CURT FLOOD - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED BASEBALL CO-SIGNED BY: MAURY WILLS, TONY OLIVA, VIDA BLUE, DOCK ELLIS, ORLANDO "THE BABY BULL" CEPEDA, BOB GIBSON, JAY JOHNSTONE, KEN McMULLEN, BOB (BOBBY) TOLAN, JOHN HENRY (BASEBALL) JOHNSON, DENNIS BENNETT - HFSID 292985

CURT FLOOD, BOB GIBSON, ORLANDO CEPEDA, VIDA BLUE, MAURY WILLS, TONY OLIVA and OTHERS
20 Major League ballplayers active in the 1960s and 1970s signed this PSA/DNA authenticated baseball.
Baseball signed: "Orlando Cepeda" (sweet spot), "Curt Flood", "Bob Gibson", "Maury Wills", "Tony Oliva", "Vida Blue", "Dennis Bennett", "Dock Ellis", "Jay Johnstone", "Bob Tolan", "John Henry Johnson", "Ken McMullen" and 8 unidentified signers. In all 20 signers. "Official Baseball", signed with various pens. This ball features Major League baseball players active in the 1960s and  1970s. Although 4 of the signers (Cepeda, Flood, Gibson and Tolan) were all members of the World Championship St Louis Cardinals team of 1967 (victorious over the Boston Red Sox in 7 Games), the rest are from several different teams. Since both American and National League teams are represented, and since some signers played in no All-Star games, the ball was probably signed during Spring Training. The Cardinals held their Spring Training in St Petersburg, Florida until 1998. With PSA/DNA sticker (#K41959). CURT FLOOD (1938-1997) played Major League Baseball from 1956 to 1969, and made a brief reappearance in 1971. Flood was a reliable hitter who topped .300 three times in an era when pitching dominated the game. But Flood's greatest talent was in centerfield, which he roamed for the St Louis Cardinals, beginning in 1958. One of the finest defensive players of any era, Flood had 223 consecutive games without an error, and made no errors at all in 1966. A three-time All-Star, he won seven consecutive Gold Glove awards. He played in all seven games of three World Series for the Cardinals: victories over the Yankees and Red Sox in 1964 and 1967, and a loss to the Tigers in 1968. He was one of only four Cardinals to appear on all three teams. After the 1969 season, the Cardinals traded Flood to the Phillies. Flood refused to go, and challenged the "reserve clause" which had long denied players the right to negotiate with multiple teams for the best offer. He sat out the 1970 season, taking his suit against Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bowie Kuhn all the way to the Supreme Court. The Major League Players Association endorsed his suit, but not one active player was willing to appear in court on his behalf. With former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg as his lawyer, Flood lost by a 5-3 vote in the Supreme Court. He made a brief return to baseball with the Washington Senators in 1971, but his skills were gone, and he soon retired. Flood fought law suits and the Internal Revenue Service for the rest of his life. He twice tried to organize a new baseball league, but was unsuccessful. In 1975, an arbiter voided the reserve clause in cases involving two other players, and the era of free agency began. Flood had been five years ahead of his time. BOB GIBSON (1935-2020) holds the major league record for lowest Earned Run Average of 1.12 in 1968, the year he was the National League's Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner. He also won the Cy Young Award in 1970. In his 17-year career, all with the St. Louis Cardinals, Gibson won 251 games including 56 shutouts. He was the first pitcher to strike out at least 200 batters in nine seasons, joining, in 1974, Walter Johnson as the only pitchers to strike out at least 3,000 batters in a career. Gibson was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility. Puerto Rican slugger ORLANDO CEPEDA (b. 1937) was the National League's Rookie of the Year in 1958. Seven times an All-Star during his seventeen Major League seasons (1958-1974), He played in the 1962 World Series for the San Francisco Giants and the 1967 and 1968 classics for the St. Louis Cardinals, helping the '62 and '67 teams to World Championships. Cepeda also led the league in homers in 1961 and in and both HR's and RBI's in 1967, winning NL MVP honors in the latter year as part of a World Champion Cardinals team. He also hit over .300 nine times and jolted 25 or more homers eight times. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999. No one epitomized the style of LA Dodger baseball - squeezing out one run at a time - than shortstop MAURY WILLS (1932-2022). He led the league in stolen bases six consecutive years, including 104 stolen bases in 1962, which helped earn him Most Valuable Player honors. Only three players in the 20th century (Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock and Vince Coleman) have had higher 1-season stolen base totals than that.) A 5-time All-Star and 2-time Gold Glove Shortstop, Wills began and ended his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and played for them in four World Series, three of them victories. A star pitcher with two teams in the Bay Area (Oakland and San Francisco), VIDA BLUE (1949-2023) won both the American League's Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player - rarely given to a pitcher - in 1971. That year he went 24-8 for the A's, with a league-leading 1.82 ERA and 8 shutouts, plus 301 strikeouts. In a career stretching from 1969 to 1986, Blue won 209 games. What he could have achieved without a serious cocaine problem can only be guessed. TONY OLIVA (b. 1938), who played 15 seasons (1962-1976) with the Minnesota Twins, retired with 1,917 hits and a .304 career average. The Cuban-born Oliva is the only player to win batting titles in his first two seasons, and led the league in hits five times. The 8-time All-Star was the 1964 American League Rookie of the Year. Chronic injuries derailed what had promised to be a Hall of Fame career. DOCK ELLIS (1945-2008) pitched in 12 Major League seasons, 9 of them with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His best season was 1971, when he won 19 games for the World Champion Pirates and started the All-Star Game. However, Ellis is even better known as one of baseball's great eccentrics. He pitched a no-hitter against the Padres in 1970 while high on LSD. In 1974, he tried to hit every Cincinnati Reds batter he faced, hitting the first three, missing the fourth 4 times for a walk, and throwing twice at the head of Johnny Bench before being pulled from the game by his manager. JAY JOHNSTONE (1945-2020) was a utility outfielder, pinch hitter and DH who played 20 years in the Majors (1966-1985) despite making 500 plate appearances only once. He appeared in five postseasons for three teams (Phils, Yankees, Dodgers). He was on the 1978 World Champion Yankees team, which beat the Dodgers in the Series; and on the 1981 Dodgers team, which whipped the Yankees. The zany Johnstone was known for his practical jokes. Third baseman KEN McMULLEN (b. 1942) played in the Major Leagues from 1962 to 1977 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Senators, California Angels, Oakland Athletics and Milwaukee Brewers. His career statistics include a .965 fielding percentage, 606 RBI's, 156 home runs and a .248 batting average. Outfielder BOBBY TOLAN (b. 1945) played in 4 World Series before he turned 27, two with the St Louis Cardinals (1967-1968) and two with the Cincinnati Red (1970-1972), including the world champion Cards of 1967 and Reds of 1970. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1976 NLCS. Tolan led the NL in stolen bases in 1970, with 57. JOHN HENRY JOHNSON (b. 1956) played 10 Major League seasons (1978-1987) with four American League teams: Oakland, Texas, Boston and Milwaukee. A starting pitcher for Oakland, who won a career-high 11 games for the A's in his rookie season, worked out of the bullpen for his other teams. DENNIS BENNETT (1939-2012) pitched 7 Major League seasons (1962-1968) with the Phillies, Red Sox, Mets and Angels, finishing with a 43-47 lifetime mark. His brother Dave Bennett pitched one inning for the Phillies in 1964, relieving in a game his older brother Dennis started. Some signatures lightly faded. Otherwise, fine condition.
 
See more material from these signers:

CURT FLOOD   DENNIS BENNETT   JOHN HENRY JOHNSON   BOB TOLAN   KEN McMULLEN   JAY JOHNSTONE   BOB GIBSON   ORLANDO CEPEDA   DOCK ELLIS   VIDA BLUE   TONY OLIVA   MAURY WILLS  

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