There are some collectors out there who would pay top dollar for a Ray Lamb. No, not this Ray Lamb baseball card from 1973, his last year in baseball. But I do mean the same Ray Lamb. Since his pitching career ended 50 years ago with a shoulder injury, Lamb has become world famous as a sculptor of miniatures, like toy soldiers, wizards, dragons, and other fantasy characters from role playing games.
Ray Lamb’s art will be selling a century from now, and it will be way more valuable than this baseball card.
I remembered this card while plucking it from the shoebox. The bespectacled face, the soothing last name, the flat, confident smile, and the sideburns. He reminds me a little bit of actor Bill Hader (who wasn’t born yet when this card was issued). At any rate, I remember Ray Lamb as a Cleveland Indian only because of this card.
But his most notable baseball achievement came during his rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1969, and it should be on the back of this baseball card (maybe it’s on the back of another Ray Lamb card, but I doubt it): Ray Lamb was the last Dodger to wear Jackie Robinson’s No. 42. Yep. And it was a total accident.
When Lamb was called up to the Dodgers from the minor leagues in August 1969, the jersey with that magic number was hanging in his locker. It was the same number he wore at the University of Southern California, so he put on the shirt and, infused with Jackie’s spirit, Ray pitched inspired ball for two months (a 1.80 earned run average in 10 games).
It took the Dodgers until the end of the season to realize their mistake. It took Ray a little while to realize the significance of his uniform number. But after seeing so many photos of Jackie around Dodger Stadium, wearing No. 42, it sunk in. “Nobody said anything to me during the year,” Lamb told Los Angeles Times writer Bill Plaschke. “But looking at those photos, it dawned on me, and I was like, ‘Oh man.’”
The Dodgers also were like, oh man, and they took the number back from Lamb. They officially retired Robinson’s No. 42, Roy Campanella’s No. 39, and Sandy Koufax’s No. 32 in a pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium in 1972, a few months before Jackie’s death. Robinson’s number was retired throughout Major League Baseball in 1997.
After taking back No. 42, the Dodgers gave Ray Lamb No. 34 – the number later worn by legendary L.A. pitching ace Fernando Valenzuela, “thus making Lamb the only Dodgers player who wore two numbers that will never be work again by anyone on the club,” Plaschke wrote.
It figures that Lamb would become an artist. He was always the guy on team flights or bus rides drawing pictures in a notebook, the engaging, creative Southern California dude who didn’t surf but did work as a movie extra (see, it’s on the back of his baseball card).
After going 6-1 for the Dodgers in 1970, Ray was traded to the Indians, where he pitched for three seasons before hanging up his spikes and picking up his new tools, including a dentist’s drill, which he used to shape the little statuettes. You can expect to spend at least $200 for some of Lamb’s sculptures. His baseball card can be had for less than two bucks.
Not this one, though.
******
P.S: Just a friendly reminder to the two or three of you reading this blog (I appreciate it, by the way, more than you know, Mom and others): The reason you’re subjected to Topps baseball cards from 1973 is because it’s 50 years ago and that’s a nice, round number. And it works out because it also happens to be the biggest set of loose cards that I have. Believe me, if I had a lot of cards from 1963, that’s what you’d be seeing, because it’s a much nicer looking set, in my opinion. Anyway, there you have it.
Johnny Mize P.S.: The Big Cat designed his own first baseman’s mitt while still in the minor leagues. Not unlike the ‘oven mitt’ style in use today, Mize and Hank Greenberg both based their designs on a glove that was designed and used by minor league player-manager Oscar Roettger. Read more about it in Big Cat: The Life of Baseball Hall of Famer Johnny Mize, coming next spring from the University of Nebraska Press.
JerryGrilloWriter.com 