Topps Was Watching the 1964 Phillies

It was just the Cost(en) of doing business

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1965 Topps Phillies Rookie Stars (#107) - Card of the Day

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Topps must have been paying extra-close attention to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964. Of course, The Real One wasn’t alone in that regard.

After all, the Phillies finished April and May in first place in the National League, fell a half game back by the end of June, then put the rest of the league behind them when the weather got really hot.

By August 23, the Phils were up by 7.5 games and looked like they could just about cruise to a pennant. They gave that a shot, too, going just 16-23 the rest of the way.

Problem was, the Cardinals and Reds, and even the Giants and Braves, weren’t about to let them coast. And so it was that the Phillies completed one of baseball’s great collapses by finishing behind St. Louis and tied with Cincinnati, with San Francisco just two games back of Philly in fourth.

But in the midst of all the winning that preceded the fall, general manager John Quinn brought up two rookies — catcher Pat Corrales and first baseman Costen Shockley.

Manager Gene Mauch saw fit to get Corrales into an August 2 game against the Dodgers as a pinch hitter, his major league debut.

But before that, on July 17 against the Reds, Shockley drew the start at first base. That was probably a sort of shockly development for Phillies fans who were used to seeing John Herrnstein or Frank Thomas or Roy Sievers or Vic Power as the anchor.

Shockley would start six more games through July 26, along with another pinch-hitting gig. That would turn out to be the extent of his Phillies career.

After hitting .229 with a home run and 2 RBI, it was back to the minors for the young slugger.

Yeah, slugger. Overall for the Triple-A Arkansas Travelers that summer, Shockley hit .281 with 36 home runs and 112 RBI in just 134 games.

Despite his rough showing in Philly, that minor league profile was enough for the still-budding Angels to come calling that winter. In December, California sent Bo Belinsky to the Phils for Shockley and Rudy May.

Later on, Belinsky became something of a celebrity outside of baseball.

May became a successful big-league pitcher,one who won 152 games and as many as 18 in a season.

Corrales caught part-time in the majors for nine seasons before joining CHiPs.

And Costen Shockley?

Well, he started 31 games for the Halos in the first half of 1965, but the results didn’t improve much. In 40 total appearances, he came to the plate 119 times and hit .187 with two home runs and 17 RBI.

At that point, the Angels tried to send him down to the Seattle Angels, but he refused to report. That was the end of the line for Shockley in pro baseball.

Now, 59 years later, we get to celebrate what would have been Shockley’s 82nd birthday — he passed away at 80 in 2022.

If nothing else, Costen packed a whole lot of baseball memories and connections into a big league career that spanned just 51 games…and one rookie card shared with the guy who led the 1983 Wheeze Kids Phillies 48% of the way to a division title.

1986 Topps Gene Mauch (#81)

In 1964, Mauch was a fifth-year manager who had taken the Phils from eighth-place finishes in 1960 and 1961 to the brink of the World Series. That late-season collapse was a bitter pill to swallow, but it was just the first of Mauch’s snake bites as a manager.

In 1982, after his Angels won the old American League West, they held a one-run lead in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series heading to the bottom of the seventh inning. The Brewers scored two runs in that frame and held on to win the ALCS.

Four years later, Mauch and the Angels were back in heart-stop territory. Up three games to one in the 1986 ALCS, the Halos led the Red Sox 5-2 heading to the ninth inning.

A two-run shot by Don Baylor off Mike Witt cut the lead to one, but Donnie Moore had a chance to put California in the World Series later in the inning. With two outs and Rich Gedman on first, Moore pushed Dave Henderson to a 2-2 count — one strike from the Fall Classic!

But Hendu turned Moore’s next pitch into one of the most famous October home runs of all time, and the Sox won the game in 11 innings. The next two games were Boston routs, and Mauch was done as a manager after 1987.

This 1986 card (probably) shows Mauch in 1985, in between the heartbreaks and with a glint in his eye that says he still believes.

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What was the worst late-season collapse or postseason heartbreak that you remember?

That 1986 Angels team ranks “high” for me. More recently, I was sort of stunned by the 2021 Mets, though I didn’t have any fan-skin in the game.

My 2023 Reds toyed with our emotions all year, too, but just seeing them contend was a bonus. Sort of like Cecil Fielder turning the 1986 Topps set into something more four years after the fact.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam