Tim Wallach Golf Tournament Vest

This item showed up on eBay a few weeks ago. I went ahead and placed a bid and ended up being the only bidder.  So now there is one more piece of clothing that I'll likely never wear in my house.  I don't mind, it's sort of cool, and I may pass it along to my father who golfs daily.

I had never heard of the "Tim Wallach Golf Tournament" affiliated with Cal St.-Fullerton, and the auction details weren't of much help either.  A google search though resulted in this article discussing the 2010 edition of the "annual event" (I'm not sure if it's still a thing).

Here's the description of the event from the article: 

Golfers looking for a tournament that offers a day of contest excitement and benefits a worthy cause can consider the May 17 Tim Wallach Golf Tournament and Auction sponsored by the Titan Athletics Club. The annual event is a fundraiser for the athletics program and student athletes.

I'm somewhat surprised I'd never seen one of these pop up on eBay before.  Then again, maybe this was the only year they gave away branded merch.  In any event, this one can be added to the archives.

1979 College World Series Patch

I found this patch on ebay recently.  If it's legitimate, and not something someone had produced last week, it's a patch from the 1979 College World Series.  Tim Wallach won the Golden Spikes Award as the Nation's top amatuer player in 1979 while leading Cal-St. Fullerton to a National Championship in Omaha.  The patch measures about 1.5'' x 3''.  If anyone can confirm (or discredit) whether this patch is in fact from the '79 Series, please let me know.  Thank you.

For now, it'll take it's place alongside the limited number of other Fullerton items I have in my collection.

1979 College World Series Ticket Stub (Semi-Final vs. Pepperdine)

This is a ticket stub from the 1979 College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.  It's is my first legitimate "collectable" for Wallach's time at Fullerton.  I've come across some photographs (few and far between), and have some throwback Titan's hats purchased from the Fullerton Bookstore, but this is the first item I've acquired actually from that time.

It's rather shocking to me how little there is available from the 1979 World Series.  When I started looking, I figured, at a minimum, programs and scorecards would be very easy to come by, with shirts, pins, etc being pretty easy to find as well.  They aren't.  I've even go so far as to write the University and ask if they have photo's or anything else, and received no reply.  So this ticket was really a nice find, and will very shortly be making it's way into a frame as one of the center pieces of my collection.

"Session No. 9" was what you could loosely call a "semi-final" game between Cal-St. Fullerton and Pepperdine.  Given the double elimination format used in Omaha, it's not a true bracket with two semi's, Arkansas had already secured a spot in the Championship game and this game was for the right to play them.  Fullerton beat Pepperdine 8-5 in the game this ticket stub is from, and went on to beat Arkansas 2-1 to win the National Title in only their 5th year as a Division 1  program.  Wallach was named to the All-Tournament Team.

This is great, short little video on the 1979 Series:






Here's  picture of the ticket to give you a better idea of it's size

Throwback Cal-St. Fullerton Hat

I've never posted a hat on this blog.  That's not to say I don't have a a good number of hats for no other reason than Wallach wore a similar one for a team at some point in his career, but that alone doesn't make them a "Wallach item" in my book.  I'm making an exception for this one.  Because, as you can see above, the description specifically mentions Wallach.

I'm a hat person.  I own lots of hats.  If I'm not in my office, I'm typically wearing a hat.  I also have a large head.  As such, I almost exclusively buy fitted hats.  I wear a 7 1/2 or 7 5/8 depending on the brand, style, and just slight variances that exists within the same hat.  Because of my rather large head, I typically stay clear of snap-back hats.  They just don't fit right when you have to put them on one of the largest settings.  This one fits ok, but not well enough to go into my regular rotation.

In addition to being a fan of hats, I am an even bigger fan of College Baseball.  I love College Baseball, and have since I was kid.  Coming from a Syracuse family, I was sort of a free agent, free to root for whatever school I chose as SU didn't (and still doesn't) have a baseball team.  Fullerton was one of my favorites, along with Maine (only legitimate northeast power), Arizona State, and Wichita State.  I still root for CSFU, ASU, and Maine.  Wichita State, not so much (they upset SU in Basketball in 2007, and I was done with them after that).  I always loved that much like hockey, smaller schools who didn't excel in other D1 sports could be baseball powers.  For my money, The Big West is still the best conference in baseball.

As far as mesh, snap-back hats go, this one is very well made.  The material seems well constructed, and it has a lot of nice little touches, such as "The Game" embroidered under the bill.  I've only been able to find one photo of Wallach wearing this style of Fullerton cap, and from picture I can't tell if it was a mesh, snap-back or not.  Take a look.

 

Most photos of Wallach at Fullerton, show him wearing the pin-wheel style "F" cap.  

I've got one of those too.  I really like the Fullerton stuff, and would love to pick up a Wallach Titan's jersey in that '79 style, but as far as I can tell they don't exists.  I keep checking the Fullerton bookstore website periodically none the less.

1989 Topps Big #215

Card Review: 7.4 Of the Topps Big sets, I like this one the best.  Which isn't necesarily a ringing endorsement.  It's probably more aptly phrased as, I dislike this one the least.  The size is still an obvious drawback, but this one as the closest feel to the '56 set, which these Topps Big sets borrowed (stole) heavily from.

  It looks like Wallach is wearing braces in the photo.  I don't know what that's about.  Also on the back, the card incorrectly states that Wallach played at Arizona State.  He played at Cal-St. Fullerton, was the 1979 Golden Spike Award winner, and led the Titans a National Championship.

Number of this card in my collection: 3 
2012 update: 6
2014 update: 9
2015 update: 13
2016 update: 15
2017 update: n/a
2018 update: n/a
2019 update: 16

2020 update: 18

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: n/a

2023 update: 19

2024 update: 21