Bob Lemke's Blog

Rare 19th Century autograph found

2012-01-30T13:13:00.000-06:00

While organizing a collection of vintage stocks and bonds, I came across a 1921 stock certificate for the Lawson Airplane Company, Milwaukee, Wis.

In researching the company, I made the startling discovery that the man who had signed the certificate as president, A.W. Lawson, was a former major league pitcher, long-time minor league player and a true aviation pioneer.

Alfred W. Lawson, who played pro ball as Al Lawson, was also what could most charitably be called eccentric.

Al Lawson as an aviation pioneer circa 1910s.

His biography could -- in fact it has -- fill volumes. I'd recommend baseball historian's Jerry Kuntz's Baseball Fiends and Flying Machines, which details not only Al Lawson's life, but also his equally eccentric brother George.

A much shorter synopsis can be found on-line at the SABR Research Journal Archives in an article "Alfred W. Lawson, Aviation Pioneer" by Lyell D. Henry, Jr. http://research.sabr.org/journals/alfred-w-lawson . Henry's article includes a decent summation of Lawson's three-game major league career in 1890 with the Boston Beaneaters and Pittsburgh Allegheneys of the National League (he was 0-3 with a 6.63 ERA).

Lawson was born in London in 1869. His family emigrated to Ontario, Canada, the same year, then moved to Detroit in 1872 when they became U.S. citizens.

By the age of 20 Lawson was playing professional baseball. According to Baseball-reference.com, his peripatetic wanderings through pro ball looked like this.
1889 Bloomington Blues, Illinois-Indiana League
1890 Boston Beaneaters, National League
Wilmington Blue Hens, Atlantic Association

Al Lawson as a ballplayer
circa 1890.

Pittsburgh Allegheneys, National League
Harrisburg Ponies, Atlantic Association
1891 Pendleton Ho Hos, Pacific Interstate League
Oakland Colonels, California League
Meadville, New York-Pennsylvania League
Spokane Bunch Grassers, Pacific Northwestern League
1892 Atlanta Firecrackers, Southern Association
Troy Trojans, Eastern League
1893 Sandusky Sandies, Ohio-Michigan League
1894 Pawtucket Maroons, New England League
Albany Senators, New York State League
1895 Fitchburg, New England Association
Lowell, New England Association
Norfolk Clams/Crows, Virginia State League
Troy Trojans, New York State League
Unfortunately, statistics for most of his career are lacking.

A decade after his playing days, Lawson managed for three seasons: 1905 Olean (Interstate League), 1906 Oil City-Jamestown (Interstate League) and 1907 Butler (Western Pennsylvania League).

In 1908, Lawson tried to form a third major league. The Union Professional League took the field in April with teams in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Elizabeth and Patterson, N.J., Philadelphia, Reading, Pa., Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, Del.. The Patterson team went under in late May, and the team transferred to Allentown, Pa., the entire enterprise collapsed a few days later.

Al Lawson's baseball career largely fell in the period between the Old Judge cigarette cards of the late 1880s and the American Tobacco Co. issues of 1909-11. While it has not yet been cataloged, it is possible that Lawson was included in the series of Boston Beaneaters' cabinets that was produced 1889-90 by G. Walden Smith's studio. The Baseball-reference.com web site has an image of Lawson as a ballplayer. It looks to have been a woodcut or similar engraving. That leaves at least some hope that somewhere out there is a baseball collectible that includes Al Lawson's picture.

While he lived a long and public life, I imagine that Lawson's autograph is not easy to come by. This stock certificate will be offered on eBay in February, so we'll see what kind of value it has.

When he left baseball Lawson jumped with both feet into the world of aviation. He moved to Philadelphia and founded Fly magazine, operating it from 1908-09. In 1910 he moved to New York and founded Aircraft magazine, which he operated through 1914. He sold both magazines at the peak of their success.

Before it passed into public usage, Lawson coined the word "aircraft" and trade marked it. He also invented the term "airliner," with which he described his Lawson C-2 18-passenger airplane in 1919.

Al Lawson coined the terms "aircraft" and "airliner," and built the
first multi-passenger plane.

Lawson learned to fly in 1913. In 1916, he moved to Green Bay, Wis., where he founded Lawson Aircraft Co., to design and build planes. In 1919 he moved the enterprise to Milwaukee and renamed it Lawson Airplane Co.

Throughout the 20th Century, Lawson developed his unique theological philosophy that he called "Lawsonomy," which he described as "knowledge of life and everything pertaining thereto." He wrote more than 50 books on widely esoteric subjects.from physics and economics to world peace.

To promulgate his theories, around 1940 Lawson founded the unaccredited University of Lawsonomy," at Sturtevant, Wis. There was never much of a physical university, but a large sign in an empty field on the east side of I-94 between Milwaukee and Chicago proclaims the University of Lawsonomy. Painted on the roof of a barn on the property is "Study natural law." Lawson died in 1954.

I've passed that signs hundreds of times driving to Chicago and beyond, and was always mildly curious about Lawsonomy. Now I know.

The night I "met" Fuzzy Thurston

2012-01-27T14:36:00.000-06:00

Menus, circa late 1960s, from the Left Guard restaurant, ownjed by
Fuzzy Thurston and Max McGee.

My two most recent blogs have detailed my attempts to create custom cards of Lombardi-dynasty Green Bay Packers great Fuzzy Thurston.

I actually met Thurston one night . . . sort of.

It must have been about 1971, when Thurston was about 38 years old. I was in college then, and working for a company that traveled around the state of Wisconsin taking physical inventory at supermarkets and other retail stores.

Our crew was headquartered out of Fond du Lac, where I was born and raised. At the edge of town was the "Left Guard," a supper club that was one of a handful Thurston owned along with teammate Max McGee.

One night after we had finished work, our crew stopped at the Left Guard for a drink. There were four or five of us in the car, which was driven by Bill, whose last name I no longer recall. Bill, at that time, really needed to be a "Friend of Bill." It's sobering (no pun intended) to think of all the miles we drove back then with Bill behind the wheel in various states of intoxication.

It was rather late on a weeknight when we entered the bar area of the restaurant. Besides the bartender, I don't recall seeing anybody else in the place . . . except for Fuzzy Thurston.

Thurston was sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar, with his stocking feet propped up on the bar.

After a few minutes, and probably into his second drink, Bill looked over, caught Thurston's eye, and said, "Jesus, you're a sloppy son of a bitch"

That night I witnessed what was usually reserved for opposing NFL linemen, Fuzzy Thurston in action.

He came off his stool like a shot, grabbed Bill by the collar and belt and gave him the classic bum's rush out of the place, using Bill's head to open two sets of doors.

Thurston came back in, and resumed his place at the end of the bar while we filed out without a word, helped Bill back behind the wheel and drove back to the nearby mall where we had parked our cars.

Come to think of it, and I may be misremembering because this happened 40 years ago, one of us may have said to Fuzzy as we were leaving, "Thanks for not killing him."

Second-choice custom for Fuzzy

2012-01-24T15:36:00.000-06:00

As I posted on Saturday, I had long intended to create a 1958 Topps-style football card of Fuzzy Thurston with the Baltimore Colts. A lack of a suitable foil has sidelined that effort, but since I did find a decent picture of Thurston during his college days, I've gone ahead and created a '55 All-American custom.

In researching Thurston, I was surprised to find he didn't play college football until he was a junior at Valparaiso University in 1954. He had been recruited to Valpo as a basketball player. During and after his NFL career, Thurston continued to be a fixture on the Green Bay Packers charity basketball squads.

With the Crusaders in 1954, when they won the Heartland Collegiate Conference in 1954, Thurston was named an AP "Little All-American." As team captain in 1955, he repeated as a Little All-American and was named the HCC Most Valuable Lineman. In his two years at Valpo, the team was 17-7-2.

Thurston was a fifth round pick (#54 overall) of the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1956 NFL draft,but never played for them. He spent two years in military service before joining the Baltimore Colts in 1958. His play during the last four games of the stretch drive helped the Colts to a World's Championship.

Just three days into the Colts' training camp in 1959, Thurston was traded to the Green Bay Packers for linebacker Marv Matuszak. New head coach Vince Lombardi wanted Fuzzy to anchor the offensive line which was integral to the "run to daylight" offense he brought to the Packers' dynasty of the 1960s.

Thurston won five more championship rings with the Packers (1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967) before retiring after Super Bowl II.

In my next posting, I'll tell you about the time I "met" Fuzzy Thurston.

1958 Fuzzy Thurston custom card -- fail!

2012-01-21T14:07:00.000-06:00

Fuzzy Thurston, who starred with the Green Bay Packers during the Lombardi
Dynasty, got his NFL start with the champion 1958 Colts. In this reproductrion
of a brewery premium photo, he's #64 just to the right of center in the third row.

Well, doody!

It was only a couple of years ago that I learned that 1960s Packer lineman Fuzzy Thurston had actually begun his NFL career as part of the World's Champion 1958 Baltimore Colts.

Since Thurston only appeared on two mainstream football cards, 1962 and 1963 Topps, and a 1962 Post cereal card, I thought it would be neat to create a custom card of Thurston as a Colt in the 1958 Topps format.

I scoured all the usual resources for a picture of Thurston as a Colt and came up empty until I discovered he was included in a team photo premium issued in 1959 by the Colts' radio-TV sponsor National Bohemian beer.

Originals of that premium picture are rare and costly. I thought I'd found a solution when I saw an 8 x 10 reproduction offered on eBay. I bought the repro and stuck it in my "futures" file.

When enlarged to "card size" the image of Thurston
scanned from the reproduced premium photo is not
sharp enough to be used on a custom card.

When I recently completed by first 1958-style football custom (Dave Hanner, presented in my blog on Jan. 18), I decided the time was now to work on the '58 Thurston.

I dug out the photo, scanned it . . . and was greatly disappointed when the quality of the image proved totally unacceptable. Thurston's image on the team photo is about 3/4" square. Because my photo was a picture of a picture, when enlarged to about 2", the player scan was, well, fuzzy.

Perhaps some day I'll have access to one of the original National Bohemian premiums, which are larger (though I don't know the actual size) and may yield a more usable scan.

I did find a nice college photo of Thurston with Valparaiso, so I guess I'll work on a 1955 All-American card. Watch this space for the result.

And, I have a couple of other subjects planned for 1958-style customs.

My first '58 football custom honors Hawg Hanner

2012-01-18T07:53:00.000-06:00

I've had a few 1958 Topps-style football cards on my to-do list of customs for a long while. The recent discovery of a Topps Vault photo of a long-time favorite 1950s-60s Green Bay Packer was the impetus to actually get a '58 tribute into production.,

The 1958 Topps football set was a childhood favorite. It was right in my collecting heyday; I was seven years old when the cards hit the street.

Years later, after I had become involved in publishing books, magazines and papers for sportscards collectors, I was made aware of a more local connection with the '58T set.

Pioneer card dealer Larry Fritsch told me that many of the photos of Green Bay Packers that appear in the 1958 Topps set were taken in his hometown of Stevens Point, Wis., in 1957. At that time the Packers conducted their pre-season training camp at what was then the Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point campus, about an hour and a half west of Green Bay. The Topps photographer caught the Packers while they worked out at the city's Bukolt Park. Larry drove me over to the park and some of the background and structures that are shown on the Topps cards were still in evidence.

The posed-action photo of Dave Hanner that I used for my first '58-style custom football card was undeniably from that Summer of '57 photo shoot. However, it was never used on a Topps card.

Hanner appeared on 1954 and 1955 Bowman cards, and on 1957 and 1959-60 Topps cards. I guess we'll never know why Topps skipped him in 1958, but I think my custom card helps fill that void.

As I mentioned, Dave Hanner was one of my favorite Packers of that era. Maybe it was his nickname, "Hawg," that paid tribute to his college days as a two-time All Southwestern Conference lineman for the Arkansas Razorbacks. Football players today are apparently too cool or too professional to have old-school nicknames.

Hanner was the Packers' 5th round draft pick in 1952 and spent more than 40 years with Green Bay as a defensive tackle (1952-64), defensive line coach (1965-71), defensive co-ordinator (1972-74), assistant head coach (1975-79) and scout (1982-96).

A fact that I found amazing while I was googling Hanner's career was that from 1952-64, the Packers played in 167 regular-season and NFL Championship games, and Hanner played in 163 of them -- remarkable given the propensity for injury among NFL linemen. The four games Hanner missed came at the end of his playing days, one in 1961, and three in his final season, 1964.

What I didn't find while surfing the 'net was any confirmation of the well-known childhood "fact" that Hanner was the cousin of pro wrestler Dick the Bruiser, who, playing under his real name of Dick Afflis, had been Hanner's teammate on the Packers from 1952-54.

While poking around on the internet, I was also struck by the number of fond personal remembrances of Hanner by family, friends and former teammates. You can find some of them here:
http://www.hognation.net/greats/hanner.html .

As I said earlier, my Hanner custom is the first of several 1958-style customs that I'm planning. Now that I have the template down, the others should come more easily. Watch this space.

I took a vacation from the hobby

2012-01-15T11:34:00.000-06:00

From 12/22-1/9 I was on vacation in Hawaii. I had no computer access, so I had no contact with the various hobby forums. I had no way to work on my blog. I also couldn't do any work on custom cards.

Hey, I survived.

Since I quit working a year ago I haven't really been able to get into the swing of retirement. I always thought I'd have time to read, to learn to play the Call of Duty video games my wife bought for my birthday some years ago, etc.

Instead, I found myself spending 3-4 hours a day on hobby forums, and obsessively turning out custom cards. I was "working" on the hobby on a nearly full-time basis.

I think that two-week hiatus from hobby action will help me put this whole retirement thing in perspective and give me more balance in my remaining years.

What it means to this blog is that I'll be posting a bit less frequently than I have in the past. I hope you'll find the longer interims between entries isn't intolerable.

Stay tuned in the next few days for my presentation of a new-to-me format for my custom card creations . . . 1958 Topps football.

Kurt Russell missed the minor league card era

2012-01-09T14:49:00.000-06:00

I'm a fan of Kurt Russell's movie and TV work. He's shown great acting range in more than 50 years on the big and small screen. One of my favorites is his role as Wyatt Earp in the 1993 Tombstone.

While he hasn't had any major baseball-related roles, his friend Ron Shelton (himself a former minor leaguer, 1967-71) is said to have written the role of Crash Davis in the 1988 movie Bull Durham for Russell. The studio insisted on Kevin Costner for the role, however.

Kurt Russell spent his early 20s shuttling between Hollywood and the Pacific Northwest as he tried to decide whether he was an actor or a ballplayer . . . or a little of each.

Russell had been signed to a 10-year contract by Walt Disney's studio in 1960 when he had a part in the Elvis Presley movie, It Happened at the World's Fair. He worked regularly in TV and movies for the next decade, but when that contract expired, he decided to give professional baseball a try.

He signed with the California Angels and spent most of three seasons in the short-season Northwest League.
He was a second baseman on the Bend Rainbows in 1971, at the age of 20. He played in 51 games, the most he would play in any one season. For Bend he batted .285 with one home run, though he had 11 doubles.

For the 1972 season he remained in the Northwest League, with Walla Walla, part of the San Diego Padres organization. In 29 games he hit .325 with no power.

He was back on the Angels' NWL team in Portland to start the 1973 season, in the process of being converted to an outfielder. he batted .299, again with little power, in 23 games before being called up to the Angels' AA team, the El Paso Sun Kings of the Texas League.

He played in just six games at El Paso, back at second base, batting .563 when an injury to his throwing shoulder effectively ended his hopes of a career in pro ball. (Though he did make a token at-bat with Portland in 1977, when the team was operating independently, with 38-year-old Jim Bouton as their pitching star.attraction.)

The totality of Kurt Russell minor league career consisted of 110 games over four seasons. His career average was .292 and he had two home runs (one each in 1971 and 1973). The lower minor leagues didn't keep great stats in those days, so I don't know what his fielding was like.

It's too bad that Kurt Russell's minor league career preceded the heyday of minor league baseball card issue. TCMA was only in its second year of what would be some 15 years of team-set production in 1973, and had not yet expanded its reach into the Northwest League. Few minor league teams in 1973 were doing their own locally sponsored sets. The Standard Catalog of Minor League Baseball Cards shows TCMA only set in '73 was for the Cedar Rapids Astros, while local entrepreneurs sponsored sets for the Sherbrooke Pirates, Syracuse Chiefs, Tacoma Twins, Three Rivers Eagles and Wichita Aeros.

All of those early Seventies minor league sets were quite crude compared to the work that would follow by Mike Cramer, ProCards, Best, Classic and even Fleer and Upper Deck in the 1990s.

When I found a picture on the internet of Kurt Russell in the uniform of the El Paso Sun Kings, I decided to invest a few hours in creating a fantasy Kurt Russell TCMA card. I had to improvise a bit for the team logo on the card back, as I could not find a contemporary rendering of the logo, and had to work from the uniform on a photo of uncertain vintage.

The facsimile autograph was lifted from a later photograph, so I don't know how closely it resembles what he would have signed in the early 1970s.

Holiday hiatus

2011-12-25T14:07:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

I'm taking a Christmas break with my family and will be away from my blog for a couple of weeks.

I expect to return some time after the first week of January.

My 4th and final Don Shula custom

2011-12-23T14:05:00.000-06:00

By now maybe you're sick of seeing what Don Shula player cards might have looked like if Bowman and Topps had included him in their sets of the 1950s.

This represents what I'm quite sure will be my last custom card tribute to Shula, the player.

It is also my first-ever attempt at replicating the 1954 Bowman format, which was one of my favorites as a kid.

If you're not intimately familiar with 1954 Bowman cards, you might not have caught on that virtually all of Baltimore Colts cards in that set appear to have been photographed on the same practice field on the same day, with lots of blue sky and some green trees in the background.

Like Bowman, I had to colorize my team publicity action pose of Shula to make my card. For the background, I used the original '54B of Fred Enke.

I'm currently planning to introduce another new format to my body of custom card work with my next cards -- 1958 Topps. I've got at the top of my to-do list a Green Bay Packer or two that didn't make the cut in 1958, along with some rookie cards of players that were overlooked.

Host's auto is key to '59 Home Run Derby

2011-12-21T11:24:00.000-06:00

One of the great baseball card regional issues of the late 1950s was the 20-card set issued in conjunction with the syndicated television series, Home Run Derby.

The TV show was taped after the end of the 1959 baseball season and aired prior to the 1960 season. Because it was a syndicated program, it ran on different dates in different TV markets.

There's a lot of good information on the show itself available via a Google-search, so I won't go into that here.

Because the show was principally sponsored by American Motors, a primary venue for the distribution of the black-and-white, blank-back, postcard-size cards was local Rambler auto dealerships. The cards were probably distributed a few at a time to coincide with the appearance of the pictured players on the TV show.

Original Home Run Derby cards are scarce today, though a reasonable facsimile of the set can be had because Card Collectors Company issued a complete-set reprint in 1988, about the time ESPN first re-ran the entire original TV series. The series is now available on DVDs.

While it would seem to be possible to put together a complete set of Home Run Derby originals that had been authentically autographed by the pictured players, it would be a great challenge and a very expensive proposition.

Nine of the 19 players pictured are Hall of Famers; eleven of the players are deceased. Gil Hodges was the first player in the set to die, in 1972. Three died in 1982, Ken Boyer, Jackie Jensen and Wally Post. Two players died in 1995, Bob Allison and Mickey Mantle. Eddie Mathews, Dick Stuart, Jim Lemon Harmon Killebrew and Duke Snider passed away between 2001 and today.

The real challenge to completing an autographed set of Home Run Derby cards, however, would be acquiring one of the show's host, Mark Scott. Besides the natural tendency of baseball fans and collectors to be more interested in getting signatures of star players and hometown favorites, Scott's autograph is probably the rarest because he died shortly after the TV show had finished its initial run in 1959-60.

Scott died on July 13, 1960, at his home in Burbank, Calif., of what The Sporting News described as a "heart ailment." He was 45 years old.

I always thought Scott made an affable host for the TV show, making small talk with the ballplayers as their opponent of the week was at the plate.

Mark Scott had an extensive background in sports broadcasting. He lettered in football at the University of Illinois, and began working in radio at Champaign, Ill., and South Bend, Ind., before moving on to do sports at WCAV in Norfolk, Va.

In 1952 he moved to Hollywood to do play-by-play for the Pacific Coast League Hollywood Stars and other assignments on KFWB radio.

At the time of his death, Scott was working with TV producer and star Jack Webb to secure the L.A. franchise in the nascent Continental Baseball League.

Assembling a set of Home Run Derby cards today would be enough of a challenge -- with even mid-grade examples of the biggest stars selling for several hundred dollars each -- but it looks like putting together an autographed set would be a lifetime's work.

Home Run Derby host Mark Scott was photographed
during filming of the TV series with Willie Mays
and Mickey Mantle.

As long as I was on the subject . . .

2011-12-19T11:07:00.000-06:00

I hadn't intended to do a custom card of Don Shula in the 1955 Bowman format, but when yet another good photo of the legendary coach in his playing days turned up, I decided to add a fourth Shula custom to my body of work.

The '55 joins my 1951-style "rookie" card, a 1954 Bowman-style and a 1957 Topps-style Redskins card. I think this will mark the end of my Don Shula custom card binge.

I've always been a big fan of the 1955 Bowman football set, so I really didn't need much of an excuse to add a Don Shula card to my "updating" of that classic issue. My Shula custom joins '55B-style cards of Otto Graham, Raymond Berry, Max McGee and two John Unitas as a Steeler, one in horizontal format, one in vertical.

In coming years I expect I'll add to my '55B-style collection. I'd like to find a picture of Marion Motley as a Steeler at the end of his career for that purpose.

Metkovich moonlighted in movies

2011-12-17T13:33:00.000-06:00

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.

Journeyman outfielder George Metkovich was a California boy who got his start in show business before he got his start in professional baseball.

As a 17-year-old student and star basketball player at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, Metkovich landed a bit part in a basketball movie for MGM in 1938. He later said he was paid $350 for the role, and earned his Screen Actors Guild union card.

The next year he was signed by the Detroit Tigers and played in their Class D and C teams during the 1939 season. He was released by the Tigers and signed by the Boston Bees/Braves. He played most of the next three seasons with Class B Hartford.

In 1943 he was sold to the San Francisco Seals, then in mid-season was traded to the Boston Red Sox, for whom he made his big league debut.

Metkovich spent the next 15 seasons bouncing between the Pacific Coast League and various major league teams: Cleveland in 1947, the White Sox in 1949, the Pirates 1951-53 and the Braves in 1954.

During the off-seasons, Metkovich wintered in Los Angeles and appeared in more than a dozen movies, usually typecast as a ballplayer.

By 1952, he was getting $100 a day as an actor. He explained that if he had to do any stunt work, such as "sliding or bumping into somebody," he earned an extra $55. That scale was about equal to what he was making as a veteran ballplayer.

Metkovich liked to say that in his movie roles he worked with some of the most beautiful women in the world. He ranked young Elizabeth Taylor at #1 in that group. Metkovich said that Doris Day was the nicest female star with whom he worked. He said that between takes she would play catch and pepper with the guys on the set.

In 1951 he worked with Ronald Reagan in the Grover Cleveland Alexander biopic, The Winning Team. Also that year he filmed with Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid. The previous year he had appeared as baseball coach/clown Al Schacht in a Fred Astaire musical, Three Little Words.

Other movies in which Metkovich appeared were Gilda, The Stratton Story, The Jackie Robinson Story and Angels in the Outfield.

Following his playing days on the Coast, Metkovich managed the San Diego Padres from 1957-60. He died in 1995.

Custom '51B-style Shula rookie . . . almost wasn't

2011-12-15T10:40:00.000-06:00

This is the second of my trilogy of custom cards of Don Shula in his NFL playing days. It almost didn't see the light of day.

I spent most of an afternoon working with a black-and-white posed action photo of Shula in the early 1950s when he was with the Cleveland Browns. The photo suffered from a lack of contrast, so colorizing it and converting its look from a photograph to "artwork" was more difficult than usual and I was not satisfied with the initial result.

The 1951 Bowman Jim "Bulldog" Turner card provided the background on my Shula custom. When I had placed the player photo on the background, I still was not happy with the result. I brooded on it overnight and had pretty much decided to scrap the project. The next morning, I opened up the file for one last look and found it was not as bad as I remembered.

Bumping up significantly the color intensity on both the player and the background got me a lot closer to what I think a 1951 Bowman should look like.

While I wouldn't tout my 1951-style Shula rookie as the epitome of my custom card work, the final card will be printed and placed in my album.

There's one more Shula player card on my drawing board, it should be available for viewing in a few days.

My first '57 football custom

2011-12-13T15:17:00.000-06:00

I've expanded by repertoire once again, creating my custom football card in the format of 1957 Topps.

As you can see, the subject is Don Shula, in his final year of playing in the NFL, and his only year with the Redskins.

I was never a big fan of the 1957 Topps football set . . . not as a six-year-old kid and not as a 60-year-old custom card creator. But there have been a couple of players in my photo file that would have been appropriate for a 1957 card, so I thought I'd create the template and kick it off with Don Shula.

Since Topps reprinted the 1957 football set in its entirety (along with the 1956) in a 1994 Archives presentation, you'd think finding the parts to build a Shula card would be a piece of cake. Not quite.

Topps did a great job with the 1957 reprints, but they look "too new" to strip down for the elements I need to make a card. Still, the reprints allowed me to see the backs of each card in the set to find those that could contribute to my custom. Specifically, I was looking for cartoons that could be re-purposed for a Don Shula card. I chose to go with a cartoon that ran on the back of the 1957 Raymond Berry card (the college cartoon) and a piece of the cartoon (the bus) that ran on the back of the 1956 Harlon Hill card.

By searching for those cards on the internet, I was able to glean images of the backs of the originals and work them into my Shula back design.

Notice however, that in making the 1957 reprint set, Topps changed the typeface on the player name on front. While I wasn't able to find an exact match for the original name type, I found that Rockwell Condensed Bold adequately fills the bill and the difference between the two is likely noticeable only to a print professional comparing an original '57 and my Shula custom.

The portrait half of my card was taken from a "Chalkboard Legends" subset card from the 1994 Roger Staubach's NFL Football set from the Ted Williams Card Company.

The action photo at right on my card probably started out as a team promotional/press photo taken in 1953 when the Baltimore Colts joined the NFL. If you're familiar with 1954 Bowman football, you'll recognize the format and background of the photo as being similar to many of the Colts' cards in that great vintage set.

You'll be seeing that photo again in the near future, when I've finished a 1954 Bowman-style card of Shula with the Colts. Creating a custom in that format will be another first for me.

Thoughts sought on modern collecting

2011-12-11T08:45:00.000-06:00

I received an email from a reader the other day seeking my thoughts on how to approach card collecting in today's hobby milieu. He wrote:

Hello Mr. Lemke,

I came across your blog and figured I drop you an email. I am 34 years old and have collected cards since 1987. Unfortunately I grew up in the junk era and have accumulated many cards from the late 80s thru 90s.

I have since tried to revamp my collection in order to focus better – I still need some more focusing in my opinion but would like to hear your thoughts. Here is what I collect:

Michael Jordan cards – mostly commons and inserts (I may stop this collection and save up for a rookie card instead)
Yankee cards – Jeter rookies and commons/inserts, Mo rookies and commons and inserts and cards of any Yankee player. I have also tried to stop buying the average Yankee cards and instead will buy a common or insert of a great – Mantle, Joe D, Lou G, Yogi etc.
Commons/Inserts of baseball HOF
Thru the mail autographs

So that being said I have lots or commons/insert Jordan, Yankees and baseball HOF. I want to have a collection that I can pass on to my kids that will have some value. I love the vintage cards but they are too pricey but sometimes I wonder if I am wasting my money with what I currently collect.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestion are welcome. Tell me a little about your collection.

Pete Pagliaro

In most ways, I'm not really the guy to ask about this subject, since I am no longer a "collector," and have not been for nearly 20 years.

I began collecting cards in the mid-1950s. I bought Topps and Bowman bubblegum packs of baseball, football and non-sports cards at the corner store. I persuaded my mother to buy Johnston cookies for the Braves cards packaged inside, and I studied the backs of Post cereal boxes for the cards of favorite players. I traded with my brothers and other kids at school and around the neighborhood.

As kid collectors go, my interest waned rather early, by the time I was 11-12 years old -- say around 1962 --the first phase of my collecting days was over.

My interest in cards returned in the late 1970s, when a coin collector who I saw regularly at shows around the Midwest introduced me to Sports Collectors Digest, at that time the hobby's largest publication.

Like many card collectors of my generation who were re-exploring the hobby in the Seventies, I wasn't so much interested in the current cards as in those I had collected 20 years earlier.

Through SCD, I discovered that the hobby was benefiting from a tremendous boom in the type of information that had not been available to kid collectors in the 1950s-60s.

Prior to 1956, we were collecting "blind." There were no checklists to tell us what cards had been issued and whether or not our sets were complete. By the late 1970s, Larry Fritsch had published the first readily available book of baseball card checklists and the hobby papers were printing articles from collectors around the country sharing information about obscure regional issues.

At the same time, Dr. James Beckett was using the pages of SCD to solicit and distribute information about baseball card values; the first time this had been done on anything approaching a comprehensive or scientific basis.

With five or six years of hobby publishing experience in the fields of coins and old cars under my belt, in 1980 I began my professional association with the card/memorabilia hobby by creating Baseball Cards magazine and arranging for the purchase of SCD and several smaller periodicals in the field.

From 1980 through early 2006, I was involved in the world of cards and related collectibles every working day. From late 2009 until very recently, I re-engaged in that world on a part-time basis as vintage editor of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.

For all professional involvement, however, I never really considered myself a collector of contemporary cards.

Because of their ubiquitous presence on television I had become a Braves fan once more, especially so after a second baseman named Lemke joined the organization. My collecting of current cards, such as it was, was limited to a few favorite players. Even that was abandoned, however, in the mid-1990s when card companies began creating instant rarities in the form of numbered parallels, contrived short-prints, game-used and autographed inserts. I pretty much tuned out modern cards when buying packs became a lottery.

Through the 1980s I maintained my interest in vintage cards, primarily those of the 1950s though I dabbled a bit in cards as far back as the Old Judge series of the late 1880s. My concentration was primarily on cards that I had enjoyed as a child, and cards of that era that I never knew existed when they were new.

In late 1991, realizing that the market value of cards in which I was interested was rising faster than my budget, I sold virtually my entire collection to Alan "Mr. Mint" Rosen.

That experience seems to mirror what my correspondent Pete Pagliaro is seeing today. He realizes that even a millionaire can't realistically pursue a "complete" collection. The greed of the leagues, the unions, the card companies and the "collectors" has changed cards from a kid's toy to a speculative penny stock

Those realities, whether they are the cause or the effect, have conspired to significantly limit the number of today's youngsters who have any interest in sportscards.

For all those reasons, I doubt that Pete can succeed in putting together a baseball card collection that he can pass on to his kids that "will have some value." In 30-40 years will many of today's kids even have any interest in a collection of their dad's cards?

With nothing other than a lifetime's experience in studying collectible hobbies to base it on, I'm of the opinion that baseball cards -- current and vintage -- have largely had their day in the sun and that overall trends will be of declining market values.

To be sure, the iconic rarities of the hobby -- T206 Honus Wagner, 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle -- will always have significant value, and that value will likely continue to rise, but I'm not sure buyers in a future generation will understand why those cards are valuable. They will have become status symbols rather than collectibles.

I believe the card hobby over the next 25-50 years will mirror the stamp collecting hobby of the past 25-50 years. The current generation of collectors will die off, there will be few new collectors and values overall will spiral downward.

All that being said, my advice to Pete can be succinctly stated: Collect what you like, within a budget you are comfortable with expending in the name of entertainment, and give no regard to future potential value. It is only natural that your collecting focus will shift over the years as favorite players change teams and retire, and new favorites emerge. Try to eliminate the concept of investment from your collecting endeavors; that is not the yardstick against which your lifetime of collecting should be measured. Rather, the "success" of your collecting should be tallied in the enjoyment you took in making the connection between your cards and through-the-mail autographs and your favorite players and teams, as well as the connections you may have made with like-minded family and fellow collectors.

'52 White Sox had priciest caps

2011-12-09T13:07:00.000-06:00

In 1952, McAuliffe of Boston was the official supplier of caps to Major League Baseball team.

A short item in The Sporting News quoted the cap-maker's spokesman, Tim McAuliffe, as saying the Chicago White Sox had the most expensive caps among the current teams.

White Sox' caps of that era were black with a white interlocking SOX monogram on a red background. These cost the team $6 apiece, according to McAuliffe; other teams' cap were $4 each.

Adjusted for inflation, a $6 cap in 1952 would be about $49 today. I see on New Era's website that an on-field White Sox cap retails for $35; with tax and shipping, that probably adds up to most of $49.

Back in '52, McAuliffe said that the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers spent about $600 a year on caps.

McAuliffe also revealed that Dodgers' infielder Billy Cox wore the smallest cap in the majors, a size 6-1/2. He said Dick Kryhoski of the Browns wore the largest cap, but didn't reveal the actual size.

Custom cards -- two for Troy

2011-12-07T10:51:00.000-06:00

I "see" cards. That is, sometimes when I see a photo of a baseball or football player, my mind's eye instantly pulls into focus what that image will look like on a custom card. The year and company that will be the format for such cards is unquestioned.

For college football players, my default is the 1955 All-American style, of which I've now completed more than 140 cards. But sometimes, looking at a college player photo, I see some other format.

Such was the case with an action photo of Troy Polamalu that I found about a year ago. The photo shows Polamalu carrying the ball with a Penn State player in hot pursuit. The photo probably depicts Polamalu's 43-yard touchdown interception in the second quarter of the 2000 Kickoff Classic at Giants Stadium, when USC beat Penn State 29-5.

When I saw that photo, I immediately thought "1952 Bowman." And, a year later, you see the result.

I think I'm improving my Photoshop skills in turning a photo into artwork, so I may be turning out more "art" cards in the future. Baseball card collectors are more likely to recognize the background of this card . . . it's from Mickey Vernon's 1951 Bowman card.

Normally the '52B-style card would have been the only use I made of the Polamalu photo, but the picture seemed to tell such a great story that I decided to go ahead and add a Polamalu card to my "Third Series" update in the 1955 All-American style.

Back in 1955, Topps had only one All-American card that showed more than one player -- the Notre Dame Four Horsemen. That's probably because Topps used only portraits and posed-action photos for the originals.

This is my sixth multi-player action card. Earlier examples were Brian Bosworth (Oklahoma State), Eric Dickerson (Southern Methodist), Conrad Dobler (Wyoming), Eric Jensen (Iowa), and, Austin Lane (Murray State). I also have a two-player card with Army's Blanchard and Davis, and the "Boulder College" backfield card of the Three Stooges.

I don't currently have any more multi-player football cards on the drawing board, but you never know what the future may bring.

Cobb vilified for '52 Life article

2011-12-05T10:59:00.000-06:00

Though his playing days had ended a quarter-century earlier, Ty Cobb made regular appearances in the pages of The Sporting News until his death in 1961.

The sports weekly often reported on Cobb's civic philanthropy, his speeches at banquets in what the paper liked to call the "Knife and Fork League," his visits around the batting cages during spring training and in clubhouses around the majors throughout the season.

Cobb's observations about baseball from his day to the present were recorded and, due to their often thorny nature, were frequently dissected in TSN's pages.

In early 1952, Life magazine paid Cobb a reported $25,000 to compile his thoughts on baseball at that time for a two-part article titled, "They Don't Play Baseball Anymore."

Twenty-five grand was a lot of money in 1952. It represented a year's salary for many everyday veteran players that season. (Today's average salary is about $2 million).

Selling for 20 cents a copy in 1952, Life was counting on Cobb's article to generate a lot of newsstand sales. They even purchased a full-page ad in the March 12 TSN to promote the article, hinting at the bombshells Cobb would be dropping.

Cobb's take on the current state of baseball (no doubt ghost-written) delivered all of the controversy the promotional ads had promised.

San Francisco baseball writer Joe King called it a "petulant, undocumented and high-priced 'indictment' of today's baseball." King said it was "typical of the attitude of many famous men through the centuries at Ty's age (he was 66 at the time).

"Only 'the good old days' remain for them," King concluded, "Perspective is lost."

Both Washington Senators manager Bucky Harris and Stan Musial were more succinct in their reviews; they said Cobb was "crazy."

Copies of the March 17 and March 24, 1952, issues of Life are readily available on eBay. While sellers price them at $15 or more on a "Buy it Now" basis, when offered at auction, they can be had for well under $10.

Ty Cobb was an elder statesman of baseball when he
presented a critical look at the contemporary game in a
two-part Life article in 1952.

Raffy was Campy's "cousin"

2011-12-03T09:44:00.000-06:00

A career-summary card for Koufax

2011-12-01T15:06:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned yesterday, my card collecting days had gone on hiatus by 1967. My little brother was just beginning to get into cards, so I could look at his new cards every year and get a feel for what was going on at Topps.

I showed you the custom multi-player feature card I created, "All-Star Starters," with Sandy Koufax and Denny McLain.

Working on that project, I determined that there was yet another card to be coaxed from that photo. Back in the 1960s, Topps seldom showed any sentimentality regarding a player's career. If the gum company had enough advance notice that a player was leaving the game, they simply omitted him from the next year's set.

Thus many players, even superstars of the game, did not have a "final" card, the stats on which would provide a career summary. Such was case with Sandy Koufax. He announced his retirement shortly after the end of the 1966 World Series in which the Dodgers were defeated by the Orioles. So Topps never put a Koufax card into its 1967 set, a decision that latter-day collectors have lamented.

Several other custom card makers have tackled a 1967-style Koufax card, so I never felt any great "need" to add one to the body of my work.

When that great photo of Koufax at the 1966 All-Star Game came my way, however, I began to tinker around with ideas on how it could be worked into a single-player Koufax card in the 1967 style.

You'll notice that I took the figure of Koufax out of its original context. After looking at other Dodgers cards from 1967, I decided that a spring training setting would have been appropriate.

For the background to the left of Koufax and the blue sky, I used the '67 card of Bruce Brubaker. To the right of Koufax, I adapted the background from a 1973 Don Sutton card. The autograph was picked out of the 1959 Topps Koufax card.

The cartoons on back were adapted from the '67 Brubaker and the 1973 Nolan Ryan.

Putting all those pieces together resulted in what I consider to be a pretty fair approximation of what Topps might have done if Koufax had been included in its set nearly a quarter-century ago.

Another 1967 multi-player baseball custom

2011-11-30T14:48:00.000-06:00

By 1967 I was no longer buying or collecting baseball cards. I was 16 years old and my time and money were being misspent elsewhere.

Thus it's not surprising that I have done only a single 1967-style baseball card -- my Red Sox Rockers card -- in my custom creation career . . . until now.

Most of my work on custom cards in the past couple of months has been in football cards; this being football season, after all.

I decided to take a baseball break, however, when I found a really exciting photo of Sandy Koufax and Denny McLain comparing notes prior to their facing off in the 1966 All-Star Game. Just one look at the photo and I knew it could be turned into a really great multi-player feature card.

A good thing about such cards in the 1967 format is that there is plenty of room on the back to tell the story.

As I worked on this card it occurred to me that there was yet another custom card to be gleaned from the photo. I think you can guess what that was. Tune in tomorrow for the result.

A college custom of Joe "Jet" Perry

2011-11-28T13:24:00.000-06:00

I can't freakin' believe it! After hours of working on the "back story" for my latest 1955 All-American style custom card, the web site ate it.

I just don't have the heart to re-do it. Read what I wrote on the back of the card and google-search Joe Perry if you want to know more about this 1950s-1960s 49ers great who never seemed to take a bad football card photo.

The photo on my card, by the way, is from the 1947(?) College All-Star Game where Perry, et al, defeated the NFL Champion Chicago Bears in a mudbowl game.

Bad timing for a Paterno custom

2011-11-26T12:37:00.000-06:00

Despite the fact that I have been a part-time resident of Alexandria, Pa., about 45 minutes from State College, for several years, I had vowed to never be a Penn State fan as long as Joe Paterno was the head coach.

I just never liked what I saw and heard in brief TV exposures over the years. In the last couple of seasons, however, I'd grudgingly become more tolerant of him with my gradual immersion into the community. News stories and TV appearances were more plentiful and comprehensive and I got a better feel for the guy.

With Penn State now in the same division (I can never remember which is the "Legends" and which is the "Leaders") as Wisconsin in the Big 10 conference, I'm still not able to fully commit to Penn State fandom, but most weeks I am pulling for them to win.

For the last couple of years, I had the creation of a Joe Paterno custom card on my to-do list of 1955-style All-American cards. I found a couple of decent pictures of Paterno when he was playing at Brown University in the book, The Paterno Legacy. Like most photos taken from books, the dot structure mitigates against a great result, but with a little extra work, the resulting card can be acceptable. Specifically, besides colorizing the photo, a bit of experimenting with the Gaussian blur feature of Photoshop is required to minimize the print dots without losing detail.

Unlike a lot of the subjects of my All-American "updates," Paterno actually had a career-contemporary "card." He is the among the 100 collegiate subjects Topps chose for its 1950 "felt back" set of ugly little postage-stamp size pieces. Paterno may have been included because he was a major high school football and basketball star at Brooklyn Prep, or it may have been because he was the field general in Brown's 8-1 season in 1949,

If not for recent events at Penn State, I may have held my Paterno custom in abeyance for a while yet. I was waiting for him to wind up his coaching career so that my biography could reflect whether or not he retired as the winningest Division I coach of all-time, and what his win total would be.

Now that those things are known, there seems to be no reason to hold off on making my Paterno card, so here it is.

You can order my custom cards: Updated Nov. 24

2011-11-24T00:22:00.000-06:00

I get a fair amount of inquiries about the availability of my custom card creations.

By making this blog entry, and updating it as necessary, readers should be able to find virtually the entire body of my work in this field.

As I've mentioned in the past, I make my cards in extremely small numbers. I generally print a sheet of nine cards when working in the modern (1957+) format, and eight when working with the old large-size Topps/Bowman issues of 1956 and earlier.

Since I generally only need two of each of my cards for my "master" sets, the other half-dozen or so extra cards are theoretically available. I'm not in the "business" of selling my custom cards, but it is easier on everybody if I just put a price on them to help cover my materials and time, than to explain to serious collectors of a particular player, team or set, why I don't make my cards available.

And I'll admit it, it's gratifying to my ego when somebody likes what I have created enough to want one for their own collection.

Virtually all of my cards are available at $7.50 each for one or two, $6 each for three or more. All prices are postpaid. A few exceptions are noted on the card images.

Cards can be ordered by sending a check or money order to: Bob Lemke, P.O. Box 8, Iola, WI 54945. I will also accept PayPal. If you want to remit via PayPal, you'll need to email me at scbcguy@yahoo.com to get my account name.

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Standard Catalog Update: 1972 San Diego Padres team issue

2011-11-22T13:32:00.000-06:00

This is a listing that was prepared after the deadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1972 San Diego Padres Team Issue

    It is uncertain whether this 12-player checklist represents the entirety of this set of team-issued pictures. The black-and-white portraits are presented in a 3-3/8” x 5-3/8” blank-back format.

                                         NM     EX VG
Complete Set (12):    30.00 15.00 9.00
Common Player:          3.00   1.50   .90

(1) Steve Arlin             3.00 1.50    .90
(2) Nate Colbert          3.00 1.50    .90
(3) Pat Corrales           3.00   1.50.    90
(4) Clarence Gaston    4.50   2.25 1.35
(5) Bill Grief                  3.00   1.50    .90
(6) Enzo Hernandez     3.00   1.50   .90
(7) Clay Kirby                3.00   1.50   .90
(8) Leron Lee                3.00   1.50   .90
(9) Jerry Morales         3.00   1.50   .90
(10) Dave Roberts       3.00   1.50 .90
(11) Darrel (Derrel)
             Thomas            3.00   1.50    .90
(12) Don Zimmer          4.50   2.25 1.35

Standard Catalog Update: 1932 Boston Braves picture pack

2011-11-18T13:25:00.000-06:00

This is a listing that was prepared after the deadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1932 Boston Braves Photo Pack

    This set of player pictures was sold in an envelope titled “Sixteen Rotogravure Pictures of the Boston Braves,” though the known checklist for the set contains only 15 subjects, the picture of manager Bill McKechnie having been included twice. It is possible the duplicate manager’s picture was substituted for an as-yet unknown player whose photo was removed after he left the team. Gowell Studios is credited on the pictures with providing the photography for the pictures. The blank-backed, sepia-toned pictures are in a format of 9” x 12”.

                                       NM        EX        VG
Complete Set (15): 500.00   250.00 150.00
Common Player:       35.00      17.50  10.00

(1) Wally Berger       35.00     17.50    10.00
(2) Huck Betts           35.00     17.50   10.00
(3) Eddie Brandt       35.00     17.50   10.00
(4) Bobby Brown       35.00     17.50   10.00
(5) Ben Cantwell        35.00     17.50 10.00
(6) Pinky Hargrave    35.00     17.50   10.00
(7) Fritz Knothe          35.00     17.50   10.00
(8) Fred Leach           35.00     17.50   10.00
(9) Rabbit Maranville 60.00    30.00   17.50
(10) Bill McKechnie   60.00    30.00 17.50
(11) Randy Moore      35.00    17.50   10.00
(12) Art Shires            35.00     17.50 10.00
(13) Al Spohrer           35.00    17.50   10.00
(14) Bill Urbankski     35.00    17.50   10.00
(15) Red Worthington 35.00    17.50   10.00

First '55AA style Penn State customs

2011-11-14T14:03:00.000-06:00

Penn State's football program has been much in the news lately, and not in a good way.

Although I am a part-time resident of a small Western Pennsylvania town about 45 minutes from Beaver Stadium, I have not yet fully embraced the Nittany Lions.

Over the past few years, my antipathy towards Penn State football had been softening. but since they now play in the Big 10's Leaders Division with Wisconsin, I don't see myself becoming a Penn State fan.

Nevertheless, there's no denying that many former Nittany Lions players went on to become NFL superstars, so over the weekend I created custom cards in the 1955 All-American format for two of their best: Jack Ham and Franco Harris.

In that regard, I've outstripped Topps, which didn't include any Penn State players in its original 100-card All-American set of 1955.

Ham and Harris were stalwarts of the Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty of the 1970s. While I wasn't following NFL football to any great degree in that era, I have always been somewhat of a Steelers fan. This continues today, as they are my part-time home team. Since they play in the AFC, I'm free to root for them most weeks.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three reasons for liking the Steelers . . .

1) They had that cool logo on their 1955 Bowman football cards

2) They have a former Ole Miss player (Mike Wallace) as an important part of their offense.

3) They wear the best throwback uniforms in the NFL.

I'm not quite done with Penn State customs yet. A year or two back I bought a copy of the Paterno Legacy book that includes a decent photo of Joe Paterno as the quarterback at Brown University. Someday that will appear on one of my '55 customs.

Standard Catalog Update: 1968 Topps 3-D proofs

2011-11-11T11:48:00.000-06:00

This is a listing that was prepared after the deadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1968 Topps 3-D Proofs

     Three blank-backed proof cards are known to be associated with the 3-D issue. In the same format as the issued cards, the proofs have no player name and are lacking the circle with the team and position.

                                                    NM          EX        VG
(1) Tommy Davis (Mets)       1,500.` 750.00 450.00

(2) Rick Monday (A’s)           1,500. 750.00   450.00

(3) John O’Donogue (Indians) 1,500. 750.00  450.00

Gone for a while

2011-11-09T11:24:00.000-06:00

Entries on this site will be sparse for about the next two weeks.

While I have scheduled a few pieces between now and Nov. 22, it will usually be several days between posts.

I'm going to take my new knee on a road trip, holing up at my Western Pennsylvania home.

While there I will be looking at some more old The Sporting News microfilm, so when I get back I should have some new "finds" to share.

Custom college card of "The Fridge"

2011-11-07T11:34:00.003-06:00

My newest 1955 All-American style custom card is of William Perry.

I'd had an action image of "The Refrigerator" in my files for a couple of years, but it was evidently scanned from a newspaper photo and had a very noticeable dot pattern throughout. If I'd had to, I could have ameliorated that distraction by applying a Gaussian blur filter to the image, but while I was surfing the 'net for information on Perry's football career, I stumbled upon the close-up portrait you see here.

It's unfortunate that Perry has his mouth guard in place in this photo, because it hides his perpetual gap-toothed grin.

In his ESPN article about Perry, Kevin Seifert referred to him as "America's mascot." Most Wisconsin fans had a love/hate relationship with the Fridge. We hated the fact that he was a Chicago Bear, but loved it when he was put in at fullback in short-yardage situations -- as long as it wasn't against the Packers.

But it WAS against the Packers in Perry's rookie season of 1985 that Bears coach Mike Ditka moved the Fridge off the defensive line and into the backfield on the Oct. 21 Monday Night Football game at Soldier Field. Lining up as a fullback inside the 5-yard line, Perry blew holes in the Green Bay goal line defense for Walter Payton to score two touchdowns. In the second quarter, with the ball on the 1-yard line, Perry took the ball from Jim McMahon and rumbled in for a score. With that play, his legend began.

Perry's offensive output is usually remembered as a bigger part of his legacy than it actually was. In regular season play over his 10-year NFL career, Perry had eight rushes for five yards, with two TDs, and had one pass reception, a 4-yard touchdown catch.

Once again, there was so much to say about Perry, but so little room on the back of my custom card. I can't recommend strongly enough that you read Seifert's article "The Fridge is broken" http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/24104/william-perry-the-fridge-is-broken .

The William Perry card is the first Clemson card I've made in my updating of the 1955 All-American set; there were none in Topps original issue of 100 cards, either. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other "Climpson" players I'll add to my set, but you never know.

Update: Kyle Rote's Short, Sweet Minor League Career

2011-11-04T13:36:00.000-05:00

Most of us remember Kyle Rote as an important part of the N.Y. Giants NFL dynasty of the 1950s when he was the go-to receiver for Charlie Connerly and Y.A. Tittle.

The things he did to catch the football and rack up those important yards-after-catch were often a deciding factor in the epic Giants-Packers games of the era. We Packer fans would have gladly traded his cousin, our quarterback, Tobin Rote to the Giants for Kyle (especially after Bart Starr came along in the late Fifties).

Prior to coming to prominence in the NFL, Kyle Rote had a collegiate Hall of Fame career with Southern Methodist University. I recapped his college days (in 100 words or less) on the back of my 1955 All-American style custom card pictured at the bottom of this post, but there was no room for these interesting tidbits:

In the biggest game of his collegiate career, Rote took over at tailback for injured starter Doak Walker in the final game of 1949, playing undefeated Notre Dame. Against the Irish he ran for 115 yards, passed for 146 yards, punted for a 48-yard average and scored all three of SMU's touchdowns in a 27-20 loss. The Texas Sportswriters Association later voted that performance as the finest by a Texas athlete in the first half of the century. Texas' oil and cattlemen probably also had some accolades for Rote, as they had bet their ranches, rigs and lungs on the Mustangs to beat the 27.5 point spread by which Notre Dame had been favored.
In 1950, Rote was runner-up in the Heisman Trophy balloting to Ohio State's Vic Janowicz, who went on play in both the NFL (Redskins 1954-55) and MLB (Pirates 1953-54).
He appeared on the cover of Life magazine's Nov. 13, 1950, issue in a dramatic portrait.

In the months before Rote reported to the Giants training camp in 1951 and began earning the reported $20,000 salary that a #1 draft pick commanded in those days, the San Antonio native tooks a few swings in minor league baseball. He signed with the Corpus Christi Aces of the Class B Gulf Coast League.

He proved to be more than just a box office attraction, though. His hitting earned him a promotion from a pinch-hitter to a starting outfielder. He played in only 22 games, but in 66 at-bats had seven home runs, including three in one game. He hit .348 with a .712 slugging average. The Aces went on to win the GCL pennant by 12 games, but by then Rote was long gone to the NFL.

Rote played his entire NFL career with the Giants. When he retired after the 1961 season he was the team's career leader in receptions (300), receiving yards (4,795) and TD catches (48). He had played in NFL Championship games four times (losing to the Colts in 1958 and 1959 and to the Packers in 1961 and earning the big ring against the Bears in 1956) .

The real measure of a man is not what he accomplishes between the lines. How he is perceived by his contemporaries is a more important gauge of the worth of a man. Rote was not only the Giants' captain for many years, but was also a force in the founding of the NFL Players Association and was its first elected president. Perhaps most telling of all, though, is that it is reported that 14 of his teammates named sons after him.

Following relatively minor surgery in 2002, Rote developed pneumonia and died at the age of 74.

I'd love to be able to give credit for the baseball photo of Kyle Rote in 1951 with Corpus Christi to the fellow collector who gave it to me, but I lost his name in a hard-drive crash of my computer last winter. He had offered the picture on eBay as Tobin Rote and received no bids. I'm sure that wouldn't have happened if he had properly identified it as Kyle Rote (it is correctly identified in the Associated Press cutline on the back). When I contacted him after the auction with an offer to buy it, he sent it to me free.

Coincidentally, I once owned a 1951 Corpus Christi team autographed baseball that included Rote's signature. I had bought it in a group of about 10 lower-level minor league balls from Texas clubs of the 1950s. I sold them all on eBay several years ago.

Standard Catalog Update: 1907 Frank Chance postcard

2011-11-04T11:41:00.000-05:00

This is a listing that was prepared after the deadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1907 F.P. Burke Frank Chance Postcard

          This novelty postcard is one of many baseball-themed postcards issued by Chicago publisher F.P. Burke. The black-and-white card is about standard (3-1/2” x 5-1/2”) postcard size with typical postcard markings on the back.

                                   NM        EX        VG

Frank Chance      1,500. 750.00 450.00

1955 All-American style Aaron Rodgers

2011-11-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

This being the Packers' bye week, I wasn't able to watch Aaron Rodgers add to his legacy, so I thought I'd add to the body of his collectible memorabilia by creating a card of him for my 1955 All-American style "Update" set.

This represents the 132nd card in my eight-year-long project . . . not counting a dozen or so "rehab" cards for which I've revised my earlier efforts.

Once again, the limited space on back allows for only a small part of Rodgers' story to be presented. In truth, I learned most of this for the first time as I did my reading in preparation for doing the writing.

I'm not a rabid Packers fan, and like much of the rest of the nation, the world of West Coast college football plays out on TV after my bedtime. So Aaron Rodgers wasn't really on my radar until the first round of the 2005 NFL dragged on and Rodgers remained unpicked until the 24th round when Green Bay made the steal of the draft.

As Rodgers rode the pine and Favre hogged the spotlight, most Packers fans began to realize what an extraordinary man the team had waiting in the wings. Favre more and more made news for off the field drama than for his game-day performance. And I doubt that I was the only one to feel that Favre maintained nothing more than a chilly civility towards his eventual successor.

Through those three seasons Rodgers kept his head down and his chin up, working the clipboard on the sidelines on Sundays and taking whatever scraps of snaps Favre left him on the practice field. On the few occasions that Rodgers got into a game, he generally looked like the physically talented rookie that he was.

Even so, when Favre and the Packers parted ways in 2008, Rodgers proved himself just as ready to face the NFL as Green Bay's fans were to embrace their next star quarterback.

No doubt, in coming years Brett Favre will be accepted back into Green Bay's good graces, but today if Favre and Rodgers had autograph booths set up in opposite end zones at Lambeau Field, and fans were released on the 50-yard line, Favre would look mighty lonely on his end of the field.

I generally avoid doing my '55-style cards of active players, but Rodgers' Super Bowl MVP gave me a natural place to end my player bio, at least for now. Perhaps some years down the line I'll have to revise that write-up. Until then, I think I'll have to print up an extra quantity of this card to share with friends, local bartenders, etc.

Randy Moss custom completes my Second Series 1955 All-Americans

2011-10-31T15:14:00.000-05:00

Since it now appears, with the 2011 NFL season more than half over, that Randy Moss is truly retired, I decided to go ahead and finish off my "Second Series" of 1955 Topps All-Americans.

I consider the 100 cards that Topps issued in 1955 to be the First Series. I picked up the process in 2003 with my first All-American custom card, Peyton Manning of Tennessee, which I numbered 101.

Now, 100 cards later, I have completed the Second Series. I have long since produced cards numbers after #200 (what I'm calling the Third Series), but I had been holding the last slot, card #152, in my Second Series for Moss, waiting for him to call it a career so I could write a "final" biography for the back.

Actually, writing the 90-or-so words for the back was one of the more challenging bios I've done. Love him or hate him, Moss had a brilliant college and NFL career.

Here in Wisconsin, there is more than average animosity towards Moss. He was an integral part of the Vikings teams that usually dominated the Green Bay Packers around the turn of the century.

Moss further enraged Packers fans on Jan. 9, 2005, when his 34-yard touchdown catch in the fourth quarter sealed a Vikings victory over heavily favored Green Bay in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Moss poured salt in the wound in the end zone by pretending to drop trou and moon the Lambeau Field crowd.

Most of those who called for his suspension or expulsion from the league, if not his head, don't realize that Moss' mooning was a bit of an inside joke. For many years Packers fans have milled around the parking lot until the opposing team's buses pulled out after a game, then presented them with a moon en masse. The NFL fined Moss $10,000.

My 1955-style Randy Moss card is the first of perhaps half a dozen I'll create this winter, bringing me well into the Third Series.

Watch for them here.

Standard Catalog Update: 1889 Tobin Lithograph Baby Talk Trade Cards

2011-10-29T14:52:00.000-05:00

This is a listing that was prepared after thedeadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1889 Tobin Lithograph Baby Talk Trade Cards

The “Baby Talk Series” that was cataloged as H804-1B in the American Card Catalog is a specific subset of a larger body of similar issues issued between 1887-1889.

The principal distinguishing feature of this set is the appearance at lower-right of a name associated with the ball-playing baby pictured. Even within this series, there are variations, such as some cards having a copyright notice in the bottom-right border, while some do not. All have the number “5” in the lower-left border.

The 3” x 4-5/8” color lithographed cards were originally sold with blank backs. Some advertisers chose to print messages on the backs, others overprinted their sales pitch on the fronts. Dozens of different advertisers are known to have used these cards as a medium.

Those cards that have name references to well-known players of the era King Kelly and Cap Anson, are more highly sought than the others.

Retail value for the Anson and Kelly cards are about $900 in Near Mint, $450 in Excellent and $275 in Very Good.

Values for the other cards average about $600 NM, $300 EX and $175 VG.

(1) Fee stykes, out. (Lord Fauntleroy)
(2) I’se a do’en home. (Baby Bunting)

(3) Oh, I dot it. (Kingdon Gould)

(4) Oh, I’se all’lite (Little Mascot)

(5) Oh, Mamma! (Baby Anson)

(6) Tan “oo” Tetch. (Baby McKee)
(7) Tum an Pay. (Mull Tobin)

(8) Tee-he-he! (Dixey, Jr.)

(9) Wow-ow! (Baby Kelly)

Finishing Snider's Bowman run

2011-10-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

I've completed my trilogy of Duke Snider custom cards with a creation in the style of 1955 Bowman.

Since his baseball card debut in the 1949 Bowman high-numbers, Snider appeared in every Bowman set through 1954, but he was absent from the final Bowman baseball set, the 1955 "Color TV" issue.

I think my version of a '55B Duke Snider card belatedly fills that void.

As of this posting, I have not yet printed the cards. I'm still dithering about which front to use. The smaller projection uses the background from the 1955 Bowman Frank Sullivan card. The larger projection repurposes the background of Brooks Lawrence's '55B. They are the same backgrounds I used in the two versions of my 1955 Bowman-style Sandy Koufax rookie customs.

The image of Snider swinging was lifted from an Upper Deck tribute card.

As football season is well under way, I really should be shifting my card-making efforts to some additions to my 1955 All-American updates and perhaps some other styles.

Keep watching this space for the results.

Standard Catalog Update: 1907 Cobb postcard

2011-10-25T13:30:00.002-05:00

This is a listing that was prepared after thedeadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1907 Detroit Seamless Steel Tubes Co. Ty Cobb Postcard

It is unclear whether this postcard of the budding Tigers star was a proprietary issue of a local steel company or a more generic postcard on which different advertising messages could be imprinted. The 3-1/2” x 5-1/2” black-and-white postcard has on front a full-length pose of Cobb, with a few biographical details. The back is pre-printed with postcard markings including a one-cent “stamp” and pictorial seal of the U.S.

Ty Cobb (Sold in 3/10 auction for $14,100 SGC-graded as Fair.)

Standard Catalog Update: 1963-64 Pirates picture pack

2011-10-23T13:24:00.000-05:00

This is a listing that was prepared after thedeadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Major League section of the book.

1963-64 Pittsburgh Pirates Picture Pack

This set of 5” x 7” black-and-white blank-back player pictures was created for sale at stadium concession stands and other souvenir outlets. The players are pictured in portraits or posed action photos, bordered in white. In the wide bottom border, the player’s name is printed in all capital letters, with the team nickname in upper- and lower-case letters. The set was sold in a white picture envelope. Because of the player selection, a specific year of issue cannot be pinpointed.

Common players in the set would have a retail value of about $4-5 in Near Mint. Mazeroski would be a $12-15 item, with Clemente at $40 or so.

Complete Set (12):
(1) Bob Bailey
(2) Smoky Burgess
(3) Roberto Clemente
(4) Roy Face
(5) Bob Friend
(6) Joe Gibbon
(7) Jerry Lynch
(8) Bill Mazeroski
(9) Danny Murtaugh
(10) Jim Pagliaroni
(11) Dick Schofield
(12) Bill Virdon

Standard Catalog Update: 1907 Providence Grays Postcards

2011-10-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

This is a listing that was prepared after thedeadline for the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards. It was intended for a future edition, in the Vintage Minor League section of the book.

1907 Providence Grays Postcards

While it is reported that this postcard issue for the Class A Eastern League Providence Grays includes 18 players, the checklist is not known, though it certainly includes many of the former and future major leaguers who were on the team. These might include Harry Lord, Rebel Oakes, George McQuillan, Joe Harris and Bill Abstein.

The black-and-white cards are in about the standard 3-1/2” x 5-1/2” postcard size, with typical markings on back. Fronts have posed player photos and a credit line to “Walford of the Tribune.” The cards were published by J.C. & C.H. Seddon of Providence.

                               NM        EX          VG
Hugh Duffy          1,700. 850.00   500.00
Bob Peterson   250.00   25.00       75.00

Standard Catalog Update: 1938 Oakland Oaks stamps

2011-10-19T13:13:00.005-05:00

1938 Signal Gasoline Oakland Oaks Stamps

This is the earliest of Signal Gasoline’s promotional efforts tied to their “home team” Oakland Oaks and the Pacific Coast League. The set features 24 black-and-white stamps in a size of about 1-5/8” x 2-2/3” that were designed to be placed into a 10-cent “Stamp Album and Autograph Book.” Each stamp features a player pose with his name and position in two lines in the bottom border.

                                                               NM       EX        VG
Complete Set in Album (24):       600.00 300.00 175.00
Complete Set, Singles (24)         500.00 250.00 150.00
Common Player:                             25.00   12.50     7.50
Album:                                            100.00   50.00    30.00

(1) Joe Abreu
(2) Pat Ambrose
(3) Al Browne
(4) Bill Conroy
(5) Jerry Donovan
(6) Ken Douglas

(7) Bob Gibson
(8) Jesse Hill

(9) Delbert Holmes

(10) Bob Joyce

(11) Hugh Luby

(12) Harry Martinez

(13) Wilcy Moore

(14) Floyd Newkirk

(15) Floyd Olds

(16) Bill Raimondi
(17) Ken Sheehan
(18) Hollis Thurston

(19) Geo. Turbeville
(20) Laurie Vinci

(21) Frank Volpi
(22) Jackie Warner

(23) Ed Yount

(24) “Dutch” Zwilling

Finally, a Duke Snider Giants card

2011-10-17T14:51:00.000-05:00

My latest custom card is the second of what appears will be a trilogy of Duke Snider custom cards.

In the style of 1964 Topps, it pictures Snider with the San Francisco Giants, the team with whom he actually played in 1964. That was Snider last year as a player.

If Topps had scheduled Snider for one of the later series of 1964 baseball cards, he might have appeared as a Giant. But since he was slotted in at #155, in the set's second series, Topps had to run with a photo of Snider with the Mets.

After 16 seasons with the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers, Snider had been sold to the Mets just prior to the '63 season. He played 129 games for New York in 1963, the most in any season since 1957.

After just one year with the Mets, he was sold to the S.F. Giants on April 14, 1964. They released him after the season.

Snider rejoined the Dodgers' organization for 1965, as manager of their AAA Pacific Coast League team at Spokane.

I thought about making my Snider-Giants card in the 1965 format, to provide a career wrap-up with all of his MLB stats, but after kicking it around, decided to go with a 1964 style. In that era, Topps was never keen on issuing cards of players in the season after they retired,so that provided a good excuse to go with the 1964 version.

I also saved a lot of time using the 1964 format, since all I had to do is scan the back of a "real" 1964 Topps Snider and change the team name, logo and copyright information.

Standard Catalog Update: 1957-62 Indians Picture Packs

2011-10-15T11:27:00.003-05:00

Through the efforts of several dedicated Cleveland Indians collectors, we were able to assemble checklist information on a number of the 1950s-1960s Picture Packs issued by the team.

It was intended that these appear in the 2012 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, but production problems precluded that.

To assist in this presentation, I've eliminated the pricing data. In general complete sets in this era have retail values of $100-150 in Near Mint condition, with single pictures about $5 for typical players and $12-20 for Hall of Famers and local favorites like Rocky Colavito and Herb Score, wit the 1957 and 1958 Roger Maris at $25.

1957 Cleveland Indians Picture Pack

This set of “Official Autographed Pictures” issued in 1957 was sold at Municipal Stadium and other souvenir outlets for 50 cents. The player photos are in a 6-1/2” x 9” black-and-white, blank-back format with narrow white borders, printed on thin semi-gloss stock. About half the photos are identical to those issued in 1956. A facsimile player autograph on front identifies the photo.

Complete Set: (24)
(1) Bob Avila
(2) Jim Busby
(3) Alphonso “Chico” Carrasquel
(4) Rocky Colavito
(5) Bud Daley

(6) Kirby Farrell

(7) Mike Garcia

(8) Jim Hegan
(9) Ken Kuhn
(10) Bob Lemon
(11) Roger Maris
(12) Don Mossi
(13) Hal Naragon

(14) Ray Narleski
(15) Russ Nixon
(16) Stan Pitula

(17) Lawrence Raines

(18) Herb Score

(19) Al Smith

(20) George Strickland

(21) Dick Tomanek
(22) Vic Wertz

(23) Gene Woodling

(24) Early Wynn

1958 Cleveland Indians Picture Pack

This set of “Official Autographed Pictures” issued in 1958 was sold at Municipal Stadium and other souvenir outlets for 50 cents. The player photos are in a 6-1/2” x 9” black-and-white, blank-back format with narrow white borders, printed on thin semi-gloss stock. A facsimile player autograph on front identifies the photo. The players were pictured in their new striped uniforms.

Complete Set: (24)
(1) Bob Avila
(2) Bobby Bragan

(3) Dick Brown

(4) Alphonso “Chico” Carrasquel

(5) Rocky Colavito

(6) Larry Doby

(7) Mike Garcia

(8) Gary Geiger

(9) Jim Grant

(10) Bill Harrell
(11) Roger Maris

(12) Cal McLish

(13) Minnie Minoso

(14) Bill Moran

(15) Don Mossi

(16) Ray Narleski

(17) Russ Nixon

(18) J.W. Porter

(19) Herb Score

(20) Dick Tomanek

(21) Mickey Vernon

(22) Preston Ward
(23) Hoyt Wilhelm
(24) Indians Coaches (Red Kress, Bobby Bragan
Eddie Stanky, Mel Harder)

1960 Cleveland Indians Picture Pack

A continuation of the team’s tradition of issuing player picture packs, this set of “Official Autographed Pictures” issued in 1960 was sold at Municipal Stadium and other souvenir outlets for 50 cents, in a black-and-gold paper envelope. The player photos are in a 6-1/2” x 9” black-and-white, blank-back format with narrow white borders. A facsimile player autograph on front identifies the photo.

Complete Set: (23)
(1) Ken Aspromonte
(2) Gary Bell

(3) John Briggs

(4) Hank Foiles

(5) Tito Francona

(6) Joe Gordon

(7) Bob Hale

(8) Wynn Hawkins

(9) Woody Held
(10) John Klippstein

(11) Harvey Kuenn

(12) Frank Lane (general manager)

(13) Barry Latman

(14) Mike Lee
(15) Bobby Locke
(16) Jim Perry

(17) John “Bubba” Phillips
(18) Jimmy Piersall

(19) Vic Power

(20) John Romano

(21) Dick Stigman

(22) George Strickland

(23) John Temple

1961 Cleveland Indians Picture Pack

A continuation of the team’s tradition of issuing player picture packs, this set of “Official Autographed Pictures” issued in 1961 was sold at Municipal Stadium and other souvenir outlets for 50 cents, in a black-and-gold paper envelope. The player photos are in a 6-1/2” x 9” black-and-white, blank-back format with narrow white borders. A facsimile player autograph on front identifies the photo.

Complete Set: (22)
(1) John Antonelli
(2) Ken Aspromonte
(3) Gary Bell

(4) Walter Bond

(5) Mike de la Hoz
(6) James Dykes
(7) Tito Francona

(8) Jim Grant

(9) Wynn Hawkins

(10) Woodie Held

(11) Willie Kirkland

(12) Barry Latman
(13) Bobby Locke
(14) Jim Perry

(15) Bubba Phillips
(16) Jimmy Piersall

(17) Vic Power
(18) John Romano
(19) Dick Stigman

(20) John Temple

(21) Manager and coaches (Mel
        McGaha, Mel Harder, Jimmie
        Dykes, Luke Appling)
(22) Home of the Cleveland Indians
        (Cleveland Stadium)

1962 Cleveland Indians Picture Pack

A change to a very thin paper stock with very little gloss marked the final Cleveland Indians picture pack of the era. This set of “Official Autographed Pictures” issued in 1962 was sold at Municipal Stadium and other souvenir outlets for 50 cents, in a black-printed manila paper envelope. The player photos are in a 6-1/2” x 9” black-and-white, blank-back format with narrow white borders. A facsimile player autograph on front identifies the photo.

Complete Set: (22)
(1) Bob Allen

(2) Gary Bell

(3) Ty Cline

(4) Dan Dillard

(5) Dick Donovan
(6) Howard “Doc” Edwards

(7) Chuck Essegian

(8) Tito Francona

(9) Frank Funk

(10) Jim Grant

(11) Gene Green
(12) Woodie Held
(13) Jerry Kindall

(14) Willie Kirkland

(15) Barry Latman
(16) Al Luplow
(17) Mel McGaha
(18) Jim Perry
(19) Bubba Phillips
(20) Pedro Ramos

(21) John Romano

(22) Manager and coaches (Ray Katt,
Salty Parker, Mel Harder, Mel McGaha)

Standard Catalog Update: 1929 Philly theater premiums

2011-10-13T13:58:00.002-05:00

1929 Lindy Theatre Philadelphia A’s
This is one of several theater giveaways of the era capitalizing on the A’s consecutive American League Championships of 1929-1931. This series is in a 3-1/2” x 5-5/8” black-and-white format. Fronts have a player photo with his name (in all-capitals) and position (upper- and lower-case) at lower-right. Backs have details of coming attractions at the movie house, generally aimed at youngsters. The extent of the checklist for this set is not yet known.

                                       NM       EX        VG
Mickey Cochrane    3,500. 1,750. 1,050.
Jimmy Foxx               6,500. 3,250.  2,300.
Bill Shores                3,000. 1,500. 900.00
Al Simmons              3,500. 1,750.   1,050.

1929 Orient Theatre Philadelphia A’s

This is one of several theater giveaways of the era capitalizing on the A’s consecutive American League Championships of 1929-1931. This series is in a 3-1/2” x 5-5/8” black-and-white format. Fronts have a player photo with his name (in all-capitals) at center. Backs have details of coming attractions at the movie house, generally aimed at youngsters. The extent of the checklist for this set is not yet known.

NM EX VG
Jimmy Dykes 1,000. 500.00 300.00

Standard Catalog Update: 1888-1889 Giants Cabinets

2011-10-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

1888-1889 Joseph Hall N.Y. Giants Cabinets

Among the several baseball related photographic cards produced by the Brooklyn studio of Joseph Hall was this series of individual player cabinets of the 1888-1889 N.Y. Giants. Approximately 4” x 6-1/4”, these cards were likely produced for sale to the public, though virtually every example known in the hobby today is unique. The card fronts have oval portraits of the players, with their name penned in below. In most cases the portraits are the same as those used on the S.F. Hess tobacco card set of 1889. The black-and-white backs of the cabinets have an engraving of Windsor Castle at top, with advertising for the studio below, all in an ornate border. This checklist is known to be incomplete.

                                  VG
Roger Connor     4,500.
Tim Keefe            4,500.
Jim O’Rourke      4,500.
Mickey Welch     4,500.

Custom card: Duke Snider as an Expo

2011-10-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite card show memories of the mid-1980s occurred at one of John and Wanda Marcus' Arlington, Tex., shows at which Duke Snider had been contracted as an autograph guest.

In the dealer hospitality room (I'll bet they don't have those at many card shows today) after the show closed on Saturday evening, Duke Snider strolled in, sat down and talked baseball for several hours.

Snider was a broadcaster with the Expos at the time. He was every inch the jovial "Silver Fox," and thoroughly captivated the baseball fans in the room. I had the chance to ask him about my then-favorite player, Expos catcher Razor Shines. I don't remember now what Snider had to say -- or, really, could have said -- about Shines, but I'll bet he tried his best not to cast him in any negative light.

Snider's appearance in the hospitality room that night stood in sharp contrast to how many, if not most, former major leaguers treated their card-show appearances in that era. Most guests wanted as little as possible to do with fan/collector interaction beyond what the terms of their signing contracts specified.

I guess that's why Duke Snider was among the most popular of the 1950s Dodgers, and remained so with an entirely new generation after his playing days. I believe his popularity will live on for a long while, even though he died earlier this year.

There was certainly no shortage of Duke Snider cards issued during and after his playing days. He appeared on Bowman cards every year from 1949-54, and on Topps cards 1951-52 and 1954-64. As a member of the popular Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers teams of the 1950s, he also appeared on many regional card issues from Red Man tobacco to Dan-Dee potato chips, Briggs hot dogs, etc.

Snider's days as an Expos coach, however, are marked only by a pair of cards in the 1975 SSPC collectors' issue -- until now.

The latest in my series of 1970s-1980s coaches custom cards adds to Duke Snider's legacy. It is based on a photo from the Topps archives. I could have chosen to work up the card in either the 1974 or 1975 style, since Snider was on the Expos' staff both seasons, in between stints as a Montreal broadcaster.

The other choice I had, was whether to use the "Edwin D. Snider" facsimile autograph that appeared on his Topps cards between 1952-59, or go with the "Duke Snider" signature that appeared on his Bell Brand snack chip cards of 1959-1962. You can see which way I fell.

My to-do list contains at least two more Duke Snider cards, a 1955 Bowman and 1965 Topps. I'm not sure whether these cards will get done in the very near future, or if I'll be switching gears to work on some football cards first. Keep watching this space.

Standard Catalog Update: 1910 W-UNC Strip Cards

2011-10-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

1911 W-UNC Strip Cards

Based on the selection of confirmed subjects, 1911 seems to be the best approximation for the issue date of this black-and-white, blank-backed strip card set. Similar in format and even typography to the set identified as 1915 W-UNC Strip Cards, the cards in this set were probably issued in a nominal 1-5/8” x 2” size, although significant differences in size are seen on the few known examples, possibly due to the manner in which they were cut. Fronts of the individual player cards have posed action photos with a black frame and bordered in white. Player identification is at bottom. The checklist here is certainly incomplete.

                                                      VG
Catcher Irwin (Emil Erwin)     1,600.
Hans Lobert                            1,600.
Christy Mathewson               4,500.
Philadelphia A’s composite  2,250.

1940 Play Ball Superman ad back variations

2011-10-03T14:38:00.001-05:00

I never collected 1940 Play Ball baseball cards, so it's not surprising I wasn't personally aware of the Superman ad back variations, but I am surprised that in some 30 years of cataloging cards I don't recall anybody else ever mentioning them.

I was recently contacted by reader Mike Guluzzi who had seen a 1940 Play Ball card being offered on an internet sales site that was being hyped by saying it "is the first known example of a 1940 Play Ball baseball card with the very rare Superman ad back."

Guluzzi said he went through his own holdings of 1940 Play Balls and discovered several cards with and without the mention of Superman. Specifically, he mentioned that he has card #159 Frank J. Snyder with and without the Superman ad back. His inquiry was about the range of the Superman backs and whether the hobby considers a 1940 Play Ball set to be complete with one or both types of backs. He also inquired as to whether there is, or should be, a price differential.

Having no familiarity with these variations, I made inquiry on a vintage card collectors' forum and got some quick answers.

All cards in the numerical range of #123-180 can be found with two backs. One back has the common promotional message at bottom on back, "A pictorial news record of America's favorite sport. Save these cards . . . know all about the game and its prominent players. New pictures every year."

Each of those cards, however, can also be found with one of six advertising messages for Gum Inc.'s Superman gum cards. For reasons unknown, cards #121-122, which were printed on the same sheet(s) as #123-180, are NOT found with Superman ad backs. Only one of the various Superman ads is found on any particular card.

More experienced collectors than I indicated that while the Superman version of any particular player's card is noticeably scarcer than the "pictorial record" version, premiums seldom rise to more than about 5-10% higher.

Most hobbyists would contend that a complete set of 1940 Play Balls would include just one each of cards #123-180, without regard to which back appears. A "master set," however, would require both versions of those cards.

These variations should be noted in future editions of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.

Brown damned with faint praise

2011-10-01T13:23:00.000-05:00

I don't know why it grabbed my attention, but something that I read in a late-1960 issue of TSN caught my eye.

It was a short mention of the Milwaukee Braves' purchase of back-up catcher Dick Brown from the Chicago White Sox on Nov. 28. I probably took notice because I don't remember Brown ever appearing on a baseball card with the Braves.

Turns out there was good reason for that . . . about a week after the Braves acquired Brown, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers along with Billy Bruton, Chuck Cottier and Terry Fox for Frank Bolling and (a year later, as "the player to be named later") Neil Chrisley.

Or maybe I took note of the transaction because of what TSN's Milwaukee beat writer Bob Wolf had to say about the purchase. Talk about being underwhelmed . . . Wolf wrote, "chances are that (Brown) will prove a thoroughly adequate No. 2 man to Crandall."

As it developed, the Braves were wise to be seeking a backup for their long-time star catcher; Crandall played only five games behind the plate for Milwaukee in 1961 due to an injured shoulder. The Braves filled the void by bringing up 19-year-old Joe Torre.

As a kid scouring wax packs in the 1950s and early 1960s for Braves' cards, it was always fun to see who Topps thought might be the next Milwaukee catcher. We enjoyed a parade of guys like Sam Calderone, Charlie White, Jack Parks, Bob Roselli, Del Rice, Hawk Taylor, Stan Lopata and Charlie Lau.

Another great line from Bob Wolf was found a couple of weeks later, in his account of the Dec. 15, 1960, trade of Braves' pitchers Juan Pizarro and Joey Jay to the Reds for Roy McMillan.

Wolf described Pizarro and Jay as pitchers of "perennial promise."

Dick Brown had a nine-year career in the majors between 1957-65, batting .244 lifetime. He had only one season, 1962 with the Tigers, when he caught in more than 100 games.

Newest custom: 1972 Larry Doby

2011-09-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

I had planned to work on some custom cards while I was in the hospital for my knee replacement, but between being whacked out on painkillers the first couple of days, and rehab therapy the next few days, I never opened my computer.

Nevertheless, I have now finished my latest custom card, a 1972-style card of Larry Doby as an Expos coach.

I really enjoy seeing guys from my baseball cards of the 1950s-1960s (or earlier) as they would have appeared in the 1970s or 1980s as coaches, often in the uniform of teams other than those for whom they played.

I was never a particular Larry Doby fan during his playing days. No doubt as the first black player in the American League he endured many of the same hardships that Jackie Robinson did in the N.L.

Reflect, however, on the fact that Doby went directly from the Negro Leagues' Newark Eagles to the Cleveland Indians in July, 1947, just 11 weeks after Robinson's debut. Doby didn't have the benefit of a season of integrated baseball in the minor leagues of Organized Baseball that Robinson had.

Doby also didn't enjoy the instant success that Robinson had as a major leaguer. With the Indians in 1947, Doby hit just .156 in 29 games, striking out in 11 of his 32 at-bats. He also bounced around the Cleveland infield, playing at first base, second base and shortstop.

Both Doby and Indians' owner Bill Veeck must have spent the off-season second-guessing their decision. That all became moot in 1948, however, as the Indians moved Doby to center field and he hit .301 to help clinch the A.L. pennant, then led all Indians' regulars, batting .318 to beat the Boston Braves in the 1948 World Series.

Doby batted only .125 in the Indians' 1954 Series loss to the N.Y. Giants, and, while he was a member of the 1959 Chicago White Sox for a couple of months in mid-season, he had been released to San Diego of the Pacific Coast League before the Go-Go Sox won the pennant and World Series.

Doby was one of the first former major leaguers to play pro ball in Japan, spending the 1962 season with the Chunichi Dragons of the Central League at the age of 38.

Continuing his international tour of pro baseball, Doby joined the Montreal Expos' organization in 1969 as a scout and minor league batting instructor. After managing Zulia in the Venezuela League in the winter of 1970-71, he joined the big club at Montreal as a coach, 1971-73.

While I could have chosen any style from 1971-73 for my Doby custom coach card, I ruled out '73 because he appeared in the regular Topps set that year as one of the coaches on manager Gene Mauch's card. Choosing the 1972 format over the 1971 style was really just a coin toss. Doing a '71 would have theoretically required having to dig up a second photo of Doby as an Expos coach to use on the back.

I'm OK with my choices on this one.

The Rockwell 'Post' cover that almost was

2011-09-27T10:47:00.000-05:00

Among the 322 covers that Norman Rockwell produced for the Saturday Evening Post between 1916-63 were half a dozen baseball themes.

But the Rockwell baseball cover that "almost was" in 1952 would have no doubt been the most most popular with collectors.

As related in his column, "From the Ruhl Book," in the Jan. 23, 1952, issue of The Sporting News, Oscar Ruhl detailed the story of a cover painting that was intended for use on the Post around the time of the 1952 baseball season opener.

According to Ruhl, Rockwell had been commissioned to do a home-plate scene featuring Stan Musial, Joe Garagiola and umpire Al Barlick.

St. Louis residents Musial and Garagiola, and Barlick, who lived in Springfield, Ill., had spent three days at Sportsman's Park with the artist, posing for photos and sketches from which Rockwell would produce the final painting.

The cover was to show Barlick dusting off home plate with Musial in the batter's box and Garagiola, then a Pirates catcher, behind the plate. The problem was, to show Barlick's face in the composition, he had to assume a pose that was contrary to baseball custom.

Umpires were always taught to bend over to whisk the plate with their back turned to the pitcher's mound. If the umpire was facing the mound while he did his housekeeping, he'd be giving the fans behind home plate an up-close view (and target) of his backside.

Rockwell insisted that the cover art should show all three participants from the front, but when he submitted his preliminary painting, the Post's editors vetoed it because of its inaccuracy. There was no time to replace the painting in time for publication before the season opener (when, coincidentally, the Pirates were to meet the Cardinals in St. Louis), so what might have become a great collectible piece of baseball art never came to fruition.

As an aside, Stan Musial later did appear on a Post cover. On the May 1, 1954, issue, "The Man" is pictured signing autographs for a group of kids in a painting by John Falter, another frequent cover contributor to the popular weekly magazine.

My customs on display at Ole Miss

2011-09-25T13:19:00.000-05:00

I received a very gratifying email today from Oxford., Miss.

Last year, after he had seen some of my custom football cards on this blog, Langston Rogers, contacted me about displaying my four Ole Miss cards on campus. Rogers worked for nearly 30 years in the Sports Information Department at the University of Mississippi, until his retirement last year. Today he retains a retirement office at Ole Miss and the title of Senior Associate Athletic Director Emeritus.

Today, he sent photos of my cards on display in one of Archie Manning's cases at Hollingsworth-Manning Hall, which is the Ole Miss recruitment-memorabilia center where Rebels coaches huddle with recruits.

I was a late-comer (mid-1980s) to Ole Miss fandom, so I'm honored to have my custom cards on display where they can be enjoyed by other fans and . . . who knows . . . maybe the next great Rebels star making a campus visit.

My quartet of Ole Miss customs are 1955 Topps All-American style cards of Archie Manning, Eli Manning and Michael Oher, and a 1952 Bowman-style card of Dexter McCluster.

How is it that I have not yet done a Chuckie Mullins card?

Gus Zernial's iconic '52 Topps card

2011-09-23T09:19:00.003-05:00

One of the most memorable cards in the 1952 Topps baseball set is that of Gus Zernial (#31).

The smiling A's outfielder is shown holding a bat in his right hand. Attached to the bat are six baseballs. Actually, it is more likely that the balls were superimposed on the bat in a black-and-white photograph that was colorized for the Topps card. With his right hand, Zernial is making the "OK" sign.

While most collectors of Fifties cards know this image, few know what it represents. While it is spelled out on the back of the card, I'll summarize it here.

The photo immortalized on that card marks Zernial's tying the major league record for having hit six home runs in three successive ballgames.

On April 30, 1951, Zernial had been traded from the White Sox to the A's as part of a three-team, six-player deal.

Two weeks later, on May 13, in the first inning of the second game of a doubleheader against the Yankees, Zernial hit his first home run of the year, off Spec Shea. In the fifth inning he homered again, off Fred Sanford. The hometeam Athletics beat the Yankees 9-6.

With the St. Louis Browns visiting Shibe Park for the next series, Zernial again homered twice on May 15. The first came against Dick Starr in the first inning. The second, in the ninth inning against Ned Garver, wasn't enough to overcome the A's deficit, and they lost 8-11.

The next day, the 16th, Zernial's home runs came against Duane Pillette in the second inning and Cliff Fannin in the fifth. The A's again lost, 9-10.

The '52 Topps card could have just as easily shown Zernial with seven balls on his bat, because on May 17, he homered again, off Don Johnson in the first inning, as the A's beat the Browns 7-6.

That home run also tied an American League record of seven home runs in four consecutive games. That mark had been set by Tony Lazzeri in 1936.

After his home run outburst, Zernial did not hit another for nearly two weeks, until June 2, but he went on to lead the American League in 1951 with 33 home runs and 126 RBIs.

Moreso because of the unusual photo than the player's star stature, the '52 Topps Zernial card has always enjoyed a modest premium over other cards in the low-number series.

Topps photogs foiled by Foiles

2011-09-21T15:11:00.005-05:00

Trying to get a current photograph of career back-up back stop Hank Foiles, Topps photographers were led on a merry chase in 1960-61.

That's because Foiles was the property of seven different teams in one year's time.

On Dec. 12, 1959, Foiles was traded from the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Kansas City A's, for whom he played the first half of the 1960 season. While that trade is reflected in the typography on Foiles' 1960 Topps card, he is still pictured as a Pirate on both front photos.

On June 1, 1960, the A's traded Foiles back to the Pirates, who had designs on sending him down to their AAA farm club at Columbus in the International League to bolster the team's catching corps.

Foiles, however, refused to accept the demotion and was given permission to seek a trade. On June 2, he was dealt to the Cleveland Indians.

Less than two months later, Foiles was traded to the Detroit Tigers, on July 26.

At the end of the 1960 season, he was placed on the roster of the Tigers' AAA team at Denver, then champions of the American Association.

In the Rule 5 minor league draft on Nov. 28, 1960, the Baltimore Orioles selected Foiles.

On his 1961 Topps card, Foiles is listed with the O's, but the photo shows him capless, in a Pirates' jersey.

On his 1962 Topps card, Foiles is finally listed with the same team whose uniform he wears -- the Orioles . . . but he never played for Baltimore that season, having been sold to the Cincinnati Reds on April 20.

Foiles' final two Topps cards show him with the correct and current teams, the Reds in 1963 and the L.A. Angels in 1964.

Hank Foiles played 11 seasons in the major leagues, mostly as a back-up catcher. He averaged just over 55 games a season, playing in more than 100 games only in 1957 and 1958 with the Pirates. He was a career .243 batter, but never hit more than nine home runs in a big league season.

Yankees star absent from '60 Series program cover

2011-09-19T15:01:00.002-05:00

The New York Yankees version of the 1960 World Series program is a treasured piece of Fall Classic memorabilia. In nice condition today it is a $75-125 item.

Few collectors, however, realize that one of the Yankees’ biggest stars of the '60 Series is missing from the team photo on the cover.

In its coverage of the ’60 Series, The Sporting News of Oct. 19 ran a small boxed article headlined, “Red-Faced Richardson Late for Team Picture”.

In its entirety, the article read, “The Yankees had an overwhelmingly impressive World’s Series program cover—one showing the team in full color at an expenditure of an additional $4,500.

“It shows everyone, including Ryne Duren in dark glasses, Trainer Gus Mauch 20 pounds lighter than last year, and a couple of bat boys, but no Bobby Richardson.

“Why not? Bobby grinned abashedly, 'I was late.'

“Late? Who was supposed to notify him, anyway?

"‘Me,’ grinned Bobby. ‘I’m the player rep.’”

Richardson had led the Yankees to a 10-0 Game 3 win with a grand slam home run and a single for a record six RBIs in a World Series game.

And speaking of the 1960 World Series program . . . TSN reported that prior to Game 5, Roy Face, the Pirates ace relief pitcher, had sent a program over to the Yankees clubhouse to be autographed.

“It came back without a single signature,” according to the paper. In relief of Harvey Haddix that day, Face pitched 2-2/3 innings of hitless baseball, sealing the Yankees 5-2 loss.

Rare '59 Topps insert surfaces

2011-09-17T11:34:00.003-05:00

A few days ago we posted an entry about the 1959 Topps All-Star Rookie Team paper selection ballots that were wax-pack ride-alongs (to the tune of a reported 30 million pieces).

Coincidentally, a rare surviving example of that paper-stock insert was offered in a Sept. 1 eBay auction where it sold for $469.

Paired with the rookie ballot in that auction was another paper insert that was purported to have also originated in 1959 Topps baseball card wax packs.

The auction was reported to us by regular contributor Larry Serota, a dedicated vintage Topps collector, who said he had never seen the other insert. Neither had we, to the best of our recollection.

The insert was an offer for a Bazooka t-shirt, available for 50 cents.

The insert has a "closing" date of November 30, 1959. While that would seem to suggest a 1959 issue date coincident with the baseball season, it does not necessarily preclude this from having been inserted into 1958 wax packs -- baseball, football or even non-sports. Anecdotal evidence points to this insert being a 1959 Topps baseball ride-along. It will likely be added to the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards as such in forthcoming editions if controverting evidence is not forthcoming.

Your input is welcomed.

I'm back in action

2011-09-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

Not to jinx the rehabilitation process, or anything (I'm scared to death of post-op infection), the operation went great. At least from my standpoint . . . I understand the surgeon, one of the country's best for knees, found more than he had anticipated when he got to digging in there. Decades of bleeding into the joint had degraded some important bone structure so some of his Plan A for reattaching ligaments, etc., had to be modified on the fly.

Upon coming out of the anesthesia fog, I was amazed and gratified to find how much straighter my leg was, though a bit shorter. I was under the knife for about 4-1/2 hours on Thursday, Sept. 8, by the time I was aware that the Packers were winning that night, my knee hurt less than it has in the previous 10 years. The next night I turned off the dilaudid drip (it didn't seem to be doing anything). Other than an oxycodone for the transfer to my van and 2-1/2 hour drive home on Tuesday, I haven't needed anything stronger than super-strength Tylenol.

I was up on my feet, talking a few steps into the hospital hall by Friday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon I was able to walk half way to the physical therapy gym and climb a few steps. Now the emphasis is on regaining range of motion and me gaining some confidence in the stability of the new artificial knee. I'm using a cane around the house, and a walker for trips down the driveway to rebuild strength and stamina.

My daughter flew into Milwaukee for the operation, and stuck around to watch football for the weekend, so that was a nice side benefit. My wife was there for the whole time in the hospital, and is taking care of me at home so I don't overextend myself.

Honestly, if I was still working, I'd be chomping at the bit to go back to the office on Monday. As it is, I have to entertain a parade of physical therapists and home nurses at home for the next few weeks. I hope to get back into the swing of new entries for the blog soon, and to work on a few of my custom cards.

It took me 10 years of increasing pain and decreasing mobility to get me into the operating room, but I'm so glad I finally did it. Knock on wood.

Thanks to all for your prayers and well wishes.

Ebbets Field clock sent down to minors

2011-09-15T10:46:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite baseball cards from childhood was the 1953 Bowman Gil Hodges, with its background of Ebbets Field's left field. I still own the well-worn example of that card that I inherited from one of my older brothers or their friends.

I was always drawn to the Schaefer Beer billboard, with the clock atop it. For a time 30-40 years ago, when a local liquor store stocked Schaefer's, it was my beer of choice.

While reading a 1960 issue of The Sporting News a while back, I was surprised to learn that the clock that sat atop that beer sign in Flatbush continued to serve its intended purpose for at least 30 years after Ebbets Field was demolished.

An article in the April 24, 1960, issue of TSN detailed the auction of Ebbets Field relics that was held in the stadium's rotunda just prior to the arrival of the famed baseball-painted wrecking ball.

While the stadium clock was not included in the auction, the article mentioned that it had been sold by real estate developed Marvin Kratter to the Asheville Tourists for installation at McCormick Field. No mention was made of the price the wreckers received for the clock.

The TSN article did have other specifics, though. It was mentioned that $2,300 was realized in the auction. By far the biggest bid was for the cornerstone, purchased for $600 by then-president of the National League, Warren Giles.

The Ebbets Field cornerstone was described as about 3' by 4' by 1', cut from red-brown Connecticut Granite. After considerable effort, the stone was busted open and a copper box extracted.

The sports weekly enumerated the contents as including a photograph of Charles Ebbets, letters from "baseball greats of old," a copy of the N.Y. Morning Post newspaper, and other paper item that did not survive intact their nearly 50 years' entombment.

Six U.S. one-cent coins were also in the cornerstone. Five were dated 1912, presumably new coins from the year the cornerstone was lain. There was also an 1811 cent, which the paper said was "worth $7.50 to a coin collector today." If the Lincoln cents were uncirculated, or nearly so, at the time they were included in the trove, they would have a numismatic value today of $100-200. A nice circulated 1811 cent is a $400-500 coin in today's market.

The Ebbets Field auction also included what the paper described as "gold-plated bricks" that sold for $1 apiece, flower pots full of infield dirt at 25 cents, and "broken bats, autographed balls" and "pictures of Dodgers heroes." The paper said, "Hardly anything sold for more than $5."

Attendance estimates of the crowd at the auction ranged widely, from 200 to 1,000.

McCormick Field, which has served Ashville baseball since 1924, was remodeled in 1992. If the Ebbets Field clock was still there at that time, it seems to be gone now. It had been reported that the clock had been atop a scoreboard in right field. Recent photos of the ballpark show no clock there.

I suppose a little digging on the internet would uncover the current location of the Ebbets Field clock, but I'll leave that for someone else. I prefer to remember it as it appear on Gil Hodges' 1953 Bowman baseball card.

Little wonder Herriage had only one card

2011-09-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

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.

In this day and age, it is almost unheard of for a major league baseball player to not have at least one baseball card to memorialize his time, no matter how brief, in the bigs.

That wasn't always the case, though. In the post-war era of 16 major league teams, even during the years of the Topps and Bowman bubblegum wars, with up to seven series of cards being issued over the course of the season, it was not uncommon for players to slip through the cracks.

Fortunately, many of those players who were ignored by the gum companies made an appearance on a regionally or team-issued card. While this makes it more challenging for team collectors and descendants to find a card of such players, at least the possibility exists that a sought-after card may surface.

Recently we found out of the existence of such a card for a Kansas City A's pitcher Troy Herriage.

A native Oklahoman, Harriage entered professional ranks in 1951, at the age of 20. He pitched for three seasons (1951-52, 1954; he was in the military in 1953) for Class C and D teams out west, with a 32-28 record. Moving up to Montgomery in Class A in 1955, Herriage had a breakout year, with a 15-7 record and 2.41 ERA.

After the season he was selected in the Rule 5 minor league draft by Kansas City.

Sadly, Herriage was outgunned by big league batters with the Athletics in 1956. He won only one game while losing 13. His ERA was 6.64. In 103 innings he gave up 135 hits and 64 walks, striking out 59. He didn't get much run support; the A's averaged only 2.23 runs per game in his 13 losses.

Not surprisingly, Herriage was back in the minor leagues in 1957. In 1957-58 on Class A and AA Kansas City farm clubs, he was 8-20.

After retiring from pro ball following the 1958 season, Herriage worked as an engineer in the aerospace industry.

Herriage's baseball card legacy consists, so far as we know, of a single 1956 Kansas City Athletics team-issued postcard. Besides the blank-back card provided by the team for players to answer fan requests for photos and autographs, Herriage's card can also be found with the advertising imprint on back for the June 22 Kansas City Live Stock Night promotional game. We carried an entry about that set on this blog on Jule 8.

The existence of the card was reported by Maine collector Bob Thing, who sent the photocopy which appears here.

Where I was 10 years ago

2011-09-11T07:43:00.006-05:00

The 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, finds me in the same place I was 10 years ago.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was in a hospital bed amid a series of debridement surgeries that would eventually number 17 on my right ankle, which had become infected with a staph germ that eventually destroyed much of the joint's structure.

Not knowing what might be coming following the kamikaze attacks, and being 65 miles from home, I checked myself out of the hospital.

Today, I am in a hospital in Milwaukee, undergoing a complicated right knee replacement. That joint was also staph-infected back in 2001, and since then has deteriorated to the point where I either get an artificial hinge or get into a wheelchair.

To maintain the continuity of this blog, I've "worked ahead" to provide new entries every other day through at least Sept. 25.

If more than a couple of days passes after that date without anything new appearing in this space, you'll know something went very wrong.

I expect, though, to be back on duty by then.

Pretty Pictures: Ballplayers get all the good-looking babes

2011-09-09T11:24:00.001-05:00

Continuing with my periodical presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this trio of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees or girlfriends.

Pictures of players and their babes were common in decades past. It's not something you see much today.

The first picture shows black-balled (an interesting story, I'd like to reprint my old SCD features on the topic some time) batting king -- he led the Federal League in hitting in both of the circuits seasons as a major league; .370 with Indianapolis in 1914 and .342 with Brooklyn in 1915 -- Benny Kauff.

There's no date on the photo, or identification of the lady wearing the dead things around her neck. The photo presumably dates from the 1910s, when Kauff was in his prime. Ain't he the hep cat?

The second photo is a 1954 AP Wirephoto of Yankees great Bill Dickey. It's datedlined Jan. 20 from Little Rock, Ark., and captioned "Kiss Deserved."

The cutline reads, "Mrs. Bill Dickey kisses her husband to congratulate him on being elected to baseball's Hall of Fame today. The former New York Yankee star catcher makes his home here."

The final picture is from Acme Telephoto. It shows American League pitcher Bob Cain with his intended, and explains why he's holding a mittful of tickets.

The photo is datelined Nov. 12, Cleveland, Ohio. The cutline reads, "Detroit Tigers pitcher Bob (Sugar) Cain, who went to work today (11/12) selling season tickets for the Cleveland Indians, talks over his new job with his fiancee, Judy Stevens. The pitcher took the off-season position to remain in town, near Miss Stevens whom he plans to marry Dec. 1. Cain met his future bride during his visits here as a pitcher with Detroit, and love blossomed."

The mention of Cain as a Tigers pitcher pinpoint the year of the photo as 1951. Three months after the picture was taken, Cain was traded to the St. Louis Browns.

Today, of course, no player on the roster of one team would be allowed to take an off-season job with another team. But then again, players today don't take off-season jobs.

Eye candy for Armour coin buffs

2011-09-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

I don't ever recall owning a 1955, 1959 or 1960 Armour coin back in the day when they were being packaged with hot dogs. We were probably an Oscar Mayer family.

When I got active in the hobby in the late 1970s, I became aware of them, but other than an occasional piece that came my way when buying collections, I never pursued them.

As a got involved in card cataloging in the early 1980s, I began to learn more and more about how complex this issue can be for die-hard collectors. Besides common, scarce, rare and one-of-a-kind color variations, there are many major and minor variations in coin details, such as tilt of the player portrait, spacing of lettering, errors and corrections of names and stats, etc.

It would be impossible to catalog the issue in a comprehensive manner, much less than attempt a master collection, even though there were only 64 "basic" coins issued over the three years.

While reading microfilm of 1960 Sporting News issues recently, I discovered that the April 27 issue had a full-page ad on the back cover detailing Armour's baseball coin promotion for the year. I thought that was worth sharing here.

The 1960 Armour issue, of course, was the source of the legendary hobby rarity, the Bud Daley coin. For some reason, while the typical '60 Armour of a "common" player sells for $10-15, the Daley piece is an $800-1,000 coin in even the most common color of plastic.

There doesn't seem to
be an easy explanation for why the Daley coin is so scarce. He was traded from the Red Sox to the Athletics on Dec. 3, 1959, and spent the full season with Kansas City. So it's not like he was traded or sent down in mid-season and the coin was pulled from distribution.

That leaves only a contract dispute or production problems as the most likely reason for the Daley coin's scarcity. And, since we don't know a whole lot about how the Armour coins were made, other than it was by an injection molded plastic technique, it would be difficult to say why fewer of Daley's coins were produced or released.

Alternative 1955 Topps-style Koufax rookies

2011-09-05T09:38:00.002-05:00

In my posting of Aug. 26, I presented an alternative look at what a 1957 Topps Sandy Koufax card might have looked like if the gum company had chosen to use a posed-action photo rather than the iconic close-up portrait that is one of the set's most sought-after cards.

Today, I want to unveil my alternative custom card version of the 1955 Topps Sandy Koufax rookie card.

While the portrait and action photos that I used weren't available to Topps in 1955, they were part of the Topps' archives; the photos probably having been taken in 1957.

It is a little known fact that the photo of Koufax on the dugout steps that appears on the right of the "real" Topps rookie card of 1955 was airbrushed to remove the Pittsburgh Pirates uniform he was wearing at the time he was photographed during a tryout with the Bucs.

For Brooklyn Dodgers fans, I think the "looking-in" photo on my customs is more pleasing.

You might not realize it, but all the Brooklyn Dodgers cards in 1955 Topps utilized the yellow background fade. Other than the Phillies (blue), they are the only team so uniformly presented. All other teams have a mix of at least two of the four background colors.

When I envisioned creating an alternative version of the Koufax rookie, I decided that, besides the yellow background, I'd see what it looked like with one of the other colors. I didn't think that blue would work too well because of the color of the Dodgers cap, and the red background would camouflage the Dodgers logo. I like the green background.

One of the nice things about making alternative customs is that not too much time is required to do the back. With only a few minor changes to insure that my customs aren't confused with genuine Topps products, the backs that appeared on the original cards can be readily adapted for printing my customs.

30 million wax pack inserts went "poof"

2011-09-03T13:47:00.002-05:00

One of the surprises we got upon opening our wax packs of 1960 Topps baseball in the summer of 1960 was a group of cards in a different design that was labeled Topps All-Star Rookies.

In our neighborhood, the highlight of that subset -- since there were no Milwaukee Braves -- was Willie Covey, who had kicked ass in the National League during the last half of the 1959 season. Besides, we had seen all of the other guys on those cards on previous years Topps cards (many on the red-white-and-blue striped The Sporting News rookie subset the previous year). In today's hobby parlance, McCovey was the only true rookie card in that group.

The other players in the subset were: Pumpsie Green, Jim Baxes, Joe Koppe, Bob Allison, Ron Fairly, Willie Tasby, Johnny Romano, Jim Perry and Jim O'Toole.

The oval on the right of these cards said these "Topps All-Star Rookies" had been "Selected by the Youth of America."

Indeed, according to information found in a 1960 issue of The Sporting News, 30 million "Elect Your Favorite Rookie" ballots had been distributed to "youth organizations" and as ride-alongs in wax packs of 1959 baseball cards. At least of the youth groups were named in the article: Boy's Clubs, Boy Scouts of America and YMCA. There was no indication of how many ballots those groups had received, and how many were in gum packs.

If we knew that ratio, we'd know how many wax packs were sold in 1959 and would be well on the way to coming up with at least a wild-ass guess as to how many cards were issued.

The Sporting News article revealed that the "Youth of America" had been aided in the selection process by an "Honorary Rookie All-Star Team Election Committee." Looking over that list, it is evident the committee was selected with an eye towards maximizing the publicity for Topps.

In alphabetical order, the committee comprised:

Tim Cohane, sports editor, Look magazine
Dan Ferris, honorary secretary, National Amateur Athletic Union
Ed Fitzgerald, editor-in-chief, Sport magazine
Frank Frisch, Hall of Famer
Tom S. Gallery, director of sports, NBC
Dave Grote, public relations director, National League
Sid James, managing editor, Sports Illustrated
Carl Lundquist, public relations director, Natl Assn. of Professional Baseball Leagues
Bill MacPhail, director of sports, CBS
Joe McKenney, public relations director, American League
Jackie Robinson, vice-president, Chock Full O'Nuts
Marshall Smith, sports editor, Life magazine
J.G. Taylor Spink, publisher, The Sporting News.

The announcement of the rookie team had been made at a post-season banquet in New York City on Oct. 29, 1959, when the honored players each received a trophy and a check for $125.

Topps evidently believed the exercise was worthwhile, as it was repeated with paper ballots in packs of 1960 cards, and a new Rookie All-Star team that appeared on 1961 cards. Rather than a special design for those players, their cards -- with the curious exception of Frank Howard -- have the Topps "top hat" trophy on them.

So, what became of those 30,000,000 ballots distributed in 1959? They are extremely rare today. Even most of the die-hard collectors of 1959 Topps cards don't have an example in their collections.

To be honest, I don't remember ever seeing the paper ballots in the many, many packs of 1959 Topps cards I opened. I probably threw them in the gutter along with those worthless wrappers and most of the bubblegum. I have a feeling the $30 price quoted for a NM example in the 2011 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards represents less than 10% of what one of these inserts would command if offered today.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, an example of the Topps Rookie All-Star Team paper ballot appeared in an eBay auction closing Sept. 1.

Paired with another Topps paper insert, a Bazooka t-shirt offer, the rookie ballot sold for $469. It looks to be in decent shape, except for a 1/2" tear at top.

New custom card: 1978 Rocky Colavito

2011-09-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

For several years I have been squirreling away photos of 1950s-60s (sometimes earlier) players that show them in their post-playing days as major league coaches.

I find these pictures interesting because they show the guys I collected on cards as a kid in a different role. It's like Vincent Vega said about Europe in Pulp Fiction, it's "the same shit, only a little bit different."

My first coach's card was done about two years ago, picturing Bill Mazeroski as a Seattle Mariners coach.

I've just completed by second such card: Rocky Colavito as a Cleveland Indians coach on a 1978 Topps-style card.

I have publicly thank here a fellow custom card maker, Keith Conforti, who when he saw the beta version of my card on forum, suggested I go with the horizontal "As Player/As Manager" format that was used for manager cards that years. That idea had never crossed my mind. I like it so much better than the standard '78 style.

As usual, my initial print run for the Colavito-as-coach card was a sheet of nine cards. After stashing two in my permanent archives, I have seven available for interested Colavito/Indians/1978 card fans. You can get one by sending $7.50 to: Bob Lemke, P.O. Box 8, Iola, WI 54945.

When "Hot Rod" stole home

2011-08-29T17:10:00.000-05:00

2011-08-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

Since the photographs that appear on baseball cards are probably the single most important element, I found it interesting that in 1953, the New York's press photographers honored three of the city's players as being the most co-operative.

The Jan. 21 issue of The Sporting News covered the occasion in a major league way. giving over most of that issue's front page to a cartoon by Willard Mullin that offered some great insights into some of the guys we see on our early Fifties baseball cards.

The accompanying article was written by New York World-Telegram baseball beat writer Dan Daniel. It was headlined "Phil, Pee Wee, Sal Hailed as Photogs' Pals".

The pertinent portion of the coverage began, "Phil Rizzuto of the Yankees, Pee Wee Reese, Dodgers, and Sal Maglie, Giants, two great shortstops and a pitcher, marvelous guys on and off the field, were honored in the second annual sports citation dinner of the Press Photographers Association of New York, at Leone's popular restaurant, on the night of January 12.

"To the Scooter, Pee Wee and the Barber went bronze plaques as the cameramen's choices of the ultimate in co-operation. The baseball writers would do well to sponsor a similar award, but as yet they have done nothing in that direction," Daniel commented.

"There is only one citation, really, by the disciples of Mons. Daguerre, but the election resulted in a triple tie, and rather than have a runoff, the lensmen made three awards."

According to the article, more than 100 cameramen, baseball officials and baseball writers attended the dinner.

Strictly coincidentally, about the time I first encountered this article while reviewing TSN microfilm, a photograph appeared on eBay showing the photographers' association president Jack Downey presenting Rizzuto, Reese and Magline with their awards.

Another "alt" 1957 Topps-style Koufax custom

2011-08-26T09:16:00.001-05:00

My ALT-2 1957-style Koufax custom.

In my blog post of June 24, 2010 (you can find it by clicking on "older posts at the bottom), I presented an alternative 1957 Topps-style Sandy Koufax custom card that I had created.

In the post, I said, "I haven't often, in my several years of custom card making, tried to improve on an actual card from Topps, Bowman, etc. It's my belief that the graphic artists who created those originals so many decades ago, working with what today is viewed as ancient technology -- a roll of rubylith and an Xacto knife -- do not deserve to have their legacy usurped by me and my computer graphics tools."

My ALT-1 1957-style Koufax custom.

But the recent availability of some never-before-seen photos of a young Koufax was too tempting and I created another 1957-style Koufax card. The vivid color and the Ebbets Field background were a perfect image to recreate a later-series '57 Topps card. Collectors of vintage cards recognize that while the first several series of 1957 Topps were generally muted in color, from the 4th Series on, many of the cards exhibited a much brighter look.

As I said back in June, 2010, Topps made an excellent choice with the close-up portrait of Koufax they used on card #302, but the alternative posed-action photos they had on hand would have also made great looking cards.

1960 Topps print run hint found

2011-08-24T10:53:00.003-05:00

A couple of bits and pieces found while poring over microfilm of 1960 issues of The Sporting News may have provided a clue as to how many baseball cards Topps produced that year, and perhaps 1959, as well.

A feature photo on Page 38 of the May 4 issue of TSN showed a trio of kids -- plus Stan Musial. The Man was signing an autograph for one of the lads in an inset photo, while the other two boys were shown "trading 'bubble gum' players in a porch-step exchange."

The cutline indicated that Topps "will issue approximately 600 different cards this season," and that "over 250,000,000 of them will be sold in bubble gum packages."

We now know that Topps' 1960 baseball set was complete at 572 cards. If all 572 had been printed in equal numbers, that estimated print run would account for 437,063 of each card.

Of course, the semi-high numbers (#441-506) and the high numbers (#507-572) were issued in progressively smaller quantities than the first five series issued earlier in the year.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what the ratio between 1st Series and 7th Series print runs might have been. Were the early series 500,000 of each card? 600,000? More? Were the Sixth and 7th Series half the number of the earlier series? A third?

If my estimates are anywhere near correct, and if only 10% of those cards survive, that would mean there are about 50,000-60,000 "regular" 1960 Topps Mickey Mantles or Carl Yastrzemski rookies left. Mantle All-Stars would number 25,000-30,000 or so. That seems high to me.

What's your take on the numbers?

Pretty pictures: "Cowboy" Dizzy Dean

2011-08-22T10:26:00.003-05:00

A couple of days ago we shared a photo from among a couple of hundred accumulated over 30+ years. The picture was of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Paul "Daffy" Dean tending to his farm.

In the same vein, presented here is a picture of Dizzy Dean you probably haven't seen before.

Datelined June 4, 1940, the AP Wirephoto was captioned, "Dean Heads South and Hopes for Comeback".

After beginning the 1940 season with a 1-1 record in six appearances and an ERA way above 5.00, Diz was sent down to the Cubs' farm club in the Class A1 Texas League to work out the kinks.

The cutline on the picture reads, "The once-great Dizzy Dean was headed for the minors today be he still kept his good humor as, barefoot and wearing his cowboy hat, he donned his Chicago Cub uniform for the last time before leaving for the Tulsa Club of the Texas League. Dean hopes for a comeback in the same circuit in which he began his amazing flight to major league hurling heights."

With the Oilers in 21 games, Dean had an 8-8 record and 3.17 ERA. He was recalled by the Cubs in September and had a 2-2 record in four games.

Pretty Pictures: "Farmer" Paul Dean

2011-08-20T13:54:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we shared a photo from among a couple of hundred accumulated over 30+ years. The picture was of 1930s first baseman Zeke Bonura working his cabbage farm.

In the same vein, presented here is a picture of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Paul "Daffy" Dean tending to his farm. Unlike the Bonura picture, however, this was not an off-season scene.

This International News Photos picture was datelined July 25, 1938, at Dallas, Tex. At that time, Dean had been virtually out of the major leagues since Aug. 24, 1936, sidelined by a sore arm. He had pitched only once in 1937, facing three batters on April 24, hitting two of them and giving up a hit to the third.

There is a haunting quality about this portrait of the sidelined Dean, that the caption writer effectively captured.

1940 Play Ball.

Under the almost non-sensical headline "The sun is horsehide and bleachers fill the horizon," the caption reads, "The young man with the hoe is Paul 'Daffy' Dean, younger brother of Chicago Cubs' Jerome 'Dizzy' Dean, who is dreaming of short-cropped grass and a packed grandstand instead of tall corn and the wide-open spaces. Daffy -- like brother Dizzy -- suffered from a troublesome money arm and he thinks the work on his huge farm here will get it back in shape. Brother Dizzy is, from all appearances, back in shape and pitching and brother Paul, with a far away look in his eyes, yearns for the day when the old snap returns and he can toe the rubber once more."

Probably not too long after the picture was taken, Paul began a comeback pitching for Dallas and Houston in the Texas League. In 29 games he pitched 201 innings with a 3.72 ERA and an 8-16 record.

In September, the Cardinals recalled him to St. Louis. In five games between Sept. 11-Oct. 2, he won three and lost one. His major league career, however, was effectively over and he was never able to regain the form that he showed with back-to-back 19-win season in his first two years.

Pretty Pictures: "Farmer" Zeke Bonura

2011-08-19T13:46:00.001-05:00

In preparation for a relocation of my office, I’ve been poring over 30+ years of accumulated files trying to get up the nerve to start filling a recycling bin.

I’ve moved these folders full of photos, card, photocopies and notes at least six times. What makes me think that if I haven’t found time in the last couple of decades to convert these bits and pieces into features for the entertainment of collectors, that I will do so in the next couple of years?

Fortunately, rather new to the equation is this blog. It’s a lot easier to convert photos to images and “publish” articles on the internet than it was in the ink-on-paper days.

With that in mind, I’ve determined to try to wade through the files and present the gleanings in this space as time allows. I’ll identify these shared photos under the headline “Pretty Pictures.” That was the name of a 1930s book of cartoons by Otto Soglow that I read and reread as a child.

Most of these shared photos don’t have any great baseball historical significance, but at some point they appealed to me. In many cases, they present the players out of uniform and out of context. They provide a different look at the guys on our baseball cards.

We’ll kick off the series with this 1941 photo of Henry “Zeke” Bonura. Datelined New Orleans in mid-January, it is a photo of the type that was meant to keep alive the ember of baseball interest during the off-season in the days before multiple 24/7 sports channels on television.

1936 Goudey

This is an Associated Press wirephoto. It was headlined, “Farm chores keep Cub slugger in shape.”

The caption reads, “Zeke Bonura, former New York Giants’ problem child but currently a docile ward of the Chicago Cubs, carts a load of cabbages on his 200-acre farm, and declares he will try ‘harder than ever before’ during the coming baseball season. And as he goes about his chores he doesn’t hesitate to predict a pennant for the Cubs. ‘The Cubs don’t lack anything’ sums up his praise for his new club. As for his cabbages, ‘They’re the best in Louisiana.” And the mules are good too, says Zeke.”

Bonura was a good-hitting first baseman. In his seven-year major league career he hit .307, and in his first five seasons (1934-38), he averaged more than 20 home runs a season.

But, despite the fact that he led American League first basemen in fielding three times, he was viewed as a defensive liability due to a lack of range and effort. His futile wave at ground balls scudding past him became known as the “Bonura salute.”

Despite Bonura’s prediction of a pennant in 1941, the Cubs finished sixth. Bonura, however, wasn’t there to see it. By the time this photo was taken, Bonura’s major league career was over. A month after the picture was sent to the newspapers, Bonura was sold to the Minneapolis Millers.

With time out for military service in World War II, Bonura continued to play minor league ball until 1952. As a player-manager with Midland in the Longhorn League (Class C) in 1951, he batted .404 in 48 games.

Bonura continued to manage in the minors for a few more years after ending his playing days. In 1953 he won the Northern League (Class C) title with the Fargo-Moorhead Twins. In his first season of pro ball, 18-year-old Roger Maris hit.325 with nine home runs for Bonura’s team.

Picture for sale: If you'd like to buy the "Farmer Bonura" press photo; it's available for $4.99 postpaid. E-mail me at scbcguy@yahoo.com for payment details.

A 1976 Dale Murphy "pre-rookie" custom

2011-08-18T08:28:00.003-05:00

My final front design for a 1976-style
Dale Murphy.

My latest custom card project was the creation of a 1976-style Dale Murphy.

Murph, of course, made his baseball card debut in 1977 as a bug-sized portrait on one of those four-player Topps "Rookie Catchers" cards.

I was a long-time Dale Murphy fan. He is as fine a human being as he was a ballplayer. It doesn't look like he'll ever make the Hall of Fame, but I get the feeling that he doesn't lose any sleep over it.

He was part of those early 1980s Atlanta Braves teams that I began to follow when TBS was the "superstation" and brought the Braves to all corners of the country on that newfangled cable television.

I decided not to use the Rookie All-Stars
trophy in my final front design.

Since Murphy made his major league debut in 1976, it would not have been unprecedented for Topps to have anticipated his preferment and included him in that year's baseball card set. I think my custom is a pretty good approximation of what a 1976 Topps Dale Murphy rookie would have looked like.

I dithered for a while about whether to include the Rookie All-Star trophy on my card, and ultimately decided against it. The trophy seemed too distracting and forced me to move the portrait to the left. I think I made the correct decision.

As is usually the case, I have a few extra '76 Murphy customs from my initial printing of nine cards. If you'd like one, you can send a check or money order for $7.50 to Bob Lemke, P.O. Box 8, Iola, WI 54945.

Janitor rescued priceless Yankees memorabilia

2011-08-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

The front page of the Jan. 6, 1960, issue of The Sporting News contained an article that will be on interest to some collectors of high-end vintage baseball memorabilia.

Headlined, “Records of Old Yanks Saved From Junk Heap,” the article was written by Dan Daniel, TSN’s principal Yankees beat writer.

The article provides insights on how a lot of Yankees items that have been collected over the past 65 years were nearly lost to the hobby.

Since I can add little in the way of editorial comment – this sort of stuff was always outside the realm of my collecting interests and out of my budget range – I’ll just reprint what Daniel wrote.

“NEW YORK, N.Y.—This is an incredible story. It has to do with a lot of baseball material, much of which should be in the museum at Cooperstown, N.Y., that found its way into the trash heap and then was rescued.

“In 1945, when Larry MacPhail became general manager of the Yankees, he found a vast collection of papers in the files of Edward G. Barrow, who was retiring from the command to a purely decorative post as chairman of the board.

“Apparently Larry did not have the time to go over the material which Barrow had collected for many years. Perhaps MacPhail had the time, but not the inclination. Maybe he felt that all connection with the club’s past had to be broken and a new ledger started.

“In any event, the contents of the file were thrown into the waste baskets in Larry’s office.

“The trash collector was more choosey than Larry. He spied a lot of pay checks with the endorsements of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other Yankee heroes of yore. He had a hunch that a lot of the other material was valuable even if only as souvenirs. So the trash man took all of the stuff home with him. Then he sorted it out. He realized that he had something, and began to look for a buyer.

“A book dealer on Fourteenth street purchased a lot of the stuff. Another dealer in New Haven got some of it. Many of the old checks were given away by the garbage collector to friends.

“The book dealer peddled the stuff all over the country. He offered it to magazines, to collectors of baseball memorabilia.

News Editor Bought Lot

“Finally he found a buyer in a strange place. A man named Frank, who was the labor news editor for the New York World-Telegram & Sun, purchased the lot for $1,000.

“Frank played around with the find for about two years and then disposed of it for a small profit.

“Recently a Wall Street broker called me up and asked if I could offer any advice on what could be done with the material.

“When I got in touch with him, he said that he had just sold the stuff to a magazine. He explained that while he was interested in baseball, he preferred not to move out of his field of autographs of presidents and Declaration of Independence signers.

“The material includes a mass of secret documents having to do with Ban Johnson’s organization of the American League. It includes a lot of papers covering the sale of Ruth to the Yankees, and Johnson’s fight with Colonel Jake Ruppert and Colonel Til Huston over Boston’s disposal of star stars to the New York club. There is a lot of material covering the Carl Mays case.

“The magazine has started to publish some of the more obvious stuff. It will be interesting to see if it will interpret the most important documents in the true light of their contents.”

So that’s how some of the more pricey Yankees memorabilia in the hobby made its way from Yankee Stadium to today’s collectors. It would have been interesting if Daniel had named some of the book dealers and middlemen, but perhaps at the time there was some fear that the team might have started looking for compensation for MacPhail’s failure to recognize the archive’s value.

It would also be interesting if I understood what Daniel was trying to convey in his last paragraph.

'52 Indians bank set checklist now complete

2011-08-13T14:28:00.003-05:00

A couple of years before I left the full-time employ of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, we added a listing for an "Official 'Player History' Card" card issue of 1952 from the Central National Bank of Cleveland.

I don't recall now who submitted that original card, Early Wynn, for listing, but we speculated at the time that there were more players included and that the cards were likely given away as premiums to encourage participation in the "Baseball Savings Club."

We know have confirm that such was indeed the case. The confirmation comes in the form of a complete 20-card set, along with a letter that seems to have accompanied the Early Wynn card in a promotional effort aimed at youngsters.

What I did get wrong in that initial listing was that the cards were all printed in dark blue on cream colored stock. In fact, the 6-3/4" x 4-7/8" cards are printed in black, and can be found on yellow, orange or blue blank-backed stock. All share the format of the sample shown.

The 20-card set was offered in the Legendary Auctions sale Aug. 5 in conjunction with the National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago. The cards and accompanying 8-1/2" x 11" letter, all suffering either staple holes or a small bit of missing paper or discoloration of the card stock, but otherwise looking to be about VG-EX condition, sold for $11,950.

Coincidentally, a second group of 16 of the Central N.B. Indians cards was also made public on Net54baseball.com, an internet forum dedicated to collectors of vintage baseball cards in early August.

The checklist of 20 Cleveland Indians cards in the set is:

Bob Avila
Ike Boone
Lou Brissie
Merrill Combs
Larry Doby
Luke Easter
Bob Feller
Jim Fridley
Mike Garcia
Steve Gromek
Jim Hegan
Bob Kennedy
Bob Lemon
Al Lopez
Dale Mitchell
Pete Reiser
Al Rosen
Harry Simpson
Birdie Tebbetts
Early Wynn

Shameless plug: Selling some photos

2011-08-11T11:38:00.000-05:00

Beginning next Monday, Aug. 15, I'm going to be selling on eBay several dozen vintage baseball photos, most of them authentically autographed, including a lot of signatures of cup-of-coffee major leaguers -- some with as few as one game played in the big leagues -- that might be of interest to team specialists among vintage baseball memorabilia collectors.

Most of this group of photos came from a large lot purchased, if I recall correctly, from a Leland's auction 15-20 years ago.

Most of the photos are the work of a single amateur photographer, probably from Texas. His first name was Ambrose and his last name started with an "E," but that's all the identification I have.

Empirical evidence indicates that Ambrose attended minor league and spring training exhibition games from the very late 1940s through the very early 1950s. It looks like he snapped his photos pre-game from the first row of seats. After developing and printing the photos, he had them signed by the players, often in varied colors of what I believe is fountain pen ink.

All of the photos are in 5" x 7" format, printed on finely pebbled matte paper. The lighting and focus of his photos wasn't always the best, but these are unique poses. Some of the photos are of players on teams other than as we remember them from their baseball cards of the 1950s.

Selling these photos is part of some file downsizing I'm undertaking.

All of these photos will be sold on eBay on Aug. 15-16 and Aug. 18-20. You can find them by searching for me under the seller name goldflamedpt.