Final Card - Billy Moran

Billy Moran (#562) had a 7-year career from 1958-65, with most of his playing time coming as the Los Angeles Angels’ regular 2nd baseman during their first few years.

Moran was signed by the Indians in 1952, and played 3 seasons in the low minors, including Spartanburg, SC and Reading, PA. (Hmm… beginning in the mid-1960s, these 2 teams became Phillies’ affiliates.) 

After missing the ’55 and ’56 seasons while in military service, he resumed his career in 1957 with the AAA San Diego Padres (also a Phillies’ outpost in the mid-1960s!)

Moran played the entire 1958 season with the Indians, starting 52 games at 2nd base and 21 at the hot corner. He was back in triple-A for most of 1959 and all of 1960.

After the 1960 season, he was purchased by the Toronto Maple Leafs, an independent AAA team in the International League. Billy had played for Toronto in 1960 when it was an Indians’ affiliate, but Toronto became unaffiliated in ’61, and retained Moran by buying his contract from the Indians.

The following June, the Leafs traded him to the expansion Angels, where he replaced incumbent Ken Aspromonte as the 2nd baseman.

Moran was the Angels’ regular 2nd baseman in ’62 and ’63, starting 159 and 150 games in those 2 seasons. He was also selected to the All-Star team in 1962.

Billy lost the starting 2nd base job to Bobby Knoop in 1964, and in June he was returned to the Indians in a 3-team deal. The Indians sent 2nd baseman Jerry Kindall to the Twins, while the Twins sent 1st baseman Vic Power and outfielder Lenny Green to the Angels. The Angels also sent INF-OF Frank Kostro to the Twins.

Moran was a backup for the Indians in his final 2 seasons. He started 32 games at 3rd base (behind Max Alvis) in 1964, and played mostly in AAA in 1965 – only getting 22 at-bats in 24 games in 1965.

Introduction

I know, I know. The last thing I need is another blog. And why 1965? Kevin has already done a great job with “The Great 1965 Topps Project”, completing that a few years ago.

In the past few months I decided to chase the 1965 Topps set. Prior to this year, I had about 100 of the cards. Here’s my 1965 back story:

1967 or 1968:
I only had the Stan Williams card and a badly-battered Deron Johnson card. I don’t know where I got them, since I wasn’t collecting 1965 cards then. Maybe they came from Billy across the street - he was a frequent trading partner for my brother and me in ’67 and ‘68. [Billy was my old army buddy, and by "army" I mean elementary-school backyard army. Did kids even play army in the 1970s and 1980s? They sure did in the 1960s. We had "Combat!" and "The Gallant Men" on TV every week, and Vietnam was not yet in the forefront of anyone’s mind. One of us (not me) even had the Johnny-7 One-Man Army (as mentioned by Sinbad in the movie "Jingle All the Way").]

Anyway, for all these years I assumed some kid penned-in the NY logo on Williams’ cap, until I saw his card on Kevin’s blog. It was also colored in! Good job, Topps!

1980s: 
Sometime in the 1980s, I set out to complete my 1967-1969 sets (all the high numbers), as well as all the Phillies cards from 1964 to the present. I met those goals, except for five 1967 high numbers and the 1973 Mike Schmidt rookie card. This increased my 1965 card total from 2 to a few dozen.

2008-2010: 
After being out of the hobby from 1993 to 2008, I jumped back in with 3 goals: resume collecting the Phillies' team sets, collect the 1966 Topps set (I only had the Phillies cards at that point), and get the "final cards" for any player in the 1962 through 1965 sets. Along with reaching the 85% mark for the 1966 set, I now had about 100 1965 cards.

Summer 2015: 
Frequent trips to the same local antiques store over the past 3 years have netted this and these. I noticed they also had a lot of reasonably-priced cards from the 1960s, so I put together my 1965 want list and hit that store several times in the past few months. I now have over 230 of the cards (40%). Last week, the set graduated from my 1960-65 binder to its own binder.


Going Forward:
Although this blog’s appearance is the same as my other blogs, I’m not sure what the content of each post will be yet. Kevin has already reviewed each player’s career in his blog – maybe I will take a different approach. I think for now I will focus on players who do not have cards in any post-1965 set.