Bob Spence's Glasses for Lowell Palmer's Shades

Sometimes I just look up a random player and see where it leads me. This time it was Bob Spence, a first baseman for the White Sox in the early 1970s.

Spence goes from the White Sox minor league system to the Phillies by the start of 1972, and there are no transactions for that listed on his Baseball Reference major league page.

I found an article with an interview with Spence that talked about him coming to Eugene from the Sox to take the place of Greg Luzinski, who had been called up to the majors.

Looking further, I found this article from the Oct. 17, 1971 Schenectady Gazette which had this in an AP note:

"The Chicago White Sox traded first baseman Bob Spence and pitcher Don Bolte to the Philadephia Phillies Tuesday for relief pitcher Lowell Palmer."

That would put the date of the trade as Oct. 16, 1971.

Lowell Palmer is well known as "the guy with the sunglasses" on all his Topps cards. His Baseball Reference major league page has the following to explain his move from the Phillies to the White Sox:

"October 22, 1971: Purchased by the Chicago White Sox from the Philadelphia Phillies."

And now we know better.

Don Bolte  was a teenaged rookie ball pitcher who only played in 1971.

Palmer pic from Amazon and Topps; Spence pic stolen from Flickr.