Phillies Rookies - Ferguson Jenkins / Bill Sorrell

Winding down my cross-blog series on Phillies players from 1966-69. Only four to go after this card (one '68, one '69, two '70)...

This is the only Phillies Rookies card in the 1966 set (#254). It's the first card for both players, and also their only card as a Phillie.

For the two of you that have never heard this story, Ferguson Jenkins was traded to the Cubs in April 1966, and in 1967 began a string of many appearances on Topps cards as a Cub (coinciding with his string of 20-win seasons).  The rest is well-documented history.

Bill Sorrell was signed by the Phillies in 1959, and played 6 seasons (1960-65) in their system as a 2B-SS-3B-OF until making his major-league debut in September 1965. After another year on the farm, he was selected by the Giants in the Rule 5 draft after the '66 season. He showed up on a Giants Rookies card in 1967, played 18 early-season games with San Francisco, then was sent back to the Phillies in late June (resuming his minor-league career).

Except for 57 games with the 1970 Royals (and a solo card in the '71 set), Bill spent all of 1968-71 in the minors, followed by 2 seasons in Japan.

Sorrell passed away in 2008 at age 67.