1965 Topps Lot

For well under a dollar per card, I picked up a lot of nine 1965 Topps cards.  I had three of them already, but here are the new cards.

1.  Lenny Green.  No relation to Pumpsie Green who played just a couple years before Lenny played for Boston.  Green played two seasons with the Red Sox toward the end of his career.  He was decent in 1965, hitting .276/.361/.429 with seven home runs, but he drove in just 24 runs in 119 games.  Very strange.

2.  Bob Heffner.  Heffner had been an oft-used reliever for Boston in 1964, appearing in 55 games, while starting ten.  Unfortunately, he may have been overworked, as his numbers declined dramatically in 1965 and his career was over soon after.

3.  Bob Tillman.  Tillman was a huge (6'4", 205 lb.) catcher for the Red Sox in the early 1960's.  He had some power, hitting 17 home runs with a decent slash line for the Red Sox in 1964.  He never played quite so well again.

4.  Russ Nixon.  Tillman's backup catcher got quite a bit of playing time, appearing in half of the team's games.  He was not much of a hitter, but was pretty decent in the field.  Nixon played two stints with the Red Sox, from 1960 through 1965, and then briefly in 1968.

5.  Ed Connolly.  Connolly was a second-generation Red Sox.  This is Ed Connolly Jr.  Ed Connolly Sr. played for the Red Sox from 1929 through 1932 as a very young catcher, though he was never much with a bat.  Ed Connolly Jr. played just one season with the Red Sox in 1964, going 4-11 with a 4.91 ERA.

6.  Dennis Bennett.  Bennett was acquired by the Red Sox from the Phillies when they traded Dick Stuart, who was a major distraction for the team, despite his prodigious power.  Bennett was hurt and ineffective though.  The Phillies offered to undo the trade, but Boston, for some reason, decided not to.  The Red Sox were not the most well-run franchise in the game back then, and this is just one of the reasons why.