Throughout the year, we’ll be spotlighting cards from the 1974, 1979, and 1984 seasons, with an emphasis on former Yankees, but an occasional reference to non-Bombers, too. In this week’s lid lifter, we’ll examine one of the most famous error cards in the history of baseball memorabilia.

In 1979, the Topps Company produced this iconic Bump Wills card, featuring the switch-hitting second baseman as a member of the Blue Jays, even though he was clearly wearing the uniform of the Rangers. In fact, the Rangers never traded Wills to the Blue Jays, not at any time before or during the 1979 season.

So what happened here? In 2002, former Topps president and baseball card icon Sy Berger visited the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for a 50th anniversary celebration of Topps baseball cards, giving me the opportunity to ask him directly about the reasons behind the Wills “error.” According to Sy, he had received a call from a friend after the 1978 season, telling him that Wills was about to be traded from the Rangers to the Blue Jays as part of a major trade. Although the trade had yet to be announced, the friend assured Berger that it was a “done deal.” Convinced that he had a scoop and figuring that he could release an accurate and updated card ahead of the curve, Berger instructed his production people to attach the name “Blue Jays” to the bottom of the Wills card.

After producing the card during the winter of 1978, Topps issued it to the public in March of 1979, which was then the time that Topps typically released its cards. Unfortunately, like many trade discussions, the Bump Wills trade turned out to be nothing more than rumor. The Rangers kept their hard-hitting second baseman, who remained in Texas for three more seasons before finally being dealt—not to the Blue Jays, but to the Cubs—after the 1981 campaign.

With the trade to Toronto falling through, Topps was left mildly embarrassed. Once Opening Day rolled around and Berger realized that no trade was going to take place, Topps decided to correct the error and release a revised and corrected card, this time showing the name “Rangers” at the bottom of the card. As a result, there are two 1979 Bump Wills cards in circulation. The corrected “Rangers” version is considered the more valuable, since fewer of those cards were produced, making it scarcer than the “Blue Jays” version. The only thing scarcer might be Berger’s relationship with his friend, who had clearly given him some misguided information and had ceased becoming a source of knowledge for the Topps Company.

Although Wills never played for the Yankees, he did have a rumored connection to the team in the early 1980s. After the 1982 season, several reports circulated that the Yankees were seriously considering a blockbuster trade that would have sent Willie Randolph to the Cubs for Billy Buckner. Such a move would have filled a major need at first base (where the Yankees realized that 33-year-old John Mayberry was over-the-hill), but would have created a large void at second base. According to one hot rumor that winter, the Yankees were prepared to replace the departed Randolph with the faster Wills, a free agent who had played out the final year of his contract with the Cubs. The additions of the two former Cubbies would have given the Yankees a hyperactive offensive infield of Buckner, Wills, Roy Smalley at shortstop and Graig Nettles at third base, but the reconfiguration would have created more than a few misadventures defensively. In addition to Smalley’s shortcomings, Wills’ range had started to diminish, while Buckner’s knees were beginning to give him trouble before they would undergo a complete breakdown in Beantown.

Despite the rumors, Wills never did make his way to the Bronx. Finding no offers to his liking from any major league team, including the Blue Jays, Wills took his talents to the Japanese Leagues. That didn’t stop Topps from producing another Wills card in 1983—one that had him right back in Chicago!

Bruce Markusen is the author of seven books on baseball and writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLB.com.

Unlike many of my contemporaries, I did not grow up reading Bill James. I wasn’t familiar with James’ Baseball Abstracts until my cousin gave me his collection in 2002, but in many ways, Bill James is the Internet–the outsider, the guy writing in his basement, intellectually curious, irreverent, superior, caustic and funny. The guy who doesn’t have to actually face the athletes, who really doesn’t have any interest in talking to them.

There have been other writers who played a big part in influencing the current generation of baseball writers–from Tom Boswell and Peter Gammons to James’ protogee Rob Neyer and Bill Simmons.

But for me, the early role model was Roger Angell because he was a writer and a fan. Here is Angell discussing his first baseball assignment for the New Yorker in the spring of 1962 (from a wonderful interview conducted by Jared Haynes “They Look Easy, But They’re Hard,” originally published in Writing on the Edge in 1993):

I was in my forties–I was forty-one–and I knew enough to know that I didn’t know a great deal about baseball, even though I was a true-blue fan. I’d followed baseball all my life. But I was wary of talking to players; I felt nervous about that.

…And also, although it was not a conscious plan, I wrote about myself, because I was a fan. It set a pattern for me. I am a fan, I refer to myself as a fan, and I report about my feelings as a fan, and nobody else, to my knowledge, does that. It’s not great thing, but those old restrictions on reporting seemed to say that you can’t put yourself in the piece and you can’t betray emotion. It’s funny, because most of the beat writers are just as much fans as the rest of us, or more so. If you sat up there and didn’t care about baseball in some personal way, it would be a deadly assingment, I think, year after year.

Angell is an editor first and a writer second. So who influenced his approach to writing about baseball?

A great model for me was Red Smith, who was a model for almost every sportswriter. The great thing about Red Smith was that he sounded like himself. His attitude about sports was always clear. He felt himself enormously lucky to be there in the pressbox. He was not in favor of glorifying the players too much–Godding up the players, in Stanley Woodward’s phrase. But was Red Smith in every line. You knew what he had read and what his influences were.

I don’t try to be a literate sportswriter; I try to be myself. It’s as simple as that. Everybody’s got to find what their voice is. You’ve got to end up sounding like yourself if you’re going to write in a way that’s going to reward you when you’re done. If you end up sounding like somebody else, you’re not going to be any good. You won’t get anywhere. Readers are smart. They will pick up whether the tone is genuine or not. Tone is the ultimate thing writers have to think about. You could write on a given subject–a ball game or a national crisis or a family crisis–in twenty or thirty different ways. You only have to pick what you want people to make of this.

Words to live by.  Angell has often said that writing and baseball may look easy but they are both extremely hard. I try to never forget this because neither gets easier with practice.  I can’t get away from the reality with writing because I do it regularly, but it’s more tempting to lose track of how hard it is to play the game.  

I’ll always be grateful to Angell for making this clear.  And for setting a wonderful example of the writer as fan.

For Chyll Will and the whole neck-snappin’ Bronx Banter Crew:

Why is this man hot?

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I’ve read the Verducci-Torre book and have an article up at SI.com discussing, who else?  Alex Rodriguez:

Rodriguez takes up only a small portion of the narrative — the 22-page chapter devoted to him (“The Problem of Alex”) comes halfway through a book that is just shy of 500 pages. And while the tone of the chapter is often sharp, Verducci and Torre don’t simply rip Rodriguez. They admire that he was the hardest worker on the team, even if he was also a high-maintenance star. “Nobody works harder than Alex,” says Torre. “He’s a workaholic.”

Still, Rodriguez is held up as a symbol of the Yankees’ recent failure to win a World Series. He’s forever the un-Jeter, especially in the eyes of many Yankee fans.

“He may be the most underappreciated great baseball player in the history of the city,” says novelist Kevin Baker, who is currently writing a book about New York baseball. “Has any athlete ever kept as clean a nose in New York and gotten more flack? He hasn’t shot himself in a nightclub or turned over numerous cars like Babe Ruth or been accused of statutory rape like David Cone. [Jason] Giambi was forgiven for being a drug user. Rodriguez devotes himself to the game and the complaints never stop.”

John Updike, one America’s most celebrated authors of the post War period, died today.  He was 76.  Here is his lasting contribution to baseball literature, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu:

Whenever Williams appeared at the plate—pounding the dirt from his cleats, gouging a pit in the batter’s box with his left foot, wringing resin out of the bat handle with his vehement grip, switching the stick at the pitcher with an electric ferocity—it was like having a familiar Leonardo appear in a shuffle of Saturday Evening Post covers. This man, you realized—and here, perhaps, was the difference, greater than the difference in gifts—really intended to hit the ball. In the third inning, he hoisted a high fly to deep center. In the fifth, we thought he had it; he smacked the ball hard and high into the heart of his power zone, but the deep right field in Fenway and the heavy air and a casual east wind defeated him. The ball died. Al Pilarcik leaned his back against the big “380” painted on the right-field wall and caught it. On another day, in another park, it would have been gone. (After the game, Williams said, “I didn’t think I could hit one any harder than that. The conditions weren’t good.”)

The afternoon grew so glowering that in the sixth inning the arc lights were turned on—always a wan sight in the daytime, like the burning headlights of a funeral procession. Aided by the gloom, Fisher was slicing through the Sox rookies, and Williams did not come to bat in the seventh. He was second up in the eighth. This was almost certainly his last time to come to the plate in Fenway Park, and instead of merely cheering, as we had at his three previous appearances, we stood, all of us—stood and applauded. Have you ever heard applause in a ballpark? Just applause—no calling, no whistling, just an ocean of handclaps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowding and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand. It was a sombre and considered tumult. There was not a boo in it. It seemed to renew itself out of a shifting set of memories as the kid, the Marine, the veteran of feuds and failures and injuries, the friend of children, and the enduring old pro evolved down the bright tunnel of twenty-one summers toward this moment. At last, the umpire signalled for Fisher to pitch; with the other players, he had been frozen in position. Only Williams had moved during the ovation, switching his bat impatiently, ignoring everything except his cherished task.

Andy’s coming back.  And it ain’t for $10 million, though it could reach up to $12 million.  Pete Abe has the details.

If you’re hungry for action on the Hot Stove, mid-January is a time that will leave you starving. There’s plenty of analysis of the Yankees’ 40-man roster and prospects in the trades. Locally, the stories have revolved around the Yankees’ pursuit or non-pursuit of Manny Ramirez and Ben Sheets, the arbitration roundup, the list of players representing their respective countries in the World Baseball Classic in March, the team’s move to the new Stadium, and the politics of how the Stadium’s construction was financed.

With all this in mind, the countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting has become more prevalent.

Speaking of pitchers, are the Yankees going back to the well with Andy Pettitte? That appears to be the case, according to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch and Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record.

If Pettitte truly wants to be in a Yankee uniform when the new stadium opens in April, he’ll swallow his pride and assume some accountability for the salary-based standoff. If he reads the reports of who the Yankees have vying for the fifth starter spot, he’ll see that he’s a better option than the unproven – or mediocre, depending on your perspective – law firm of Hughes, Kennedy, Aceves, Coke & Johnson. If the reports are true that the Yankees still prefer him over that quintet, then Pettitte has even more incentive to re-engage in discussions, and compromise with Brian Cashman.

This situation is different than 2003, when the Yankees’ concern about Pettitte’s arm led them to shy away from negotiating with him. Pettitte then signed with the Astros and made the Yankees look good when a forearm injury limited him to just 15 starts in ‘04.

The Pettitte saga has been a recurring topic in this space all winter also, and judging from the comments, I’d estimate it’s about 70-30 against Pettitte returning. From a baseball sense, though, if he and the Yankees agreed to a one-year deal in the $11-$12 million range as opposed to the $10-$10.5MM number, would you be opposed? I wouldn’t, especially if it meant 12-15 wins from the No. 5 spot. The possibility of his ascension to the fourth spot can’t be discounted, either; Joba Chamberlain could go down with an injury or be moved to the bullpen at some point.

For the next three weeks, this is the story to watch.

As for off-field news, per the New York Post and the Daily News, the next eight days leading up to the Feb. 3 release of Tom Verducci’s book “The Yankee Years,” with Joe Torre, are sure to be laced with all the venom, vitriol and public betrayal worthy of an Aaron Spelling drama. The revelation that Alex Rodriguez was fragile, narcissistic, had a “Single White Female”-level obsession with Derek Jeter, and had a clubhouse attendant run errands for him is not news. Torre crying foul on the character of GM Brian Cashman, who was long considered to be Torre’s greatest supporter in the wake of Hurricane Steinbrenner, is a surprise.

In the book, Torre states that Cashman’s public advocacy during the contract negotiations that followed the 2007 season was a façade. As The News’s Bill Madden reported:

According to a source familiar with the book, Torre does not step out of character. He simply recites the facts as he saw them and does not unfairly disparage the Yankees.

On SportsCenter Sunday morning, Buster Olney corroborated Madden’s assessment and confirmed that it is public record that the one-year offer the Yankees made was due to Cashman’s influence. A clip of Torre’s farewell press conference from Oct. 19, 2007, was run to illustrate the point that Torre and Cashman worked together to hammer out a deal. Olney also noted that in Torre’s first book, “Chasing the Dream: My Lifelong Journey to the World Series,” published in 1998, the ex-manager expressed dismay at the way the Steinbrenners viewed him. Right or wrong, Torre’s sensitivity to Steinbrenner criticism was the backdrop for much of his Yankee tenure.

Torre did have protection, though, and not only in the way of Cashman. I’ve thought that ever since Steve Swindal’s DUI arrest and fall from grace from the Steinbrenner family in February of ‘07, that Torre’s departure was imminent. I was in Tampa five years ago when Torre negotiated a three-year extension. At the ensuing press conference, Torre said that a meeting with Swindal helped get it done. I came away from that presser with the impression that amid the internal battle for power, as long as Swindal and Cashman were there, then Torre was “safe.” When Swindal literally and figuratively drove himself away, an “every man for himself” scenario developed.

I’ve had conversations on this topic with a few Bronx Banter colleagues, and I’m of the opinion that if Cashman did in fact betray Torre, it was to save his own job. Following the ’07 playoff debacle, it was clear that when it came to Torre and Cashman and their places with the organization in 2008, one or both of them would be gone. Cashman pulled a classic SYA move.

Torre pulled a classic move also: blasting his former employer in order to spike book sales. Does he have a right to be bitter? Perhaps. Was Chris Russo correct in his assessment of Torre, that the Yankee money kept him in New York for 12 years? Maybe. We may never know.

To that point,  judging from the excerpts I’ve read of the Verducci book, and from the strong comments in Alex Belth’s earlier post in this space, all parties involved have their own version of the truth. I believe the truth lies somewhere between Torre, Cashman, Verducci and select members of the Yankees’ front office. Torre will say his peace on “Late Show with David Letterman” on the book’s release date. Cashman will likely comment this week. For his role as the messenger, Verducci will have to answer for himself at some point, maybe on one of his stints on MLB Network.

We as fans, as usual, will be left to draw conclusions and take sides.

_________________________

PROGRAM NOTE: Yankee Panky is on baby watch. I’m in the Red Zone, as my wife is due with our first child any day now. My next post will take place when I settle in at home following the birth.

A new book by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci about Torre’s long stint with the Yankees is due out this spring.  The New York Post has an item about it today and it seems as if the book will have some behind-the-scenes juice.   Who says the Yankees won’t have any controversy this spring?

The heralded off season acquisitions of Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett have answered most of the Yankees’ questions surrounding first base and starting pitching, but at least one rotation place remains available for the taking. The identity of the No. 5 starter is still unknown, pending the re-signing of Andy Pettitte or the importing of one of Milwaukee’s Best (Ben Sheets) or a Fallen Angel (Jon Garland). So what should the Yankees’ best course of action be, a proven free agent commodity, or a four-way battle of young arms Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Alfredo Aceves, and lefty Phil Coke?

When it comes to pitching, I tend to believe in the theory of excess, especially in light of the twin avalanches of injuries that have assaulted the Bronx the past two summers. I’d like to see Sheets signed to a two-year deal, or Pettitte to a one-year deal, with Garland a less expensive backup plan should those offers fall short. Signing one of those three would allow the Yankees to use Aceves as a long man in the bullpen while having Hughes and Kennedy in reserve at Scranton-Wilkes Barre. The days of getting through a season with five starters are long gone; you’d better have at least seven to eight pitchers capable of giving you a substantial number of starts and innings from April to October…

***

The YES Network’s Steven Goldman, often an astute observer of Yankeeland, was a thousand per cent correct this week in offering his assessment of the tenuous state of the Yankees’ catching situation. If the Yanks are not careful, they may end up with Jose Molina again doing the majority of the catching, an untenable prospect given Molina’s overall futility at the plate. (With Brett Gardner or Melky Cabrera set to play center field, the Yankees cannot afford to give away two lineup slots to defense-first players.) In the event that Jorge Posada’s surgically repaired shoulder allows him to catch no more than 80-90 games this summer, the Yankees need another catcher to share the burden. They won’t necessarily require a No. 1 catcher to fill the void, but they would need someone who is capable of splitting the load with Molina in some kind of a platoon arrangement.

Let me advocate two possibilities, one a free agent and the other on the trade market. The free agent is switch-hitting ex-Red Javier Valentin, who is decent enough with the bat to serve as a platoon partner and “designated” pinch-hitter for Molina. It isn’t that Valentin is a great offensive player, but he happens to be a much better hitter than Molina, with a career on-base percentage that’s 35 points higher. At 33 years of age, he’d be happy with a one-year deal, making him a far cheaper alternative to Jason Varitek. (That would also spare us the inevitable Varitek-Alex Rodriguez soap opera.) The other possibility is Chris Coste, now relegated to third-string catching status with the world champion Phillies, behind Carlos Ruiz and the newly acquired Ronny Paulino. Even at the age of 35, Coste has acceptable on-base skills and enough versatility to play the infield corners in the pinch. He shouldn’t cost too much in a trade either, maybe something at the level of a Chase Wright or an Alan Horne…

***

Last week’s election of ex-Yankee Rickey Henderson and Boston’s Big Jim Rice to the Hall of Fame figures to give the village of Cooperstown a much-needed boost in tourism this summer, especially when compared with the meager turnout for the 2008 induction. Fewer than 10,000 fans visited Cooperstown for the induction of Goose Gossage and Dick Williams, despite Gossage’s obvious connection to the Yankees from 1978 to 1983. (Perhaps Goose didn’t pitch long enough for the Yankees, or maybe he simply played too long ago, but his induction brought surprisingly few fans north from the Bronx.) This year’s induction attendance could double last year’s total of about 8,000 visitors—but not because of Henderson’s superstar presence. Henderson played only four and a half seasons with the Yankees, preventing him from developing the cult following of someone like Don Mattingly or Paul O’Neill or Bernie Williams. Given the distance between Cooperstown and Oakland, the team with which Rickey is most associated, it’s likely that few A’s fans will make the cross-country trek to Cooperstown.

So where will the attendance boost come from? There will be a large contingent of Red Sox faithful in town for the long-awaited induction of Rice, who played his entire career in Beantown. Boston is a mere four hours away from Cooperstown; the Hall of Fame is already a convenient destination for members of the dreaded Red Sox Nation, and that will only intensify during what figures to be the Summer of Rice…

***

Speaking of Henderson, I’d love to see the “Man of Steal” carry through with his wish of playing one final season in the major leagues. Even at 50, he’s still in prime physical condition and probably capable of filling a role as a pinch-runner and fifth outfielder. He’s also a far smarter player than most give him credit for, a student of both pitchers’ repertoires and their moves to first base. If the Yankees find themselves in a pennant race come September, why not sign Henderson as an extra body for the 40-man roster? I’d enjoy the theater of watching him enter a tie game as a pinch-runner, pawing his way off first base against a pitcher 20 years his junior. If nothing else, it would beat watching Angel Berroa under similar circumstances.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for MLBlogs at MLB.com.

Did someone call Moishe’s?

Yes, you can.

Even she can too.

Converse were the joints back when, huh?

There’s two old-timey parks left (Yankee Stadium, even the original model, was never a ballpark now, was it?).

Fenway:

And Wrigley:

I’ve only been to Fenway once, back in 1999.  Saw them play and beat, the Tigers on a Saturday afternoon.  I found the park strange and fascinating.  I liked the intimacy, the vibe outside on the street.   I’ve never been to Wrigley.  Man, that’s a trip I’ve got to take one of these days.

Earlier this winter I walked through a snowy Central Park. When I got to the Great Lawn, I stopped to look at the baseball diamonds. There is something tranquil and comforting about seeing a field covered in white. They need the rest and look protected underneath all the snow. The absence of activity–knowing that the fields will be lush green, dirt kicking up, voices yelling, come the summer–is reassuring. I hung out for a few minutes and gazed out over the fields. I wondered what it must be like living down South or out West where baseball is played year-round.

At Todd’s memorial service this past Sunday we learned that Todd, who grew up in Syracuse, loved the snow almost as much as he loved baseball. It snowed on Sunday and then again on Monday.

I stared out of my apartment window at the thick flakes and thought about him. I can’t get him out of my mind.  And I can’t muster up any enthusiasm for baseball at the moment.  It will be here soon (though not soon enough for some).  But right now, I don’t miss baseball. I miss Todd.

Late Nineties veteran hitter/clubhouse guy.

Rock:

or Chili?

I really liked Davis on the Yanks, but Rock was hilarious.  Anyone who could get away with busting O’Neill’s chops is aces in my book.

Ah, Black Sheep’s break-out classic.  I liked the whole album.  Dres gets props for bringing Knishes into the discussion.

How about if we take the concept to the Yanks. Like say for instance, Yankee Screw-Jobs.

This?

Or That?

In a lively guest post over at Pete’s jernt, Emma Span explains how things have never been kosher when sports and politics mix.

Jose Torres, the former light heavyweight champion of the world, a man of many gifts, died today.

Here is what Leonard Shecter wrote about Torres for Sport magazine back in 1965:

Tell the life of Jose Torres to music, rippling, sensual Spanish music. Don’t tell it, sing it. Guitairs, clacking claves, men’s voices together in song. The singing is important because Torres is surrounded by noise, the noise of people. Hubbub. Children laughing, running. The trill of spoken Spanish, almost without consonants, flowing like the music.

…The life of Torres is like no other. A fighter who sings, a fighter who did not fight, a soilder who did not train, a man who never finished high school but is a friend to American literati. Norman Mailer. James Baldwin. He lived with Pete Hamill, a young writer who is coming fast. Hamil gave him money. Cus D’Amato, a fierce, bristling man with eyes hard and black and shiny as obsidian, the man who mesmerized Floyd Patterson to the heavweight champship. Cus D’Amato gave him money. His father gave him money. Cain Young, real-estate operator, a tough man with a buck. Cain Young gave him money.

Jose Torres, a fighter who writes for a newspaper. A fighter who sits at the feet of Norman Mailer and tries to learn about writing novels. “Tell me, Norman, when you start a novel, do you know how it will end?”

…What do people like Mailer see in Torres? His English is poor and slurred. He is difficult to understand. He does not close his lips when he talks. He sounds punchy, which he is not. Oh, boy, is he ever not punchy. He laughs. “I don’t speak Spanish good either.” A man in a hurry; quick body, quick mind. No time to speak distinctly. He knows all the words, though. In his basement, music. And a light bag. But books, too. A wall of books. He hasn’t had the time to read them all. He will, he says, only not while he’s champion. “I don’t take my wife everyplace. She is too jealous. She’s got a perceptive mind. She can tell when I like a girl. Or if a girl likes me.” They yell at each other a lot in Spanish. With the hi-fi going. Beautiful.

“He’s alive,” Hamill says. “He’s a champion,” Mailer says in the quick tough monotone he uses. “And bright. He’s bright enough to be an executive of a corporation. And he’s a fighter.”

For a small sampling of Torres’ work, check out his archive at the Sweet Science.com.

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