Chuck Murray? (continued)
 

I thought it could be Murray at first when I saw that minor league card, but the eyes seem very different...eyes wide opened on this one while on the 2 Topps pictures...

On the other Topps image, on the "flap" of his shoe, there is a name written on it. Could be Murray, but also Morris, or...

Blowing up the shoe, it looks very much like "Morris" to me. I could see someone else seeing "Murray", but that last letter looks awful "s" like to me.

This is one I'll just wait for Topps on.

Morris Murray
 

Very nice detective work that runs into two tiny problems. There was no pitcher - indeed no player - named Morris in the Royals system between their founding in 1969 and 1976, by which time the flannel grays would have long since been retired. There's also no record of a Rule V guy named Morris spending a spring training with KC in the flannel era and being returned to his previous club.

And - our friend Chuck Murray was in camp and on the roster with KC in '72, which from the location and the lighting is the likeliest year of the photos.

Chuck Murray
 

Here is another known Chuck Murray exemplar. This is a photo by John Spears. It shows him with the Omaha Royals. It looks to me like the same player as in the two Topps Vault photos.

Merkle is correct that Chuck Murray was on the KC Royals' spring roster in 1972. He was also on the Twins' spring roster in 1968 and was a NRI to the Twins' camp in 1967 (see second photo).

Jim Boudreau
 

Pitcher Jim Boudreau is the son of Lou Boudreau. He is shown here in the uniform of the Charlotte Orioles. He was a non-roster invitee to the Baltimore Orioles' spring camp in 1986.

Douglas Nelson
 

From the most recent Topps Vault folder: This is a Lefthanded pitcher, career minor leaguer. Draft in the 1973 2nd round by the Pirates. Played with Pittsburgh's farm teams from 1973 to 1978.

Per Topps, Chuck Murray it is.

(and what he's doing in Morris' shoes, I'll never know ;))

Ronald Rozman
 

Pitcher Ron Rozman was on the Detroit Tigers' spring roster in 1958. He died on September 5, 2015.

Tito Nanni
 

Career minor leaguer, Mariners 79-84, Angels and Blue Jays 85. Was caught by Topps at the Cubs training camp in 1985, for whom he never played, even in the minors.

From Wikipedia: "In 1985, Nanni spent spring training with the Chicago Cubs and on March 22, he was reassigned to their minor league camp.[11] On April 2, before the start of the season, Nanni was traded to the California Angels for pitcher Ángel Moreno.[12] California then assigned Nanni to the Double-A Midland Angels of the Texas League. He batted .263 with 44 hits, 6 doubles, and 4 home runs in 53 games with Midland that season. Nanni later wound-up in the Toronto Blue Jays organization where he was assigned to the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs. He finished out the 1985 season with the Chiefs batting .200 with 12 hits, 3 doubles, 1 triple, and 1 home run in 18 games"

Tito Nanni (His Legacy)
 

Also from Wikipedia:

"Alan Schwarz, special reporter to ESPN.com, rated Nanni as the worst #6 baseball draft pick of all-time, and claimed that Jerry Krause, a scout for the Mariners at the time of the draft, insisted the Mariners pick Kirk Gibson.[13] On June 5, 2006, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named Nanni was the worst pick of all-time made by the Mariners citing the fact that they could have chosen Ryne Sandberg, Cal Ripken, Jr., Kirk Gibson or Dave Stieb, all of whom were in the same draft and were selected after Nanni.[14] Larry Stone, writer for The Seattle Times, described Nanni and players Stone claimed were like Nanni, including Bucky Jacobsen, Jim Maler, and Paul McAnulty, as "...guys that can hit the ball a mile, that put up tremendous minor-league statistics, but for some reason or another...can't make their mark in the major leagues.

Tito Nanni
 

In fairness Gibson went 11th and picks 6-10 in this draft never made the majors. Nanni put up "O.K" stats in the minors and showed some good speed stealing 32 bases in 1982 at AA and he also spent 2 seasons with the Mariners AAA club.

The Cubs pic is great because he went to ST with them in 1985 but was sent to the Angels before the season started. His career ended after 18 games with the Jays AAA team in 1985. He now works in Utah as an Account Manager at Central Transport

Charlie Nail 1979-85
 

A misidentification from a current Topps Vault auction. They list this as "Charlie Neal, 1983."

In fact, it's a powerhouse right-hander out of Michigan with the singular name of Charlie Nail who managed an ERA under 4.00 in only two of his six full seasons.

Charlie Nail Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

Still...Charlie NAIL.

Bob Nemcek 1971 and the olde english D
 

A couple days ago, Topps Vault posted this pitcher as Bob Nemcek. There is only one Nemcek, listed on BB Ref site, and Robert he is. Taken by the Tigers in the 1971 June Amateur Draft in the 11th Round. Also in 1971, at the tender age of 18, he played his lone year of pro Baseball with the Tigers farm teams in Rookie Ball (Bristol, 10 games, 2-1, 4,66 ERA) and in A level (Batavia, 7 games, 0-0, 4,15 ERA).

Two questions.

Since he was not in training camp in 1971, Topps must have photographed him at the 1972 spring training. I find it hard to believe that he was invited to camp with the kind of stats he had the previous year in very low ball. And he never played pro ball again! The pitcher seems to be 18-19 years old, but....

Secondly, he his wearing the ultra new 1972 Tigers away uni (orange stripes), but...with the olde english D instead of the usual Detroit script??? I have a lot of Tigers pics, TV and others, but never have seen that uni. Also, the white olde english D on his cap seems to be a square patch sewn on it. Anybody have a clue on this??? Thanks.

Nemcek and Vache Bahadurian
 

Alright, spitballing here. That "D" on the cap looks like how I used to do my transformations before I found the software (and the skill) to do it better. Just cut out a little square of the emblem on someone else's cap and place it over the existing emblem on this player's cap. It's easier than airbrushing. Easy peasy. Of course it looks like crap unless you blend it in. While I can't find any pictures of players at Bristol or Batavia during the time frame, later images of Bristol players show them frequently wearing an Olde English "D" uni and an Olde English "B" hat. The Olde English "B" unis they also wore (in the 80s and 90s) only have the one spike on the left, not two. But, from what I've seen of the Batavia unis, they always went with the single letter rather than a "Batavia" or "Trojans" script (at least until they became the "Muckdogs").

Anyway, because I can, here's an image of Vache Bahadurian from 1969 in full Detroit regalia, taken at Bristol's Randolph Field. Obviously, Bob's picture wasn't taken there (as evidenced by the palm trees on his picture). But he might still have been waring a "B" cap or perhaps an Instructional League cap (B-R has no FIL stats for '71-'72, but the Tigers did have a team there at the time). The picture of Vache is from an article written by Tim Hayes in the Bristol Herald Courier. There are no additional credits on the photo itself.

Zane Grey; Yes That Zane Grey
 

Surprised his picture has not been posted before. Zane Pearl Grey played a couple of years in the minors without much success. He had better success as an author, mostly of westerns but he wrote some baseball stories, too. This picture was labeled as 1895, University of Pennsylvania uniform.

Mike Nunn
 

For those who criticize the Mets for choosing Steve Chilcott over Reggie Jackson, I give you Mike Nunn, a first round draft pick of the California Angels in 1967. The connection? Left-hand hitting catchers. If you're a lefty hitting catcher, you're going to be seen as a greater commodity than an outfielder. Of course, being a left-hand hitting catcher only pays off if you, you know, can hit. Nunn spent most of his career below the Mendoza line and finished just above it at .209. He spent his final season of 1972 in the Yankees' system and he was out of baseball at age 24. He looks older than his years in this Topps Vault shot. A few picks earlier in the same draft, the Senators took Johnny Jones, another lefty hitting catcher who would've killed to be as good as Nunn. Jones hit just .150 over his 4 year career, never advancing beyond Class A and out of the game at just 21. Taken just after Nunn was a switch-hitting catcher named Ted Simmons. He, at least, panned out. Dave Rader, another lefty hitting catcher, was also a first round pick that year.

Bob Nemcek
 

Not that hard to figure out. The photo is clearly taken at the Tigers' spring training camp in Lakeland and has the double-knits not adopted by Detroit until 1972. Conclusion: those are the Tigers' minor leaguers spring training uniforms from 1972.

You see a lot of this with, say, Yankees spring training and pinstripes that read "Yankees" instead of bearing the "NY" logo.

As a PS - also, while the shirt would at first glance seem to belong to a later era, Nemcek's glove screams 1972.

Bob Nash 1964-67
 

Nash, shown in camp with the Phillies in 1966, was a power-hitting outfielder who never overcame a series of injuries.

Robert Nash Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

The Mets not only selected him out of the Red Sox system after the 1964 season but showed him in their '65 yearbook. And Nash's own website claims he was a major league player who spent all of that season on the Mets' roster (although I can't find independent confirmation of that, it's notable that he was neither returned to Boston nor lost on waivers, so technically he might be right - a man who spent a full major league season on his team's disabled list, without ever getting into an MLB game).

Ah, finally a subject where I absolutely know what happened.

The Mets, as you say, drafted Bob from the Red Sox in the "first year" phase of the Rule V draft in November 1964. But, early in the spring of 1965, it turned out Bob had to have season ending knee surgery. The Mets put him on the DL and kept him there. However, come the end of April, the Mets had to free up room on the 40-man in order to activate Yogi Berra. At that time, there was no such thing as a 60-day DL (or any DL slot that allowed an injured player to not count against the 40-man; not counted against the 25, yes, but still counted as part of the 40). Since Nash was out for the year, the Mets thought maybe they could sneak him through waivers. They couldn't. The Phils plucked him away and he spent the rest of the season on Philly's DL (once they'd cleared a 40-man spot for him). So, basically, Bob DID spend the entire 1965 campaign as a major leaguer (albeit a disabled one).

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ultimate Sharman Society player. An entire year in the majors and not a single appearance in a single game. Alright, so maybe he doesn't fit the Sharman qualifications. He never "suited up" nor sat on the bench. Still pretty neat, though, huh?

Sadly, Bob's knee problems never went away and he was soon out of baseball.

Here's a clip from the Jamestown Post-Journal of April 28, 1965 that details the waiver sale of Nash to the Phils, though much of it is inaccurate (Wellsville being a Red Sox affiliate, not a Mets affiliate, for one). Sloppy work, UPI.

Actually the ultimate Sharmanite is a pitcher named Joel Gibson, who spent all of 1964 on the Phillies' DL after a car accident, AND spent all of '65 on the White Sox DL. Pitched in a few exhibition games. Never in a real one.