1959 Taylor, Nitschke, Version 2.0

I've been making custom baseball and football cards for about 10 years now. (Some day I'll have to try to figure out exactly when I made my first cards.)

 Most of my earliest efforts were in the format of the 1955 Topps All-American college football cards, a favorite set from my childhood.

Among the first cards I created in a different format were a trio of 1959 Topps-style Green Bay Packers cards for Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke and and an "All-Star Rookies" card featuring the two together.

I was moved to make those cards by acquiring a 1959 Green Bay Packers program that included black-and-white photos of Taylor and Nitschke in their College All-Star Game uniforms.

Topps had issued a Jim Taylor card in its 1959 set, but it pictured the wrong Jim Taylor. Instead of the Packers fullback, Topps used a photo of a Chicago Cardinals center-linebacker of the same name. That Taylor was out of the NFL by 1959. Topps repeated the wrong-photo fiasco in its 1960 set. They got it right in 1961 and thereafter.

Nitschke was never in Topps' 1959 set. He didn't get on a Topps card until 1963.

When I put together my '59 Packers cards, my computer skills were not what they are today. I think the colorizing went OK, but in picking up the Packers' photos from that program, I also picked up a fairly noticeable dot-pattern from the halftones. 

I hadn't yet learned how to use the Gaussian blur filter in Photoshop Elements, so when I printed the cards, the prominent dot pattern on the player photos was distracting.

A few years back I found a better rookie-year photo of Nitschke and created a new version of a '59 style card. Don't you think the All-Star Game portrait of Nitschke looks like Woody Harrelson?

I didn't get around to doing a remake of my '59 Jim Taylor until the other day when a collector requested an example of each of my Green Bay Packers football card creations. Frankly I felt a bit abashed at the contrast in quality between by original '59 Taylor and the other Packers cards I have made since then.

So I determined to reissue my 1959 Taylor. 

Surprisingly, early-NFL career photos of Taylor are not all that plentiful. However, I did spot a posed action shot that immediately put me in mind of Lew Carpenter's 1959 Topps card and I knew I had found what I needed.

The photo required colorizing and I dithered a bit about whether to go with the blue-and-gold uniform that Carpenter wears on his '59 card, or the black-and-gold that most of the other Packers are shown wearing.
Figuring that the blue jerseys were obsolete by the time the photos were taken for the 1959 cards, I opted to go with the black. 

I'm much more satisfied with this version of a "corrected" 1959-style Jim Taylor card.

I'll be sending a copy to the fellow who bought the Packer package. If you've ever purchased one of my "old" Taylor or Nitschke cards and would like an update, send me the old card and I'll get you the new one. You can send it to me at P.O. Box 8, Iola, WI 54945.

'52T style custom card for Duke Markell

It's no surprise that Duke Markell didn't have a major league baseball card; he pitched in only five September games with the last-place St. Louis Browns in 1951.

Because I found his career to be interesting, I made him the subject of my most recent custom card, produced in the style of 1952 Topps.

While Markell's major league days were unremarkable, he did enjoy a lengthy and successful career pitching in the high minors.

Markell was the only French-born player in the major leagues between 1915-78. He was born in Paris in 1923 as Harry Duquesne Makowsky; his parents brought him to America as a seven-year-old.

Duke grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. Probably because he shared his Jewish heritage, Markell's favorite ballplayer gowing up was Hank Greenberg. I read somewhere that Markell was one of the neighborhood kids that shagged batting practice balls for Greenberg.

Markell served with the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II. He began his pro ball career in 1945, spending three years with N.Y. Giants farm teams in the lower classifications. 

In only his second start as a pro, Markell pitched the first of his three minor league no-hitters with Hickory in the Class D North Carolina State League. Still in Class D, in 1947 he set an Eastern Shore League record with 274 strikeouts in 249 innings for Seaford.

The next season Markell was in the Philadelphia Phillies chain, where he spent the 1948-49 seasons, rising as high as Class A ball with Utica in the Eastern League. He set another league record in 1948 with Schenectady in the Canadian-American League, striking out 270 in 250 innings, including 21 in a game against Rome.

Markell won 19 games in 1950 with Portsmouth in the Piedmont League (Class B). He jumped to AA ball for 1951 with Tulsa in the Texas League and had a 13-19 record before he was called up by the Browns.

For 1952 the Browns returned Markell to the highest level of the minors, Class AAA, in the International League, where was 14-8 with Toronto. He led the IL that season with 120 strikeouts.

After the season he was traded to the New York Yankees for Bobo Holloman and $35,000. The Yankees assigned him to Syracuse in the International League for 1953. His record that season was 11-17, but he pitched his second professional no-hitter on Aug. 3, defeating Toronto, and came within one K of leading the league with 155 strikeouts.

Markell remained in the International League into the 1957 season, with Syracuse (Yankees/Phillies) in 1953-54 and Rochester (Cardinals) 1954-57. With Rochester in 1955, he pitched his third career no-hitter on April 29, beating Columbus.

He closed out his professional career with Indianapolis and Charleston of the American Association.

It's too bad that to maintain the illustion of a 1952 card, I couldn't mention on my custom creation that Markell was a New York City policeman. He joined the NYPD in 1953, and for five years would play a full season of pro ball, then walk a beat until spring training. Following his baseball days, Markell became a full-time cop in New York in 1958. 

He died in Florida in 1984.

Besides my '52-style custom,  Markell had a "real"  baseball card in the 1952 Canadian Parkhurst set while with Toronto. He's also appeared on at least one modern collectors' issue card, in the Jewish Major Leaguers set of 2003.

Happy hundredth, Coach Lombardi

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vince Lombardi.


I take this occasion to show off a custom card I made some years ago as part of my series of 1955 Topps All-American style college cards.

When Lombardi was shepherding the Green Bay Packers from NFL doormats to dynasty, I didn't appreciate the man or his mission. At that time he represented all that I loathed about the "establishment."

I highly recommend the TV special Lombardi's Legacy that is replaying tonight on ESPN2 at 9 p.m. (Eastern). 

"Hard luck" stifled Shinners' big league career

One of Ralph Shinners' few baseball
cards is this 1922 E120 American Caramel.

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

Early in 1948, former N.Y. Giants outfielder Ralph Shinners was named road secretary for the Milwaukee Brewers, at that time a team in the Class AA American Association.

Shinners was a Milwaukee hometown favorite. He had played college ball at Marquette University, and to this day is the only former Warrior to have played major league ball.

In announcing Shinners’ appointment to the Brewers’ staff, The Sporting News ran a feature story by Sam Levy, the dean of Milwaukee baseball writers in that era. The article’s headline called Shinners the “Hard-Luck Guy of the Majors.” The angle was that Shinners had been denied a significant major league career by a run of bad luck that began in his rookie season.

Shinners had gone from Marquette right to the highest level of minor league baseball, joining the Indianapolis Indians (American Association) in 1920. He played 111 games that season, and in 1921, batted .346 and stole 70 bases.

Shinners was exceptionally fast for what was, at that time, a big man. He was 6' tall and played at 180 lbs.

Personally scouted by manager John McGraw, Shinners was purchased by the Giants for, depending on which source you believe, $65,000 and three players (1948 Sporting News) or $25,000 and four players (1922 N.Y. Times).

Let’s pick up the story as it ran in TSN . . .

            Shinners was a hard-luck guy. In 1922, his first year with the Giants, he was beaned in mid-season by Pitcher George Smith of the Phillies.

            “I was hitting around .390 at the time,” [actually, he was batting .282] Shinners recalls, “when I was knocked out of commission with a slight concussion. McGraw never forgave Smith for that. Some time later, when the Phils played us at the Polo Grounds, McGraw sent Smith a note: ‘Meet me back of the clubhouse after we knock you out of the box in the seventh inning.’ Sure enough, the Giants chased Smith in the seventh. McGraw headed for the battle site and told me to follow him a minute later, “because I may need some help.”

            ‘When I reached the battle ground, Smith and McGraw were sparring. Then I stepped in. I landed one punch and knocked Smith to the ground. That ended the fight.”

            "McGraw was a great guy," adds Shinners. Although he was farmed to Toledo after he recovered from the beaning, Ralph, through McGraw’s efforts, received a full World Series cut.       

            In 1923, when he rejoined the Giants, Shinners was again stalked by hard luck through a pennant-winning campaign.

            “I became ill in Cincinnati just after we clinched the pennant there and McGraw sent me back to New York to rest. I had Pleurisy, typhoid fever and the flu. The day the World Series opened the Giants players received word in the clubhouse before the game that I had died. I was unconscious for 21 days. No visitors were allowed in my hospital room.

            “The day the World’s Series ended, McGraw sneaked up the fire escape to my room. He brought me a dozen autographed baseballs and my World’s Series check for $4,500. Before he left, he said: ‘Keep fighting, boy, I’m figuring on you for my center fielder next year.’"

            “McGraw sailed for Europe that night. He wrote me from England: ‘You’ve had a run of tough luck since I bought you. We’ll win the championship again next year. Even if you don’t play a single inning, you’ll stay with my club.’”

            And Shinners was with the Giants the following season and collected another World’s Series check. [Levy was mistaken. Shinners was sent to Toledo in the American Association for the 1924 season].

            “There was only one John McGraw, a great guy and a great manager,” concluded Shinners.

In 1925 Shinners returned to the National League with the Cardinals, but not before suffering another bit of bad luck. In a spring training game in March he sprained his ankle and wasn't able to play (other than three pinch-hit appearances) for most of the first month of the season.

He was sent down to the Pacific Coast League in 1926 and spent six more seasons in the high minors, batting over .300 in three of those years. 

In 1947, Shinners was manager for the Kenosha Comets of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. He served as the Brewers traveling secretary for a couple of seasons. He died of a heart attack in 1962 at the age of 66.

            

Triple home plate wedding for 1949 Cats

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

Four members of the Ft. Worth Cats were married at home plate at La Grave Field on Aug.21, 1950, in what was believed to have been an unprecedented baseball nuptials extravaganza.

 With three different ministers – Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran – and a district judge performing separate ceremonies, the ballplaying bridegrooms and their betrothed were: pitcher John Rutherford and Martha Jo Day of Dayton, Tenn., second baseman Joe Torpey and Marilee Cook of Pueblo, Colo., shortstop Russ Rose and Patricia Ann Thayer of Van Nuys, Calif., and third baseman Don Hoak and Phyllis Warner of Coudersport, Pa.

Probably with financial aid provided by the several national magazines, including Life, and newsreels that covered the event, the four brides-to-be were flown to Ft. Worth for the quadruple ceremony.

A Cats fans’ committee that was organized to make the arrangements and provide for gifts suitably decorated the recently constructed La Grave Field with a reported $980 worth of flowers, an altar, a carpeted aisle from the pitcher’s mound to home plate and other suitable touches.

The benedicts’ teammates served as ushers while the team president, manager, assistant manager and a local sports writer served as best men.

More than 60 of the couples’ friends and relatives traveled to Ft. Worth from six states to witness the ceremonies. They were joined by 9,817 fans. Music was provided by the La Grave Field organist, male and female soloists and the nationally famous 21-voice Denton Civic Boys Choir.

Gifts from more than 100 donors included cash, Savings Bonds, household utensils and groceries.

Following the vows, the grooms changed from their tuxedos into their uniforms and defeated Oklahoma City 6-4. Pitcher John Rutherford did not appear in the game. Second baseman Torpey got a hit and an RBI in four trips, handling four chances in the field perfectly. Rose, at shortstop, made three sparkling plays, though failing to hit in two official plate appearances. Hoak played errorless ball at third base and was 2-for-4 at the plate.

Don Hoak's 1950 home plate wedding didn't "take."
In 1961 he married former teenage pop star Jill Corey.

Melillo predicted Veeck's midget batter two years earlier

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

I found an interesting story in the March 30, 1949, issue of The Sporting News that almost certainly had some connection to Bill Veeck’s use of midget pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel two years later.

Cleveland Plain Dealer sports writer Gordon Cobbledick was reporting from the Indians’ spring training site in Tucson.

The crux of the article was about a wager between Indians coach Oscar Melillo and Satchel Paige.

Paige had only recently arrived in camp, two weeks later than the rest of the pitchers. With the permission of manager Lou Boudreau, the ageless Paige had been conditioning on his own at Hot Springs, Ark.

When Melillo first encountered Paige he said (I’d guess Cobbledick took some liberties in quoting the parties involved), “I hear you got control.”

“Man, you didn’t hear no lie,” Paige was quoted as replying.

After a bit more back and forth, with some kibitzing from other players, a wager was proposed by Melillo that Paige couldn’t throw eight of ten pitches for a strike.

Paige scoffed when a catcher’s shin guard was placed in the outfield to serve as a substitute home plate. “I c’n throw a thousand outa a thousand over that big old thing,” he was quoted. “Put a baseball cap down there. That’s all the plate old Satch needs.”

The writer went on to recount how Paige repeatedly hit the mark with both fast balls and curves, until he had run the count to seven strikes and two balls.

Then Melillo said, “You’re in trouble. You’re in bad trouble. Because you want to know why? Because the other ball club just sent in a pinch-hitter. A midget. He’s only this big,” the coach said dropping to his knees. “To make it worse, he hits from a crouch. You only got about six inches between his shoulders and his knees.”

Cobbledick then picked up the action, “(Paige) tied his long body into a tortured knot and as he unwound his whip-like arm came down. Then it halted suddenly in the familiar pattern of Paige’s famous hesitation pitch. Then it resumed its motion and the ball left the black hand and whizzed across the cap.”

Serving as umpire, catcher Jim Hegan called, “Strike!”

Paige won the Coke that had been wagered, but Melillo may have painted a scenario that would become baseball history.

Broken neck didn't keep Limmer out of majors

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

You’d think a broken neck would be a career-ending injury, but for Lou Limmer it was just a bump in the road on his fast rise through the minor leagues on his way to a modest two-year  major league career.

Limmer, from the Bronx, was signed by Philadelphia out of Manhattan School of Aviation. He began his professional career in the North Carolina State League in 1946-47, before being promoted to Lincoln in 1948.

In a late-August game at Lincoln in the Class A Western League, Limmer slid into third base. He was rising to his knees when the third baseman took the throw from first then stepped awkwardly across the bag, striking Limmer’s head with his knee.

Limmer later told teammates, “Everything went black for just a second, but there wasn’t much pain. What scared me was that I was temporarily blind. I remembered everything else, even being lifted onto the stretcher.”

Limmer spent three weeks with his broken neck in traction and another three weeks in a cast. At the time of his injury Limmer was leading the Western League with 28 home runs. While Limmer laid in a hospital bed, Carl Sawatski, on the final night of the season, captured the home run title, setting a modern league record with 29.

Limmer returned the next season as Lincoln’s first baseman. He batted .315 for the A's, with 29 home runs in 1949. Philadelphia put him on their 1950 roster, but in a move that was very unusual for the time, optioned him to St. Paul, a Brooklyn Dodgers farm team in the Class AAA American Association.

Limmer was vying for playing time with the Dodgers’ own Danny Ozark, and became an early-season sensation.

In his first game with the Saints he had a 5-for-5 day at Kansas City, including a home run. He continued to hit well through the end of May, batting .373 with five home runs and 23 RBI.

Though he continued to hit well through the season, Limmer seemed jinxed at his home field, Lexington Park. Purely a pull hitter, Limmer was unable to slug home runs at home, where the right field fence was 375 feet from home, and up a 10-foot embankment, besides. It was August 10 when he hit his first home run in St. Paul; at that point in the season he had 22 home runs on the road.

Limmer’s first home homer was not without suffering, however. The 400-ft. drive over the scoreboard came one pitch after he had fouled a pitch off his ankle.

The jinx also affected his base hitting, as the season neared its end, he was hitting .366 on the road, but only .202 at home. He looked forward to eventually making the A’s roster, as the right field fence at Shibe Park was only 331 feet down the line.

Limmer spent all of  1950 at St. Paul, as he was not eligible for recall until the end of the season. He hit .277 for the season. For his success at St. Paul, Limmer was named the American Association Rookie of the Year.

The parent club recognized Limmer's big year in the high minors and gave him a major league berth, though it was mostly a spot on the bench behind Ferris Fain, who hit a league-leading .344 that year. Limmer batted just .159 at the big-league level in 1951.

He returned to the minor leagues with Ottawa in the AAA International League for all of 1952-53.

He was called back up to the A's for 1954 and hit .231 with a respectable 14 home runs. 

When the A's brought up Vic Power for 1955, it spelled the end of Limmer's major league days. He continued to play in the high minors through the 1958 season. 

Though Limmer appeared in both the Topps and Bowman
card sets in 1955, he didn't make the move
to Kansas City with the A's that year.

Are Babe's clubs still on the wall?

I don't know if the golf course is still in business, or if it is whether Babe Ruth's clubs are still displayed there, but a year after the Babe's death, the Bayside Golf Club in Queens announced plans to display his driver and putter in the clubhouse.

In the “Caught on the Fly” column.of the Aug. 24, 1949, Sporting News, it was reported . . . 

            "The driver and putter used by Babe Ruth when he played at the Bayside Golf Club on Long Island, N.Y., will be framed and hung in the clubhouse. The other golf sticks that the late Yankee slugger left at the club when illness forced him to relinquish the game were given to First Baseman Johnny Mize of the Giants at the request of Mrs. Ruth."