, was ready to give evidence that he had helped John Dean and John Mitchell plan the Watergate bugging and that Dean and Mitchell were the ones who paid off the defendants to keep quiet. Also on this date Attorney General Richard Kleindienst removed himself from the “operative” investigation into the Watergate affair due to his “close personal and professional relationship” with some of the investigation’s targets.

4/20/73 – John Mitchell begins testifying before the Grand Jury. He indicated during his testimony that he had attended three meetings in early ’72 – the first during which he was still Attorney General – in which bugging was discussed but that he had refused to approve the activation of those plans. It was also around this time that White House attorney John Dean began to crack. Dean was worried about becoming a scapegoat for the Watergate affair and there were indications he would be giving up H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s Chief of Staff, and John Erlichman, Nixon’s Chief Domestic Affairs Adviser.

4/21/73 – it is reported that the Grand Jury is now concentrating on H. R. Haldeman’s involvement in Watergate. He and John Erlichman hire a lawyer.

Meanwhile we need to hook up an Indian and a Cub:

1. Ford and Jim Mason – coming right up – ’72 Rangers;

2. Mason and Larry Gura ’74 to ’75 Yankees.

#616 - Larry Gura

If you were a Yankee fan in the mid-Seventies you’d have thought this poor guy was a mixture of Satan and Liberace. Billy Martin hated Larry Gura for some reason and would on a regular basis question his toughness, which is a little bizarre because Larry never actually pitched in one regular season game for Billy. But Martin’s doghouse was a tough place from which to extricate oneself – ask Reggie – and Larry didn’t have Reggie’s leverage so when Billy said “begone” off he went. I remained an NY fan through all its Billy and non-Billy incarnations but I always thought Larry was unfairly dissed so – outside of playoff time – I have to admit I was pretty happy when he beat the Bombers, which he did a lot. But that was years away and in ’73 Larry was a struggling pitcher having a nasty time as a spot guy in the NL and  not much of a better one in Triple A. But things changed for the better after the trade indicated here though he never threw one regular season game for Texas. By the time ’74 spring training was over Larry was in NY, pitching for the Yankees for whom he did a pretty good job, actually. His regular card shows him in a home uniform in what must be spring training while his Traded card features a not-too-bad airbrush job in Candlestick. It would be in KC, though, where the lights came on for Larry.

Larry Gura grew up in Joliet, Illinois where he was a pitching star and once threw two successive no-hitters in an American Legion tournament. He then went to Arizona State where as a sophomore he won a game in relief during the CWS championship season of ’67 and then as a senior in ’69 went 19-2 while pitching in four of the team’s six CWS games as ASU won it all again. He was then drafted by the Cubs that spring in the second round. At first he would work fast through the minors, beginning his career that year in Triple A before throwing great ball in the Instructional League that fall. He began ’70 in the minors also but was called up at the end of April where he got into one game in a month before returning to do some work in Triple A. He was back in Chicago by late June but was barely used the rest of the way, though he did record his first win in his first start, a complete game. In ’71 he did the back and forth though his time was nearly all in Triple A. ’72 was looking to be a repeat of the past when he asked the team to just keep him at the lower level so he could get in more games. Then in ’73 he stayed up top until August when he went down for the last month of the minor league season. To punctuate his frustrating time in Chicago his best effort in ’73 in a start was cancelled because of darkness. For the trade illustrated here Larry went to Texas as the player to be named later when the Cubbies got Mike Paul.

Gura had a '74 training camp that didn’t make Texas manager Billy Martin too happy and Larry spent the first month of the season in Triple A, where he went 1-1 with a 3.10 ERA in four starts before a May trade to the Yankees for catcher Duke Sims.  He remained at that level for NY and in his 17 games – 16 starts – he went 7-7 with a 2.14 ERA and a save. Larry was a control guy and when he was on a roll did a great job brushing the corners. NY liked his Triple A work and called him up in late August and for the stretch run he was the team’s hottest pitcher, going 5-1 with two shutouts and a 2.41 ERA in his eight starts. ’75 would be tougher, though, as both Larry’s and the team’s performance was uneven, his appearances would be irregular, and his role was best described as a spot guy. Still, his numbers weren’t too bad at 7-8 with a 3.55 ERA. Then along came Billy again and Larry got minimal time in spring training ball and none at the top of the regular season before an early trade sent him to Kansas City for catcher Fran Healy.

Gura’s initial experience in KC wasn’t exactly a panacea for his career to date. He had some rough outings in May, wasn’t used at all in June, and then righted his ship a bit in July, all his games in relief to that point. In August he pitched well in a loss to Chicago but his best effort of the year would be his eight innings of one-hit relief vs. Billy Martin’s Yankees his next game. From there it was nearly all good, culminating in an important shutout win against Oakland in late September. Larry went 4-0 on the year with a 2.30 ERA and a save. He pitched not too badly in the AL playoffs and came back in ’77 to be a swing guy as he went 8-5 with a 3.13 ERA and ten saves in his 52 games. He really hit his stride in ’78 when he finally joined the rotation full-time mid-year and went 16-4 with a 2.72 ERA. In ’79 he went 13-12 as his ERA fattened a bit but he got things right again in ‘80 when he was 18-10/2.95, was the AL All-Star starting pitcher, and had an excellent post-season. In ’81 he was 11-8/2.72 despite a late season hand injury and in ’82 he won 18 again. Things shifted pretty radically the next couple seasons as his ERA spiraled up and he went a combined 23-27. In ’85 he returned to the Cubs where he finished out his career, unfortunately missing out on the KC Series run. Larry finished with a record of 126-97 with a 3.76 ERA, 71 complete games, 16 shutouts, 14 saves, and only 600 walks in his over 2,000 innings, not bad for a guy Billy Martin once said couldn’t find the plate. He was 2-3 with a 3.89 ERA in his nine postseason outings.

Gura had settled into an off-season life in Arizona while playing and it was to there he returned professionally after playing. For the past bunch of years he has taken over running a family organic farm there that was started by his in-laws. He will sign pretty much anything for a small fee that goes to cover farm expenses.

Larry has about the cleanest signature I’ve seen to date and gets star bullets that could have easily been exceeded by some college info. He was admitted into the ASU hall of fame in ’78 and his local Joliet one a couple years later. Two things I remember about him in relation to his Yankees days. One is recounted in “The Bronx Zoo” when during ’75 spring training Billy Martin spotted Larry and Rich Coggins playing tennis. According to Sparky Lyle Martin thought tennis was “a pussy game” and it was one of the reasons he wasn’t a Gura fan. Another was that I always had the impression Larry bulked up after he left NY. His neck looked a lot thicker and his guns a lot bigger on his KC cards than on his earlier ones. It’s tough to tell from his card backs though. Here he’s listed as 185. On his ’80 card he’s 178 and on his ’81 card he’s 195.

Topps doesn’t give us too much trade-specific info here. As noted above Larry went to the Rangers in November for Mike Paul, who’d gone from Texas to the Cubs back in August. Ironically Larry played the bulk of his career under Whitey Herzog, another guy displaced by Billy Martin.

In Watergate news, we are up to April of ’73:

4/3/73 – G. Gordon Liddy had been testifying in front of the Grand Jury and gave them absolutely nothing which infuriated Judge John Sirica who already wasn’t a fan. Sirica imposed an additional eight to 18 months on Liddy’s sentence for contempt of court. Around now H.R. Haldeman’s name was being leaked from testimony as another co-conspirator in the bugging and other “dirty tricks.” Haldeman was Nixon’s Chief of Staff.

4/5/73 – Nixon withdraws his nomination of Patrick Gray as permanent FBI director. Gray, who’d been the acting director after J. Edgar Hoover’s death in ’72 hadn’t won any fans in Congress when he revealed he turned over FBI documents regarding Watergate to White House counsel John Dean.

4/17/73 – The White House announces that a new internal investigation had been initiated in late March because of “serious charges.” The announcement is made by Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler who earlier had written off the Watergate affair as “a third-rate burglary attempt.” When asked by the press to define the current status of the White House’s understanding of the Watergate affair Ziegler indicated that statement made this day was “operative.” When further asked what that meant he replied that all past statements were “inoperative.” This instance and one other sort of immortalized Ziegler’s involvement in the scandal.

These two were both in Chicago uniforms in ’73 but things can’t be that easy:

1. Gura and Ed Herrmann ’75 Yankees;

2. Herrmann and Johnny Jeter ’73 White Sox.

Or maybe they can.

#615 - Johnny Jeter

Back to another final card, Yankee Stadium is the setting for a guy with a last name that would be right up there with Ruth and Gehrig a couple generations down the road. This Jeter wouldn’t exactly put up the same career numbers but he’d have his moments. Johnny came to the AL before the ’73 season – he was airbrushed on his ’73 card – to take over the lead-off role in what should have been a dynamic line-up that would challenge for the division title. He was also supposed to be the starting center fielder but both those plans changed at the beginning of the season. In the field other NL transplant Ken Henderson won the starting role in center and at the plate Johnny’s hot start was trumped by another one by Pat Kelly, whose early numbers led to an All-Star selection. So Johnny became a role player, getting time at all three outfield spots in what was a pretty streaky season. He had a bunch of multi-hit games but as many hit-less ones and struck out 74 times in his under 300 at bats. He was also supposed to steal bases but only put up four during the season so his time in Chicago was pretty short and after the season he would be moving on again. Topps seems to have caught Johnny here in a verbose moment. I wish he had more of those because he has been a tough guy to fill in the blanks for bio-wise.

Johnny Jeter grew up in Louisiana where he was a center fielder for both his high school team and then at Grambling University. There he starred in the outfield with John Wyatt, who would go on to be a Red Sox pitcher, and helped take the Tigers to the NAIA tournament in ’64. After the tournament Johnny was involved in some controversy when he and the team’s catcher, Wilbur Hammond, signed with the Pirates and the school subsequently accused Pittsburgh of raiding the team’s talent pool. That signing looked justified when in ’64 Johnny hit .335 in Rookie ball and in ’65 .291 with 13 homers from the top spot in A ball. He slowed down a bit in ’66 with a .249 combined with zero homers on two A teams. But he bounced nicely at that level the next two years with enviable stat lines: .315/18/73 in ’67 and .296/18/79 in ’68. That former year he led his league in homers, triples – with nine – and total bases. In ’68 he put up eleven triples. After a false start in Double A at the tail end of ’67 Johnny finally managed to bring his hitting props to a higher level in ’69 when he hit .285 with 25 homers and 60 RBI’s around his June debut in Pittsburgh. He then spent all of the ’70 season with the Pirates as the team’s fifth outfielder before returning to Triple A in ‘71 where he posted a .324/17/84 line with 36 stolen bases, 30 doubles, nine triples, and a .378 OBA. That August he went to the Padres with pitcher Ed Acosta for pitcher Bob Miller.

Jeter spent the rest of the ’71 season in San Diego where he hit pretty well down the stretch while playing center. But Johnny had two constants that would be big hurdles in his MLB career: he hit much better in reserve roles; and his strikeout totals were way too high. Both were accented in ’72 when San Diego made him the team’s starter in center and in his busiest season up top he put up his lowest average and 92 K’s in his 326 at bats. After the season he was sent to the White Sox for reliever Vicente Romo. He improved on those ’72 numbers but after the ’73 season Johnny was on the move again, this time to Cleveland for a minor leaguer. True to form Johnny hit .353 for the Tribe, but in only 17 at bats. He spent nearly the whole season in Triple A where he hit .285. He then goes missing from baseball the next two years before resurfacing in ’77 with Tampico in the Mexican leagues. After another year away in ’78 he closed things out with a .258 season for Santo Domingo in the Inter-American League in ’79 before that league’s collapse ended things for Johnny as a player. He hit .244 during his MLB time and .294 with over 100 stolen bases in the minors. In the ’70 post-season he went hitless in his two at bats.

Jeter seems to have returned to Louisiana after playing, indicated by his son Shawn being drafted in ’85 after starring in high school ball in Shreveport. Shawn would later have a cup of coffee with the ChiSox – fitting for this post – and played about as long as his dad did in the minors. But Johnny goes MIA. It’s pretty tough to search for him without that other Jeter guy taking up all the results.

Johnny or Johnnie or John had some pretty memorable moments in the minors. He had a nice one too in ’72 when he homered twice in a game but he also had a bad one that year as well. In a game against the Giants he successfully stole second when Chris Speier informed him he could go back because the batter hit a foul ball. Neither Speier nor Tito Fuentes had the ball because Johnny got such a jump there was no throw. But then Dave Rader fired the ball to first as Johnny was walking back and he got tagged for an out. Oops.

Back to the Watergate timeline:

3/26/73 – By now James McCord had been testifying before the Grand Jury for three days. On this date it was reported that McCord told the Jury that both John Dean, counsel to the President, and Jeb Stuart Magruder, former deputy campaign manager of CREEP and current Assistant Commerce Secretary, had known about the plot to bug the Watergate Hotel headquarters in advance of the bugging. Both Dean and Magruder denied this.

3/28/73 – James McCord implicates former Attorney General John Mitchell in the Watergate bugging as well. Mitchell, now back in private practice, also denies McCord’s assertions. It was around this time that Michell’s estranged wife Martha became newsworthy in her own right. Nicknamed “The Mouth of the South” Martha Mitchell was outspoken and unfiltered and was beloved by the press for her candor, particularly in regard to her husband. She would relate details about John Mitchell’s personal as well as professional life that would help build a case against him. They would formally divorce later in ’74 and she would pass away from cancer in ’76.

 Let’s go the NL route for the hook-up:

1. Jeter and Clarence Gaston ’71 to ’72 Padres;

2. Gaston and Adrian Devine ’75 to ’76 and ’78 Braves.

#614 - Adrian Devine

And the balance reasserts itself as another final card is followed by a rookie one. Adrian Devine didn’t have a crazy great time at any level in ’73 but the Braves were really desperate for bullpen help that year so he got the call in late June and never went back down. Adrian was used sparingly the rest of the year and despite his high ERA managed to get four saves. It was otherwise an important year for him because while warming up for his first MLB game his shoulder popped and it would turn out to be rotator cuff damage he would have to pitch through the rest of his career. He shows his stuff in Candlestick with an expression that would grace all his cards though his second one wouldn’t occur until the ’77 set as he’d spend the bulk of the next two years in the minors. But he’s full of smiles these days.

Like Luke Walker from two posts back, Adrian Devine grew up in Texas, he in Galveston. There he played high school and American Legion ball well enough that he was a second round pick by Atlanta in the ’70 draft. That first summer as a starter in Rookie ball was a bit tough but he moved up to A ball the next year and looked to be putting together a pretty good season. But he missed the bulk of it to either injury or military time. He kept moving up though, and after a pretty good camp in ’72 he continued to throw well that year in Double A. After his ’73 season he returned to Triple A where he only got into four games the next year while rehabbing his arm. He came back strong at that level in ’75 when he went 10-6 with a 2.98 ERA as a starter before getting into a few games back in Atlanta at the end of the year. In ’76 he remained up top as a reliever and – still a rookie – went 5-6 with a 3.21 ERA and nine saves. Following the season Adrian was included in the big trade to Texas for Jeff Burroughs. He had a pretty good year for the Rangers, going 11-6 with a 3.58 ERA and 15 saves. He was then involved in an even bigger deal as he returned to Atlanta in the big four-team trade that also moved Bert Blyleven, John Milner, and Willie Montanez to various spots. Back with the Braves Adrian did his first year of spot work but only got in 65 innings as he went 5-4 with an elevated ERA. In ’79 it was all pen work again as he went 1-2 with a 3.24 ERA in about the same number of innings as his prior year. After the season he ponged back to Texas with Pepe Frias for Larvell Blanks and Doyle Alexander. He pitched very sparingly for the Rangers this time and after a few innings in ‘81 in Triple A he was released, ending his pitching career. Adrian finished 26-22 with a 4.21 ERA and 31 saves in his MLB time and was 31-30 with a 3.83 ERA in the minors.

Devine was very concerned about his next professional step in early ’82 when it was pretty apparent he was done with baseball. He appears to have remained in the Atlanta area and at some point became involved with Devine Baseball, an instructional camp and facility in suburban Atlanta that appears to be run by his son. Adrian has a Facebook page on which he appears to be quite the foodie, so perhaps that was a career choice for him at some point as well. In any case, he looks and reads as if his life post-baseball has been pretty good.

Adrian goes with his given first name for his signature on this card but on future ones he would sign with his middle one. His star bullets give us a glimpse at some of the stats that made Atlanta draft him.

Yesterday’s Watergate recap got us up through the end of February 1973. Earlier that month a couple important things happened. On February 2, Judge John Sirica, who oversaw the trial of the conspirators, indicated that he would present the Grand Jury called to further investigate charges with several other names he believed were connected to the case. On February 7 the Senate voted unanimously to set up a seven-member Select Committee to investigate Watergate and other potential political espionage in connection with the ’72 campaign. On to March:

3/19/73 – James McCord, who was found guilty of all counts in January, wrote a letter to Judge Sirica in which he indicated that he had been pressured to plead guilty and then go radio silent – as E Howard Hunt had done; that he and others had knowingly perjured themselves during the trial; that the break-in was not a CIA operation as he’d indicated during the trial; and that other unnamed government officials were involved in the conspiracy.

3/23/13 – Judge John Sirica made public the letter from James McCord. He indicated that McCord’s sentence would be delayed until June 15, 1973 as McCord was now a cooperating witness for the government and the Grand Jury. He gave the four other burglars suspended sentences until that date as well in order to compel them to become witnesses also. G Gordon Liddy was sentenced to between six years and eight months to 2 years and fined $40,000.

More next post. For the hook-up we go through the AL and a good guy who passed away way too young:

1. Adrian Devine and Toby Harrah ’77 Rangers;

2. Harrah and Danny Thompson ’76 Rangers;

3. Thompson and Dan Monzon ’72 to ’73 Twins.

I’ll be away next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

#613 - Dan Monzon

This card took me a while to find and the reason for that will be made clear down the road a bit. It is Dan Monzon’s second and final Topps card and it memorializes his final MLB season as well. Dan looks a bit more comfortable in Oakland than he did on his ’73 card at Yankee Stadium. But Danny was from the Bronx so maybe he felt a little pressure. It looks like it’s picture day for a few teammates because Jerry Terrell behind Danny looks like he’s posing also. Like Jerry, Danny could play pretty much anywhere but unfortunately for him most of the time he was in Minnesota – he spent all of ’72 and ’73 with the Twins – he concentrated on second base. It was pretty tough back then to get in any playing time if one was Rod Carew’s back-up so Danny had a grand total of 131 at bats those two seasons. All AL up until the time of this card he would soon be going to that other league where he had a much longer run.

Dan Monzon grew up in NYC where he played at least football and baseball at James Monroe High School. The same school was attended a few years earlier by Ed Kranepool. Dan graduated in ’64 and then attended Buena Vista College in Iowa where he continued to play ball. While there Danny hit .376 with a .498 OBA and was drafted twice: by Houston in a late round in ’66; and by Minnesota in the second round in ’67. One of his teammates at the school was Larry Biitner and Danny said good-bye to Larry and the rest of his team after his junior year to turn pro. He had a nice start in A ball that summer, playing third base while leading his league in pretty much all offensive categories. But he then hit a wall at the plate that lasted the next two years at that level. By then he was playing as much outfield and second base as third but in ‘70 he moved up to Double A where he had a nice offensive bounce and improved his defense markedly back at third. In ’71 he got back in the outfield a bunch after he moved up to Triple A because Eric Soderholm was the guy at third. While Danny’s field time declined he put up his best average and got a ticket to Minnesota.

While Monzon was up his two seasons he split time both years between second and third, but not too much of it. He opened the ’74 season back in Triple A and after a few weeks went to Montreal where he continued to play at the same level, hitting .239 for the season. He spent all the next season at the same spot and then the next two years in the Houston chain where he finished as a player in ’77. His stats on the card back, then, are his final MLB ones and he hit .253 with a .375 OBA in the minors.

After playing Monzon immediately hooked up with the Mets as a minor league manager and from ‘78 to ‘82 went a combined 238-320 in that role. He then became a high level scout for the Mets (’83-’86); the White Sox (’87-‘91); the Brewers (’91-’92); the Cubs (’92-’94); and the Red Sox (’94-’96). While with the ChiSox he signed Frank Thomas. Danny was director of Latin American scouting for Boston when he was killed in a car crash in the Dominican Republic. He was 49.

Danny’s first pro season was something else. He also put up an OBA of .474 that year. His son, Dan, was drafted in ’85 by the Mets and then played a few years in the White Sox organization in the late Eighties to early Nineties.

Alluded to above, I had to do some work finding Danny's card. The reason why is his card number. Since I always kept my cards by team and not by number, I would use the set checklist to sort the cards numerically. But on the checklist that should have included Danny's card, there was no card 613. In its place was card 618 and in the place of card 618 was card 681, which was fun since this set only had 660 regular cards. So on top of the career winding down, Danny also got dissed by the card guys.

On to the Watergate stuff:

1/31/73 – G Gordon Liddy and James McCord are found guilty of all counts against them including conspiracy, burglary, and bugging for their acts at the Watergate Hotel. The trial lasted 16 days and was presided over by an aggressive judge John Sirica who constantly demanded information regarding other conspirators from the defendants. Liddy and McCord were the final two known conspirators to be tried. E Howard Hunt and the four other actual burglars pled guilty to all charges earlier in the trial, purportedly to keep damaging evidence from being introduced. Both Liddy and McCord had been consultants to CREEP, Liddy on the finance side, and McCord as director of security. Both had also worked for the FBI and Liddy had been a federal prosecutor and White House aide while McCord was also in the CIA. All seven conspirators faced pretty stiff sentences: up to 45 years in jail and fines of $60,000 per person. During the trial other names popped up: Alfred C Baldwin was a former FBI agent who testified that he was the one who listened to conversations at the Watergate through earlier successfully planted bugs; Dwight Chapin, Nixon’s appointments secretary, had hired attorney Donald Segretti to disrupt Democratic campaigns throughout the country; Herbert Kalmbach, Nixon’s personal attorney, paid Segretti $35,000 for those services; and Jeb Stuart Magruder, deputy campaign director for Nixon, was the person who paid Liddy about $332,000 to run the operation. The Magruder connection was made via testimony by Hugh Sloan, the CREEP treasurer. Chapin would resign during the final phase of the trial.

2/28/73 – When J Edgar Hoover died in ’72 L Patrick Gray – people used to love initials back then – became the acting head of the FBI. In February he went before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sam Ervin, as a nominee to become the permanent director of the FBI. On this date Ervin questioned Gray about leaks of FBI investigative data regarding Watergate back to the White House. Gray replied that White House councel John Dean had ordered the documentation of behalf of the President and that he – Gray – had complied. Following that sharing of information and many subsequent conversations with Dean, Gray testified that he was ordered by Attorney General Richard Kleindienst to not discuss Watergate elsewhere. Again Gray complied. He did not get the nomination.

A trade from the prior season helps in this hook-up:

1. Monzon and Rich Reese ’72 Twins;

2. Reese and Willie Horton ’73 Tigers;

3. Horton and Luke Walker ’74 Tigers.

Rick Reese could have had a card in this set - he hit below ,200 in his final MLB season split between Minnesota and Detroit. Since the mid-Sixties he split time at first base, primarily with Harmon Killebrew, and topped out in '69 when he hit .322 with some good power. He hit three pinch grand slams in his career.

#612 - Luke Walker

Luke Walker looks plenty happy showing his form in spring training while his memorial electrical tape patch dances in the wind. On good days that’s what his curve ball did as well. It could be nasty on hitters but also nasty on Luke and unfortunately for him in ’73 it was much more the latter than the former. Back then many writers thought that Luke’s pitching embodied his last name a bit too much. But it wasn’t all his fault. After his big coming out season in ’70 Luke’s career pretty much went in the wrong direction, much of it due to injury. If it wasn’t bone chips in the elbow in ’71 or the bad back that really compromised that curve in ’72 and ’73 then it was the shot to his temple off a Johnny Bench bat early in ’74 that messed up his balance the remainder of the year. So Luke was n full decline mode when this photo was shot but you couldn’t tell that by the big smile. Attitude can be a wonderful thing. The photo from his Traded card appears to be from pretty much the same location as his regular card.

Luke Walker grew up in Dekalb, Texas, a town very close to the borders with Oklahoma and Arkansas. There he played the big three sports in high school where in baseball he threw 12 no-hitters and averaged 16 strikeouts per game with his big heater and curve. After graduation he attended Paris Junior College – in Paris, Texas for you Sam Shepard fans – in ’61 and ’62 and then moved on to Texarkana College from where he was signed as a free agent by the Red Sox in ’63. That summer he pitched well in A ball but then not so hot in Double A. After that season he was taken by Pittsburgh in the first year draft and then in ’64 in Double A went 8-14 with a 3.72 ERA in the rotation. After a poor start in Triple A in ’65 he improved a ton at the lower level, going 12-7 with a 2.26 ERA and 197 K’s in 183 innings. Those numbers got him a short look up top where he remained to start off the ’66 season before returning to Triple A to go 11-11 with a 2.77 ERA. In ’67 he was off to a 3-5 start with a 2.96 ERA when the injuries began with an elbow banged up in a game that killed the rest of his season. But the Pirates had seen enough and in ‘68 he spent the season on the Pittsburgh roster where he took tentative steps back while working in the pen, posting a low ERA and adding three saves while exhibiting pretty good control. In ’69 he moved to what would become a more common role for him as a swing guy, starting 15 of his 31 games and working most of the rest as a set-up guy.

In 1970 Walker had a sort of bipolar season. He began the year in the rotation and was 3-2 by early May when he was moved to the pen. There he had a streaky run and didn’t get his first save until mid-June, though he kept getting wins in his decisions. When he won a rare start in mid-July he was 7-3 and he returned to the rotation full-time in August and threw a shutout. He won his next two, lost three straight, and then won his last five to become the team’s winningest pitcher. He followed that up with a quality start in the playoffs and was ready to win 25 in ’71. But that year the elbow issue returned with the chips and while Luke at least got to stay in the rotation the whole season the results weren’t as good and his post-season was pretty messy though he did get a ring. In ’72 the bad back led to some DL time and back to his swing role. After his messy ’73 Luke was pretty happy to get out of town in the sale to Detroit but it really wasn’t a panacea, especially injury-wise. In an early-season exhibition game against Cincinnati he got nailed in the head by a Johnny Bench line drive which sort of took the wind out of his sails the rest of the season in which he went 5-5 with a 4.99 ERA. He was released early the following season and signed with Houston for whom he went 7-7/4.33 as a starter in Triple A in his final year. Luke went a combined 45-47 with a 3.64 ERA, 16 complete games, seven shutouts, and nine saves for his MLB line and 47-52 with a 3.23 ERA in the minors. In the post-season he was 0-1 with a 6.23 ERA in his three games.

While playing Luke worked off-seasons on a family farm in New Boston, Texas, to which he presumably returned when done playing on a full-time basis.

1965 was probably Luke’s best season in the minors as ‘70 clearly was up top. Chuck Norris would make that surname popular in Texas a few years down the road.

Topps gets the word play going again in the headline. In ’74 Luke joined Mickey Lolich, John Hiller, and Woodie Fryman as lefties on the Detroit roster.

Since Luke doesn’t give us too much to work with post-baseball there is room for more Watergate catch-up stuff:

10/10/12  - The Washington Post released the results of FBI research into the break-in and other action associated with CREEP. The investigation revealed a few of what would become known as the “dirty tricks” enacted by both CREEP and The White House in connection with the ’72 election. Named among the tactics were the stalking of various family members of opposing candidates; the forging of documents purported to be written by opposing candidates on those candidates' letterheads; and the leaking of false information to the press. The best example of the last two was a letter released to a local paper in New Hampshire that claimed that Edmund Muskie had laughed at a derogatory term used in reference to French Canadian-Americans. It was a big deal because there were lots of them in New Hampshire and the letter was sent to the paper a week before that state’s primary. Muskie, who was actually ahead of Nixon in the polls about a month earlier, defended himself outside the newspaper office in what became known as “the crying speech” although the YouTube video doesn’t look that dramatic. The charge and his response contributed to the dismantling of his run. The Post found out that the author of the letter was a White House aide named Richard Clawson who bragged about it while trying to pick up a woman at a bar who happened to work for the paper. Though he later denied it officially the damage was done.

The Post also interviewed three attorneys from around the country who said they were contacted by a California attorney named Donald Segretti who asked them to disrupt various democratic campaigns in their home areas. Segretti was a consultant to CREEP who had also been a lawyer for the Treasury Department. He had served in Vietnam with the three attorneys, all who turned him down. He was financed by a slush fund that amounted to as much as $700,000 controlled by John Mitchell, first as Attorney General and then as the chairman of CREEP.  

That gets us back to where I got the first round.

The hook-up gets a bit tough since Rick Stelmaszek barely played. Let’s go the NL route:

1. Walker and Matty Alou ’66 and ’68 to ’70 Pirates;

2. Alou and Jose Cardenal ’71 Cardinals;

3. Cardenal and Rick Stelmaszek ’74 Cubs.