Rob Ellis, Mike Garman and Taylor Duncan

Giovanni at When Topps Had (Base) Balls has a great blog and has done an excellent job with "Missing In Action" cards of players that Topps missed out on. The link above goes to one of his blogs featuring Rob Ellis, who was a third baseman-outfielder for the Brewers in the 1970's.

His blog always sends me to Baseball Reference to look up the players involved, and, in checking Rob Ellis' entry, I found an uncharted move for Ellis from Cleveland's Tacoma club to Pittsburgh's Portland club in 1979.

Research found that move involved two other former major leaguers. From the Spokane Daily Chronicle of June 28, 1979...

“Outfielder Rob Ellis of the Tacoma Tugs has been acquired by the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League.”

“In exchange for the power-hitting righthander, the Beavers will give up infielder-designated hitter Taylor Duncan and relief pitcher Mike Garman.”

Neither Duncan's nor Garman's pages mention this trade.

So thank you to Giovanni (whose work on Rob Ellis appears below) and go check out his blog!

Garman from 75topps.blogspot.com

Duncan from www.baseball-almanac.com