1963 Topps Baseball Project - High-numbered Rookie Goodness

#549 Rookie Stars - Lopez, Lovrich, Plaskett, and Ratliff.

Ever since I decided to try and slowly put together this set it's given me new ambition to troll eBay for the good deals.  This bad boy was one of those good deals.  The seller actually had a couple 63 pick auctions going on.  I missed out on the low numbered common pick 8 auction, but ended up winning his pick 1 high number common auction.  After looking through what he had to offer I settled on this one for a couple of reasons.  One it's slightly more valuable that the other high numbered commons.  Two you get 4 for the price of 1. And three, well there was no three.  He also offered that you could pick as many more from the list as you wanted for 6 bucks a card with no extra shipping.  Seems like a deal.  All the card were suppose to be EXMT to NRMT in grade and that's over half price.  But my winning bid for this bad boy was .99 plus 3.00 bucks shipping.  Hmm now 6 bucks a card seems a little high.  Needless to say I didn't take him up on the offer.  

Let's start my Marcelino Lopez.  Lopez played 10 years in the majors and only appeared in 4 major league games with the Phillies in 1963 before being sent back down to the Minors where he spent all of 1964 before being traded to the Angels in 1965.  In 1965 he finished second in the rookie of the year balloting.  Lopez only threw nine innings in 1967 before he was out with a shoulder injury and then was traded to the Orioles.  Lopez would get a World Series ring with the 1970 Orioles team and made a very brief appearance in game 2 to face Bobby Tolan.  In 1971 he was traded to the Brewers where he started as a reliever, but eventually moved up to starter.  Lopez finished his career with the Indians making just 4 appearances in September 1972 before being passed around in the minor leagues between 3 different team's systems.  Lopez passed away in 2001 at the age of 58.

Pete Lovrich career was short and well short. Here only appeared in 20 games for the Athletics and ended his major league career 1-1. He played a few years down in the minors, but as far as I can tell was out of baseball by 1965.  And 1963 was the only year he was up in the Bigs.  

Elmo Plaskett equally had a short stint in the Majors, but played quite a bit in the minors. Starting his career in 1957 with Pittsburgh's D level teams.  Elmo made 7 appearances for the Pirates in 1962 and another 10 in 1963.  And then went back down to the minors where he stayed till he retired in 1969 in the Athletics system.

Elmo passed away in 1998 at the age of 60 in home on the US Virgin Islands.

And finally we get to Paul Ratliff. Ratliff made the opening day roster in 1963 at the ripe old age of 19, but only played in 10 games before being demoted back to the minors where he would stay till 1970.  In 1971 he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers and appeared in only 45 games total his 2 years in Milwaukee, then in July of '72 was traded to the Angels where he would finish his career in their PCL minor league team.  Paul is still around at the ripe old age of 68.