Scouring the Globe

Yesterday, I showed off the first 1974 Topps single that was kindly sent to me by famed blog reader, Mr. Havercamp.  Now, after thoroughly discussing the story behind Twins coach and short-term Cub, Vern Morgan, let's examine the subject on the second card which was tucked into Mr.'s PWE.  There was simply too much generosity n that envelope to be contained in a single post!  Well, that and I have a tendency to be a little wordy.

Big surprise, right?

Like yesterday's focus, today's card features multiple head-shots on one card; however, only one of these men is actually the target of my search - can you guess which one?

Ken Griffey is easily the star of the show here and went on to have the most noteworthy career of any of these rookie outfielders.  Meanwhile, Dave Augustine was entering the last leg of his two-season Major League cameo when this card was printed up.  Additionally, Steve Ontiveros would eventually make his way to the Chicago Cubs, but he has long been represented in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection binder.  Thus, while the fact that he is wearing a Cubs cap might have been a dead giveaway, you can deduce the man I was after was Jim Tyrone.

Tyrone had also been repped in my binder for many years; however, the card which did the job featured him in the garb of the wrong club (more on that later).  As longtime readers of this blog might know, I always prefer that my Cubs be shown as Cubs in this collection, when the opportunity exists.  Thankfully, Mr. Havercamp had an extra copy of Tyrone's only Cubs card produced by Topps, facilitating a welcome "Cubgrade."

Now, Tyrone does have a solo card as a member of the Chicago Cubs organization.  However, as you can see in the scan pilfered from COMC above, the 1976 SSPC oddball is not a particularly attractive exhibit (fantastic sideburns excluded, of course).  It should also be noted that hese two cards are the only ones ever printed of the outfielder which commemorate his stint with the "Lovable Losers."  As such, I'm more than happy to let the old bubblegum company do the heavy lifting in this situation, even if Jim does have to share the spotlight with a few other ballplayers.  At least he's sporting the hat in that one!

That said, if the SSPC card ever comes my way, I certainly won't turn it down.

Since we've examined the card(s), let's take this opportunity to learn a little more about the Alice, Texas native they spotlight, shall we?

Wayne Tyrone was drafted out of the University of Texas Pan American in seventh round of the 1971 Amateur Draft, where was teammates with his younger brother, Wayne.  Coincidentally, his kin would also be selected in the draft by the Cubbies, the very next year (making them one of ten sets of brothers to play with the team); however, the two were never actually teammates, at any level, for the franchise.  Jim would receive his first call-up in '72 and spent parts of the next three seasons at the Major League level as an extra fly-chaser.  Unfortunately, he didn't exactly seize this opportunity, as he posted a .180/.227/.297 slash line in 111 at-bats during that time.

He was involved in one quite notable incident during his time in Chicago.  In a contest again the hated Cardinals in September of 1974, umpire Shag Crawford began calling strikes against the Cubs' Bill Madlock without him in the batter's box and chaos soon ensued:

In the scrum, keep an eye out for #27 - that's our hero, Jim.

At this point, the Cubs were in a time of transition, with the Ernie Banks/Ron Santo/Billy Williams/etc. window of contention having slammed shut as their veteran core rapidly aged and were traded away.  Tyrone was soon jettisoned off to Oakland in a minor trade for Gaylen Pitts during spring training in 1977 - Pitts never ended up dressing for the Cubbies. 

This 1978 Topps single from his time in an Athletics uniform had previously represented the elder Tyrone in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection binder.  However, by the time this bad boy was printed up, with it's inconsistent coloring in the border, Jim had hung up his Athletic's jersey for the last time.  After a year on their bench and another year back in AAA, Tyrone found himself released.

With his MLB career officially at an end, Tyrone signed on with Miami Amigos of the new Inter-American League, where he was reunited with his baby brother.  This was a new league that was given AAA classification by the Commissioner's office, but not given any MLB affiliations.  With teams spread out across Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Panama, etc., there was a vision of strengthening ties between the US and Latin America with baseball.  Jim got to jet around, south of the border, playing the game that he loved as a would-be ambassador.  He went on to lead the circuit in batting, with a .364 average.

Sadly, the noble experiment only made it about half a season before the league folded and Jim was, again, left high and dry.

 Jim during his time with the Seibu Lions, image courtesy of Graveyard Baseball

At this point, Tyrone's world travels took him across the Pacific to join the Seibu Lions of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball for the rest of 1979.  It was in the land of the rising sun that Jim finally blossomed as a pro ballplayer - during his first full season, 1980, he swatted 35 home runs with an intimidating .276/.314/.505 line.  The sudden slugger would continue to star in the middle of the batting order for Seibu and later the Nankai Hawks, before calling it a career after the 1982 campaign.  Luckily for Jim, he eventually found his niche... but, he had to travel the world to find it!

Information on his life after baseball is scarce, but, it appears he went back to Texas, where he privately served as a batting instructor for kids before his retirement.  Furthermore, he also appeared as a contestant on a 1983 episode of "The Price Is Right" and ended up winning a Mazda GLC Hatchback. 

In case you might be wondering, seeing as he popped up a few times in this post, the younger Tyrone brother, Wayne, does not yet appear in my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection.  Since his Big League time was brief (a handful of games in 1976), according to Beckett, Wayne never appeared on any sort of trading card.  Nevertheless, as part of my continued mission of creating custom cards and mailing them out via TTM, I hope that I will soon be able to slot Wayne into his rightful pocket, alongside this generous gift from Mr. Havercamp.

Hopefully you'll see this custom again, only with a signature next time.

Again, my thanks go out to Mr. Havercamp for going out of his way to send me these two 1974 Topps singles that had been sitting in my want-list for many moons.  I was absolutely thrilled to be able to finally cross them off!

I'd been searching high and low for these cards for quite a long time.  Thankfully, I didn't have to take my search to an international level, like Jim Tyrone did to find his spot on the pro baseball map!