One hundred years after the 1919 World Series, baseball cards of the players involved in the Black Sox Scandal continue to attract collectors.
Beckett Media’s Mike Payne and Andy Broome compiled a comprehensive list of every baseball card featuring one of the “Eight Men Out” from their playing careers, ranging from about 1908 to 1920. The list was printed in the August 2017 issue of Beckett Vintage Collector magazine and reprinted in the SABR Black Sox Scandal committee newsletter by permission.
Some of those cards, like Shoeless Joe Jackson’s 1914 Cracker Jack card, regularly sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars at online auctions. Others, like Fred McMullin’s only individual card — a 1915 Zeenut made when he was still in the minor leagues with the Los Angeles Angels — are virtually impossible to find today.
“I still receive a number of requests for Black Sox cards and material, but I suspect that many of these inquiries are from flippers,” longtime vintage card dealer and SABR member Mark Macrae told Beckett. “The highest demand has always been for Jackson. The toughest is McMullin. The most plentiful, and the player that seems to hang around the longest in stock, is Eddie Cicotte.”
By virtue of having the longest major-league career, Cicotte has more cards (70) of the 268 in Beckett’s list than any other Black Sox player. His cards range from a 1909 supplemental card published by the Boston Herald to a 1920 D327 card issued in packages of Holsum Bread.
Macrae says one of the most sought-after sets, and one of the least expensive for casual collectors, is the 1919-21 W514 strip card series that included seven of the eight Black Sox (all except McMullin). Beckett offers recommendations with the most “affordable” cards for each player and the W514s fit the bill for Buck Weaver, Happy Felsch, Lefty Williams, and Swede Risberg. For Cicotte, his T205 card issued in 1911 is relatively easy to find and sometimes sells for less than $100. Chick Gandil’s T206 card from 1910 — in the same set as the most valuable baseball card in the world, the iconic Honus Wagner card — is regarded as the Black Sox first baseman’s most affordable card, according to Beckett.
Most Shoeless Joe Jackson cards could hardly be considered “affordable,” usually selling for anywhere between $1,000 and $500,000. Beckett also includes a list of “dream” cards for each player, and Jackson’s list includes two cards from early in his career, a 1909 E90-1 American Caramel card and a 1910 T210-8 card, plus the well-known 1914 Cracker Jack card.
Beckett’s “dream” cards for the other players include:
- Cicotte: 1914 Cracker Jack #94
- Felsch: 1916 M101-4
- Gandil: 1914 Cracker Jack #39
- McMullin: 1917 White Sox Team Issue
- Risberg: 1916 Zeenut (Vernon Tigers)
- Weaver: 1911 Zeenut (San Francisco Seals)
- Williams: 1915 Zeenut (Salt Lake Bees)
The only set that features all eight Black Sox players is the 1917 White Sox “Team Issue” cards, produced by Davis Printing Works in Chicago and sold as a complete boxed set by the team. The cards feature full-length, black-and-white photos of the players on a light background, with the player’s name and position underneath. Only one original set is known to exist, according to the late baseball card historian Bob Lemke, and it was last sold in 2001 for more than $50,000. (A reprint set was issued in 1992 by card dealer Greg Manning, who had bought the original cards a year earlier.)
Many of the cards in Beckett’s list are from the same M101-4 and M101-5 sets issued in 1916, but they each feature different business names on the back, from The Sporting News to the Weil Baking Company. Chicago-based printer Felix Mendelsohn produced these sets of cards and took out an ad in The Sporting News to sell space on the cardbacks to other businesses. TSN began offering the cards with their own company information stamped on the back later that summer. Six of the eight Black Sox (all except McMullin and Williams) were included in the Mendelsohn card sets.
While a majority of these cards may remain out of reach for even the most dedicated Black Sox collector, the list compiled by Beckett should be a useful resource for years to come.
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 