Pulling a Vintage Cheap Trick

Baseball has been a passion of mine since the day my parents suited me up for my first t-ball game way back in the early 90's.  I played through high school, have attended countless professional games and follow the Cubs with a fervent fever that borders on concerning.

But, I'm not one-dimensional.  I love to run and actively compete in road races across Illinois, I'm a bit of a history nerd and I wont turn down a good book.  In addition, I love music.

In college, I ran the school's radio station and, let me tell you, there is nothing better than getting paid to listen to/approve new music and read Billboard magazine.  I've been working on and off in the radio field ever since.

As such, I go to a lot of shows:  OK Go, REO Speedwagon, Train, The 1975, Joan Jett, Shinedown, etc. etc.  I run the full gamut when it comes to anything remotely rock n roll.

Tonight begins a string of 3 concerts in 3 nights at the Taste of Joliet, courtesy of Cheap Trick! I'm ecstatic to finally catch them -  "Surrender" is definitely on my list of top ten songs of all-time and that's not even my absolute favorite track of theirs.

In honor of this momentous occasion, here are a couple of "cheap" vintage cards that I was able to add to my CATRC - it was quite the "trick."

These Sporting News Rookie Stars  cards from 1959 Topps are absolutely fantastic and thanks to some off-centering and a light gum stain on the back, I was able to cross Lou Jackson off of my "to get" list for a buck.

Look how happy Lou is for me!

Unfortunately for him though, he wasn't really that much of a rookie star - after batting .171 in 24 games in 1958, Lou only got 4 PA's in 6 games the next year only to spend the rest of his career in the bushes (excepting a brief 4 game cameo for Baltimore in 1964).

It's not like the Cubs had bunches of young talent ready to come up at this time though; he pretty much was their "rookie star."  

This card is a tad bit worse for wear.  In addition to some more centering issues, Paul Smith has a very noticeable tape stain that wraps around from the front to the back - as you can see here:

However, that's fine by me as it allowed this 1958 Topps card to fall into my price range.  I have always been attracted to this particular set - something about the bold background colors I guess, seeing as it's otherwise un-noteworthy.

That's fitting, since Paul was a pretty un-noteworthy player.

After a promising rookie season with the 1953 Pirates batting .283 across 118 games, he spent the next three seasons out of the Majors. He returned to Pittsburgh for 1957 for 81 games as a reserve outfielder. He was then sold to the Cubs early in 1958 and played his last MLB game just a month later.
I wonder where he went for three years?

The only image I can find of Paul in Cubs garb

Image courtesy of ootpdevelopments.com

That's does it for my recent cheap vintage pickups, which I decided to show off today just because I was desperate for a segue from Cheap Trick.

I do what I can.

My posting will be light over the next couple days; as I mentioned earlier, I have 2 more concerts right after Robin Zander and the boys.  I'll try to make some sort of connection between them and baseball cards; but, I cannot guarantee the quality of that connection!

Let's close things out with my favorite Cheap Trick song, one that I am crossing my fingers that they'll play: