Minor leaguer Spurrier won Medal of Honor

A brief item in the July 17, 1946 Sporting News mentioned that a hero of World War II and recipient of the Medal of Honor was realizing a lifelong dream when he was signed to a professional contract to pitch for the Galax (Va.) Leafs in the Class D Blue Ridge League.

James "Junior" Spurrier's page on baseball-reference.com credits him with appearing in just two games, winning one and losing the other. In six innings pitched he gave up seven hits, five runs and five walks. 

James Spurrier's minor league baseball career was as undistinguished as his military career was distinguished.

Sometimes cited as a "one-man Army" and the "Sgt. York of World War II," there are many internet articles detailing Spurrier's wartime experiences; you can follow up as your interests dictate.

In 2008, the Virginia legislature passed a resolution honoring Spurrier. The following text is from the Virginia House Joint Resolution:

HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 408
Celebrating the life of Junior James Spurrier.
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 22, 2008
Agreed to by the Senate, February 28, 2008
WHEREAS, Junior James Spurrier, born James Ira Spurrier, Jr., in Wise County in 1922, was one of the war heroes of the so called "Greatest Generation," an exceptional soldier who singlehandedly engineered feats of extraordinary bravery during his military service; and
WHEREAS, Junior Spurrier lived in Bluefield, West Virginia, and worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp there until he joined the United States Army in September of 1940, and he was deployed to both the Pacific Theater and Europe; and 
WHEREAS, a private when he enlisted, Junior Spurrier quickly rose to the rank of staff sergeant, and in the fall of 1944, he was a platoon commander for Company G, 134th Infantry, 35th Infantry Division, 9th Army stationed near Lay St. Christophe, France; and 
WHEREAS, charged with taking a heavily guarded hill near Lay St. Christophe, Sergeant Spurrier mounted a tank destroyer, took its .50 caliber machine gun, and cleared the way for his platoon to advance, capturing over 20 German soldiers along the way; he received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that day; and 
WHEREAS, on November 14, 1944, Sergeant Spurrier led his platoon in an attack to take over the German-held town of Achain, France; he had his platoon approach the town from one side while he entered by himself from another direction; and
WHEREAS, the Germans successfully defended the town from the advancing platoon, but Sergeant Spurrier used his Browning Automatic Rifle, his M1 rifle, American and German rocket launchers, a German pistol, and hand grenades to kill 25 German soldiers and capture several more; and
WHEREAS, Sergeant Spurrier was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his unprecedented feats that day, and he received many other honors and distinctions for his valiant service, including a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, Croix de Guerre, American Theater Service Medal, American Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star, European, African, Middle Eastern Campaign Medals, Marksman Badge (M1 rifle), and Combat Infantry Badge; and
WHEREAS, Junior Spurrier died in 1984 in Tennessee, but the man dubbed a "one man army" by fellow veterans was honored in 2006 with a memorial in Bluefield, West Virginia; now, therefore, be it 
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly hereby celebrate the life of Junior James Spurrier, a true patriot and a man of unbounded courage; and, be it 
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Junior James Spurrier as an expression of the General Assembly’s respect and admiration for his heroism and his dedication to duty.

Another account found on the internet provided further details . . . 
Capture of Achain was credited to one man: S/Sgt. James J. Spurrier, Bluefield, W. Va., a former farmer and Co. G, 134th, squad leader. When 2nd Bn. Attacked Achain Nov. 14, the 22-year-old sergeant entered the town alone from the west while his company drove in from the east.

Spurrier shot the first three Nazis with his M-1. Then, picking up BARs, Yank and German bazookas and grenades wherever he found them, he systematically began to clean out the town. He crumbled one stronghold with bazooka shells, killed three more Nazis with a BAR, captured a garrison commander, a lieutenant and 14 men. Another defense point was silenced when he killed its two occupants. Out of ammunition and under fire from four Nazis, Spurrier hurled a Nazi grenade into the house, killing the four Germans.

That night, the one-man army had charge of an outpost. While checking security, he heard four Germans talking in a barn. He set fire to the supply of oil and hay, captured the four as they ran out. Later, he spotted a Kraut crawling toward a sentry, killed him when there was no reply to his challenge.

According to Lt. Col. Frederick Roecker, Spurrier's battalion CO, Spurrier killed 25 Germans and captured 20 others. In March, 1945, Sgt. Spurrier was awarded the division's first Congressional Medal of Honor.

Spurrier's official Medal of Honor citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy at Achain, France, on 13 November 1944. At 2 p.m., Company G attacked the village of Achain from the east. S/Sgt. Spurrier armed with a BAR passed around the village and advanced alone. Attacking from the west, he immediately killed 3 Germans. From this time until dark, S/Sgt. Spurrier, using at different times his BAR and Ml rifle, American and German rocket launchers, a German automatic pistol, and handgrenades, continued his solitary attack against the enemy regardless of all types of small-arms and automatic-weapons fire. As a result of his heroic actions he killed an officer and 24 enlisted men and captured 2 officers and 2 enlisted men. His valor has shed fresh honor on the U.S. Armed Forces.

Various internet pieces indicate Spurrier lived a tough life after his military and baseball days, problems with alcohol contributing to run-ins with the law that eventually landed him in prison.

There are a handful of photos of Spurrier on the internet, but I've found none of him in his baseball uniform. The 1971 Baltimore Sun photo above shows Spurrier in the radio-tv shop he operated.

There may have been other professional baseball players who won the Medal of Honor, but I'm not aware of them. 

Reese-Robinson paired on '53B custom card

In this space yesterday I unveiled my first effort at a custom card creation in the classic 1953 Bowman format.

I mentioned that it seemed a shame to remove Pee Wee Reese from the original photo. However, I was making a Jackie Robinson card so the Dodgers' captain was superfluous. 


Still, making a multi-player card with both Reese and Robinson was not too much of a stretch. While there were no multi-player cards among the 64 original 1953 Bowman black-and-whites, there had been two in the earlier color series: Billy Martin-Phil Rizzuto, and Hank Bauer-Yogi Berra-Mickey Mantle. 

My card of the Dodgers' double-play combo fits right into the '53 Bowman scheme.

1953 Bowman b/w Jackie Robinson custom

While I have created more than 125 custom baseball cards in classic formats from 1912 tobacco cards through 1990 Topps, I had not previously undertaken anything in similitude of the iconic 1953 Bowmans.


To avoid embarrassing myself as a custom card creator I'd want to have a photo that echoed the quality of those original Kodachromes. And frankly, I haven't seen a lot of those for players who aren't already in the set.

One of the most important players of 1953 who didn't make the Bowman checklist was Jackie Robinson.
After appearing with Bowman in 1949 and 1950, Jackie jumped on the Topps bandwagon from 1952-56 (he didn't have a bubblegum card in 1951, unless you count his appearance on the 1951 Topps Brooklyn Dodgers team card).

There are probably a few Robinson photos out there that would look good in the simple frame of a 1953 Bowman format, but would be the challenge in that?

Recently I found in an auction a photo of Robinson in spring training that evoked the 1953 Bowman Pee Wee Reese card. Robinson in leaping in the air to make the double-play pivot while evading a sliding teammate. Pee Wee Reese looks on.


While the photo was not in color, I foolishly thought that I could colorize it and come up with a custom card that complemented that of his double-play partner. I was wrong.

Any skills I've developed at using Photoshop to colorize photos proved to be woefully inadequate in matching the look of real 1953 Bowman cards. I'm almost ashamed to show you what resulted from my best efforts, but here goes . . . 

Stung by that failure, I was on the verge of giving up on creating a 1953 Bowman custom of Jackie Robinson when I remembered the '53B black-and-white series. The rest, as they say, is history.

Making my Robinson card wasn't as easy as slipping the photo into a border. Comparing my card with the original photo you'll notice that besides excising Reese, I had to move the sliding Dodger and second base closer to the leaping Robinson.

There was also an unusual typography challenge to doing the back of the card. While most of the fonts used by Bowman are common mid-century typefaces, I couldn't find a real match for the player name at the top of the card or the "BASEBALL COLLECTOR SERIES" in the red banner. I settled on a font named BlacklightD found in my Photoshop font selections. I enhanced it with the faux bold effect and squeezed it horizontally to 80%. At that, it's only close to the Bowman original, but unless you have a '53B at hand with which to compare it, most wouldn't notice the difference. 

As I worked on my Robinson b/w, it occurred to me that there were no multi-player cards among the 64 original Bowman black-and-whites. And, Pee Wee is standing right there . . .  

Check back tomorrow to see what I came up with.

Koy, Mueller made home run history

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.

On Opening Day, April 19, 1938, Ernie Koy and Heinie Mueller made baseball history by becoming the only players to hit home runs in their first major league at-bats in the same game.

The Phillies were hosting the Brooklyn Robins before a tiny crowd of 1,000.

Koy was a 28-year-old rookie, starting in left field and batting third for Brooklyn. In the top of the first inning, he homered off Wayne LeMaster.

Leading off the bottom of the first, Mueller, the Phillies 25-year-old second baseman, poled his round-tripper off Van Lingle Mungo. 

The Robins won the game 12-5.

Koy and Mueller were the 12th and 13th major leaguers to hit a home run in their first at-bat. Since then, more than 100 others have done so.

Ernie Koy had spent a five-year apprenticeship in the minor leagues before getting his chance with Brooklyn. He had hit 16 home runs in the minors in each of the previous three seasons. He'd spend five years in the National League with Brooklyn (1938-40), the Cardinals (1940-41), Cincinnati (1941-42) and the Phillies (1942). 

He hit 10 more round-trippers in his rookie season, and ended his career with a total of 36.

Emmett Mueller had come to the Phils after eight years in the minors, mostly in the St. Louis Cardinals extensive farm system. At 5'6" he was one of the smallest men in the majors at the time.

Mueller played four years for Philadelphia, hitting 16 more home runs, including three more in his rookie year. 

As far as a baseball card legacy, Mueller was limited to the 1939 and 1940 Play Ball sets. The back of his 1940 PB noted, "'Heinie' goes in for painting and interior decorating as a hobby."

Ernie Koy will be found on only one career-contemporary baseball card, in the 1941 Double Play set.

Adding to Rudy York's card legacy, Part 2

Yesterday I presented my 1940 Play Ball-style Rudy York custom card creation. Today I'm debuting my 1941-style "card that never was."

The background of these cards was in yesterday's presentation. I also expressed my dismay that a slugging star of York's status was largely ignored by the baseball card powers-that-be during his career.

Recently while reading microfilm of back issues of The Sporting News from 1946, I found that York was apparently little appreciated in Detroit in the years he played for the Tigers (1934, 1937-45).

Detroit News baseball writer H.G. Salsigner in the World Series wrap-up issue of Oct. 16, 1946, wrote of the trade that brought York to the Red Sox in January, 1946.

At the 1945 World Series, in which York's Tigers beat the Cubs, Boston manager Joe Cronin had asked the writer how he thought York would work out as the Red Sox first baseman. “I told him I thought York would do very well in Boston,” Salsinger recalled. “In fact Rudy would do better in Boston than anywhere else.”

A year after the deal was made, sending shortstop Eddie Lake to the Tigers for York, Salsigner wrote glowingly of York.

              Rudy, with an even break, would be one of the best first basemen in the game, but he was not getting an even break in Detroit. He had been denied one for more than two years. The crowds in Detroit would not let York play his game.

            For one reason or another, the crowds in Detroit took a dislike to Rudy. We have never been able to understand how or why this dislike developed. We have known York ever since he came to the big leagues in 1934. We found him one of the most likable men we ever met in sport. He has most of the human virtues. We never heard him speak ill of anyone. He is generous and decent in his dealings with his fellow men and popular with other players.

            If the man were surly, mean or vicious, or had failed to deliver, the crowd attitude toward him would have been explainable.

            York, despite his size, is one of the nimblest fielding first basemen in the game. No other first baseman ever equaled him for glove-hand execution of plays. No contemporary was more expert in handling bad throws. He has all-round excellence as a fielder and he is one of the longest hitters in baseball, a batter with a rhythmic swing. We never saw another batter hit a ball with so little apparent effort.

Received Merciless Razzing

            Regardless of his ability, the crowds at Briggs Stadium disliked York and he received the most merciless booing that we ever heard a ball player get. The booing, jeering and cat-calling was not occasional, but continuous. Rudy was booed from the time he left the dugout. When the lineup was announced over the loudspeaker the name of York was the signal for an outburst of boos and jeers. There were outbursts every time he stepped to the plate, every time a strike was called on him, every time he swung and missed, every time he was retired.

            No player in history could have stood up under the barrage and York succumbed. His value to the Detroit club declined steadily, not because he had lost any part of his mechanical skill, but on account of the continuous booing and heckling.

            I told Cronin that York, playing at Fenway Park, before crowds that would give him an even break, would be transformed. Remaining with Detroit, he was doomed. There was no chance for a change of attitude of the crowds.

            Cronin needed a first baseman and he wanted one who could hit a long ball. Fenway Park, with its short left field, was ideally suited for York’s right-handed batting. 

Salsinger's assessment of York's defensive prowess as a first baseman is borne out by the stats. York often led American League first basemen in various defensive stats and was among the top five in the league in fielding percentage among first basemen four times, leading the league in 1947.

While York was first or second in errors committed by a first baseman for five consecutive years, 1941-45, he was also frequently first or second in putouts, assists and double plays turned at first base.

There may have been racial overtones in the Detroit fan base's riding of York. You'll notice that on the back of my 1940-style card I used the phrase, "the big Indian." No longer politically correct, the term would not have been out of place on the back of a baseball card in the pre-war years. 

It turns out, however, that the sporting press' constant references to Native American heritage and attempts to make the nickname "Chief" stick were misguided. While to many observers York looked like an Indian and his maternal great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee, he downplayed any such characterization.

It's true that York was too fond of liquor, which was likely a significant factor in his rapid decline as a ballplayer after the age of 30, however that hardly made him unique among professional ballplayers in the 1940s. On at least two occasions overindulgence was cited (at least between the lines) was being responsible for two potentially fatal hotel fires caused when York fell asleep/passed out in bed with a lit cigarette.

If he was under-appreciated by Tigers fans, he gave Red Sox rooters plenty of cause to embrace him as a hero in their losing battle with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1946 World Series.

In Game 1 he hit a game-winning home run with two out in the top of the 10th inning. With the Series tied and Game 3 in Boston, he hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning to give the Red Sox all they needed in shutting out the Cardinals. York's .261 average was the highest among Boston players who appeared in all seven games.

Rudy York may have been unpopular with Tigers fans, snubbed by baseball card companies and a trial for managers, but he was my dad's favorite ballplayer and that was all the impetus I needed to create these Play Ball-style custom cards.

I have one more Rudy York custom card in the works, but I don't know when I'll actually complete the project. As always, you'll see it here first.

Filling the void in Rudy York's card legacy, Part 1

As I sat down at the computer this morning to work on this posting I pulled yesterday's page off my chihuahua-a-day desk calendar and noticed today is the 15th anniversary of my father's death.

It's fitting that my completion of a pair of Rudy York "cards that never were" comes on that anniversary because York was my dad's favorite ballplayer. He is one of the big leaguers of the 1930s and 1940s of whom my dad often spoke when we talked baseball while watching the Braves or the Cubs on the "superstations" of the 1980s.

As is my wont, I'm not going to regale you here with York's life story or baseball career; there are lots of places on the internet where you can find that information. You can't do better than Terry Sloope's extensive entry in the SABR Baseball Biography Project: http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e31f1169 .

I will, however, point out a couple of my favorite York career highlights.

• York’s single in the bottom of the second inning of 1945 World Series Game 3 kept the Cubs’ Claude Passeau from a no-hitter.
• Between 1939-46 York missed only nine of his teams’ 1,087 games. He appeared in every game in 1940, 1941 and 1945.
• In 1937, York set a major league record by hitting 18 home runs in the month of August. Babe Ruth had previously held the record with 17. York’s mark was bested in June, 1998, by Sammy Sosa – whether you chose to accept that as valid is up to you.
• In May, 1938, he set the record for most grand slam home runs in a month (3). That record has since been tied eight times. 
• On July 27, 1946, York hit two grand small home runs in the same game off Tex Shirley of the St. Louis Browns. He also doubled and walked in that game, which the Red Sox won 13-6. York had 10 RBIs.
• After he left the Tigers, Briggs Stadium became a jinx ballpark for York.In 12 games there with the Red Sox in 1946, York was 3-for-43 at the plate (.070) with 16 strikeouts and no home runs. In 1947 with the White Sox he hit .156 (5-for-32) there in eight games with one home run and five strikeouts. He played in just two games there with the Athletics in 1948; he was 0-for-5, striking out once.
• York was selected to the American League All-Star team seven times between 1938-47; in the five games in which he played he batted .308.
• During his career he was in the Top 5 in the American League in home runs nine times and in RBI's seven times.
• In the 1946 World Series, York hit home runs in Games 1 and 3. The homers were hit with one of Hank Greenberg's bats, which had been sent to Ted Williams as part of an on-going good-natured ribbing between Greenberg and Williams. 

For as big a star as Rudy York was in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he seems to have been given short shrift from the baseball card companies in his playing days. It's true that his major league days began at the tail end of the great bubblegum card era of the 1930s, and that his career was over by the time Bowman and Leaf revived the genre in 1948.

He is among the 24 players in the 1938 Goudey Heads-Up set, and is included in both versions of the 1939 Goudey premium photos. 

York is also in the Exhibit Supply Co. "Salutation" series of 1939-46. In 1940 Wheaties included him in the 1940 "Champs" of the U.S.A. box-back set.

Certainly the scarcest career-contemporary Rudy York card is found in the 1940 Michigan Sportservice large-format team set of 21 Detroit Tigers. 

After he was traded to Boston, York was included in the 1946 and 1947 Red Sox team picture packs.

However, he was completely ignored by Play Ball in its 1939-41 sets. I have to wonder why Gum, Inc. snubbed York in those sets. There were 162 players in the 1939 set, 240 in the 1940 issue (albeit including a couple of dozen "old-timers") and 72 in the 1941 set. At a time when major league rosters comprised just 400 players, it's a mystery why York was omitted.

Similarly, York didn't make the cut for the 75-card (130 different players) 1941 Double Play set.

My custom creation of a 1940 Play Ball-style Rudy York card helps fill one of those gaps. I've also finished up a 1941 Play Ball-style card that I'll show you tomorrow.

Yankees welcomed comeback pitcher with bunt barrage

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.

All's fair in love, war . . . and the American League.

In 1942, Washington Senators pitcher Emil "Dutch" Leonard broke his ankle in his second game of the season, April 23.

On Sept. 5 he faced the visiting N.Y. Yankees for the first time since his return to action.

As they emerged from the dugout before the game, each of the Yankees greeted Leonard, asking "How's the ankle, Dutch?" All declared they were glad his rehabilitation was coming along all right.

Then the first seven Yankees to come to the plate bunted on him.

Leonard lost the game 6-2, giving up five hits. I don't have the play-by-play, so I don't know how many of those hits may have been on bunts.

Dutch Leonard had a 20-year major league pitching career, specializing in the knuckleball. He won 191, lost 181 and had a 3.25 ERA from 1933-53 (he was with Atlanta in 1937), with the Dodgers (1933-36), Senators (1938-46), Phillies (1947-48) and Cubs (1949-53).

His bubblegum card legacy is lengthy. He was in the Play Ball sets of 1939 and 1941, in Bowman's issues 1948-53 and 1955 (as a Cubs coach), and with Topps, 1952-53.

UPDATE: It turns out that The Sporting News account was not really correct. A regular reader of the blog sent this . . . 

According to the 9/6/42 N.Y. Times, the first inning against Dutch and his ankle went like this:

"Hassett started by outgalloping a bunt. Red Rolfe popped out, but Selkirk walked and when DiMaggio laced a single to center, Hassett dashed home. Keller fanned, but Gordon and Bill Dickey weighed in with lusty singles, each hit driving in a run, and Rizzuto sent the fourth tally home by upending the Washington inner defense with another bunt. Curiously, Leonard pitched a whale of a game after that. He allowed the Yanks no more hits..."

Sounds like two bunts and three hard hit singles, producing four runs.

New Ralph Branca customs: 1954 Tigers, 1955 Yankees

Wow, that was quite a coincidence.

For the past two weekends I've been putting together a pair of custom cards of Ralph Branca from his post-Dodgers days.

On Saturday my wife and I watched the movie Parental Guidance (2012) that we had recorded during a recent HBO free weekend.

A plot line in the movie concerns one of the kid stars using Russ Hodges' call of the 1951 Bobby Thomson playoff home run as a way to overcome his stutter. The scene takes place at a young musicians' audition where his sister was to perform.

When the camera scans the four or five judges at a table, I thought that one of them looked familiar. When the boy was recreating the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" call there was a quick closeup of the judge and I said, "That looks like Ralph Branca." It was.

Maybe I remembered Branca's face from the days when he and Thomson made autograph appearances together on the card show circuit. 

I recently read that after appearing together for a number of years, Branca became disillusioned when he discovered that Thomson had apparently been tipped to the pitch that he hit to give the Giants the 1951 pennant.

It is said that coach Herman Franks was sitting in the Giants clubhouse out past center field with a telescope to read the catcher's signs, then using a buzzer to relay the pitch to the bullpen where it was flashed to the batter. 

My decision to create a couple of later-career Ralph Branca custom cards had been made when I found some pictures of him as a Tiger and a Yankee and realized that he had no major career-contemporary baseball cards after 1953 Bowman black-and-white. Branca had also been in Bowman's sets 1950-52, and in Topps' 1951 Blue Backs and 1952.

He's been on quite a few card company and collectors' issues since the 1970s. Topps created two 1953-style cards, one showing him as a Tiger in the 1991 Archives set, and one using the same photo in a Brooklyn cap in the 1995 Dodgers Archives set.

Branca hurt his back in a spring training clubhouse accident in 1952 and appeared in only 126 games that season. In July, 1953, he was waived out of the National League and signed by the Detroit Tigers. He was 4-7 for Detroit the remainder of 1953, and was 3-3 in early July 1954, when he was released.

He signed on with the Yankees as a batting practice pitcher and was activated late in July, going 1-0 in five appearances before September callups of prospects forced him to the bench as the Yankees fell apart the last month of the season and finished in second place.

Branca spent the 1955 season in the minor leagues with Minneapolis, a top farm team of the Giants, but arm weakness limited his effectiveness and he was released with a 3-3 record over 25 appearances. 

At an Old Timers' game at Yankee Stadium in 1956, Branca's arm showed enough life that the Dodgers signed him for the last month of the season, took him on their post-season exhibition tour of Japan and invited him to spring training. There he realized it was really over and he retired at just 31 years of age.

My 1954 and 1955 Topps-style custom cards give a look at those later stages of Branca's career. 

Rosar first to go errorless as catcher

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.

The other day (March 17) I shared a discovery I made concerning variations on Buddy Rosar's 1949 Leaf card while researching an item for the blog. Here's what I was looking into . . .

In 1946 Rosar became the first major league catcher to play 100+ games in a season behind the plate without an error. He compiled that perfect 1.000 fielding average over 117 games with the Philadelphia Athletics.

It was the second time he'd led the American League in fielding at his position. In 1944 he fielded .989 in 98 games. He later led the league in catcher's fielding with .996 in 1947 and .997 in 1948.  

A contemporary baseball writer commenting on Rosar's 1946 record noted that he achieved that fielding perfection while using one of the smallest catcher's mitts in baseball.

Rosar not only was good with the glove, he had a great arm, as well. He led American League catchers in the number of runners caught stealing in 1946 (37) and 1947 (38). Three times he led the league in percentage of baserunners gunned down: 61.3% in 1943, 67.9% in 1947 and 65.6% in 1948.

The Yankees had signed Rosar in 1934, but with future Hall of Famer Bill Dickey catching for the big club, Rosar spent five years climbing the organization's minor league ladder. 

In 1938, his second season at Newark, he led the International League in hitting with a .387 average, and led the IL catchers with three errors in 91 games for a .991 mark. 

Those figures eared him a spot of the big club's bench as Dickey's primary back-up through the 1942 season.

After he went AWOL for a few days in 1942 to take the police department entrance exam back home in Buffalo, Yankees' manager Joe McCarthy traded Rosar to the Indians. 

Rosar spent 1943-44 with Cleveland, then was traded to the A's (1945-49) before closing out his career with the Red Sox (1950-51). In his 13-year major league career Rosar was a .261 hitter, though he lacked the power that managers typically looked for in a catcher; he had only 18 home runs in that span. 

He was a five-time A.L. star, left on the bench in 1942-43, getting in the game in 1946 and starting in 1947-48.

Rosar's errorless season record as a catcher has been matched four times since 1997. Charles Johnson of the Florida Marlins was 1.000 in 1997 over 123 games. The Cardinals' Mike Matheny set the current record in 2003 in 138 games. In 2008, two catchers were flawless, Colorado's Chris Ianetta (100 games) and Chris Snyder of Arizona (112 games).

Looking into these errorless streaks a little deeper, by adding in games from the seasons previous to and after the 1.000 season, I came up with these figures:

Matheny (2002-2004) 253 games
Snyder (2007-2010) 245 games
Charles Johnson (1996-1997 postseason) 175 games
Chris Ianetta (2007-2009) 156 games
Buddy Rosar (1947-1947) 147 games

As far as Rosar's bubblegum card legacy . . . His rookie card is found in the 1941 Goudey set. He was in the aforementioned 1949 Leaf set. Rosar is also included in every Bowman set from 1948-51.

Kapp custom was on my to-do list a long time

Many of you probably know Joe Kapp, if you know him at all, from the YouTube video of November, 2011, showing the 73-year-old Kapp getting into an on-stage fist fight with 74-year-old Angelo Mosco at the CFL Alumni Legends luncheon in Vancouver.

The fight resulted from bad blood between the two dating back to the 1963 Grey Cup championship game when Mosco laid what many saw as a dirty hit on Kapp's teammate Willie Fleming, knocking him out of the game, and possibly costing British Columbia the game.

I was a fan of Joe Kapp during his short NFL career. Like Joe Namath, he wore his hair long and had the reputation as a rebel. That appealed to me back in those days.

You can read all about Kapp's career at several places on the internet, so I won't take up space here.

I'll just share a couple of highlights . . . 

Kapp is the only quarterback to play in the Rose Bowl, the Grey Cup and the Super Bowl. 
He lost the Rose Bowl to Iowa in 1959, won the Grey Cup in 1964 (losing in 1963 and 1965) and lost Super Bowl IV to the Chiefs following the 1969 season. 

On Sept. 28, 1969, he tied an NFL record by throwing seven touchdown passes in a 52-14 win over the Colts.

He was the first Minnesota Viking to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. On the July 20, 1970, the magazine labeled him "The Toughest Chicano."

He appeared in dozens of TV shows and several popular movies in the 1970s-1980s. Tall, dark and handsome he frequently played to type as a football player (The Longest Yard, Semi-Tough) or an Indian/Mexican badmash (Breakheart Pass, The Frisco Kid).

For as long as he played pro football and as successful as he was at it, Kapp has a sub-par career-contemporary football card legacy.

From 1960-69 Topps
used the same photo
on six Kapp cards.

He appeared in Topps' Canadian Football League sets from 1960-64 and on Topps' NFL cards 1968-71. He was also in the 1963 Canadian Post cereal box issue.

The trouble with Kapp's cards, however, is that Topps used the same college-vintage photo on every card except one from 1960 through 1969. That run included 1960, 1961, 1963 and 1964 Topps CFL and 1968 and 1969 NFL, plus the 1969 4-in-1. A different photo was used on Kapp's 1962 CFL card, when Topps used a black-and-white format.

Finally for 1970 Topps took a new photo and used it on the regular card, the glossy and the super. Unfortunately, though he is pictured in a Vikings uniform and  his team is given as such, Kapp played for the Boston Patriots in 1970. 

He has a 1971 Topps card which pictures him in an airbrushed helmet in game-action against the Jets . . . but Kapp retired prior to the season.

I'm glad to be able to add another Joe Kapp card to the hobby supply.

1949 Leaf Rosar variation discovered

If I was still editor of the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, I'd add it to the next edition . . . and I'd credit myself with the discovery!

Recently while researching a column on Buddy Rosar, I discovered that there are two distinct variations of his 1949 Leaf card, #128.

On one version the triangle under his butt at the right margin is white; on the other version, the triangle is blue. There are a couple of other minor differences at that area of the card, but the blue vs. white triangle is the most obvious.

As far as I know, this variation is heretofore uncataloged.

On a recent day there were 47 examples of the '49 Leaf Rosar on eBay. Thirty-four of the cards were of the blue-triangle variation (72%); white-triangle cards numbered 13 (28%). I don't know if that ratio is significant enough to cause collectors to pay a premium for the scarcer white-triangle card. With its truly scarce short-prints, there aren't all that many collectors looking to complete a 1949 Leaf set, much less a master set.

But I thought I'd put it out there and let the hobby decide.

Clarke's 8 HR in 8 AB are OB record

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.

One of the most prestigious feats of home run hitting in Organized Baseball can't be verified though readily accessed official records. Fortunately a first-hand account survives in a 1947 account in The Sporting News.

In an interview, apparently supported by a newspaper box score, Clarke recounted his historic day at the plate.

Hard to Believe - - But Box Score Says It’s True

Eight Homers in Eight Trips in Single Game!

Nig Clarke Recalls Amazing Slugging Feat

In 51 to 3 Texas League Tilt 45 Years Ago

By WATSON SPOELSTRA

RIVER ROUGE, Mich.

Nig Clarke has seen his share of raised eyebrows.
“Well, really, Mr. Clarke,” people say to him, “you can’t expect us to believe that anyone hit eight home runs in eight times at bat in a single game.”
Yet, the prodigious batting feat is fully documented. It was in 1902 that a rookie catcher for Corsicana of the Texas League smashed the ball over the wooden right field fence eight times in a row. The catcher was Jay Justin Clarke, an 18-year-old kid from Detroit, who was to become the durable Nig Clarke of the Cleveland and three other major league clubs.
“We were playing Texarkana that day (July 11, 1902)” recalled Clarke. “I remember it as though it were yesterday. Texarkana hadn’t been drawing so the game was moved to Ennis, Tex. That’s not far from Corsicana and just a short distance from Dallas.

27 runs in First 3 Innings

“Well, sir, the stands were built on an angle. Out in right field they angled to the playing field. There was a white pole on the right field line, I’d say about 200 or 210 feet from the plate.”
Cy Mulkey was the pitcher for Texarkana that day, Clarke recalled. He was a big, rawboned righthander, who later settled down to become a sheriff in Texas.
“We got 27 runs the first three innings,” said Nig with a wink. “The first time up—I was batting seventh, just ahead of the shortstop—I pulled the ball to right field. It sailed over the fence eight or ten feet inside the white pole. The umpire waved me around the bases.”
It is Clarke’s impression that he batted four times in the first three innings, each time duplicating his first hit, a line drive over the fence near the foul line.
“Mulkey was out of there by this time, of course,” he added slyly. “Two other fellows finished—I don’t recall their names—but Mulkey walked to the hotel took his bath and strolled back to the ball park. Imagine his surprise when he saw the game still going on. It lasted three hours and 45 minutes, and the score was 51 to 3.”
When Clarke blasted his fourth straight homer, one of the spectators stepped out of the stands and handed him a $50 bill. The donor was identified by someone in the dugout as a wealthy cattleman.
The next time up he lashed another homer. By this time, he recalled, a favorable hot Texas wind had blown up. When Clarke crossed the plate, another spectator sidled up to him and thrust a crumpled $50 bill into his sweaty hand.
“He was the rival cattle baron,” smiled Clarke. 
By this time the crowd acclaimed Clarke wildly each time he stepped to the plate.
“Put it right in there and let the kid hit another,” they pleaded to the beleaguered Texarkana pitcher.
“They fed the ball to me all right,” Clarke admitted. “High and on the inside. I got the sixth and seventh up in the air and the wind carried them right over the fence. The last one just got over. I’m sure it came in the ninth inning.”
The good citizens of Ennis were not going to let this noble batting feat go unrewarded. They passed the hat and collected $85 more for that home run hitting Corsicana kid.
“That $185 was quite a windfall—more than a month’s salary,” he exclaimed. “Besides, when I got back to Corsicana, I was all set. I got enough hats and shoes and shirts to last me for years.”
As he talked, Clarke sat in the comfortable living room of his modest frame house in the Detroit suburb. The sun was beating down mercilessly. The temperature had soard into the nineties.
“It was a hot day like this in Ennis,” he said. “The ball sailed a mile.”
Clarke is a man of few pretensions. At 63 he works five days a week on the night shift of a steel plant nearby, serving as a welder’s helper.
“I just try to keep out of the way of the guys who do the work,” he chuckled.
He had to be prodded into talking about his eight home runs. He preferred to let his mind dwell on those glorious days when he was Addie Joss’ batterymate at Cleveland [editor's note: Clarke caught Joss' perfect game on Oct. 2, 1908], or in subsequent major league service with the Browns, the Pirates and the Phillies.
It wasn’t until many years later that baseball gave his epic slugging some recognition. The late Al Munro Elias came across a box score of the 1902 game. Clarke once had a yellowed clipping of the box himself, but loaned it to a friend, and it hasn’t been returned.

Mate Also Had Eight Hits

“It’s easy to remember though,” Nig said, “because of all the eights. I had eight times at bat, eight hits, eight runs, eight putouts and eight assists.”
First baseman Mike O’Connor, who batted just before Clarke, had seven hits in eight trips, including three homers. Bill Alexander, Corsicana’s keystoner, also had eight hits in eight trips, two of them homers.
“How many runs did you drive in that day?” we asked.
“I’m sure it was over 20. It seems to me there were ‘ducks on the pond’ every time I came up.”
Clarke is particularly proud of his wide travels in baseball and his two periods of enlistment in the U.S. Marines. He took time out from the game in the first World War to serve with the Marines in Europe. He returned for five more years, starting in 1921, having a hand in establishing baseball fields at Pacific outposts where soldiers, sailors and Marines played.
“I swung a bat nearly halfway around the world,” he asserted.
As for baseball travels, he claims to have played for more than 20 cities in a 25-year period. He started as a semi-pro at Adrian, Mich., while still attending Assumption Collegiate at Windsor, Ont., and finished in 1925 at Salisbury, Md.
“You seem to have traveled more than Bobo Newsom,” suggested the visitor. 
“Say, that Newsom in nothing but a tramp,” he grinned. “He’ll have to go some to catch me.”
Clarke takes great pride in another batting feat. In 1906 he compiled a .358 average for Cleveland, matching George Stone of the Browns, who is recognized as the champion. Old Nig played in only 57 games. 
“I beat the Frenchman (Nap Lajoie) by three points that year,” he exclaimed. “Why, I even beat out the great Ty Cobb in the batting averages that year.”
With his Marine bonus, Clarke purchased a home. His 85-year-old mother lives with him. He is still wrapped up in baseball, but hasn’t been at Briggs Stadium in three years.
         “I don’t think they have the hustle they did in my days,” he remarked. “But maybe that’s a sign I’m getting old.”

Clarke's stats in the 1902 season with the Corsicana Oil Citys and Little Rock do not appear on the Baseball-reference.com web site, and his 1903-04 stats with Little Rock do not include home runs. 

For the minor league seasons between 1912-25, however, Clarke is credited with just eight home runs; never more than three in a season.

As a major leaguer (Detroit 1905, Cleveland 1905-10, St. Louis Browns 1911, Philadelphia Phillies 1919, Pittsburgh Pirates 1920) Clarke hit six homers over nine seasons.

My 1971-style Cecil Cooper Cardinals custom gets a makeover

New

While looking through some baseball player photos recently I found a spring training image from 1971 of Cecil Cooper in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform.

It occurred to me that the photo would be an improvement on the 1971-style custom card I'd made of Coop-as-a-Cardinal a couple of years ago. (See my entry for Aug. 31, 2012).

So I made the switch.

Old

Appling's fouls cost Sox $2,160 in 1940s

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 my years of recreationaly reading microfilm of back issues of The Sporting News, I’ve learned not to accept everything I see there as gospel truth.

By its nature, much of the content in the paper was, at best, second- or third-hand information. They often rewrote or reprinted material that had been published elsewhere, which may or may not in itself have been completely accurate.

One such item that I found in the Feb. 1, 1945, issue causes me to ask, “Can that be true?”

In a short article headlined “Appling’s Absence Nets $2,160 Savings in Balls,” it was stated that with shortstop Luke Appling in the Army for the 1944 season, the Chicago White Sox had realized a significant savings in baseballs not fouled into the stands.

The article quoted a team official as having figured that Appling was responsible for 75 percent (1,080 of the 1,440) of the baseballs lost annually. American League “Publicitor” Earl Hilligan was quoted as saying the Appling fouled an average of just over 14 balls per game into the hands of fans.

“At $1.50 a ball,” the article continued, “Appling represented an investment of $2,160 in fouls, in addition to his $15,000-a-year salary. With Luke in the Army, the White Sox have been saving that much, but at the expense of their standing in the league race and of their run-making ability. The erasing of the team’s shortstop worries, alone, would be worth the $2,160, but Appling won’t be back until the war is over.”

I suppose it’s possible that a discerning hitter such as Appling could have converted three or four balls into souvenirs during each trip to the plate, but I found it surprising that the team and league had kept such exact data on the subject.

In his 20-year major league career Appling was a lifetime .310 hitter. His 162-game average was 87 walks with just 35 strikeouts.