A closer look at the 1935 Diamond Stars release

I suggested in my previous post that I might dig in a bit more on the release schedule for 1934-36 Diamond Stars. Rather than go in order, I’ll start in the middle with 1935 since the Cy Blanton card is already fresh in my mind.

You may already know that the Diamond Stars set was released over a three-year period, according to the following sequence.

• 1934: Cards 1-24
• 1935: Cards 1-84
• 1936: Cards 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 22, 26, 30, 31, and 73-108

You’ll quickly notice that there is overlap across the three years, with cards 1-24 from 1934 repeated in 1935 and 24 more haphazardly numbered cards from 1935 repeated in 1936. Among other things, this led to a handful of cards (2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, and 22) being released all three years.

Buddy Myer is one such example and his card backs offer the opportunity to show that even the repeated (or three-peated) cards nonetheless changed from year to year. The most prominent and documented change comes in the updated stat lines. For example, the 1934 version notes Myer’s 1933 batting average while the 1935 version notes Myer’s 1934 batting average. Additionally, Myer’s age is updated from card to card to card. There is also variation in copyright lines, though it’s not as straightforward as 1934 to 1935 to 1936.

Beyond what’s evident from the numbering schemes, there is a second category of repeated players in the set. The final dozen cards from 1936, numbered 97-108, are virtual repeats of earlier cards from the first two years, though new numbers on the back render them a different class of repeats from those already noted. Bill Dickey, whose card was numbered 11 in 1934 and 1935, returns to the set in 1936 as card 103. (There is probably a story to this, but you won’t get it here.)

Now that we’ve covered the basic structure of the three-year release, we are ready to take a close look at the 84 cards that make up the 1935 series. These 84 cards fall quite naturally into two subsets: 1-24, which debuted in 1934, and 25-84, which reflected 60 brand new players.

Absent further scrutiny, I’m tempted to view 1-24 in the same way I view cards 1-24 of the 1934 Goudey set, which you may recall were repeats right down to the artwork of their 1933 Goudey counterparts. How better to put new packs on shelves pronto than to update some stats and ages but otherwise go with what you’ve already got? My conjecture, therefore, is that cards 1-24 came out together, presumably at the beginning of the season, ahead of the rest of the set.

One question then is whether there is evidence for this. Another question is how the remaining cards would have been released. For instance were all 60 issued together, or did they comprise multiple, smaller releases?

Following my approach with the Goudey sets, I’ll rely primarily on small bread crumbs in attempting to answer these questions. As such, I’ll state in advance that my results are truly speculative and should not be viewed as airtight. As for the categories of bread crumbs at my disposal, they primarily fall into four categories:

1. Team updates
2. Structure of uncut sheets
3. Biographical clues
4. Population reports (optional)

TEAM UPDATES

My very first article on the Diamond Stars set focused on players who changed teams across the set’s three-year release. As my current focus is the 1935 series, the players of greatest interest are those who changed teams in 1934 or 1935.

Among the first 24 cards on the checklist, the first relevant team change was George Blaeholder, who went from the Browns to the Athletics on May 21, 1935. That Blaeholder’s 1935 card (below) still has him with St. Louis suggests that the card was finalized before May 21.

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The next card to reflect a team change is that of Dick Bartell, card 15 in the set. Bartell moved from the Phillies to the Giants on November 1, 1934, and his 1935 card reflects this by removing the Philadelphia logo from his jersey and cap. In terms of a release schedule, Bartell’s card only indicates finalization after November 1.

While not a team change per se Lew Fonseca went from team to no team in early 1934. He entered that season’s Spring Training as not only Sox manager but a contender for the starting first baseman’s job, only to hang up his playing spikes for good before the season began. While he did continue as manager, his stint lasted only 15 games before Lou Comiskey gave him the axe.

Fonseca’s 1934 Diamond Stars card identifies him as “first baseman and manager of the Chicago White Sox,” whereas his 1935 card identifies him as “formerly first baseman of the Chicago White Sox.” Of course, since the status change was so far back in the past, all it really tells us is that Fonseca’s 1935 card was finalized sometime after May 8, 1934, the day Fonseca was let go.

A final card to include in this grouping is that of Dixie Walker, card 12 in the set. In truth, Walker remained a Yankee throughout the entire 1935 season. However, it’s a different player’s team change that will interest us here.

Walker’s 1934 bio establishes him (no pressure!) as “the man who is expected to fill Babe Ruth’s shoes when the great Yankee slugger retires.” However, his 1935 card modifies the language to read “the man who is expected to fill the gap left by Babe Ruth moving to Boston (Braves).” We can put a date to the Bambino’s move (February 26) that also serves as the earliest date Walker’s 1935 card could have been finalized.

Among the block of cards from 25-84, the first player on the checklist to change teams during 1934-1935 was Hall of Famer Kiki Cuyler, who was released by the Cubs on July 3 and signed by the Reds on July 5. While Cuyler’s 1936 Diamond Stars card places him on the Reds, his 1935 card still has him with Chicago (See final sentence of bio.) We can therefore infer that his card was likely finalized before July 3.

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The next team change belongs to Blondy Ryan (card 40), who moved from the Phillies to the Yankees on August 6, 1935. As Ryan’s 1935 card keeps him with the Phillies, we might assume it was finalized prior to August 6.

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The case of Red Lucas (card 46) is an odd one in that Lucas began the 1934 season with the Pirates but was nonetheless depicted on his 1935 (and 1936!) cards with the Reds. I simply regard this as an error rather than any clue to the card’s release date.

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Card 53 in the set belongs to Oscar Melillo, who went from the Browns to the Red Sox on May 27, 1935. His card, one of my favorites in the set, depicts him with St. Louis, suggesting finalization prior to May 27.

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The situation is similar with Glenn Myatt, card 58 in the set. Though he moved from the Indians to the Giants on May 26, 1935, his card⁠—another beauty⁠—still shows him with the former.

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So far then we have seen nothing that conflicts with my theory of the 1935 release. However, we have also seen nothing conflicting with the idea that all 84 cards might have come out all at once at the beginning of the season. If there’s a bread crumb to point us elsewhere we haven’t found it yet.

That all changes with this next card, number 72, of Tony Piet who moved from the Reds to the White Sox on June 4, 1935. (His card bio notes he is “now with Chicago White Sox” though it curiously ignores his tenure with Cincinnati.) Because Piet enters the set with the White Sox we can infer rather positively that his card was finalized after June 4. This is exciting to someone like me!

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As no other team changes occurred during the period of interest, we are left for now with the following conclusions.

• Some of the 1935 cards were likely finalized early in the season.
• At least one of the 1935 cards was finalized after June 4.

CLUES FROM UNCUT SHEETS

In contrast with the Goudey sets, there appears to be only one uncut sheet of Diamond Stars upon which to base any research, and even then it’s front is blank! On the bright side, it does come from our year of interest, 1935.

Rather than have you get out your magnifying glass, I’ll simply list the numbers:

63 72 65 64 63 72
69 66 67 70 69 66
61 62 71 68 61 62
63 72 65 64 63 72
69 66 67 70 69 66

Though there are 30 cards on the sheet, it’s worth noting that only 12 different cards are shown, specifically cards 61-72. Rows 4 and 5 are simply repeats of rows 1 and 2, while columns 5 and 6 are repeats of columns 1 and 2.

Again, this is not airtight, but my inference from this sheet, because it includes the Tony Piet card, is that this entire grouping of twelve cards was finalized after June 4.

Though less supported by any evidence, I would further suppose similar for cards 73-84 since they at least numerically come after the cards on this sheet.

UPDATE: Not sure how I missed it earlier, but here is another uncut sheet. As it’s from the 1936 issue we won’t dwell on details beyond noting that it includes twelve different cards.

CY BLANTON AND OTHER ASSORTED CLUES

The card that sparked my interest in the 1935 Diamond Stars release schedule was that of Pirates hurler Cy Blanton, card 57 in the set.

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As noted in my previous article, his bio establishes him as among “the most effective pitchers in the major leagues” despite having almost no major league services prior to 1935. We can infer from the bio that Blanton’s card was finalized during rather than before the 1935 season and specifically late enough in the year for his hot start to register as more than a fluke.

If we assume Blanton would have need to pitch at least three good games to warrant such a write-up we conclude that his card would have been finalized after April 28. If we further assume Blanton’s card would have been part of a sequentially numbered sheet of 12 (plus repeats) we can then conclude cards 49-60 were similarly finalized after April 28. Notably, this sheet would have included two players we examined already, Oscar Melillo (53) and Glenn Myatt (58), whose cards we inferred were finalized before May 27 and May 26 respectively. The suggestion, therefore, is that this sheet was finalized between April 29 and May 26.

John Whitehead

A player with a somewhat similar story to Blanton’s is John Whitehead, a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. He did not make his big league debut until April 19, 1935, yet is described on his card as “the sensational White Sox pitching find.” While this could be based solely on his strong record in the Texas League or an impressive spring training, I’m more inclined to believe the moniker came from his remarkable start to the 1935 season. His record after 8 games? 8 wins, no losses, and nary even a no decision!

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Of course the only place to go from there is downhill, and downhill Whitehead went! Following his undefeated April and May, he went winless in June, losing all six games he pitched and posting an ERA of 4.41.

As with Blanton, I’ll assume it would have taken at least three games to achieve “sensational” status. If so, Whitehead’s card would have been finalized after April 28. This is the same date noted for Blanton, and the two cards are on the same sheet. In my book this is another bread crumb supporting cards 48-59 having been finalized between the end of April and late May 1935.

Jimmie Foxx

Fellow SABR Baseball Cards author Randy Robbins dedicated a full article to the Diamond Stars Jimmie Foxx card in May 2020, owing to its unusual depiction of Foxx as a catcher and the bio’s citing of his split time behind the plate and at first base “since Micky [sic] Cochrane became manager of Detroit.”

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Randy noted in his article that Foxx did not catch at all in 1934, Cochrane’s first year with the Tigers, but did begin the 1935 season at catcher. In fact, Foxx was the starting catcher in 24 of the team’s first 26 games before reassuming the reigns at first base. This led Randy to speculate that Foxx’s card was issued sometime during the 1935 season, a theory that I fully endorse.

From what I can tell, the decision to have Foxx catch in 1935 was announced well ahead of the start of the season. Here is the October 2, 1934, Rutland (Vermont) Daily Herald, for example.

Therefore it’s certainly possible the Foxx bio could have included the information about catching in anticipation of the coming season. However, it seems more likely that the text would have been written after Foxx had caught some number of games in 1935. If we assume Foxx had at least three games under his belt, then we’re looking at April 20 or later.

As the Foxx card is number 64 in the set, it was part of the uncut sheet seen previously that also included the Tony Piet card. We have already established the Piet card, hence likely all cards from 61-72, as being finalized after June 4, a window that makes the Foxx bio even more apt. (By June 4, Foxx had started 12 games at first base to go with his 24 starts at catcher and two starts at third base.)

Lou Chiozza

The bio for Lou Chiozza, card 80 in the set, reads as though 1935 was his debut season. On the contrary, he played 134 games in 1934, suggesting his bio is simply in error or was written the year before.

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At the moment I’ll simply regard this card as an oddity and avoid any inferences as to the set’s 1935 release schedule.

CONCLUSIONS

In order to synthesize all of this information into a coherent release schedule, a couple assumptions are helpful.

• Cards were finalized and released in groups of 12 or multiples of 12 such as 24 or 36.
• Groups were finalized and released in order.

Earliest group of cards

Our look at Dixie Walker’s card (#12) and its Babe Ruth reference established that his card (hence cards 1-12 at least) were finalized after February 26 while our look at George Blaeholder (#13) suggested that cards 13-24 were finalized before May 21. In other words, the door is wide open to having all these cards ready by Opening Day, even if the late change to the Walker card might have created a bit of a hurry-up.

It’s possible that cards 25-36 if not 25-48 fall into this same grouping since all we saw is that Kiki Cuyler (#31) and Blondy Ryan (#40) were likely finalized before July 3 and August 6 respectively.

May grouping

Based on the Oscar Melillo (#53) and Glenn Myatt (#58) cards, we concluded cards 49-60 were likely finalized before May 26. On the other hand, the Cy Blanton (#57) and John Whitehead (#51) cards suggested finalization after April 29. Give or take a couple days, we can infer that cards 49-60 were finalized sometime in May, hence likely to have hit shelves either in late May or sometime in June.

There is no evidence to refute any of the cards from 1-48 from landing in this grouping. However, I’ll stick to my guns that 1-24 would have been on shelves by Opening Day, leaving only 25-48 uncertain.

June and beyond

The Tony Piet (#72) card required that cards 61-72 be finalized after June 4, a fact supported by the Jimmie Foxx (#64) card as well. This means cards 73-84 would have been finalized after June 4 as well, either with cards 61-72 or afterward.

Something I haven’t touched on yet is that cards 1-72 from 1935 feature green ink on the back while cards 73-84 can be found with green or blue ink.

My takeaway from this is that cards 61-84 were not produced together and that cards 73-84 formed their own final release.

Obviously there is significant guesswork throughout my analysis, so my conclusions may well be incorrect. Nonetheless I’ll sum up my speculative release schedule as follows.

• By Opening Day – Cards 1-24
• Probably later – Cards 25-48
• Late May or June release – Cards 49-60
• Late June or later release – Cards 61-72
• After that – Cards 73-84

As always I’m happy to hear in the Comments if you have information that either supports or casts doubt on my findings. Down the road I’ll take a largely similar approach to the 1934 and 1936 Diamond Stars releases.

EXTRA FOR DIE-HARDS

While it’s often (correctly) said that population reports neither reflect true population nor scarcity, I’m a believer that certain inferences from population reports are nonetheless valid, including what I’m about to apply to the Diamond Stars release.

With apologies to those viewing on their phones, here is the PSA population report for 1935 Diamond Stars.

One thing that’s easy to spot is that the graph has numerous spikes, i.e., bars that are much taller than their neighbors. Card 44 is one such example, as are 50 and 64. Not surprisingly these anomalies in the data represent Hall of Famers and stars more likely to be graded than commons from the set. If you like, the three cards noted are Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, and Jimmie Foxx. Conversely, the graph has other bars that are about the same height as other bars in their neighborhood. Cards 55-58 are good examples of this and correspond to Tony Cuccinello, Gus Suhr, Cy Blanton, and Glenn Myatt.

If we train our eyes on the graph and ignore the spikes, an interesting pattern emerges. The graph begins with a neighborhood of low bars, and it corresponds precisely to cards 1-24. The graph then progresses through a set of significantly taller bars. This occurs precisely from cards 25-48. Following that, the bars continue at an intermediate height, which you can either associate with cards 49-84 or perhaps segment into two groupings: 49-72 (slightly taller) and 73-84 (slightly shorter).

I’ve added vertical red bars and horizontal pink bars to the graph to illustrate these neighborhoods.

You’ll recall from my initial analysis that there was some uncertainty as to whether cards 25-48 were released with cards 1-24 or comprised all or part of a later release. I believe the population graph now makes this clear, while perhaps also suggesting the set’s initial 24 cards were offered only briefly as if to buy time to get the new cards ready.

You’ll also recall from my initial analysis that cards 49-60 and 61-72 were presumed to have been finalized at different times. However, the graph is fairly flat across the entire interval from 49-72. There are a few ways this apparent discrepancy can be reconciled.

• While the cards may have been finalized in distinct batches of 12, the two batches certainly could have been released at the same time.
• The two batches could have been released separately but simply in similar quantities to one another.
• While difficult to discern visually there is in fact a small but not necessarily significant difference in the bar heights with 61-72 being slightly taller than 49-60.

Were I to refine my original and highly speculative release schedule based on the population report data, I’d probably end up with something like this.

• Cards 1-24: Early April ahead of Opening Day
• Cards 25-48: Late April, after Opening Day
• Cards 49-60: Mid-June or so, with much longer delay than from first release to second release.
• Cards 61-72: Late July or so
• Cards 73-84: Early September or so

If you made it this far, I have good news! The fun continues in my next article with a similar analysis of the 1936 release.