[Merkle923]

Well this was a surprise. One of the greatest of the white whales, hiding in plain sight. And he's been hiding there since 1971, while so many of us have been putting him on our wanted lists.

Wally Wolf was signed by the Houston Colt .45s before the big league team took the field. He appeared on two Topps rookie cards (using the same colorized Houston head shot) in 1963 and 1970, and in six games as an Angels' reliever late in 1969 and early in 1970.

There are several Colt head shots, a minor league Padres publicity photo, a minor league team picture in which he's included. But I had never seen a photo of him with the Angels (or thought I hadn't) until tonight when I did a search connected with the Greg Garrett post above. That search turned up the 1971 Dell Stamp purporting to show Garrett and even though I bought that set when it came out it had never dawned on me that the stamp showed a righty but Garrett was a lefty.

In a casual check to see who "Garrett" really was, I noticed there's a short name on the pitcher's glove and it appears to begin with a "W." I compared the "Garrett" to the Wolfs in my file and it's a 100% match.

A color Wally Wolf/Angels, at Yankee Stadium no less! It fits; he was sent to the minors on May 16, 1970 and was with California when they visited the Yankees on April 28-29-30.

I've cleaned up one of the Dell stamps and attach it, the original, and a couple of the known Wolfs to confirm the match. It's so clearly him that his uneven smile appears in both the 1964 Houston press guide photo of Wolf, and the Wolf/Garrett stamp.

Amazing.