The Mysterious Strangers

As I mentioned previously, 1967 was my first year of collecting baseball cards. Other than Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Harmon Killebrew, I had no idea of any MLB players, so those 1967 cards were my introduction. Since the 1967 high-number cards were not sold in my area, players in that 7th series remained unknown to me until I bought their 1968 cards.

Below are the 12 players and 2 managers whose final cards were in that 1967 7th series. As such, (except for John Sullivan, who played for the Phillies in 1968) I had no idea who they were until years later. To me, they existed only as mysterious names on the 7th-series checklist (issued as part of the 6th series) until I acquired their cards in the 1980s.


I have already posted all of these cards individually on this blog. You can follow their labels below to each post.

Click here to see all the players whose final card was in the 1967 set.

Final Card: Chuck Estrada

This the final card for Chuck Estrada (#537). Because this was a rare high-number card, and he had no card after this year, Estrada was one of several players I knew nothing about (for the same reasons) until getting their 1967 cards many years later; (players such as Joe Adcock, Jack Sanford, Johnny Klippstein, Doug Camilli, Andre Rogers, Don Demeter, Dick Egan, Bob Duliba, and Jim Owens).

Chuck was signed by the Milwaukee Braves in 1956. After 3 seasons in the minors (1957 with the Braves, 1958-59 with the Orioles), Estrada made his major-league debut with the Orioles on April 21, 1960.

Thus started a string of fine starting pitchers promoted to the big club during the 1960s, which would include Dave McNally (1963), Wally Bunker (1964), Jim Palmer (1966), Tom Phoebus (1967), and Jim Hardin (1968).

Chuck finished a distant 2nd to teammate Ron Hansen for 1960's American League Rookie of the Year. He also led the staff in wins, strikeouts, and innings pitched. In his sophomore season, he also led the staff in strikeouts, and was 2nd to Steve Barber in wins and innings pitched.



According to the back of his card, he injured an elbow in 1962, and it appears the wheels fell off his career after that season. He spent most of 1965-1969 in the minors, while only pitching 9 games for the Cubs in 1966, and 9 games for the Mets in 1967.

Baltimore had many good, young starting pitchers come up in the 1960s. Unfortunately, it seems that most of them also experienced arm trouble early, with only McNally and Palmer ever fully recovering.