Larry Jackson Carried (and Appeared on) a Bazooka
The only National League pitcher to "bat" behind Mickey Mantle?
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1965 Bazooka Larry Jackson (#2) - Card of the Day
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How would you feel about a pitcher who won 13 or more games in a season ten years in a row, and 13 times overall? Seems like a memorable string of performances, huh?
And what if he went 24-11 with a 3.14 ERA to finish second in Cy Young voting one year during that run?
Would it sweeten the pot to know he was a five-time All-Star?
Or that he won 194 games and finished his career with 52.6 WAR (although in an era even before that was good for only absolutely nothin’!)?
And that it all adds up to a standing as something like the 100th (or so) best starter ever, according to JAWS? Ahead of Hall of Famers like Jim Kaat, Dizzy Dean, Bob Lemon, Jack Morris, Catfish Hunter, and others?
You’d probably at least expect said hurler to come up in conversations around star pitchers of his day. For his baseball cards to spark a few belly butterflies when they turn up…to sell for a premium, even.
But then you run into the case of Larry Jackson, for the first time, or for the first time in a while. And maybe you scratch your head.
Larry Jackson?
Yeah, Larry Jackson, whose main baseball crime was pitching for a bunch of lousy-to-mediocre teams: 1955-62 Cardinals, 1963-66 Cubs, 1966-68 Phillies. And maybe having a sort of generic name that doesn’t have quite the same ring as Larry Koufax or Larry Tiant or Nolan Jackson might have (though Randy Johnson and Bob Gibson fared pretty well with names on the pedestrian side).
But Jackson left plenty of cardboard clues about his place in the game, including:
1961 Post (#174)
1961 Topps Lindy Shows Larry (#75) featuring Jackson and Cardinals teammate, closer Lindy McDaniel
1962 Topps Redbird Rippers (#306)
1964 Topps Coins (#17 - OK not technically cardboard)
1965 Topps Pitching Leaders (#10), with Juan Marichal and Ray Sadecki
1969 Milton Bradley
A guy didn’t make the cut in all those sets, and for all those special cards, if he wasn’t something special himself. And that list doesn’t include several regional issues, test sets, oddball sets, and, of course, Jackson’s base Topps card from 1956 through 1968.
It also doesn’t include the 1965 Bazooka card up there at the top of this post, the one with Jackson grinning down at a would-be two-seam fastball like it’s his best friend. It just about was during those years, too, alongside his out-pitch slider.
With only 35 cards in total, the Bazooka set was reserved for the best of the best that baseball had to offer. Heck, you know who card #1 belonged to, the only man in front of Jackson?
None other than Mickey Mantle himself!
And how about card #3, on the other side of our featured right-hander? That would be the immortal Chuck Hinton. Mantle-Jackson-Hinton made up the first three-card panel in the set, with each trio forming part of the back of a box of Bazooka bubble gum.
The hit parade continued from there, too, as Dave Wickersham appeared further down the checklist of blank-back cards, and so did Joe Christopher…and Bob Aspromonte.
So, OK, maybe the set had room for more than just the greats, but Larry Jackson more than earned his slot, both on a Bazooka box and as one of the best pitchers of his era.
Even *if* no one talks about him anymore.
We just talked about him, though, and just in the nick of time. Because Lawrence Curtis Jackson, who passed away in 1990, was born on June 2, 1931.
1960 Topps Jim Kaat’s 28-Step Plan for Success
Speaking of Kaat, we had some fun with his rookie card several years back before he finally got the call from the Hall of Fame. Reviewing that piece now, well, it’s still fun.
If I do say so myself.
Read all about it right here.
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