Johnny Ray : The Chouteau Kid

 

I don’t think anyone ever called Johnny Ray, The Chouteau Kid.

            I made it up. I wanted to add some pizzaz this week. A little zing. Form a legend around a guy, and, in baseball, a nickname is a sure-fire way to do it. The Chouteau Kid. It could’ve stuck. Johnny Ray was a big deal to his Oklahoma home town (pop. 2,093). He’s listed as notable person from Chouteau on the town’s Wikipedia page. I don’t know if it’s still there, but there used to be a roadside sign outside of town that said, “Chouteau, Ok. Home of Johnny Ray.” I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh. I don’t have any roadside sign saying this is where I’m from. And I’ve written books. To be honest, you could ask anyone in my home town, and there’s a 99.9% chance no one would remember my name.

            But this essay isn’t about me and my personal need for recognition. This essay is about Johnny Ray.

            I’ve written a good deal on this blog about Willie Stargell. I’ve dedicated posts to him. Put Willie’s cards on the Junk Wax Jay blog whenever I could. Extolled his virtues. Confirmed his legend. Told everyone up and down the virtual block, how Willie Stargell was my favorite player. My first favorite player (although that could also be catcher Ed Ott). I wasn’t lying about that. Not to sound all Mark Twain…but I got it mostly right.

            While I love Willie Stargell, I have also said here that my awe of him comes more from his past actions on the baseball field (stuff I read about and subsequently saw archival footage of), than anything I witnessed as a fan. To reiterate, the Willie Stargell that I came of age to was a forty-year-old, past-his-prime bench warmer who came up and hit to occasional pinch-hit HR, and acted as the soul, the link to the glory years, to a team that was beginning to fade into oblivion. At least for a number of years in the 1980s. The Willie Stargell I watched retired when I was eight-years-old. A year or so before baseball become must see TV for me.

            Johnny Ray, on the other hand, was the guy that I watched. He was the kid at second base, turning double plays, and getting clutch hits at the plate, doing his best to keep the woebegone Pirates at least in the game. It was Johnny’s batting stance I mimicked. Johnny’s cards that I sought in packs. The player whose wristband number I wanted. Whose t-shirt I wanted to wear. The player who made wish that I wasn’t a lousy left-hander so that I could play second base too.

            Johnny Ray was the first baseball player that I truly fell for because of what he did on the field, and not because of the legend that surrounded him. He was the first player whose cards that I could say I actively collected. 

            And he wasn’t a bad guy to root for.

            Johnny Ray was actually drafted by the Houston Astros in the 12^th round in 1979. He made his way to Pittsburgh as part of a trade for Phil Garner, one of the heroes of the 1979 World Series Fam-I-Lee. Ray immediately became the Pirates starting second baseman that year, playing in the remaining 31 games, hitting .245 in 102 At-bats. But better things were to come.

            In Ray’s full rookie season, 1982, he batted .282 with 7 home runs and 63 RBI, playing all 162-games that season. The Sporting News named Johnny Ray their Rookie-of-the-Year. But he came in second on the vote that really counted. The Baseball Writers Association named the Dodgers second baseman, Steve Sax, rookie of the year in 1982. Always the Dodgers. It’s always the Dodgers.

            But it was that kind of play that made Johnny Ray a mainstay at second base through some of the worst years to be a Pirate. During Johnny Ray’s tenure in Pittsburgh, he played on teams that amassed five losing seasons, including a 57-104 season in 1985, a year in which Johnny Ray himself hit. 274. It was easy to see why he’d become some dumb kid’s favorite player. Other than Tony Pena, it was slim pickings in Pittsburgh in the early to mid-1980s.

            All in all Johnny Ray played seven seasons in Pittsburgh. Ray managed a .286 batting average with the Pirates, with 1009 hits, 37 home runs and 391 RBI. Oddly enough he never made the All-Star team during his tenure in Pittsburgh. That distinction almost went annually to Tony Pena. But Johnny Ray did lead the National League in doubles in both 1983 and 1984.

            He won a Silver Slugger award in 1983.

            And he was a fun guy to watch.

            But going into the 1987 season, Johnny Ray’s time in Pittsburgh was coming to a close. After years of losing seasons, the Pirates began to turn things around in 1987, mostly through in influx of rookies and young players with names like Bonds, Bonilla and Van Slyke. Those guys replaced names like Madlock, Parker and Tekulve in the hearts and minds of Pirates fans. And while Johnny Ray played most of the 1987 season (batting a respectable .273 in 123 games), he was destined to get swept up in the new youth movement happening in Pittsburgh. And on August 29, 1987, Johnny Ray was traded from the Pirates to the California Angels.

            He was replaced at second base by this guy:

            Who had a not too shabby a career in Pittsburgh himself.

            Right now, I’m trying to recall my youth. Trying to recall what it was like when a favorite player got traded. In Johnny Ray’s case…it’s actually kind of hard. In 1987, Pirates fans knew that changes were afoot. We were already given the grandest of April Fool’s jokes when Tony Pena was traded to the Cardinals for Andy Van Sklye, Mike LaValliere and pitcher Mike Dunne. By August of ’87, Van Slyke and LaValliere had already secured a place in our collective hearts. Mike Dunne was on his way to winning 13 games, and hopefully becoming a new ace on our staff.  And, to be honest, another player had taken Johnny Ray’s place as my favorite Bucco.

    I wish that I could say that I followed Johnny Ray’s career after he left the Pirates. But, in truth, I really didn’t. I actually liked having “Chico” Lind at second base. He fit right in with that cast of young, goofy, good ballplayers that the Pirates were building into the NL championship teams that we knew and loved in the early 90s. In 1987, a Pirates fan’s attention wasn’t focused on what we’d lost (like we had before and what we’re going through now), but on what we were gaining. And we were gaining a lot. It was an exciting time.

           Still, Johnny Ray managed three plus more seasons in the big leagues with the Angels. And while he wasn’t a Pirate and while I wasn’t seeing any West Coast ball at all, I did still keep and collect his cards. Ray batted .296 over those seasons, with 493 hits, 16 home runs and 203 RBI. Ray was even selected to the 1988 All-Star game, the first and only time in his career. But after the 1990 season, Johnny Ray left Major League baseball to play two seasons in Japan for the Yakult Swallows.

     He has since returned home to Chouteau, Oklahoma, where I hope that sometimes he’s able to look back fondly on his time in Pittsburgh, knowing there are fans still out there writing about him, and collecting his baseball cards.

           

           Thanks for reading. Happy Collecting.

            If you want to learn more about Johnny Ray you can do so HERE

            You can find Johnny Ray's career stats right HERE

            

            NEXT FRIDAY: ....is gonna be an off week. Junk Wax Jay will be back at 12 pm EST on Friday, May 7th.

 

Curt Roberts : In the Country of Baseball Firsts.

We all know the story of Jackie Robinson.

    We’ve learned about Jackie’s story from books. From archival footage. From movies. From baseball cards. Jackie Robinson was the one. The one who broke the color barrier on April 15, 1947 and unshackled baseball from a 63-year period in which no player of color (knowingly at least) held a spot on a major league team. Jackie is a legend. A trailblazer. The high-voice hero who turned his cheek (at least for a while), and did his talking on the diamond. A hall of famer. A true American legend for all races.

We know Jackie Robinson’s story. And if you don’t, may God have mercy on your soul.

            Jackie’s story is one of integration. One, that once initiated, took Major League Baseball another 12-years to complete when infielder Pumpsie Green made his debut for the Boston Red Sox on July 21, 1959.

    But there were other players who broke the color line for teams along the way. In fact, four other black players made their debut in Jack Robinson’s inaugural season. You probably know Larry Doby and Monte Irvin.

But what about Willard Brown, who made his debut for the St. Louis Browns on July 19, 1947?

Or Dan Bankhead, who joined Jackie on the Dodgers on August 26, 1947?

Anyone remember Hank Thompson? Thompson also made his debut for the St. Louis Brown in 1947, but is better known as a New York Giant, part of the first all-black outfield, along with Monte Irvin and the immortal Willie Mays.

Surely, you’ve heard of a a guy named Minnie Minoso?

But did you know he was the first player of color to ever wear a White Sox uniform?

Some kid named Ernie Banks?

Not only is Mr. Cub a legend in Chicago for his 512 home runs and immpecable play at short stop (and first base) for eighteen seasons, but he was the first black man to put on a Cubs uniform.

What about Bob Trice? The first black Philadelphia Athletic.

Or Tom Alston? The first black man to play for the St. Louis Cardinals.

How many of my fellow Pirates fans out there know the name Curt Roberts?

Yeah…I didn’t either. Like I said, we all know the story of Jackie Robinson. But a lot of us, even fans like me, who have, for better or worse, been watch the Pittsburgh Pirates for over forty years; I never bothered to seek out and find out who broke the color barrier for my hometown team. I never knew Curt Roberts story. Maybe it’s white privilege that I didn’t even have to know. Or ignorance. Maybe I wasn’t a curious enough baseball fan when I was a kid. I like to think that I was. I sure looked at box scores a lot back then and could pretty much tell you what any Pirate was batting during any week.

            It’s time to make up for lost time.

     Curtis (Curt) Benjamin Roberts was born in 1929 in Pineland, Texas, but for most of his life he was a California kid, growing up in the fine city of Oakland. In a bit of trivia that I found in numerous sources online, Curt Roberts attended McClymonds High School, the same school attended by Frank Robinson, Vida Pinson, Curt Flood, and basketball legend Bill Russell. Upon graduating high school, Curt began his professional baseball career as an infielder with the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs. Robert’s teammates at the time included Satchel Paige and the forever awesome Buck O’Neil, as well as New York Yankees own color-barrier breaking Elston Howard.

    After the Major Leagues had integrated and black ballplayers were joining Major League teams (or their minor league affiliates), Curt Roberts, in 1951, signed with the Boston Braves and began with their Minor affiliate Denver Bears. In 1952, the Bears became an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and for a $10,000 sum, Curt Roberts became a Pirate as well. After two years in the minor leagues, and pressure from Pittsburgh’s Black community to have the Pirates integrate, Curt Roberts was brought up in 1954 to be the starting second baseman. At the time, the Pirates General Manager was Branch Rickey, the very man who integrated Major League Baseball by bringing Jackie Robinson to the Big Leagues in 1947. Mr. Rickey was also responsible for “pirating” away Roberto Clemente from the Dodger’s minor league system…but that’s a tale for another time.

    Roberts made his official debut for the Pirates on April 13, 1954 (mark that date Buccos fans) in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Forbes Field. Because of his experiences bringing Jackie Robinson to the major leagues, Branch Rickey met with Curt before the game and explained that to succeed he would need to maintain a “very even temper,” as racism and verbal abuse from spectators was a common occurrence. This was the same thing that Rickey told Robinson back in 1947. And while we like to think that sort of abuse was common and of an era, some twenty-five years after Curt Roberts made his debut for the Pirates, All-Star right fielder, Dave ‘The Cobra” Parker, was met with racial slurs and home town fans throwing “nuts and bolts and bullets and batteries” at him…all for playing his heart out and earning the first million-dollar contract in Pittsburgh Pirates history.

    Of note, Curt Roberts tripled in his first at bat against Robin Roberts.    

    Although he was the first Black player to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Curt Roberts playing career was brief. He played just three seasons, 1954-1956. Roberts was the starting second baseman his first season, but found his playing time decrease over the next two years. Roberts was out of Major League Baseball after the 1956 season, but he didn’t retire. Roberts continued to play for several Minor League teams for the remainder of the decade and into the next one. He finally retired from baseball in 1963. During his three-year pro stint Curt Roberts, in 171 total games, had a career .223 batting average, with 128 hits, 1 home run and 40 RBI.

    After his baseball career ended, Curt Roberts worked as a security guard for the University of California, Berkeley. Roberts was married and had six-children. Sadly, this is not a happy story for Curt Roberts. Tragically he died on November 14, 1969, at only age 40. Roberts was the victim of a drunk driving accident, hit by a car while changing a tire on the side of the road.

            But history is still history. Brief career and tragic end, Curt Roberts was still a trailblazer in Major League baseball and for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It should be noted that Curt Roberts helped a young Roberto Clemente in his transition from the Minor Leagues to the Major Leagues, helping Clemente to learn to deal with and handle the racial abuse that he was certain to receive. In 1997, when Major League Baseball held it’s first Jackie Robinson Day, the Pittsburgh Pirates did honor Curt Roberts as a part of their tribute.

            For us Pirates fans, he is the first among many legends:

And the Future:

 Thanks for reading. Happy Collecting.

You can learn more about Curt Roberts HERE, HERE, and HERE

Curt Roberts stats can be found HERE

***A bit of self-promotion*** for you poetry lovers....I have a new book of poems out on Kung Fu Treachery Press. It's called Eating a Cheeseburger During the End Times.  Copies to buy can be found HERE and HERE.  I'd really love the support.

Thank you!

NEXT FRIDAY: Because I'm working on a new novel (think old men, old grudges, wiffle ball and baseball cards), time is limited and off the essence. So, I'm heading back into the PC to take a look at a player I loved growing up, the first player that I ever rooted for because I got to see him play, and not because he was an already declared legend in the City of Pittsburgh. He's the one...the only...secondbaseman Johnny Ray!

....promise I'll be less Pittsburgh-centric in some future posts.

           

 

2021 Topps Heritage : A rambling (sort of) review

 

I like Topps Heritage a lot.

            To say anything else on the matter would be a falsehood. I like it when we can take a look back at the past. I like seeing players pictured on cards that aren’t from their era. When I got back into collecting cards, I thought, more than flagship, that Heritage would be the main brand that I collected. Why? Well, to be frank, modern era card designs had left me rather cold. Even before I got back into collecting, I felt this way. My brother got back into collecting years before I did. The nostalgist in me always made it a point to go through whatever cards he had in stacks. The newer flagship cards seemed so foreign from what I was used to growing up. Mostly borderless, or very plain. They seemed a vehicle for photography rather than actual graphic design. Even a non-collector like me knew we were never going back to something as purely beautiful as this.

            Although Topps can. Just look at their online exclusive Brooklyn collection:

And that’s not a bad thing, I guess. One can’t expect things to be like what they were when they were a child. Change is one of life’s only constants. Besides, I like photography. Why not accentuate the photography. In fact, I’d be curious to see what Diane Arbus could’ve done with a 700+ card set. But modern flagship seemed too one-sided to me. It seemed that in the old days (ugh the old days), Topps made it a point to place an emphasis on both the design of the card and the photo. 

            See? Not that hard.

My indifference toward flagship cards changed in 2019. Part of my personal evolution was a willingness, overall, to get back into the hobby and immerse myself in what it had to offer. It also didn’t hurt how I really liked the 2019 Topps flagship design. 

Sure, the emphasis of the flagship brand was still on sharp, action photos. But there was something about the cards that caught me eye. Something nostalgic. I couldn’t pinpoint it at first. But upon further examination…

Still, flagship was minimalist. And I didn’t just want minimalist. In 2019, it came to my attention Topps doing the 1970 card design for that year’s Heritage brand. 

Real 1970 Topps:

The 1970s? Already. Back when I briefly collected again in 2008, they were doing the 1959 design. 

Had that much time past already? 1959 to 1970. 2008 to 2019. Eleven years on both accounts. One look at my old and gray face in the mirror told me that it had to be so. I determined that if I was going to collect flagship cards, I sure as hell was going to collect something that had some semblance of a design to it. I could have the best of both worlds in collecting. The old and the new, featuring the players from this era.

I began buying Topps Heritage with the intent to build the set. But, as I was collating cards, getting ready to put them in binders, I noticed a huge discrepancy between how many cards I was getting from card 1-399, and how few I was getting from card 400-500. Then I remembered something. The reason I stopped collecting Heritage back in 2008 and considered the set a loss. Short prints. Fucking short prints. That intentional scarcity created by card manufactures in the modern era, used to add unwarranted value to a single card and to cause collectors to buy more product than they naturally should’ve had to. Short Prints.

            I didn’t want short print cards in my life, especially when they were part of the actual checklist to the set. I was too old for the chase. I never had patience for the chase, even as a kid. I was a Veruca Salt. I wanted it now, was my motto. As a returning collector, I wanted to buy packs, build sets, and make a PC out of the doubles of players that I liked. Was that too much to ask? By my theory it would take me years to build a Heritage set. Costly years because Topps had a penchant for putting a disproportionate number of star card in the short print run. Fuck that, I thought. I was in mid-ish forties. I’m a functioning alcoholic. I still eat like a twenty-year-old. I didn’t have time for a long-term project.  So, after many packs of 2019 (and, admittedly 2020) Topps Heritage, I decided that I was no longer collecting the brand to build sets. And while I loved the concept, Topps Heritage would simply be a brand I’d buy singles of the cards I wanted.

That brings us to 2021 Topps Heritage. While I’d already determined not to buy tons and tons of Heritage packs in a futile effort to build a 500-card set, there was another factor involved that made my decision seem sounder and more certain. And that was cost. I don’t really need to use this forum to go into 2020 and the ongoing (remember that people this is still ONGOING) Covid-19 pandemic. But for people not familiar with the sports card hobby, let’s just say it didn’t take the financial hit we all assumed it would. Instead, it exploded and expanded, for better and worse. In some instants we watched card prices, especially hobby boxes, double or triple their cost from the previous sport’s season. Even the cost of older boxes of cards skyrocketed in some instances (I’m looking at you 1987 Fleer going from $50 to $150 a box in less than a year). In 2019, I got back in just before this storm hit. I don’t collect to sell, so it seemed economically unsound to buy boxes of seemingly overpriced cards, hoping for maybe a dozen players that I wanted. So, I bought my singles.

Here's a sample of my 2021 Heritage purchases, which reflect the original 1972 Topps design:

I love the original ’72 set. When I was a kid, these were some of my favorites. The design is psychedelic. The font is bold. You could almost picture a Grateful Dead gig being promoted on a 1972 Topps card. D’s brother had given him all of his 1972 cards, and I traded him a fortune to get a card of the lowliest Pittsburgh Pirate. 1972 Topps always makes me think of these guys for some reason. 

    

If there was one card I wanted from 1972 it was this one: 

I’m happy to say that I’ve had it in my collection for a very long time. It was one of the few cards that I kept after I stopped collecting as a teenager.

            2021 Heritage does a good job mimicking the 72 design. It’s a good representation of the teams that were around back then, and they do a respectable job creating designs for the teams that weren’t around in ’72. That is to say they look like they could’ve fit right in. Aside from base cards, 2021 Topps Heritage even does the Boyhood Photo cards and In Action cards that were a feature of the original 1972 set. 

    The In Action cards are here in abundance. Especially cards for the rookies. To me, it seems that Topps focused a lot on In Action cards for the rookies in 2021, because in ’72 rookie cards were a combined two or three players to a card. Here in 2021, it looks like Topps is trying to have the best of both words, stay true to the ’72 rookie card ethos, but provide a vehicle for the game’s top rookies to have their own time to shine in the Heritage set. 

    The short print issue is still there. Cards 400-500 as always. But Topps seemed to have learned a lesson from the past. Most of the marquee players in 2021 Heritage seem to be in the base set, instead of relegated to the final 100 cards. That’s not to say that all of the stars are in the base. If you’re a Zack Greinke, Matt Olson, Whit Merrifield, Ramon Laureano, Blake Snell, or Yordan Alvarez fan, you are still going to have to hunt for their cards or buy them online.

            While I’m satisfied with how I purchased my 2021 Heritage cards (full disclosure I paid maybe a ¼ for the cards I wanted vs trying to find them in pack), there is a downside. The most basic is the sheer thrill of opening new packs and searching the cards, randomly coming across your favorite players. I’m not into autos or relics, but if you are into them then not buying packs means you don’t get to come across them randomly as well. 2021 Topps Heritage also has a nice insert-set for Roberto Clemente. While the cards cost $3 or $4 bucks each online, and I probably wouldn’t have completed the 25-card set anyway; it would’ve been nice to have pulled a card or two or three from a hobby box. But, again, even buying those cards individually is probably the better financial option in the long run.

 Anyway….

 Thanks for reading. Happy Collecting!

 Next Friday: Next week we get Jackie Robinson Day on ACTUAL Jackie Robinson day. A day later on Junk Wax Jay we’re going to take a look at the first black player to ever play for my hometown Pittsburgh Pirates, infielder Curt Roberts.