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But there's Oscar Gamble. There's always Oscar Gamble. In the five heaviest years of my baseball card collecting Oscar Gamble played for six different major league teams. You could never tell for sure where he was at any given moment, so there was always a chance he could appear from anywhere. Maybe even a nothing day has the possibility of his appearance in it. No matter where you are or what you are doing, Oscar Gamble might appear, his swing wicked, jagged, able to wrench pinch-hit homers into the right field seats, his afro billowing below his crushed-down batting helmet as he circles the bases, unfurling to its full magnificence when the batting helmet is removed on the walk from home plate to the dugout, big enough to blot out entire dying galaxies in the sky. His afro! There is hope! Here the caretaker of that famous life-affirming coiffure is shown in two places at once, his doctored home Padre uniform suggesting San Diego while the Brut (by Faberge) sign behind him declares the location of his home stadium as Chicago's Comiskey Park (update: as pointed out by astute readers in the comments below, it is actually Yankee Stadium). If Oscar Gamble can be both here and there then maybe he's everywhere. Even when I'm nowhere.
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(Love versus Hate update: Oscar Gamble's back-of-the-card "Play Ball" result has been added to the ongoing contest.)
Despite having been to about a hundred games there, and despite distinctive Yankee Stadium II features like the facade, Monument Park, the blue outfield wall, and the RF pedestrian ramp appearing in the cards, I don't think I would have bothered verifying the identity of the stadium unless you had pointed out the Brut ad. I don't recall anything about my first visit to Yankee Stadium except that Brut ad and the plastic batting glove I got as a souvenir.
I bought a bottle of Brut after that first visit because I was under the impression it was a very expensive soda.
(Insert Yankees fan joke here)
I never knew until recently that Oscar was a member of the 69 Cubs team that collapsed and lost to the Mets. Just 19 years old in the middle of a heated pennant race. A nice account of his career is here:
http://www.baseballtoddsdugout.com/oscargamble.html
Gotta love those old Padre Uni's!
I wonder how many years of art school the artists at Topps had to have in order to airbrush hats and Uni's like that.
Keep up the great writing. It's great and a fantastic trip through memory lane.
I just looked up his stats and realized he was a better player than I thought he was.
I don't know what you call that stuff that rings the stadium, but it's distinctive. I paid my final visit to Yankee Stadium II over the weekend. Being a native Nutmegger in Connecticut, I've never been a fan of the Yanks, but I've followed them more than any team other than the Red Sox.
Here's a silly video on Oscar and the fro: http://tinyurl.com/5og6bc
I always loved Oscar. Not only was he a fine hitter, he always looked like he was having a great time. I love watching a guy who has fun playing baseball.
At the time, I heard that he was sometimes known as "Doc," because he was a self-proclaimed Doctor of Hittology.
I picked up a pack of Topps last year and they had a Piazza A's card that I had to look twice at. It was airbrushed, but you really couldn't tell. They've come a long way.
http://baseballcardblog.blogspot.com/search/label/airbrush
http://thingsdonetocards.blogspot.com/2008/03/1976-topps-traded-74t-oscar-gamble.html
16 : It really is quite a card. A glaring absence in my collection.
He came back and played for the Yanks from part of 79-84.
I always see the logos for Oscar-Mayer, Proctor & Gamble whenever I see or hear his name.
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