The story behind the one-of-a-kind sunglasses-wearing Lowell Palmer

Lowell Palmer has become a cult idol among baseball card collectors -- though he wishes it was because of his performance on the field and not his signature specs.

He's been called "D.B. Cooper," for his resemblance to the mysterious plane hijacker from 1971 who disappeared and was never seen again. Given his sense of humor and joy at playing pranks, Palmer probably doesn't mind that comparison so much.

And while the front of his baseball cards were always notable for how he looked, the backs were perhaps even stranger as they gave small peeks into Palmer's life, featuring tales of P.I. work and days spent training pigeons.

Lowell Palmer is a truly one-of-a-kind person, with the one-of-a-kind card to match.

That he made it onto baseball cards and put together a five-year MLB career with Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland and San Diego from 1969-74 is all thanks to a powerful -- if wild -- right arm.

"In Little League, the parents got together and banned me from pitching," Palmer told me in a recent phone call. "You know those helmets we used to use? They weren’t helmets, they wrapped around your head on your ears -- I’m giving my age away, aren’t I? -- I hit one of those and I broke it in half. And the parents banned me from pitching in Little League."

Palmer loves to tell stories, often punctuating them with a sharp bark of a laugh or a world-weary grumble.

"I was at Dixieanne Park and a guy hit me a line drive," he said. "It bounced in front of me, I picked it up, I went to throw the guy out at home, and I threw it over the backstop into the street. I hit a car going down the street! I just had a good strong arm, but I never really found my control."

That would prove to be his undoing at the big league level. No matter all the velocity in the world, few pitchers can work around 5.7 walks per nine innings.

As for the sunglasses, though? That story is simple enough -- and it's not that Palmer thought he was cooler than everyone else. When it was time to get his photo taken, the photographer posed him so the sun would be shining on his face. But Palmer had an issue with his eyes, and so the sun always blinded him, requiring him to wear the shades out on the mound.

"'I can't do it. I can't see. There's no way I can keep my eyes open,'" Palmer said he told the photographer. "I'm tearing up and everything and I said, 'The only way I can do it, I'm putting these sunglasses on and then I can do it.' He said, 'OK, go ahead.' So, that's how the sunglasses got on there."

This was nothing new for Palmer, whose thick lenses (for seeing) had earned him the nickname "Coke bottles" from teammates. While it may have been a hassle when it came time for his baseball card photo, it made for a lot of fun against the opposition.

"I don't think [the sunglasses] gave me an advantage. What gave me an advantage is I’d drill 'em," he said with a laugh.

He shared a favorite story from when he was pitching in the Carolina League and teamed up with the clubhouse attendant to help put a scare into the opposition. The two would leave his glasses in the opposing team's dugout and watch with glee when they walked in.

"What are these? Whose are these?" someone on the other team would eventually ask.

"Oh, that's the guy who's pitching against you tonight," the attendant would say. "He left them here. I gotta get them to him."

So, Palmer would emerge from his dugout to warm-up, sans glasses. He'd toe the rubber and face ... second base.

"The clubhouse kid would start yelling at me. 'Hey! Turn around!'" Palmer remembered. "I scared the pants off half those guys."

Palmer simply thought life -- and baseball -- should be fun, something that's clearly still a priority in his life to this day.

"My reputation was that I was always laughing and smiling," Palmer said. "Most people said, 'You don't take baseball seriously. You're supposed to be stern about everything.' Hey, I don't like to lose -- and I'll tell you that. When I was throwing, I was a very serious ballplayer, but everybody thought I was kind of goofy because I would laugh out there."

As for the wild stories on the back of his cards -- and some that weren't on there -- let's let Palmer share the tales.

Raising pigeons

Palmer, who raised pigeons as a young boy while growing up in Sacramento, still has a deep love for the birds, fondly remembering how they would land on his outstretched arms when he let them out of the cage.

"When you're poor and you live in a house where everybody thinks there's nobody living in there, [of course you'll raise pigeons]," Palmer said. "I built a pigeon cage in the back and started raising on pigeons with my neighbor. We used to take them up to Reno or Tahoe and let them go and see if we could beat them home."

Unfortunately, not all the trips went well.

"We beat several of them home. They must have been the slowest damn pigeons in the world," Palmer said "Well, [one time] they never came home. Later on, we found out there was a place on the way back down there that had hawks and they just picked off the pigeons."

Private detective

Palmer had a pretty sweet gig, especially for a teenager: At the humble age of 13, Palmer began working at the nearby movie theater, quickly moving up from usher to the candy counter all the way to assistant manager. The theater's manager was a former detective, though, and wanted to get back into the investigations gig. So, when Palmer was 15, he was asked to help serve subpoenas.

"We'll tell you where they're at," the theater manager/private eye said, "and you go and give them [the paper] and you make sure you touch them."

"What do you mean I gotta touch them?" an alarmed Palmer asked.

"The paper," the manager replied, "just make sure the paper touches them and you say, 'You've been served."

Most of the cases were easy and people didn't have too much of an issue with the summons. But there's no story unless something happened at least once.

"Only one time was dangerous. Guy chases us with a knife," Palmer remembered. "But he was way too slow for us. Squirrels couldn't have caught us that day. But Ronnie, my partner in crime, we both went different directions. 'There's no way that guy's gonna catch either one of us!' The good days before baseball."

The Worst Home Run Trot

Not all of Palmer's best stories made it to the back of cards though. Because he was a pitcher, Topps never printed his batting stats, meaning card collectors never had statistical proof of Palmer's lone big league home run, which came on July 19, 1969, while facing the Cubs' Bill Hands. After swinging way late on a fastball and fouling off a slider, Palmer loaded up.

"He throws me a fastball. It was on the outside corner of the plate and I swung and just about took my shoes off," Palmer said. "I hit it and it was a line drive right at shortstop. Well, I just trotted a little bit because I said, 'He's gonna catch it.' And it went over his glove. So, I took off running like a jackrabbit. I hit first base. My helmet came flying off. I'm going to second, I look over at my coach, and he's got his hands up. I thought he was giving me the 'get down' sign!"

So, Palmer slid into second base -- thrilled to have just picked up his first big league hit. Cubs shortstop Don Kessinger then walked over to Palmer as the pitcher dusted himself off and said, "Hey, kid. You hit a home run."

"I looked at him and said, 'Oh bull!'" Palmer remembered. "I thought he was trying to get me to step off the base so he could tag me. I wouldn't get off the bag."

After finally being convinced that, no, he really had hit a home run, Palmer finished his trot around the bases.

"There was about 10 guys standing hopefully laughing their [butts] off. And here I hit a home run! I'm filthy, dirty, no helmet, and these guys are all laughing at home plate," Palmer said.

The option

Palmer saved perhaps his greatest, most baseball-flake story for the end: The day he was demoted to the Minor Leagues for dating Phillies manager Gene Mauch's daughter.

While staying at the Jack Tar Hotel in Clearwater, Fla., during Spring Training, Palmer noticed an attractive woman outside by the pool. After making an introduction, the two started talking. Palmer said that he was there looking for a job, while the young woman admitted she was on vacation with her father. So, before Palmer left, they made plans to meet that evening to catch a movie.

Ah, the makings of a classic rom-com mixup.

Dressing to impress, Palmer put on a nice shirt and white pants -- a perfect Florida outfit -- and picked up some snacks and sodas for the two of them. Before the picture began, they talked a little more, with Palmer joking that he was a "big baseball player" with the Phillies.

"I love the Phillies. I'm from Philadelphia," she responded. "My Dad is your manager!"

"My legs closed around the Coke between my legs," Palmer squealed. "I had white pants with Coke all up and down them."

Despite learning this information, Palmer didn't end the night early. After the movie ended, the two went for a walk down the beach and rented a little boat to row out onto the water. Well, the two enjoyed each other's company a little too much to focus on the current. Eventually, Palmer looked up and realized that he could no longer see the lights from the beach. They had drifted out.

Palmer started rowing as fast as he could, eventually reaching the sand about a half-mile from where they needed to return the boat.

"I'm dragging this boat all the way down the beach," Palmer said. "We don't get back [to the hotel] 'til three o'clock. Guess who's sitting in the lobby? Mr. Gene Mauch."

The clearly displeased father and manager didn't do much that night. "I'll see you at eight o'clock," is all Mauch told Palmer.

"Anyway, about a week later, I was gone," Palmer said. "[Mauch] said, 'This is not because you went out with my daughter, this is the way the whole organization feels.'

Palmer gives a little grunt, amused and still perturbed after all these years. "Yeah, right!"