Dexterity needed to recreate 1951 Wheaties boxes

Many regular readers will have noted that my blog output has been diminished the past several months.  Realistically, I don't look for it to pick up any time soon.


My good friend, mentor and office mate Chet Krause died at the end of June. The office building where he let me maintain a retirement office is in the process of being sold, so I'll be vacating by mid-November, when I return to my Pennsylvania home for the winter.

Much of the past couple of months I was laid low by a nasty bacterial infection of the chest that has been plaguing our little town. Osteoarthritis in both hands, wrists and elbows continues to take a toll on my mobility in those joints. 

To try to test the limits of what seems to have become the new normal in my dexterity, I've spent the past couple of days cutting, folding and pasting replicas of 1951 Wheaties single-serving boxes which featured on their backs one of six star athletes: Ballplayers Stan Musial, Ted Williams and Bob Feller, golfer Sam Snead and John Lujack (football) and George Mikan (basketball).

It takes lots of exacting cuts and folds to recreate
the original format of 1951 Wheaties
single-serving boxes.

For some time I've had images of complete, unfolded boxes of Musial and Williams in my card-creation file. Even today, 65 years after they were made, the 1951 Wheaties singles are not all that scarce, even in complete-box form.

I'm only partially satisfied with my efforts to replicate the boxes. The intricate cuts that would allow the boxes to present a more original appearance are more of a challenge than I had hoped. But even at that, they don't look too bad sitting on a shelf across the room.

Customs expand '60T All-Star selections

I've always been a fan of the 1960 Topps nigh-number All-Star cards. Maybe it's the white background, or the big colorful "60" or the player selection (lots of Milwaukee Braves).

I don't know on what basis Sport magazine made its all-star selections for that subset, but a lot of great players were  missed.

Two such worthy selections are the subjects of my custom card additions to that issue.

Ted Williams, of course, wasn't under a Topps contract in 1960. And Roberto Clemente, whom Topps was trying to convert to "Bob" in that era, was just coming into his own as a star outfielder.

There's really nothing much to add here, I'll just post the pictures for your enjoyment. 

Backstory of '59 Fleer Williams-Ruth card

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 popular and valuable cards in the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams card set is #2, "Ted's Idol -- Babe Ruth".

The image of that card leaped to mind the other day when I was reading microfilm of 1943 issues of The Sporting News.

There was a large photo in that issue of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth shaking hands in front of a dugout.

According to the photo caption and a news brief found elsewhere in that issue, the occasion of the meeting of the two great hitters was something a little more than the back of the Fleer card indicated.

The description on the back of card #2 says, "Williams meets his boyhood idol, 'Babe Ruth' for first time during a special hitting contest in Boston in 1943."

As far as that goes, there was a hitting contest between Williams and Ruth the day that photo was taken, but it was just part of a larger event in which the pair participated.

On July 12, 1943, during the All-Star break, Fenway Park hosted a charity exhibition game to benefit Mayor Maurice Tobin's Field Day Fund. The Mayor's Field Day is a long-time Boston tradition to raise money for the current mayor's pet projects.

The highlight of the day's doings at Fenway was a game between the Boston Braves and the "Service All-Stars" team.

Babe Ruth was the manager of the military all-stars. His squad included a number of Red Sox players then serving in the army and navy, including Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and a future Red Sox star, Walt Dropo.

Prior to the 4:30 p.m. game, there was a home run derby between Williams and Ruth. As the two were introduced in the clubhouse, reporters quoted Ruth as saying, "Hiya, kid. You remind me a lot of myself. I love to hit. You're one of the most natural ballplayers I've ever seen. And if ever my record is broken, I hope you're the one to do it." Years later, recalling the moment, Williams said, "I was flabbergasted. After all, he was Babe Ruth."

Williams hit three into the stands. The 48-year-old Ruth wasn't able to clear the Fenway outfield. He fouled the second offering off his instep and was hobbled for the rest of the contest.

In the game against the Braves, the all-stars won 9-8 on Williams' three-run homer in the seventh inning, said to have been a 425-ft. shot. He also singled in the game.

Ruth coached at first base for the all-stars. In the eighth inning, he acceded to the clamor of the crowd of 12,000 and put himself in as a pinch-hitter. After whiffing on the first two offerings, Ruth connected. According to a contemporary account, he "lofted a sky-scraping fly" out to right field.

The first-ever meeting between Williams and Ruth naturally offered a prime photo op. A number of different poses from the day are commonly found, mostly versions of the traditional "grin and grip" shot.

The picture Fleer used on 1959 card #2 is credited as a Wide World photo, The photo that I saw in the The Sporting News (above) was used in 1993 on a Ted Williams Card Co, card #121.

1952 Red Man Ted Williams . . . now I know

For some years I have puzzled over the artwork used by Red Man chewing tobacco for the Ted Williams card in its 1952 set (it was the only year Williams was in Red Man).

The chest-up portrait shows Williams with a bat over his left shoulder . . . but what a left shoulder! He looks like Quasimodo.

I never understood why the Red Man artist added so much extra jersey.

Now, thanks to the Nov. 19-20 Legendary Auctions sale, I see what happened.

The Legendary auction included a number of original photographs by New York photographer William Jacobellis that were used either as photos or as the basis for artwork on classic baseball card sets of the 1950s.

One of those photos is that upon which the '52 Red Man T.W. artwork was based. The Red Man artist removed the American League 50th Anniversary patch that was visible on the left sleeve in the Jacobellis photo.

I believe that Red Man didn't want to date their picture as "old" by showing the patch used on 1951 A.L. uniforms. A cursory search of other American League cards in the set shows none of them with the anniversary patch.

I might have opted to truncate the left sleeve more radically when preparing the painting, but evidently the original artist felt that would create too much unused space on the card.

The Williams photo, by the way, sold for $2,032 in the Legendary auction.