The Mossi Files

I've been collecting cards since I was a knee high to a grasshopper (first and last use of that idiom). My earliest memories involved stuffing massive amounts of stale, dusted gum sticks into my pie-hole while thumbing through freshly opened wax packs, searching for the elusive Mantle or Mays only to be dealt your eighteenth Roger Repoz.

As an aging curmudgeon, I have, in recent years began to appreciate the "Ray Sadecki's" of the world - they had more blemishes than the matinee idol boys. These cards were more alluring than those prized ones that were free of dinged corners and not subject to defacing via the magic marker alchemy

These are the guys that looked like your Uncle Solly.

Here for consideration, are a few of my more admired selections:

Eddie Layton

One of my childhood heroes, Eddie Layton, was the master of the Hammond Organ, with his principal gig being at the "House That Ruth Built" - Yankee Stadium. Eddie regaled us with his captivating ditties like "Hava Negila"(a fan favorite when Ron Blomberg or Kenny Holtzman were introduced), "La Cucaracha" for Zoilo Versalles and Celerino Sanchez and a somber "Ave Maria" after the 9/11 attack in New York.

"I thought that a sacrifice fly had something to do with killing an insect", he recalled in an interview with National Public Radio, shortly after his retirement at the end of the 2003 baseball season. "I didn't know where first base was or third base. But I quickly learned within a week, and I started doing the famous chants, the hand-clapping things, and the dun-dun-dun-dun-da-dun."

And I was the first guy to do that, he said of the "charge."

''I've had my day,'' he told The New York Times in October 2003 as he closed his career. ''Playing with 50,000 watts of power, what rock star has an amplifier like that? I play for up to 56,000 people a night. Not even Madonna has done those kind of numbers.''

Eddie passed in December of 2004 as ball clubs and corporate conglomerates had moved onto pre-recorded pablum for musical game interludes and entertainment. I don't know but I yearn for the mighty Hammond every time I go to a game................

Here's Eddie showing his chops on "Tico, Tico"

The Stars Come Out at Dodger Stadium.

A recap of a 1960s Hollywood Stars game at Dodger Stadium.

Warning: The announcer has an unseemly obsession with Nancy Sinatra.

(And a warning to Donna: Caution, contains Mickey Rooney.)

[via Dodger Thoughts.]