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Rocky Nelson was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1959-1961, retiring after the 1961 season. He hit a two run home run in the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, later won on Bill Mazeroski's home run the bottom of the ninth.
The most amazing stat I could dig up on Nelson is that he won the Triple Crown twice (1955 and 1958) while playing in the International League. Yes, it's the minor leagues but winning the Triple Crown is quite an achievement at any level.
Rocky Nelson passed away in 2006 at the age of 81. I hadn't originally planned to try and add deceased members of the 1960 Pirates to my collection but couldn't pass up this card when I saw it on eBay.
I had a tough time when it came down to bidding on this auction. I had no idea what a card like this would be worth. It's not like you can obtain Nelson's autograph anymore. Plus, I'm only collecting these autographs on 1960 Topps cards. What are the odds that I would ever find another 1960 Topps card autographed by Rocky Nelson? How many could there possibly be?
The auction was only at $1.75 with 10 minutes left when I sat down to think about what I would pay for the card. With a couple minutes left I decided to bid $30.00 for the card. I just couldn't pass up the chance as I didn't see how another one of these would be popping up on eBay any time soon. I ended up getting the card for $6.01. I consider that a heck of a bargain for a 1960 Topps card in reasonable condition autographed by a deceased player.
I'll keep my eyes open on eBay now. Maybe I'll be able to add more cards to this collection that I didn't think I'd have the chance to.
Date sent: 4/27/2009
Date returned: 5/2/2009
Yesterday was an awesome mail day for my 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates Project. I got returns from Roy Face, Dick Schofield and Bob Skinner. I had just mailed them out on Monday of last week. How often do you send a TTM request and get in back in the same week? How often does that happen with three different players? The one that really amazed me was Bob Skinner. He lives in San Diego, CA and I'm in Alexandria, VA. He must have put the card back in the mail the same day he received it. I'm thrilled with these returns.
I mailed out seven requests on 4/27, so four of those are still out there. I sent out another five yesterday. There are twenty surviving players from the 1960 team. Sixteen of those players are highly reliable TTM signers, four of them are tough. I've sent a total of twelve cards out. I plan to get the next eight out within the next two weeks.
I still need to purchase cards of Joe Gibbon, Vern Law, Bill Mazeroski Bob Oldis and Dick Groat. There's a member on eBay that broke up a 1960 Topps set and the auctions are ending today. I plan on picking up a few of these from those auctions.
My father grew up in Western Pennsylvania and rooted for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He raised me to be a Pirates fan even though we lived in Northern Virginia, within one hour of Baltimore, MD. It's been tough being a Pirates fan over the last sixteen losing seasons but it will make their resurgence that much sweeter whenever that day comes.
My father always told me stories about the 1960 Pirates team when I was growing up. Most of the stories were about Roberto Clemente but the best stories were about the 1960 World Series and the Pirates' improbable victory over the New York Yankees.
The name Bill Mazeroski always brought a smile to my father's face. About 10 years ago I dragged my father to a baseball card show with me, not telling him that Mazeroski was there signing autographs. He wondered what we were standing in line so long for but understood once he could see who was sitting at the table at the end of the line. I think it's the only time in my life that I saw my father in awe of something or someone. We both got baseballs autographed and my father traded a couple of stories with Mazeroski. Mazeroski couldn't have been nicer. It was a really special moment to share with my father.
I've been sending autograph requests through the mail for a couple months now and I was running out of ideas for new requests. Last weekend it hit me. I'm going to try and get every living member of the 1960 Pirates team on their 1960 Topps cards. I checked success rates on sportscollectors.net and it seems like this is a realistic project. There are only four players with low success rates, the rest are 80% or above. There are three players that didn't have a 1960 Topps card so I'll have to find another card for them.
I'm still trying to think of ways to display this but gathering all the cards and sending out the requests is my main focus right now. Once completed, I'll give this to my father as a gift. His birthday is in June so I'm really hustling to get all the cards and get them in the mail.
I will update my successes as they come in. If anyone has any cool ideas on how to display the cards I'd love to hear them. Leave them in the comments.
Rocky Nelson was a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1959-1961, retiring after the 1961 season. He hit a two run home run in the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, later won on Bill Mazeroski's home run the bottom of the ninth.
