SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee

We Love You, But Not That Much: The Puzzling Paucity of Broadcaster Baseball Cards

No Cardboard Love for the Announcers

Baseball announcers occupy an odd space that straddles the line between team members and adoring fans. They often enjoy tenures longer than players and managers and can weather multiple ownership changes. Some broadcasters even become so connected with a ballclub’s identity that their popularity rivals the team’s Hall of Fame ballplayers. Numerous broadcasters have been inducted into team halls of fame and 47 individuals have received the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball,” an honor that includes recognition (but not official enshrinement) at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. In fact, beloved announcers such as Harry Kalas, Bob Uecker, Dave Niehaus, Harry Caray, Ernie Harwell, and Jack Buck have been immortalized with statuary at the ballparks where they called (or continue) to call games for their given teams. Yet, there is seemingly little love paid to announcers by card manufacturers, especially with national issues.

The Trading Card Database (“TCDB”) lists just 471 results for a search of baseball cards in the “announcer” category, with the first result appearing in 1933. This list includes cards depicting nightly sportscasters and disc jockeys, which would tend to indicate that the “announcer” label is often used as a catchall for any on-air broadcasters, not just play-by-play commentators or game analysts.

The labeling issue becomes more apparent, however, when totaling the number of cards for the broadcasters who have been bestowed the Ford C. Frick Award. This number is 580, over 100 more cards than found on the “announcer” list.

Ford C. Frick Award Winners, By Number of Cards Download

Searching TCDB by individual broadcasters’ names demonstrates conclusively that the “announcer” label (“ANN”) is not used with any consistency. For example, a search for “Vin Scully” will produce 114 results, cards spanning from 1960 through 2023, including parallel releases and autographed editions. A search of “Vin Scully” and the “ANN” qualifier, however, produces only two results.

Considering that Pittsburgh’s KDKA first broadcast a baseball game on August 5, 1921 (an event itself worthy of commemoration on a baseball card), it seems incredible how few broadcaster cards have been issued in the past 100 years. Indeed, utility infielder Tommy LaStella has had more cards issued since 2011 (586) than all of the Ford C. Frick Award winners combined (580).

**1976 Fleer Official Major League Patches – Baseball Firsts**, #6

Radio (Baseball Card) Pioneers

The 1933 Minneapolis Millers of the American Association were managed by future Hall of Famer Dave Bancroft and featured first baseman Joe Hauser, who clobbered an incredible 69 home runs that season. Although Wheaties is best known for its collectible cereal boxes, the company also promoted minor league baseball across the country and particularly in Minneapolis, hometown of parent company General Mills. That season, Wheaties issued a set of 24 postcards (4″ by 5-9/16″) featuring the players, manager, and for the first time ever documented, a team’s radio broadcaster.

1933 Wheaties Minneapolis Millers Postcard

Jerry Harrington, dubbed “The Little Irish Tenor,” was a multi-talented performer for WCCO radio and was often called upon to sing and participate in dramatic productions for the station. In 1929, Harrington broadcast play-by-play accounts of the Millers’ away games from the sports office of The Star and beginning in 1930, was tabbed to broadcast both home games from Nicollet Park and the away contests. The 1933 Wheaties Harrington issue is his one and only baseball card.

A second set of similarly designed and sized postcards were purportedly produced by Wheaties for the Seattle Indians in 1933; however, only five postcards from this set have been found so it is unclear whether they were ever released to the public. One of the cards that has surfaced, however, is that of Indians broadcaster Leo Lassen. Lassen was named the publicity director of the Pacific Coast League Seattle club in 1931 and began broadcasting games for the team that season. He was a mainstay radio voice of the Indians and Seattle Rainiers through 1958 and was inducted into the Washington Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. The 1933 Wheaties Lassen issue is his one and only baseball card.

1933 Wheaties Seattle Indians Postcard (Test Issue?)

In 1938 Chicago’s Sawyer Biscuit company issued a set of 52 cabinet photos depicting Chicago Cubs and White Sox players available as a mail-in promotion. The set included Bob Elson, a tireless broadcaster who handled the home games for both the Cubs and White Sox from 1931 through 1942 for WGN radio.

TCDB also lists a second “broadcaster” card for Babs Gillen, but no example of the card has ever been found. According to some sleuthing by Pre-War Cards it appears that Delores “Babs” Gillen was Elson’s broadcast partner for certain radio programming, but she was not known to announce baseball games with him. Regardless, the Elson cabinet photo appears to be the first issue for a Major League broadcaster.

The Emergence of Baseball on the Radio

As of the 1940 Census, 28 million households in the United States (82.8% of the population) owned a radio and baseball owners began realizing that broadcasting games—both home and away—was a terrific way to promote live baseball at their respective ballparks, especially on the home front during World War II. Still, very few broadcaster cards were issued in the 1940s.

The Reds sold a boxed team card set in 1940 called the “The Cincinnati Reds by Harry Hartman, Radio Sports Expert” published by the Harry Hartman Publishing Company. Coincidently, Hartman was the radio voice for the Reds on WCPO and was entering his 13^th season behind the microphone in 1940, a season in which the Reds won their first World Series championship since defeating the Black Sox in 1919. A card featuring Harry Hartman was included in his namesake set.

1940 Harry Hartman Cincinnati Reds (W711-2), Harry Hartman

The 1940 Playball set included a “Former Major League Star” card for Gabby Street, who had last played for Yankees in 1912 (although he had given himself an at-bat as Cardinals manager in 1931) and last managed for the Browns in 1938. The final line of his biography on the reverse of his card indicated “Today, he is doing baseball broadcasting in St. Louis.” Street was eventually paired with Harry Caray in the Cardinals’ booth, and they worked together from 1945 to 1950.

The balance of cards for the 1940s belong to Oakland Oaks announcer Bud Foster, with a string of issues in each of 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1949 sponsored by either Remar Bread or Signal Oil/Gasoline. Foster was voice of the Pacific Coast League’s Oaks from 1946 through 1956, as the team won three championships during his run (1948, 1950, 1954). In 1985 Foster reminisced how ballparks in the old days had no radio booths for him on the road so he would just set up behind home plate, which left him vulnerable to bombardment by cushions, peanuts, and insults hurled by the opposing fans. Additionally, Mel Allen was featured in Yankees Picture Packs in 1948 and 1949, with seemingly indistinguishable photos.

Video Killed the Radio Star

In 1950 approximately 9% of American households had a television, but by 1960 the figure had skyrocketed to 90%. Regardless, there were still just a smattering of announcer cards issued in the 1950s, even despite the rise of the national baseball card product offerings by Bowman and Topps that included non-players such as umpires and league executives.

In 1954, future Ford C. Frick Award winner Bill King was named fulltime sports director at KOLN and KOLN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska and took over the play-by-play announcing duties for the Western League Lincoln Chiefs. Weaver’s Wafers were a potato chip brand that issued a set of cards for the Chiefs in 1954 that included a card for King that encouraged fans to follow the team on KOLN. Despite King having announced for the San Francisco Giants from 1958-1962 and the Oakland A’s from 1981-2005, the 1954 issue is the only card that appears to have been issued for the venerable broadcaster. The card itself is exceedingly rare and the distribution method is sure to send shivers up the spines of condition conscious collectors—the cards were affixed to the outside of the potato chip bags with staples!

Future Ford C. Frick Award recipients Russ Hodges (New York Giants and San Francisco Giants) and Lon Simmons (San Francisco Giants) both appeared on a number of team-issued cards at the end of the 1950s, but only in their capacity as broadcasters for the San Francisco 49ers football team. Simmons did not get a proper baseball card until 1999, the Giants’ final season in Candlestick Park. His famous home run call “Tell it Goodbye!” was a fitting farewell to the ballpark, where he had broadcast since the Giants first began playing there in 1960.

**1999 Keebler San Francisco Giants**, #27

The final announcer card issued in the 1950s featured Mark Scott, host of the popular Home Run Derby television show. The 1959 Home Run Derby baseball set contained 20 cards measuring 3-1/4” by 5-1/4” and included the participants in the game show filmed at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. Scott died unexpectedly on July 13, 1960 from a heart attack and the show did not return for another season.

Vin Scully and the Rise of the Beloved Broadcaster

The first TCDB entry for Vin Scully is the 1960 Union Oil 76 “Meet the Dodger Family” booklet, which he shares with Jerry Doggett. Scully’s first proper baseball card—a whopper at 4” by 6”—is the 1971 Ticketron Dodgers issue, which also happens to feature Jerry Doggett, with whom he worked from 1956 through 1987. All told, Scully is the leader of all broadcasters with 114 different cards listed on TCDB. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Scully did not make another appearance on a baseball card until 2004, when Fleer produced a 10-card “Greats of the Game” subset that paired announcers and players, such as Scully/Steve Garvey, Harry Caray/Ryne Sandberg, and Jon Miller/Cal Ripken Jr. Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of Scully’s cards were issued after he had already turned 77 years old.

1960 Union Oil 76 Meet The Dodger Family Booklets – Vin Scully / Jerry Doggett

Vin Scully’s first inning broadcast partner for the 1989 All-Star Game was former Chicago Cubs broadcaster (and newly former POTUS) Ronald Reagan. Reagan made a cameo on a recent Bo Jackson card, as a broadcaster.

Ernie Harwell is next on the list with 80 cards. Harwell is best known for his work for the Detroit Tigers after stints with the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Baltimore Orioles. By the time his first card was issued in 1981, Harwell was already beginning his third decade of work as the Tigers’ main play-by-play announcer. Harwell holds the distinction of having been traded for a player when he was acquired by the Dodgers to broadcast in 1948 from the Class-AA Atlanta Crackers in exchange for minor league catcher Cliff Dapper. Harwell broadcast for the Detroit Tigers from 1960 to 1991 and 1993 to 2002. Detroit’s Wayne State University’s baseball team plays its home games at Harwell Field, named in his honor.

Harry Caray is third with 68 cards. Caray’s first known card is a playing card with a photo shared with another Chicago broadcasting legend, Jack Brickhouse, issued in 1985 (40 years after Caray broadcast his first game for the St. Louis Cardinals.) Caray popularized the live singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” while a White Sox broadcaster and made the tradition so popular at Wrigley Field that a video of him signing the song is still played for the seventh inning stretch when the Cubs do not otherwise arrange for a celebrity to handle the honors. Perhaps Caray’s most interesting baseball card is his cameo on Michael Jordan’s 1995 Upper Deck, featuring a photo taken at Wrigley Field when the White Sox visited for an exhibition game against the Cubs on April 7, 1994.

Mel Allen boasts 58 cards and was awarded the first-ever Ford C. Frick Award in 1978, along with Red Barber (the only year in which more than one award was given). Allen, a 1937 graduate of the University of Alabama Law School, immediately pursued a career in broadcasting and handled CBS radio duties for the 1938 World Series. He was hired as the Yankees’ play-by-play announcer in 1940 and saw 12 championship teams from his position behind the microphone through 1964. Allen eventually returned to the Yankees broadcast team in the mid-1970s, but it was his work with This Week in Baseball starting in 1977 that made Allen’s voice synonymous with Saturday baseball highlights to kids across the country. How about that?!

Rounding out the top five is Philadelphia’s Harry Kalas with 33 cards. Kalas first appeared on a Tastykake card in 1984, along with fellow Phillies broadcasters Chris Wheeler, Andy Musser and Richie Ashburn. Kalas began his broadcasting career in 1961 with the Hawaii Islanders and made his Major League announcing debut with the Astros in 1965. After moving over to Philadelphia in 1971, Kalas became a mainstay in the booth, working side-by-side with Ashburn until Ashburn’s unexpected passing in September 1997.

Comprising some of the most popular men to ever call a baseball game, Vin Scully has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (and a statue at Dodger Stadium cannot be far behind). Ernie Harwell has a statue at Comerica Park in Detroit. Harry Caray has a statue at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Mel Allen has a plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium in New York. Harry Kalas has a statue at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. A bust of Jack Buck is displayed outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis. And Bob Uecker (who has 23 cards for broadcasting and another 51 related to his role as a player) is honored with two statues at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

The Disconnect

By contrast, Denny Matthews has just two cards, despite having been inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame and having been in the Kansas City broadcast booth since the team’s inception in 1969.

2012 Panini Cooperstown Voices of Summer

Similarly, Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers’ Spanish-language play-by-play announcer from 1959 through 2022 (also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame) only has two cards.

2020 Topps Opening Day, Ballpark Profile Autographs

Felo Ramirez was the Spanish radio announcer for the Miami Marlins from 1993 until April 2017. His prior broadcasting work included calling Roberto Clemente’s 3000^th hit, and Hank Aaron’s 715^th home run. Despite his distinguished career, no cards of Ramirez have ever been listed on the TCDB. All three of these men are Ford C. Frick Award recipients. In fact, 36 of the 47 Frick Award winners have nine or fewer cards, with eight having none.

Card manufacturers are seemingly content to issue the same card with a border in every conceivable color combination. Allen and Ginter issues feature eggs, spiders, and even the Taylor Ham versus pork roll debate. Yet, broadcasters remain largely ignored.

A closer inspection of the checklists for each of the broadcasters listed here quickly reveals that a large proportion of the most recent issues comprise rare, autographed cards or other limited releases for which photos are not even available.

The men and women who dedicate their lives to the craft—and provide the soundtrack for our collective summers—deserve more cardboard love. These amazing tributes by Mike Noren of Gummy Arts are a great start.

Gummy Arts – Mel Allen
Gummy Arts – Bob Uecker
Gummy Arts – Vin Scully

Mic drop.

Special Thanks:

Mike Noren of Gummy Arts graciously allowed the SABR Baseball Cards Committee to include images of his cards in this article, including the Bob Uecker card, which has never been shown publicly before.

Jason Schwartz and Nick Vossbrink for their typically brilliant guidance and support.

Notes:

TCDB is mainly crowdsourced and there are numerous examples of cards not marked with the announcer label or otherwise improperly classified. The numbers cited herein are as accurate as possible based upon the available information. Moreover, several broadcasters cover multiple sports and may have cards that are more properly classified as a football, Olympic or multi-sport issue. Regardless of sporting classification, all cards were counted, except for those individuals who were players and had separate playing-days cards issued. Playing-days cards were not included.

Sources:

http://www.digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/imlsmohai/id/514

http://www.prewarcards.com/2016/11/02/1933-wheaties-seattle-indians-postcards-set-and-checklist

http://www.prewarcards.com/2017/05/26/1938-sawyer-biscuit-cabinet-checklist-babs-bob-elson-dolores-babs-gillen-1937

http://www.robertedwardauctions.com/auction/2018/spring/1495/1960-1961-union-oil-dodger-family-booklets-complete-set

http://www.census.gov/history/www/homepage_archive/2015/march_2015

http://www.guides.loc.gov/american-women-moving-image/television

http://www.baseball-reference.com

http://www.tcdb.com

John Gabcik, Bob Elson, SABR BioProject

Joseph Wancho, Gabby Street, SABR BioProject

“Became Entertainer After Radio Dare,” Minneapolis Star, March 8, 1930.

“Leo Lassen Named,” Bellingham (Washington) Herald, February 13, 1931.

“New Show at WCPO,” Cincinnati Post, April 16, 1940.

“New Sports Chief,” Lincoln Journal Star, May 9, 1954.

Charles Sarjeant, “The First Forty: The Story of WCCO Radio,” 1964.

Ed Schoenfeld, “Oaks Voice Recalls the Day Stengel was Knocked Out,” Oakland Tribune, April 7, 1985.

COLLECTING THE HOUSE THAT RUTH BUILT: BASEBALL CARD SETS OF BABE RUTH AND YANKEE STADIUM

Entrance to Yankee Stadium, New York, Haberman’s, New York, 1920s.

There is no bigger name in baseball than Babe Ruth, and during his time, there was no bigger stage in the sport than the playing field at East 161^st Street and River Avenue in the Bronx, the original Yankee Stadium, The House That Ruth Built.

Constructed in 11 months after Yankee owners Colonels Jacob Ruppert and the equally-ranked but more aristocratically-named Tillinghast (Til) L’Hommedieu Huston finally grew bone-tired of being second-class tenants at the New York Giants home at the Polo Grounds, the stadium opened on April 18, 1923. Costing $2.5 million, the park was the most expensive ball ground built to date. With three decks it was also the largest, and the first in the United States to carry the weighty designation of stadium. The opener drew more fans than had ever before seen a game, besting the headcount set at Braves Field in Game Five of the 1916 World Series by more than 20,000 fedoras.

Somewhere north of 62,000 devotees mobbed the new home of the Yankees, packing the aisles and corridors for 90 minutes during the pre-game festivities. It was like “a subway crush hour” one witness testified, mellowed only by the consumption of Volstead lager at 15 cents a stein by the Prohibition crowd.

The New York Evening Telegram noted the scents of “fresh paint, fresh plaster and fresh grass” in the air on a cloudy, windy spring day when the temperature struggled to reach 50.

Shortly after 3 pm, John Philip Sousa and the Seventh Regiment Band led a battalion of baseball barons and civic potentates into center field and played the national anthem to the raising of the Stars and Stripes. Witnessed by “pretty much everybody who was anybody” in the city, the American League pennant won by the Yankees in 1922 followed Old Glory up the pole. The pennant gathered the loudest cheer.

After a round of pre-game pleasantries, Umpire Tommy Connolly called “Play Ball” at 3:35.

The late afternoon start to the game didn’t sit well with one observer. “Some day New York will be convinced that 3 o’clock is the proper hour with the fans for a ball game to begin, but as yet owners persist in holding off for those half dozen fans from Wall Street who can’t make it so early.”

Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, running late to the ceremonies after choosing a proletarian train to the park, had to be plucked from the ticket lines and escorted into the stadium by the police.

Not everyone was lucky enough to get through one of the 40 turnstiles open for the event. The Fire Department ordered the gates closed with 25,000 hopeful patrons still outside the grounds. One latecomer, trying in vain to recover from a poorly-chosen subway connection, couldn’t get into the park for “money, marbles or chalk.”

Ruth hit two balls into the bleachers off Sam Jones during batting practice. The first landed harmlessly. The second splintered a wooden plank, scattering a group of young boys in one direction to escape the explosion, and then in another to capture the projectile.

In the third inning, he hit one that counted, smashing a slow, waist-high offering from opposing pitcher Howard Ehmke into the right field bleachers to drive in a pair of teammates and lead Yankees to a 4 to 1 win over his former team, the Boston Red Sox. A columnist for the New York Daily News depicted the scene:

From high noon on there had been a sound of revelry in the Bronx for Baseball’s Capital had gathered there its beauty and chivalry. But when the “Babe” tore into the ball the revelry became riot. The beauty and chivalry leaped to its feet and behaved unlike true beauty and chivalry should, tearing up programs, breaking canes, smashing neighboring hats and shrieking, shouting and howling. It was a notable ovation, or, as they say on some copy desks, demonstration.

A reporter described the homer, 325 feet or so into the right field bleachers, as one of Ruth’s best, a “terrific drive” that never rose more than 30 feet above the field. “And above all,” added the scribe, “it probably restored the old-time confidence of the ‘Babe.’ He hadn’t been going so good on the spring training trip. He was in great condition but he wasn’t smacking them.”

The Boston Globe wasn’t impressed. Ungenerously measuring the blow at 275 feet, the paper more accurately calculated the swing would have been nothing more than an out at Fenway Park.

It would have been a homer in the Sahara, retorted a Yankee partisan.

Ruth’s second wife Claire believed the round-tripper was her husband’s proudest moment. “He definitely talked about it more than any other homerun he ever hit,” she told one interviewer.

Ruth admitted he wanted to be the first to hit one into the stands in the new home of the Yankees. “I lost sight of the ball when the fans all jumped to their feet but I recognized the yell they let out,” Ruth explained. “I feel that I have been rewarded in part for all the hard work I put in preparing myself for the training season,” the New York outfielder concluded. “I guess there must be something in that old gag about virtue being its own reward.”

The Opening Day crowd couldn’t contain its admiration for the Babe. In the bottom of the ninth, fans hopped out of the bleachers and surrounded Ruth in right field until the game ended.

It all inspired New York Evening Telegram sportswriter Fred Lieb to name the park “The House That Ruth Built,” forever tying the man and the stadium together in the nation’s memory.

Entrance to Yankee Stadium, New York, Manhattan Post Card Publishing Co., New York, 1920s. An alternate view of the stadium’s entrance in the 1920s. Postcard manufacturers were not above retouching and colorizing a scene from the same stock black and white photograph.

It took years for the temple of baseball along the Harlem River to become formally known as Yankee Stadium. During all of the 1920s, the Associated Press attached an honorific article to the park’s name and lower-cased the Roman half of the sobriquet—“the Yankee stadium.” Other stylists upper-cased both halves of the title—“the Yankee Stadium.” The Great Depression leavened the label to simply “Yankee Stadium.”

Four particular collections of baseball cards connect Ruth to Yankee Stadium:

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992 (165 cards)
Megacards, Babe Ruth 100^th Anniversary, 1995 (25 cards)
Upper Deck, Yankee Stadium Legacy Box Set, 2008 (100 cards)
Upper Deck, Inserts, The House That Ruth Built, 2008 (25 cards).

Megacards, 1992, The Babe Ruth Collection

Sharing a common origin, it is no surprise that the cards in The Babe Ruth Collection closely resemble The Sporting News Conlon issues of 1991—1994. Top, Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992, Card 105; Sultan of Swat; bottom, The Sporting News Conlon Collection, 1992, Card 663, promotional, Game of the Century.

Babe Ruth led an expensive, excessive and extravagant life that sometimes crossed the border into alcoholic debauchery.

Frank Lieb tells stories of a detective reporting Ruth having trysts with six women in one night, being run out of a hotel at gunpoint by an irate husband, and being chased through Pullman cars on a train one night by the knife-wielding bride of a Louisiana legislator. The press kept quiet. “If she had carved up the Babe, we would have had a hell of a story,” said one scribe who witnessed the race.

His salary demands were an annual source of amusement and debate among the sporting press.

Colonel Til Huston tried to rein in the Babe in 1922. “We know you’ve been drinking and whoring all hours of the night, and paying no attention to training rules. As we are giving you a quarter-million for the next five years, we want you to act with more responsibility. You can drink beer and enjoy cards and be in your room by eleven o’clock, the same as the other players. It still gives you a lot of time to have a good time.”

“Colonel, I’ll promise to go easier on drinking, and get to bed earlier,” Ruth promised. “But not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, will I give up women. They’re too much fun.”

The high life caught up with Ruth in the spring of 1925. An ulcer put the slugger into the hospital for five weeks. It didn’t slow him down much. In August, he was suspended and fined $5,000 for showing up late to batting practice after a night on the town.

That fall, Ruth admitted he had been “the sappiest of saps” in an interview with Joe Winkworth of Collier’s magazine.

“I am through with the pests and the good-time guys,” Ruth declared. “Between them and a few crooks I have thrown away more than a quarter million dollars.”

Ruth listed a partial toll. $125,000 on gambling, $100,000 on bad business investments, $25,000 in lawyer fees to fight blackmail. General high living cost another quarter million.

“But I don’t regret those things,” Ruth said. “I was the home run king, and I was just living up to the title.”

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. Card 103, Babe and his 54-ounce bat.

Four dozen bats waited for Ruth at the Yankees St. Petersburg training camp in 1928, some of the dark green “Betsy” color that powered many of Ruth’s 60 homers in 1927 and the rest the slugger’s favored gold. The bats averaged 48 ounces, 6 ounces less than Ruth had formerly swung.

“At last I’ve got some sense,” Ruth told sportswriter and cartoonist Robert Edgren that year. “I used to think Jack Dempsey was foolish to train all the time—but Jack never got fat, did he?

“So this winter I’ve been keeping up a mild course of training most of the time. I’ve done a lot of hunting and on top I spend my spare time playing handball, wrestling and boxing in Artie McGovern’s gym. But the diet is the big thing.”

“You can’t be a hog and an athlete at the same time,” McGovern admonished the Babe. “You eat enough to kill a horse.”

Ruth followed McGovern’s advice that spring, slashing his meat consumption and loading up on fruits and vegetables.

“More important,” said Edgren, “he still has a boy’s enthusiasm for baseball.”

McGovern’s watchful eye and the lighter lumber kept Ruth at the top of his game. So did his marriage to the ever-vigilant Claire Merritt Hodgson. Between 1928 and 1931, Ruth homered 195 times and drove in 612 runs.

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. Card 121, Claire Hodgson.

The well-curated and comprehensive 1992 Megacards set traces Babe Ruth’s career in 165 cards. The set is divided into specific sections, among them year-by-year summaries of his baseball career, the records he established, his career highlights and anecdotes and remembrances by family members and teammates.

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. Clockwise from upper left: Card 9, Ruth pitches Red Sox to 24 wins in 1917; Card 16, wins batting title in 1924 with a .378 average; Card 22, knocks nine home runs in a week during 1930, including the longest ever hit at Shibe Park; Card 25, drives in 100 or more runs his 13^th and last time in 1933.

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. Top to bottom: Card 108, Ruth was the first player to hit 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 home runs in a season; Card 92, in 1934, Ruth led a group of American League players on a 17-game exhibition tour of Japan. A half-a-million or more fans watched the players parade through the Ginza on the second day of the expedition; Card 94, inducted into the hall of fame, 1939.

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. The home runs. Clockwise from upper left: Card 72, First Home Run; Card 77, First Home Run in Yankee Stadium; Card 81, Babe and Lou combine for 107 homers; Card 93, Last Major League Homers.

Megacards, 1995, Babe Ruth 100th Anniversary

Megacards followed up its biography of Ruth with a 25-card set in 1995 to mark the 100^th anniversary of the legend’s birth.

Megacards, Babe Ruth 100^th Anniversary, 1995. Top to bottom: Card 5, 177 Runs Scored in 1921, Card 5; Card 12, Fishing with Lou Gehrig in Sheepshead Bay, 1927 ; Card 3, .847 Slugging Average in 1920. The Babe is pictured here with fellow sluggers Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig and Al Simmons in 1929.

Megacards, Babe Ruth 100^th Anniversary, 1995. Card 11, the Red Sox pitching prospect threw nine shutouts in 1916.

Upper Deck, 2008, Yankee Stadium Legacy

In 2008 and 2009, Upper Deck marked the last season of the original Yankee Stadium by issuing an enormous 6,742 insert set, one card for every game played at the park or other historic sporting event that occurred on the grounds. Ruth is featured on many of the cards, either as a representative player for the day or because of a game highlight. The final card in the set documents Andy Pettitte’s win over the Baltimore Orioles on September 21, 2008.

Upper Deck, Yankee Stadium Legacy, 2008. Card 6742, Andy Pettitte.

The company also issued a more accessible 100-card boxed stadium legacy set. During his time with the Yankees, Ruth overshadowed all his teammates. Only Lou Gehrig pulled some of the spotlight away from the home run king. Still, it was a big shadow. “There was plenty of room to spread out,” said the Yankee first baseman.

Upper Deck, Yankee Stadium Box Set, 2008. Some of the Babe’s teammates.

Clockwise from upper left: Card 10, George Pipgrass; Card 5, Waite Hoyt; Card 9, Urban Shocker; Card 8, Earle Combs. Pipgrass led the American League with 24 wins in 1928. Hoyt won 23. Shocker won 49 games for the Yankees between 1925 and 1927. The speedy Combs scored 143 runs in 1932, one of eight straight seasons the centerfielder scored 100 or more runs. Most of the cards in the boxed set picture later members of the Yankee fraternity.

Upper Deck, 2008, Inserts, The House That Ruth Built

Upper Deck also distributed a separate insert set of 25 cards in 2008 under the title The House That Ruth Built. The first three cards highlight the 1923 season.

Later in the set, an eight-card sequence including numbers 8, 10 and 13, below, chronicles Ruth’s 60-home run 1927 season.

In a time of cellphone cameras and Instagram, it’s hard to remember that postcards were once the quick and inexpensive way to connect with friends and family.

Yankee Stadium’s early decades coincided with the postcard industry’s Linen Age. The cards were not actually cloth—a manufacturing process increased the amount of cotton fiber in the paper stock and created a canvas texture during printing. The ridges gave a soft focus to the cards and the higher rag count allowed deeper saturation of inks. Bright and vivid scenes with a wide palette of colors resulted. Yankee Stadium was a natural draw for the postcard manufacturers of the era.

Yankee Stadium, New York City. The Union News Co., 1937. Babe Ruth’s Opening Day home run would have landed in the lower left-center of this view.

Unattributed. Early view of outfield at Yankee Stadium in 1920s with flagpole in play.

“The Yankee Stadium is indeed the last word in ball parks,” wrote F.C. Lane of Baseball Magazine. “But not the least of its merits is its advantage of position. From the plain of the Harlem River it looms up like the great Pyramid of Cheops from the sands of Egypt.

“There is nothing behind it but blue sky,” Lane continued. “Stores and dwellings and the rolling hills of the Bronx are too far removed to interfere with this perspective…The Yankee Stadium stands out in bold relief and the measuring eye gives it full credit for every ounce of cement and every foot of structural steel that went into its huge frame. As an anonymous spectator remarked, viewing the new park from the bridge that spans the Harlem, ‘As big as it is, it looks even bigger.’”

Manhattan Post Card Publishing Co., New York City, Yankee Stadium, New York City, 1942.

The 1923 Yankee opener outdrew the rest of the American League openers, combined. More than one million fans passed through the turnstiles in the Bronx during the year. The count led the major leagues, but by a lesser margin than might be expected—the Detroit Tigers drew 911,000.

Acacia Card Company, New York, New York. Lights were installed in 1946.

The Yankees were one of the last teams in the American League to light their field. Only Boston and Detroit waited longer. “It’s not really baseball,” Lou Gehrig said of the nocturnal version of the game. “Real baseball should be played in the daytime, in the sunshine.”

Alfred Mainzer, New York City. A flag bedecked and sold-out stadium, 1951.

Upper Deck, The House That Ruth Built, 2008. The Last Appearances at Yankee Stadium. Top: HRB-24, Babe Ruth Day; bottom: HRB-25, Jersey Retired.

On April 27, 1947, Major League Baseball celebrated Babe Ruth Day at each of the seven games played that day (Detroit at Cleveland was postponed). 58,000 fans attended the event at Yankee Stadium. The other parks drew a total of 190,000 and the ceremonies were broadcast on radio around the world. Francis Cardinal Spellman delivered the invocation, describing Ruth as a sports hero and a champion of fair play. On the secular plane, Ford Motor Company gave the Babe a $5,00 Lincoln Continental.

The presidents of the National and American League presented Ruth a medal on which was inscribed the message “To Babe Ruth, whose tremendous batting average over the years is exceeded only by the size of his heart.”

Suffering from throat cancer, Ruth was able to muster a short farewell speech barely audible into the microphone. “There’s been so many lovely things said about me,” Ruth concluded. “I’m glad I had the opportunity to thank everybody.”

The New York Times said the ovation for the slugger was the greatest in the history of the national pastime.

Almost as an anti-climax, the Yankees retired Babe Ruth’s number 14 months later on June 13, 1948. But the cheers were still there. “He never received a finer reception,” wrote Oscar Fraley of the United Press. “It was a roar that sounded as if the 50,000 fans were trying to tear down The House That Ruth Built.”

The Sultan of Swat died an old man at the young age of 53 on August 16, 1948. His body lay in state for two days after his death at the main entrance of Yankee Stadium. Tens of thousands of fans paid their last respects to the slugger.

Megacards, The Babe Ruth Collection, 1992. Card 163, Game Called.

All images from the author’s collections.

Remembering George Scott’s Bizarre Card From 50 Years Ago

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Bruce Markusen. You can find Bruce on Twitter at @markusen_s.

George Scott last played a major league game during the 1970s, but he is one of those players not likely to be forgotten anytime soon. One of his teams, the Red Sox have certainly not forgotten. They have announced that April 4 will be George “Boomer” Scott Night at Fenway Park.

Whether it was his unusual build and girth wrapped tightly in polyester, his colorful choice of neckware, or his own quirky use of the English language, Scott made an impression on anyone who followed the game in the 1960s and seventies. And it seems only fitting that an offbeat character like Scott would somehow produce one of the strangest baseball cards that the Topps Company has ever produced.

Fifty years ago, Topps produced a set of cards that was visually striking, filled with action, and replete with unusual camera angles. The simple design of the 1973 cards, which were hallmarked by a colored silhouette corresponding to the player’s primary position, allowed the photography plenty of space to breath. The use of both traditional horizontal framing and the contrasting landscape view made for variety within the set.

As much as vintage collectors have developed a strong liking for the 1973 set, some of the choices that Topps made in arranging the cards remain a source of mystery. In a general sense, the most obvious question is this: Why were so many action shots taken from so far away, in some cases seemingly hundreds of feet separating the camera from its target? And then there are more specific questions. For example, why does Steve Garvey’s card, which depicts him at the end of a home run trot, show us more of Dodgers teammate Wes Parker, who blocks part of Garvey’s face and body from our view?

Other questions persist. Why did Topps show Dick Green, an excellent defensive second baseman, booting a ball in a photo that was at least two years old? And why was Luis Alvarado’s action shot taken at such a low angle that we are given full view of the parking lot at the White Sox’ spring training ballpark in Sarasota? (If you look close enough, you can spot a 1972 Chevy in the lot.)

In some cases, the answers to these questions can be found in Topps’ inexperience at including action shots on its cards. The company had only begun the practice of featuring color action photography with its 1971 set. Topps also had a limited library of photographs, perhaps attributable to the relatively small number of photographers on the payroll. It appears that Topps so badly wanted to include as many action images as possible in its 1973 set that it sometimes settled for something less than ideal photographic art.

Of all the unusual 1973 Topps cards, the one that remains the most puzzling to me is the card issued for the aforementioned George Scott. We know that Scott, playing for the Brewers, is the featured player on the card. He is stretching to receive a throw at first base. We also can see clearly that Oakland’s Bert Campaneris is the player sliding feet-first into first base, trying to beat the tag from Scott. There is no mistaking the identity of those two players, though it does prompt us to ask why Campaneris appeared as the “other player” on so many 1973 Topps cards? (See the 1973 cards for Bob Oliver and Rich Hand as evidence of that.) The proliferation of Campaneris in 1973 Topps, however, is a question for another day.

No, the real mystery has to do with the background of this card. When you look at the outlines of Campaneris and Scott against the stands down the first base line at the Oakland Coliseum, something doesn’t look quite right. The photo doesn’t look natural; it appears to have been altered in some way. More specifically, it looks like Scott and Campaneris have been superimposed onto the ballpark stands in the background. In a similar way to the use of bluescreen technology in films, it appears that two different photos have been pasted together to create a surreal look for the Scott card.

If it seems unlikely that one photo has been superimposed over the other, take a second look at the fans seated in the stands. Under normal circumstances, the fans would be looking directly at first base, to see if Campaneris makes it back safely. But these fans are looking in a variety of directions, most of them observing right field or center field. These fans appear to be watching another game altogether, and certainly not the one in which Scott and Campaneris are involved.

So why exactly would Topps do this? What would be the point of making such a radical change to the card? Some card aficionados have told me that the background stands in the photograph are not from the Oakland Coliseum, where this game was played, but are actually from County Stadium in Milwaukee.

As one fan posted at The Hardball Times in 2011: “The background wall sure looks like Milwaukee’s County Stadium. The playing field looks like it could be from Oakland’s Alameda Stadium. (Looks like too much foul territory for Milwaukee.)

“The wall angle looks strange in relation to the playing field.

“When blown up it appears that there is a blue line along George Scott’s back like he was pasted on to the background picture.”

These are all reasonable points. But why would Topps do this? One theory is that Topps did not want to use a photograph that showed the many rows of empty seats at the Oakland ballpark, so they took a shot from a busier County Stadium to give the card a busier look.

It seems like an awful lot of work to obtain a relatively minor goal, but it’s the best explanation I’ve heard. Whatever the actual reason, which has likely gone to the grave with famed Topps executive Sy Berger, the card is certainly unusual in appearance. And that is most appropriate for a player like George Scott.

Long before he became a member of the Brewers, Scott came up in the Red Sox’ organization. It’s hard to believe in retrospect, but as a minor league player in 1963, Scott actually played 24 games at shortstop before finally being moved to the infield corners in ’64. It was also during Scott’s minor league days that he experienced one of the worst incidents of his career. One day, several of his teammates came to his hotel room dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan. They apparently intended it as a prank, but understandably, Scott took it otherwise.

In 1966, Scott attended spring training camp with the Red Sox. He surprised just about everyone by making the team and beating out Joe Foy for the starting third base job. (In an interesting twist, it was Foy who would eventually come up with the nickname of “Boomer” for his teammate.)

One week later, the Red Sox switched Scott to first base, where he would spend the majority of time that summer. For the season, Scott would hit 27 home runs and place third in the Rookie of the Year voting.

After the season, the Red Sox hired Dick Williams as their manager. Rather surprisingly, Williams announced that Scott would have to beat out another promising young hitter, Tony Horton, for the first base job. Rather than complain, Scott became determined to take a more intelligent approach at the plate. He outplayed Horton in the spring, winning the job once again. But his expanding waistline did become a concern for Williams, who benched him several times throughout the summer. (Williams also ordered two other Red Sox, Foy and pitcher Jose Santiago, to lose weight.) Though often listed at 205 pounds, Scott was much larger than that for most of his career, sometimes playing at 230 to 240 pounds.

Despite his battles with weight, Scott hit well. The so-called “sophomore jinx” had little effect on his performance, as he put up an OPS of .839. He also played first base with an agile grace that defied his size, winning the first of his eight Gold Gloves. Scott’s all-round play helped the Red Sox win the American League pennant in a harrowing race that came down to the final day of the season. The Red Sox then came within a game of winning the World Series against the more experienced Cardinals.

In 1968, Scott became one of the victims of the Year of the Pitcher. He started the season in a horrible slump and showed little improvement over the course of the summer. At one point, he lost the first base job to Hawk Harrelson, who was in the midst of a career season. Incredibly, Scott would finish the year with a .171 batting average and only three home runs in 124 games.

Scott then reported to winter ball, where he received the wisdom of his manager at Santurce, Frank Robinson. The future Hall of Famer worked with Scott on his mental approach to the game. Scott also sought out hitting advice from Roberto Clemente, a mainstay on the Santurce team.

Perhaps aided by the counsel of Clemente and Robinson, Scott played better in 1969, hitting 16 home runs while raising his average to .253. After another decent season in 1970, he bust out with 24 home runs, won his third Gold Glove, and even received some consideration in the American League MVP race.

Scott now seemed entrenched at first base. But then came the news of October 10. That day, the Red Sox announced a blockbuster trade, the deal sending sent Scott, pitchers Jim Lonborg and Ken Brett, and outfielders Billy Conigliaro and Joe Lahoud, and catcher Don Pavletich to Milwaukee for a return that included All-Star outfielder Tommy Harper and right-handers Lew Krausse and Marty Pattin.

In his first season with the Brewers, Scott made a good adjustment from Fenway Park to County Stadium. He hit 20 home runs and added the surprising dimension of speed to his game, stealing a career-best 16 bases in 1972.

With the Brewers, Scott became a recognizable sight around the American League. With his massive body draped in Milwaukee’s form-fitting uniform, Scott looked unusual to say the least. And then there was his decision to play first base while wearing a batting helmet, a habit that sprung from an incident in which road fans threw objects in his direction. That incident convinced Scott that he should wear a helmet, both at bat and in the field, for the rest of his career.

From 1972 to 1975, Scott emerged as a star in Milwaukee, while also becoming extraordinarily popular with the fan base. In 1975, he put together his best season, hitting a career-high 36 home runs and leading the league with 109 RBIs. Scott also led the league in total bases.

After a downturn in 1976, Scott clashed with Brewers general manager Jim Baumer and eventually requested a trade—which he received at the December Winter Meetings. The Brewers traded Scott and outfielder Bernie Carbo to the Red Sox for Cecil Cooper, a younger player who would take the Boomer’s place at first base.

Scott received a warm welcome from the fans in Boston. While a number of black players, like Reggie Smith and Tommy Harper, had struggled against racism in Boston (both from the city and the franchise), Scott seemed to receive better treatment. He also enjoyed a resurgence at the plate, hitting 33 home runs and slugging an even .500. With Scott deepening the middle of the Red Sox’ order, the team won 97 games while finishing second to the rival Yankees.

Given the size of the Boston media market, Scott became more well known as one of baseball’s most colorful characters. He showed off his own distinctive brand of the language; one of his favorite terms was the word, “taters,” his preferred name for home runs. He also gave a nickname to his first baseman’s mitt, calling it “Black Beauty.”

With his generally jovial nature, Scott became a favorite interview target of Boston writers and broadcaster. One day, a reporter asked him about the distinctive necklace that he wore during games; it featured an array of shells and beads. Scott told reporters that the necklace was made from “second basemen’s teeth.” That answer became Scott’s calling card for the rest of his career.

After a poor 1978 and a slow start to the 1979 season, Scott saw his second tenure in Boston come to an end. Two days before the June 15^th trading deadline, the Red Sox traded him to the Royals for outfielder Tom Poquette.

Scott’s play did not improve in 1979. A slump in April and May dragged into June. And then on June 13, just two days before the trading deadline, the Red Sox parted ways. They sent Scott to the Kansas City Royals for outfielder Tom Poquette. Scott struggled at Kansas City’s spacious Kauffman Stadium. He hit only one home run for the Royals before being released in August.

After nearly two weeks of unemployment, Scott found a job with an unexpected team, the Yankees, who were playing out the string during a disappointing season. Scott hit well for the Yankees, putting up an OPS of .840. It seemed like Scott’s performance might earn him a return to the Yankees in 1980, but the team opted to sign another free agent, the younger Bob Watson, to take the role of right-handed hitting first baseman and DH.

In the meantime, the Rangers expressed interest in signing Scott and using him as a utilityman. Scott wanted no part of that, so he ended up settling for a contract in the Mexican League, where he became an offensive force over the next two season. He later became a player/manager, before becoming a fulltime manager at the minor league level.

Sadly, Scott’s health suffered in his later years. He put on a tremendous amount of weight, at one point tipping the scales at over 400 pounds. Diagnosed with diabetes, Scott’s health continued to decline. In 2013, he passed away at the age of 69.

I remember hearing the news of Scott’s death and how it seemed to remind me and other fans of just how much time had passed since the days of baseball in the 1970s. It was a colorful and rich time for the game, an era that in some ways was symbolized by a player like Scott. No one in the game looked like him, and no one talked like him.

George Scott was as unique and wonderfully offbeat as that 1973 Topps card.

Dems the Breaks: TikTok Bans Card Breaking Video Streams

In near lockstep with the explosion of legal online sports gambling sites, the card-collecting industry has seen a proliferation of card breakers—parties that buy unopened boxes of sports cards and open them live on social media streams. Hobbyists (a/k/a gamblers) pay for spots in the “break” that will entitle them to keep all the cards in the box or case from a particular team. The outfits publicize their breaks with fantastic claims, “No matter which breaking method you choose, you always have a chance at uncovering the next Holy Grail!”

2022 Bowman’s Best case break offering from Filthbomb Breaks

In most breaks participants pick a team or several teams (typically priced commensurate with the potential values of the most expensive cards for each such team) or a random distribution of teams (usually for a less expensive entry fee that is the same for each participant). The card packs are opened live, and the cards are shown individually so that all viewers can see who gets what.

The main enticement for participants is the hope for a “hit,” a valuable—if not contrived—insert like a 1/1, rare parallel, or autographed card that far exceeds the entry fee. Card breakers profit by charging more for spots than the cost of the unopened box or case. If all of this sounds a bit like gambling, you are probably right.

“While surprise-based products can be sold, they are currently restricted on our platform. This means that sellers who wish to sell or promote such products must abide by our TikTok Shop Gambling, Gifting and Surprise-based Product Control Guidelines.”
TikTok guidelines

Social media giant TikTok announced in early March 2023 that it will no longer allow card breakers to broadcast their videos on its platform because of concerns that the activity may constitute illegal gambling. TikTok’s terms and conditions regarding surprise-based products were updated to specifically include “Surprise Trading Card Packs” and now require any presenter (e.g., card breaker) to sell any baseball cards in “the manufacturer’s original packaging and content without any alterations. All sold product(s) must also be sealed.”

PayPal had previously cracked down on breakers through its gambling prohibition, even when the specific activity was lawful or not legally defined as gambling, including: “Games of chance and games of skill – Includes any activity with an entry fee and a prize, regardless of whether the outcome is determined by chance or skill.”

Although the actual factors vary by state, the elements of gambling typically require (1) consideration [the price charged for entering the break], (2) chance [that the box(es) opened may contain chase cards such as 1/1s, parallels, and autographed cards, or alternatively, that the cards that are worth less than the entry fee] and (3) a prize [the insert cards (“hits”) have significant value on the secondary market].

You may be familiar with the phrase “no purchase necessary” when entering a contest promoted by a reputable company. Offering participants an option to enter a contest for free eliminates the “consideration” requirement—required to deem a contest illegal—even if a particular entrant had paid to purchase a product for entry. Not surprisingly, card breakers rarely allow free entry.

There are dozens of highly regarded card breakers operating now, however, the industry is unregulated and susceptible to issues. In 2022, Backyard Breaks got into some hot water when they decided to keep a Trevor Lawrence “Gold Kaboom” card (they believed to be valued in excess of $15,000) found during a break, instead of sending it on to the person to whom it was originally promised.

Video of Trevor Lawrence Gold Kaboom incident

Rumors abound that card manufacturers intentionally give boxes loaded with hits to breakers.

Otherwise, a breaker who is adept at slight-of-hand can easily make sure valuable cards are not seen or distributed. In fact, there are articles available to help new breakers appear trustworthy. These recommendations include: keeping both hands on the screen, using multiple cameras, and showing that the box is empty.

Several baseball card manufacturers faced charges of illegal gambling in the 1990s when valuable insert cards first took the hobby by storm. [The card manufacturers ultimately won because a customer’s disappointment from not finding an insert card was not sufficient to establish damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.] It seems like it is just a matter of time before a disappointed break participant pursues a similar case against a breaker.

It remains to be seen whether other social media outlets like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch will follow TikTok’s lead due to the potential that card breaks constitute illegal gambling or if lawmakers will seek to impose any regulations on the booming card breaking business. As for now it is still the Wild West out there for gamblers—caveat emptor.

Polar Plunge: The Christopher Torres Interview

Author’s Note: Over the last couple years I’ve quietly marveled as fellow collector Christopher Torres worked his way ever closer toward a remarkable Hobby achievement: a complete set of T206 Polar Bear backs. In this interview with SABR Baseball Cards, Chris shares his experiences with our readers.

SABR Baseball Cards: Chris, many of our readers may know you from your excellent real-time documentation of the Topps Project 2020 set. Were you also collecting tobacco cards at that time, or is this a more recent foray for you?

Chris: First off, thank you for your kind words on my Project 2020 work. What a tremendous time that was for us as a country but also for us in the baseball card community. I personal can’t believe we are about to hit three years since I released my first ever P2020 video and to this day I am forever thankful for everyone who followed and watched my Project 2020 series. I credit a lot of my professional success these days to my trial and error with recording those earlier videos.

Now at the time Project 2020 started, I was a collector of tobacco cards but on a very minor scale with no real purpose. I picked up my very first T206 cards at the 2019 National in Chicago as a way to commemorate my first ever trip to the National. I ended up with raw Solly Hofman and an SGC A Frank Chance along with a few T212 Obak Seattle cards. Little did I know then that the $60 Chance purchase would eventually send me off on a three year plus collecting journey for the entire Polar Bear back run set.

SABR Baseball Cards: What drew you to collecting Polar Bear backs in particular? Were there any other finalists in mind as you settled on Polar Bear?

Chris: As I picked up more and more T206 cards through 2020 and the first part of 2021, I found myself at a true crossroads in the set. I knew financially speaking putting together all 520 cards was going to be tough and I also wondered if I could truly appreciate 520 different cards. At times I found myself buying cards just because and never truly enjoying them.

Through that trial and error, the one card back that I truly appreciated was the Polar Bear back. Not only is blue one of my favorite colors (Go UTEP Miners!), the card back was so much more visually appealing than the others. The second part that really struck me was the confidence of their slogan, “Is Now, Always Has Been, Always Will Be” the best scrap tobacco.

Backs of some of Chris’ favorites. Keep reading to see fronts!

About two years after I picked up my first T206 card I sold off every single non-Polar Bear card, minus a few Southern Leaguer Old Mills, and decided to start over. By January 2, 2022, I was at 77 Polar Bears, which was just about 31% of the set’s 250 cards.

SABR Baseball Cards: Let’s dig in to that number a bit more. The Polar Bear subset has 250 different cards, which puts it at about half the cards of the full Monster. Is there anything that distinguishes these 250 cards? For example, do they represent just one of the three years 1909-1911, or are only certain teams represented?

Chris: The print years are the same as the broader T206 set (i.e., 1909-1911), but one very key property of the Polar Bear set is the inclusion of Ray Demmitt and Bill O’Hara in St Louis uniforms. (Editor’s Note: These St. Louis variations are two of the toughest cards in the entire Monster, trailing only the “Big Four” in scarcity.) These variations only occur in Polar Bear, as no other brands chose to update their teams following their trades.

I also personally put Simon Nichols on the same pedestal as Demmitt and O’Hara being that he retired in 1910 and was potentially replaced on the print sheet by Demmitt or O’Hara. However, the secondary market currently says otherwise.

SABR Baseball Cards: Which top-shelf Hall of Famers can be found with Polar Bear backs? For example, are all four Ty Cobb cards in the subset?

Chris: Polar Bear is unique as it only includes 32 Hall of Famers compared to the 74 in the entire 520 card set. In Polar Bear, Ty Cobb only has the “Red Portrait” and “Bat off Shoulder” variations. Walter Johnson has just the “Glove at Chest” variation, no portrait. Same with Christy Mathewson, no portrait in Polar Bear but the “Dark Cap” variation.

This is what makes Polar Bear unique in my mind. You are still getting a taste of all of the Hall of Famers but you aren’t having to buy as many different poses for a complete set. Only Cobb, Hughie Jennings, John McGraw, Joe Tinker and Vic Willis have two Polar Bear poses, and no Hall of Famer has three.

SABR Baseball Cards: What can you tell us about the Polar Bear tobacco brand itself?

Chris: The biggest difference between Polar Bear tobacco and the other tobacco brands represented in T206 (e.g., Piedmont, Sweet Caporal) was that it was sold in loose tobacco pouches versus rolled tobacco form (i.e., cigarettes).

This is also why finding these cards in great condition is so difficult. More than likely you will find them stained from the tobacco that was loose around the card and or with small bits of tobacco still attached to the card. To me those are some of the best Polar Bear cards because that small bit of tobacco harkens back to when it was first pulled out of the pouch in the early 1900s. You can’t replicate that in the modern Hobby.

SABR Baseball Cards: Aside from the T206 set, was Polar Bear involved in any other tobacco issues? For example, can Polar Bear backs be found in T205 or other notable sets?

Chris: As you correctly point out, Polar Bear was one of the 17 brands used in the T205 set but they are most famous for being in the T206 set.

SABR Baseball Cards: Tell us how you are keeping or displaying your collection. Slabs? Binders?

Chris: My original goal was to have a complete binder set as I always valued being able to hold a baseball card that was 110 years old as more important than owning the card itself. I never really valued a card being in a slab before because plastic is not true Americana. However, I had a shift around the 200-card mark to where I had “enough” of the feel game and started to value the look of the cards more than their feel.

Now that I’ve reached the 240+ mark in the set, I have just over 210 raw copies and 30 graded. SGC takes up the majority of the graded group with 21 in a tuxedo. I also find they display a whole lot better than the PSA versions, but you can’t beat a red portrait T206 in a red PSA flip.

SABR Baseball Cards: And what about condition? As tough as this set is to put together, I have to imagine you’ve made room for plenty of lower grade cards.

Chris: The one rule that I have always had with my Polar Bear set was to put together a back run set with very clean backs. I never honestly really cared about what the front looked like! So if you see a badly damaged Polar Bear back on my website, that is because it was obtained before I made the switch in 2021 and just haven’t gone back to upgrade it. I have financially prioritized new pickups versus upgrades the past two years.

SABR Baseball Cards: Knowing you are in the Seattle area, obviously there are no Mariners (or Pilots!) in the set. Have you adopted any particular team from the Monster as your favorite?

Chris: I will always be partial to the Chicago Cubs due to Frank Chance and Solly Hofman and the origin on my T206 collecting journey. Still, to me it was never about the teams; it was always about the back.

SABR Baseball Cards: There are so many beautiful cards in the T206 set. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, do you have a Top 5 among the Polar Bear run?

Chris: Completely ignoring how good the players are, here are my Top 5.

Christy Mathewson – This card is gorgeous to me as it shows potential rubber-band wear and tear and then someone spilled something on it in the past. Or maybe the tobacco package got wet and this is a tobacco stain.
John Titus – Everyone knows, the only man with a moustache in the entire T206 set, not just Polar Bear.
Davy Jones – What a stud in this card. Someone must have liked him as they were making the set.
Del Howard – Very unique background, which is unusual for the T206 set, along with the popped collar and I have visited his grave here in Seattle. That was an interesting moment personally speaking.
Ed Konetchy – Feels like a very 3D image that feels very hard to pull off 110 years ago. This card has always stuck out to me as being very unique versus the other action shots.

SABR Baseball Cards: Earlier, you mentioned two of the Polar Bear set’s rarities: the St. Louis variations of Demmitt and O’Hara. Are these two cards part of your Polar Bear quest, or have you set your sights on a more modest goal of 248?

Chris: I go back and forth on this all the time. When I started this back-run set I knew I was committing myself to spending $1k for the Demmitt and O’Hara cards, and I was completely fine with that. Apart from Ty Cobb, those would be my two significant purchases. However, now that Demmitt and O’Hara are going for four to five times that price, the financial decision becomes much more difficult.

This is also why I decided to add them to my Polar Bear sleeve tattoo. Getting their cards on my arm was a a tad cheaper than putting down $8k for 2 cards and while some people will view that as “crazy,” you can never tell a Polar Bear story without Demmitt and O’Hara.

SABR Baseball Cards: Wait. What?! Did you say you got those cards on your arm??

Chris:

SABR Baseball Cards: That is AWESOME! We definitely support your right to Bear arms! So the tattoos will essentially sub for the cards here?

Chris: I’m currently at 244/250 for the set. Once I get to 248, I will take a look at the market and make a decision on those last two. Ultimately, if I am going to have a complete Polar Bear set, I need to have a Demmitt and O’Hara. Maybe I will find a great deal at the 2023 National for one of these cards! You never know. That would be incredible to finish this set at the place where it all began!

SABR Baseball Cards: It’s been amazing to follow your journey. You are truly putting together something that most collectors can only dream about. Thank you so much, Chris, for taking the time to share your story with our readers.

Author’s Note: You can view Chris’ entire Polar Bear set (in progress) on his website. Take a look, it’s awesome!

Nostra Culpa

As Jason and I have been checking the blog feedback mailbox for your Burdick Award Nominations* we’ve realized that we don’t check that mailbox very often at all. This partly our fault since the blog email doesn’t go to either of us and partly due to WordPress not giving us a single notification about there being new messages.**

*Several great suggestions already. Please keep them coming and make the selection committee’s life as hard as possible.

**Literally everything else lights up with an unread-notifications counter.

Anyway, I’ve decided to clear out that mailbox and pull out all the messages which aren’t spam. It’s pretty apparent that a lot of the messages aren’t the kind of thing that Jason, me, this blog, or SABR are equipped to handle. But I’m going to go ahead and sort them into buckets and post everything here.

Apologies for this being extremely text-heavy. If anyone wants to chime in in the comments that would be awesome.

Possible future post ideas

My favorite messages are the ones that suggest possible future posts. I’d love for any of our contributors to pick these up and run with them. And if you have covered these in your personal blog by all means drop a link in the comments. My initial thoughts follow each question.

Do you have any knowledge about the mid 80’s Star Co player sets such as Mattingly, Murphy, Carlton. Were these licensed cards and do they have any value? I cant seem to find any useful info online about this time in baseball card production by the Star Company. The card’s design mirrors the Star Co basketball design from the licensed ’84, ’85, ’86 sets.

Given how prevalent these sets were—along with the gradient design and all of its “premium” parallels like Nova—it’s sort of amazing that we haven’t had anyone post about these both as cards and how they were clearly ordered by card shops to satisfy regional interests.

I am wondering who played the most MLB games but never appeared on a Topps baseball card. Marshall Bridges appeared in 206 games for 4 teams over 7 years-no Topps card. Anyone ever do any research along this line?

Another great post prompt. This obviously would be limited to the Topps era of cards since anyone playing before 1951 has a huge advantage here. My gut says the answer here is Tony Horton but I really have no idea.

I read Mark Armour’s excellent piece on Houston Astros cards of the 1960s. I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this: After issuing its inaugural team card of the Houston Colt .45s in 1963, why did Topps not issue Houston team cards in its 1964 and 1965 baseball sets?

So I had no idea about this. I do know that the team photos were often provided by the teams so maybe Houston didn’t provide a new photo. A the same time I’ve also seen the same team photo used in multiple years so who knows.

Why does the 1969 Topps set have so many cards that use the same photo as their card in the 1968 set? I always wondered why.

Such a good post idea that Mark Armour already wrote it in 2017.

Questions about value

We also get a lot of questions about what things are worth. This is a subject which Jason and I (and Mark and Chris before us) avoid on here. It’s quite possibly the only subject that we avoid on here. This blog is about usage and how it intersects with our understanding of baseball.

All that said, I’m including the questions here since the hive mind in the comments might be useful. As before my initial reaction follows each question.

I wanted to sell my complete Baltimore Orioles collection (from 1954 to present). This has 2776 regular issued cards (Topps, Bowman, and in the crazy 90’s Fleer, Score, etc) and 438 special issued (e.g., MVP, World Series, etc) for 3214 cards. I contacted Heritage Auctions and they said they mostly deal with graded cards. Do you have any suggestion on where to sell?

Forget about the “where to sell” question I want to know more about this collection, how it started, what were the toughest things to find, and why you’d part with something that cool after completing it.

I was given the 1933 big League set. My question is that all the cards don’t have the white border around the card. Do they still have value?

In this community we believe that cards have value because we value them. There are plenty of us for whom trimmed cards like this are the only way to afford them and as a result we treasure all those well-loved classics.

I was wondering if you guys could help me out with a 1960 Venezuelan Yaz. I sent it to PSA and it is authenticated as a Venezuelan but, after posting on eBay and receiving messages questioning its authenticity as a Venezuelan. You guys have anyone that can help?

A solid “who grades the graders” dilemma here. That people don’t trust PSA should be a huge warning sign for everyone who’s placed their trust in that company. Similarly, that Beckett just claimed that its grades are only guaranteed for the person who submitted the card threatens to upset the whole grading industry.

I have a team signed baseball from the 2000 2001 Cuban national championship team. Wondering if there’s any value in it

I’m 100% certain that there’s someone out there who would value that.

I’m doing some research on the intersection of baseball card value and copyright protection. To this end, I’m trying to find a database of old baseball card values from early Beckett Baseball Card Magazines (1984-1994). Are you aware of any such database or would you know anyone that might have such a database?

Leaving this in the value section but even someone as jaded about the monetary value side of the hobby as I am would be interested in a historical card value ticker. If such a thing exists by all means drop a link in our comments.

I have a Goudey 1933 Joe Cronin card with a card #189 front ( with a Joe Cronin fielding pose ) and a Joe Cronin #63 card back. My online research to date has not yielded any information, any indication that such a “wrong back” error card has ever been identified. I just read Jason’s very interesting and informative article about the 1933 set, and there was no indication of any prior knowledge of this error. How can I find out the market value of this card, which has some edge staining and would probably grade as a 3 or 4 ?

Zero idea on market value but I’d love to see photos of this.

Advice & Mysteries

We also get a decent amount of “what is this?” and “please help” questions. Many of these could likely be solved by some time on TCDB but some are genuine mysteries. Others are too open-ended to really respond to.

I have a Gaylord Perry signed set of 6 cards that I believe a company called Star Enterprise printed due to Gaylord being a spokesperson for them. I’m not positive on the company name but it’s very close. How can I send you photos of cards to see if you have ever seen them?

Best way to send us this kind of thing is to tweet at @SABRbbcards so we can retweet it to the hive mind. That said I really hope this is talking about the Peanut Farm cards.

Hello I am looking for some info on Dan Dee Mickey Mantle 2 sided advertising card with Frank Thomas on back any info I would greatly appreciate

No ideas. If anyone knows please drop a comment.

Our son found a Waite Hoyt baseball card in a used book from Library sale in early 1990s. It looks to be dated 1933 or 1932 and it looks like the others I have seen listed on ebay, it is printed in color on front. Only difference is the back is not printed in green ink, it is printed in black ink. Do you have any idea why it would have black ink on back?

I hate to say it but black ink makes me think it’s a reprint. I don’t know enough about these though to say anything definitive.

I am looking for a source of a high resolution version of the original image used for the red portrait T206 Ty Cobb

There’s a decent-sized one on the T206 project page.

Can you point me to a source or reference that may be able to shed some light on the Hygrade All Time Greats set? Specifically, I am looking for information concerning corrections that were made and changes to player photos. There include completely new photos, additions to photos and many recentering of photos, which I believe may have been done to show the players team on their hat or jersey which were obscured.

As always the first stop is TCDB. This is a reminder to me though that I’m long overdue on a post about my Hygrade Baseball Cards Collectors Kit which introduced me to the hobby.

Great article on Donruss Diamond Kings. Is there a source online that provides a listing and checklist for each set for each year. I know the artist changed in the 1990s.

To my knowledge, there’s nothing Diamond Kings specific. Instead you have to check TCDB set by set.

What is the best way to collect Topps baseball cards issued in previous years (1940s to 2010s)? Is ebay a good place to look? Or are there other (and cheaper) ways to collect?

Zero way to answer “best” but this blog has talked about multiple sources of cards from websites like Ebay, COMC, and Sportlots to in-person opportunities like shows and card shops.

I have a lot of Donruss Diamond Kings baseball cards. If you would please email me back because I have lots of questions about these cards.

Looking for a Babe Ruth and Stan Musial Dexter Press Baseball Hall of fame postcards to purchase.

Do you have anything on Jim / James McNeil who played for the Raleigh Tigers in the 1960s?

These three questions are all examples of the kind of thing we don’t really do on here. Anything we’ve covered already can be found via the search function and everything else will be researched using the same tools available to everyone else. We’re not a marketplace or reference librarian.

How to join the blog

The last batch of questions are all basically the same thing and are asking how to join the blog or submit a post. I’ve emailed everyone already and sent invite links out. And I fully apologize again for the delay in getting back to people.

I would like to join SABR & follow this blog.

Join SABR. Though you don’t need to join in order to follow the blog.

I’ve written a piece that I’d like to submit for consideration on the SABR Baseball Cards blog. Are there any guidelines rules for submission? To where should I submit my draft when it is ready?

The one rule is that you have to be an active member of SABR. If you are, contact us (Jason and I promise to check that more regularly) and we’ll get you started. As for guidelines, this place is a sandbox. Focus on cards. How they intersect with your life. How they relate to our understanding of baseball. How they fit in to the larger culture.

If I wanted to write an article do I do it in Google Sheets or Word?

Please not Google sheets. Yes Jason uses a lot of spreadsheets in his posts but those are images by the time he posts them. Outside of that, blogs are primarily plain text. Once you’re a contributor you can compose directly on WordPress. Word or Google Docs are also fine. As is the body of an email.

How do I submit a blog post? I don’t see a create button—or am I missing something?

Once you’re a contributor you’ll have access to the WordPress UI which definitely has both a create post button and a submit post button. If you’re not a contributor yet then we need to get that step taken care of first.

I don’t quite plan on doing a post like this again unless we get another great batch of possible post suggestions. I have my fingers crossed that this will inspire a few posts or at least some blog comments.

TCMA – A vintage history

In 2023, there are dozens of baseball card sets at every price point. Any major star has thousands of cards available, with hundreds added annually. We can buy most cards we want in just a couple minutes, at a competitive price.

But 50 years ago, there weren’t nearly as many choices for collectors as there are today. There was the Topps set, sometimes a couple Topps inserts and test issues such as Super or Deckle Edge, and a few food issues such as Milk Duds and Kellogg’s. These sets weren’t made for the organized hobby, which was just as well because there really wasn’t much of an organized hobby in the 70’s.

What was the organized hobby in the early-70’s? There were a few thousand adult collectors nationwide. There were a few small card shows in and near major cities, along with a few hobby newspapers. They were invaluable in creating the knowledge base for the hobby. There were a handful of full-time mail-order dealers like Card Collectors Company and Larry Fritsch cards. They advertised through mainstream publications like The Sporting News, and produced their own catalogs that could number up to 100 pages. There were few storefront dealers, and no Internet. The first National Convention would wait until 1979.

TCMA emerged as the first card manufacturer that targeted the organized hobby. TCMA stood for “The Card Memorabilia Associates,” or the initials of the founders, Tom Collier and Mike Aronstein. The company was headquartered in Westchester County, north of New York City .

Their first sets included the SCFC “Sports Cards for Collectors” 1969 Yankees pictures (see Al Downing below) and an Old-Timers set. The latter set included pen drawings not only of Hall of Famers but forgotten players–that is, forgotten by all but SABR members.

1972 saw the first sets issued under TCMA’s name . They released several reprint sets of vintage issues such as 1887 Allen & Ginter and 1922 American Caramel. They also released the first few series of a set that would number over 500 cards featuring players from the 30’s. To cap it off, they produced a set of the Cedar Rapids Reds in the Class-A Midwest League, the first of hundreds of TCMA minor league team sets over the next 16 years.

Though TCMA would become best known for minor-league sets, their sets featuring vintage players deserve examination. They found a market among serious collectors of the time. Many 70’s collectors wrote away to players for autographs. There weren’t a lot of contemporary cards for stars of the 30’s and 40’s, and many collectors were hesitant to send off vintage cards for autographs for fear of losing them.

Enter TCMA—their sets had a clean design conducive to an autograph, and if they weren’t returned with an autograph at least it wasn’t a 1933 DeLong that was lost to the U.S. Mail or to a former player ambivalent to autograph requests. Many of these sets were designed to feature players who signed through the mail, in fact some dealers sent a list of player addresses along with the cards. This explains why many early TCMA cards offered on Ebay are autographed.

TCMA also offered sets that allowed collectors of modest means to own cards of 19th century players, along with 20th century players who didn’t appear on a lot of cards. One great examples are the 1936–39 Yankees Dynasty set, including not only greats like Gehrig and Lazzeri but journeymen like Paul Schreiber, who appeared in 12 major league games over two generations. What a great find for someone like me who has to have all the players, not just the legends! Others include the 1975 1951 New York Giants set and the 1972 The Yawkey Red Sox set. One of the largest early TCMA sets was the “All Time Greats” postcard issue. The set consists of several 24-card series of attractive black and white postcards. It covered virtually everyone in the Hall-of-Fame including executives like Lee MacPhail, Judge Landis and Will Harridge.

1975 TCMA All-Time Greats Postcard Ott/Gehrig

In 1975 TCMA expanded their offerings. To promote their retro and minor league sets, they produced their first catalog called “Collector’s Quarterly.” Through this catalog, they marketed their first sets of current major leaguers. Those came out under the SSPC (Sports Stars Publishing Company) label. There was a 1975 set for the Mets and Yankees, and then a 660-card set in 1976.

1975 TCMA 1927 Yankees Jake Ruppert. Hard to find cards of a baseball owner and a brewery owner! — 1975 TCMA 1927 Yankees Jake Ruppert.
Hard to find cards of a baseball owner and a brewery owner!

SSPC’s 1976 set was an attempt to challenge the Topps monopoly. They were sold only as a set and only to the hobby. The fronts had no team name or player name—a “pure card” design perfect for autographs. Topps cards had facsimile autographs many years and nothing is more awkward than an authentic autograph written over a fake one.

1976 SSPC Larry Murray. SSPC featured many players not available in any Topps set. — 1976 SSPC Larry Murray.
SSPC featured many players not available in any Topps set.

Topps took notice and went to court to stop the further release of these sets. TCMA was allowed to sell through their stock, which took several years.

SSPC would be heard from after 1976 though. In 1978, team sets were produced as pages in their magazines for several teams. A set of vintage players even appeared in the 1979 and 1982 Yankees yearbooks.

By the late-70’s, TCMA was becoming better known for minor league sets. TCMA representatives went to minor league general managers with a proposition- TCMA would take pictures of their team, and provide the team sets for sale in their memorabilia stands for free, in exchange for the right to sell team sets in their Collectors Quarterly catalog for $3–3.50 each team. TCMA photographers not only covered players, but sometimes managers, coaches, team executives, trainers, even bat boys and mascots!

By 1979 dozens of teams had TCMA sets, a number that expanded through the 80’s. By the time TCMA stopped production in the late-80’s, virtually every minor league squad had at least one annual team set, some had as many as three.

1982 TCMA Columbus Clippers Don Mattingly

TCMA didn’t leave the vintage market. In 1978 and 1979, they produced attractive full color sets of players of the 60’s (in 1978) and the 50’s (in 1979). These sets were from 275–300 cards and featured both legends along with players who had never appeared on a card before. They followed up with a second series of 1960’s in 1981. All three sets are collectible today and not expensive.

TCMA also collaborated with large dealer Renata Galasso on several sets. They co-produced the annual 45-card retro sets included as a bonus with every purchase of current year Topps sets from 1977-84. These attractive sets are known as “Galasso Glossy Greats.”

1983 TCMA 1942 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio.
TCMA produces several “fantasy” sets filling in the gaps left by vintage card issuers

Collectors were discouraged from pursuing TCMA’s sets by the hobby papers of the time. TCMA sets were considered “illegitimate” and “collector’s issues.” They weren’t considered fully collectible because they weren’t released in packs at candy stores, nor as a premium for another product. Most TCMA cards weren’t licensed by Major League Baseball nor the Players Association, or even the players itself. Nevertheless, TCMA thrived in a time where former players hadn’t monetized their career like today.

In the late-1980’s TCMA saw a formidable competitor for its minor-league throne, the Pottstown, Pennsylvania based Pro Cards. TCMA continued to release retro cards, but at a slower pace. At the same time Mike Aronstein, the head of TCMA, was acquiring a huge database of player photos and built a successful business providing 8×10 glossy pictures and other player items such as keychains. The TCMA label morphed into PhotoFile, which still markets licensed items for all major sports.

Aronstein and TCMA were before their time. TCMA cards aren’t always easy to find but are generally affordable considering their age and print run. Their sets are an important part of the history of the hobby. They deserve a look from every vintage collector and every baseball historian.

Hollywood Stars Were in the Cards: Part 6

Any good baseball fan over the age of forty knows the name Boog Powell: Burly, genial redhead. Baltimore Orioles fence-buster and fan favorite. 1970 American League Most Valuable Player. Subject of one of the 1970s’ most-loved Miller Lite punchlines.

Less known is that Boog had a stepbrother in the major leagues from 1968 through 1973: utility man and pinch-hitter Carl Taylor, who spent six seasons in the employ of the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, and Kansas City Royals. (Topps mentions this on the back of Carl’s 1969 and 1974 cards; on his 1970 card, he is referred to merely as Boog’s “relative.” None of Boog’s cards make mention of a stepbrother.)

After Boog’s mother died during his childhood, his father remarried a woman whose son, Carl Taylor, became Boog’s stepbrother. Two and a half years’ Boog’s junior, Carl possessed the same penchant for mischief as the aptly nicknamed Boog—called so by his father because “booger” was a southern term for a boy who gets into trouble, which was eventually shortened to “Boog” (correctly pronounced like a soft, suthun’ “book”).

Carl also possessed the same penchant for baseball as did his elder stepbrother, which eventually led to their playing on the same little league team. In fact, their Lakeland, Florida, squad made it all the way to the 1954 national championship in Williamsport, Pennsylvania—or as Boog and Carl referred to it, the Fuckin’ Little League World Series Mixer. (Boog also had a biological brother, Charlie, who played on this team and who eventually reached the minor leagues. An injured shoulder suffered in a fall from a treehouse is rumored to have curtailed Charlie’s career.)

Boog and Carl’s early years together are hazy but seem to indicate that they shared a bedroom despite a general unease between them. Eventually, they began to bond through favorite dinosaurs and Carl’s Phil Cavarretta–model Louisville Slugger autographed by fellow Chicago Cub Randy Jackson. (The young Carl had bumped into Jackson several years earlier, and all Carl had on him was the Phil Cavarretta bat—and Carl was not going to not get Randy Jackson’s autograph, right? Boog surely would have done the exact same thing.)

In fact, it seems that Boog and Carl bonded so well that the boys constructed a bunk bed so they would have more room to do activities—although they made the mistake of agreeing on the physically imposing Boog taking the upper bunk, which nearly spelled Carl’s end.

Several years later, the Powell family relocated from Lakeland to Key West. The boys’ disappointment in having to leave behind the treehouse in which Boog had stored his complete collection of the relatively new magazine called Playboy was placated by their exciting new surroundings at the western tip of the Florida archipelago. It was not only here that Boog became a three-sport star at Key West High School but where Carl began to mature as an athlete, himself. Even more significantly, being no more than a mile at any point on the island from the warm waters of the Straits of Florida made every week Shark Week. Boog and Carl could watch this favorite spectacle in-person almost any time of year—at least until Mr. Powell tired of their lackadaisical attitudes and insisted that they get jobs.

Still, they found time to indulge their other shared passion: Boog and Carl would take their father’s 13-foot Feather Craft Topper—usually without his permission—put on their plastic Key West Fire Department helmets, hook up a line to the bilge pump, and spray the shore or other boats with seawater, in a ritual they came to call “boats ‘n hose.” (Scamps that they were, Boog and Carl would sing gleefully from offshore, Boats ‘n hose, boats ‘n hose, I gotta have me my boats ‘n hose…)

This is not to imply that all was rosy between the stepbrothers. Reportedly, they feuded, and on one particularly charged occasion, scuttlebutt has it that Carl—despite extremely emphatic warning from Boog not to touch his marching-band tuba—indeed made contact with the instrument in an unsightly way, which precipitated a horrible brawl.

1954 Florida Little League World Series team. Boog is back row, third from right; Carl is front row, fifth from right.

Soon enough, though, both boys were making waves for their high school team, the Key West Conchs, and attracting the attention of major league scouts. (A 1959 Fort Myers News-Press article garnered Boog attention as he obliterated rival pitching by batting .571 and slugging an ungodly 1.036 over 11 games.) The Conchs won the Florida state championship in 1958, propelled heavily by Boog’s bat, and repeated in ’59. Not long after his graduation, the Baltimore Orioles outbid the St. Louis Cardinals and signed Boog for $25,000. Carl soldiered on with the Conchs, and like his stepbrother, he, too, signed on with a major league organization, the Pittsburgh Pirates, shortly after graduating.

Boog hit like wildfire in the minors and found himself in Orioles duds by the last week of the 1961 season—his major league debut being the game in which Roger Maris tied Babe Ruth’s mark with his 60th homer run of the season. Carl took longer to ripen, beginning his sojourn through the minors in 1962 and finally reaching major league pay dirt in Pittsburgh’s second game of the 1968 campaign.

Shortly before Opening Day, after Carl had officially made the Pirates squad, Pittsburgh and Baltimore coincidentally clashed in a spring-training tilt. When Boog and Carl met on the field during warmups, Carl was heard to quip excitedly, “Did we just become major leaguers?” to which Boog replied ardently, “Yup!” after which, they ran to the bullpen and did karate to limber up.

Although Boog and his 230-lb frame hardly could claim that he hadn’t had a carb since 1964, he’d enjoyed consistent success for the previous five seasons, finishing third in the American League MVP race as he helped the Orioles to a surprise World Series championship in 1966.

Carl’s major league career did not bear immediate fruit. As catcher Jerry May’s backup, Carl got into only 44 games and hit a dismal .211 in 1968. Would he remain in the majors? Carl had worn a tuxedo on the first day of spring training yet managed to impress the coaching staff with his bat, his glove, and a sense of irony that skipper Larry Shepard confessed he hadn’t seen since Dizzy Dean pitched a barnstorming game against Indiana’s Greencastle Galoshes in two-tone wingtips. This ability to think outside the box, coupled with a surprisingly operatic singing voice that endeared him to general manager Joe Brown, kept Carl with the parent club in 1969.

A wise decision it was. Playing first base, the outfield, and coming off the bench, Carl suited up for 104 games and batted a sizzling .348, the highest batting average on the club and .0008 points better than National League batting champion, Pete Rose (albeit in 470 fewer plate appearances).

One would think that an effort like Carl’s 1969 would keep him in Bucs black and white for a while—but convinced of Manny Sanguillén’s and Al Oliver’s future stardom, and well stocked through its rich farm system, Pittsburgh swapped Carl shortly after the season to St. Louis for Dave Giusti and Dave Ricketts. Carl worked another 104 games in 1970, but his batting average tumbled nearly 100 points—and he soon entered the journeyman phase of his career. Dealt to Milwaukee, Carl became a Brewer in name only, as that club packed him off to Kansas City before the new season began.

Batting .189 and unhappy with his lot, United Press International reported on May 23, 1971, that Carl had “burned his uniform and other baseball equipment” (i.e., very possibly his tuxedo) and quit the Royals. Coincidentally—or not—this took place in Baltimore, and Boog tried to talk him out of it after the game. Was there an element of step-sibling rivalry? Boog was the reigning A.L. MVP, owner of two World Series rings, and justifiably earning $70,000 more than Carl. Possibly still smarting from the trade after his .348 season—especially because Pittsburgh became a playoff team the following year—Carl may have been dismayed that, unlike Boog, he wasn’t snappin’ necks and cashin’ checks.

“I wanna make bank, bro!” Carl allegedly complained to Boog. “I wanna get ass. I wanna drive a Hemi ‘Cuda.”

Boog may well have thought that he had a huge doucher for a stepbrother, but whatever plagued Carl didn’t last, so—at least secretly—he wasn’t a doucher. Carl returned to the Royals and appeared in two games for Kansas City before being farmed out to Omaha, where he pummeled American Association pitching for a .362 mark. As luck would have it, Pittsburgh bought his contract for its stretch drive, and Carl found himself on a first-place team. Alas, while the Pirates claimed the National League East, Carl was ineligible for the playoffs, having been acquired three days after the playoff-eligibility deadline. He watched idly as Pittsburgh sliced through San Francisco for the pennant and defeated Boog’s own Orioles in a seven-game cliffhanger to become champions of baseball (although Carl has, at times, augmented his autograph on baseballs with “71 World Champs”).

Likely much to Carl’s surprise, Kansas City bought back Carl shortly before the start of the 1972 season. Carl enjoyed his final two major league campaigns in powder blue, before retiring after the 1973 season. In 411 games, he had accumulated 298 total bases—the same amount Boog amassed in his 1969 season.

Boog’s career continued into summer 1977, first with a trade to the Cleveland Indians in early 1975—where, in the Tribe’s all-maroon road uniforms, he resembled, in his own words, “a massive blood clot”—and then as a pinch-hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who, with a healthy lead in the N.L. West, jettisoned Boog three weeks before clinching a playoff spot.

Boog soon became a favorite pitchman of Miller Lite beer, filming numerous television commercials in the wake of his major league career, several with good-natured former umpire, Jim Honochick (“Hey, you’re Boog Powell!”). These ads, including a few with former Japanese baseball player, Koichi Numazawa, were so well received that Boog enjoyed prestige worldwide.

Riding high, Boog attempted an ambitious start-up company with Carl that would delve into multiple endeavors, including entertainment, management, computers, research & development, and security. They were prepared to put in the man-hours to study the science of what customers need, but, alas, they couldn’t find investors—who could have been possibly you. Later, Boog entered the restaurant industry—and Boog’s BBQ restaurants thrive to this day.

They grew up so fast, indeed…

Call for Nominations – 2023 Jefferson Burdick Award

Through February 28, the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee is accepting nominations for the Jefferson Burdick Award for Contributions to the Hobby.

NOMINATION CRITERIA

Nominations should come from active SABR members (click here to join) and honor a living person who has made significant contributions to the hobby of baseball card collecting in such areas as—

Research/scholarship
Design/production/innovation
Collector resources (e.g., publications, websites, communities, events)
Expanding access to or enjoyment of the Hobby

In short, we are looking for the individuals who have made baseball card collecting better for the rest of us.

NOMINATION AND AWARD PROCESS

Have someone in mind? Here is what we’d like you to do.

No later than February 28, use the Contact form on this website to let us know your nominee(s) along with with a brief description of their role or contributions. A few sentences is sufficient at this stage in the process.
Be available for follow-up in case more information is needed.
Publicize this Call for Nominations to other SABR members with an interest in baseball cards.

On our end, we (your committee co-chairs, Nick and Jason) will vet the nominees and then work with our Awards Subcommittee to choose the award winner.

PAST RECIPIENTS

2022 – Dr. James Beckett
2021 – Doug McWilliams
2020 – Mike Aronstein

ABOUT JEFFERSON BURDICK

For a wealth of great articles on our award’s namesake, head to the Burdick section of the “Old Baseball Cards” library.

There’s Something About Marc

The Shy Kid at the Center of a Frenzy

On a sunny afternoon in January 1992, a line of fans stretched from inside the Huntington Beach High School gymnasium, out into the parking lot. That Saturday, the gymnasium was the scene of a sports card show. And though eight-time MLB All-Star and former National League Rookie of the Year, Darryl Strawberry, and the L.A. Raiderettes were on site attracting their own throngs of fans, those standing in the longest line were not waiting to meet them. Instead, their line snaked its way to a table, behind which sat 19-year old Marc Newfield, a baseball player who to that point had never played a game above AA. Newfield was a hometown kid who, just a couple years before, played basketball in this same gymnasium versus rival Huntington Beach High School as a member of the crosstown Marina High School Vikings varsity basketball squad.

It was during his time at Marina High School that Newfield established himself as a star baseball player, one of the most heavily scouted hitters in the nation. In June 1990, the Mariners selected Newfield in the first round of MLB Amateur Draft. As a 17-year-old, he tore up the Arizona Rookie League, clubbing a mammoth homerun (some said it went nearly 500 feet!) in his first professional game on his way to batting .313/.394/.495 with 6 HRs and being voted the league’s MVP. Then, as an 18-year-old in 1991 in the High-A Cal League, his first full-length season, Newfield continued to flourish. In 125 games, he hit .300/.391/.439 and was named a Cal League All-Star and the MVP of his San Bernardino Spirit.

But at this card show, organizers had hired Newfield to appear and sign autographs. After signing for two straight hours, he paused for a respite, observing “My hand’s killing me. All these people…I never expected anything like this. I don’t know what’s going on.” The painfully humble Newfield was bewildered by the gaggle of grown adults waiting in a lengthy line on a Saturday afternoon for his signature.[1]

Many of the dealers and collectors in attendance that day viewed Newfield as a commodity and believed his early professional success would help them make a buck. One vendor was selling his cards for $1.75 each and explained, “He’s $2.50 according to the book. Somebody else here is selling them for $3.50.” Another vendor was laminating Newfield’s cards, mounting them to small wood plaques, and selling the simple displays for $15. A Huntington Beach card shop proprietor on site that afternoon claimed to have 10,000 Newfield cards stocked away in his inventory, lecturing: “The idea is to buy his card cheap now and sell high when he’s made it.” He then held up a box, “There are 1,000 Marc Newfields in here. Hopefully, someday, this card will be worth $70 [similar in value to a Frank Thomas rookie card at that time], too. That’s $70 times 1,000.”[2]

As demonstrated at the January 1992 card show, Newfield’s first two professional seasons launched him into the stratosphere of the baseball card hobby. Baseball card manufacturers, too, wanted a piece of the teenager. At the end of the 1991 season, Upper Deck had scrambled to send a photographer to San Bernardino’s Fiscalini Field to snap shots of Newfield in a Seattle Mariners uniform in what was described as a “just in case session.” Upper Deck did not want to run into the same issue it had a couple years earlier when it did not have a photo of Ken Griffey, Jr. in a Mariners uniform and was forced to airbrush his San Bernardino Spirit hat a lighter shade of blue in order to include him in its 1989 set. Similarly, here Upper Deck wanted to account for all contingencies in the event that Newfield, like Griffey, leapfrogged higher levels in the Mariners minor league system and reached the big leagues in early 1992.[3]

That August 1991 day at Fiscalini Field, Upper Deck provided Newfield a #24 Mariners jersey to wear during the shoot. At the time, Newfield—who was more focused on his own season than the goings-on at the big-league level—had no idea that this #24 jersey with no name sewn on the back was that of Ken Griffey Jr. Even without the knowledge that this jersey was Griffey’s—and the added sense of pressure that such a comparison would inevitably stir in a teen—the modest Newfield, who at that point had not played higher than Class-A, was already uncomfortable being put on a pedestal. Lacking even the slightest hint of ego, he sheepishly confessed on the day of the Upper Deck shoot that though he was honored to be photographed and presented as a big-league talent, “It’s kind of embarrassing. It just seems like it’s not the right time.”[4]

*Newfield had no idea that Upper Deck put him in a Griffey jersey.*

That whole season, Newfield had done his best to navigate the attention thrown his way. He’d been an attraction at ballparks around the Cal League, signing for young fans. He didn’t mind doing this—it came with the territory. But he admitted getting irritated “when the same people ask for me to sign over and over again. They bring 10 cards one day and five the next.” Though this constant attention might have led some young athletes to develop an attitude or sense of entitlement, Newfield handled it like a professional well beyond his 18 years. Tommy Jones, his manager at San Bernardino, explained in 1991, “He’s handled the off-field pressures of the season very well: baseball-card companies, national magazines, TV, radio, all the media,” adding that Newfield never let the attention affect his play or his relationship with his teammates.[5]

Everybody in the baseball card hobby wanted a piece of Marc Newfield. In January 1992 Baseball Cards magazine named Newfield its “Hot Rookie” in a feature story. The Beckett Focus on Future Stars profiled Newfield twice—in August 1992 and April 1994. And Beckett Baseball Card Monthly showcased the young ballplayer, interviewing him for its April 1994 edition.

I was no different. I had my own Marc Newfield collection. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and by 1992 I was 7 years old and developing my own interest in baseball cards. When I acquired a Seattle Mariner, I put it in a special binder with other Mariners cards. I recently dug out that old Mariners binder and found six different Marc Newfield cards dating 1991 through 1993.

Two of those cards have always stood out to me, and I’ve long wondered the story of those cards and the player pictured in them. I ran an internet search for Marc Newfield and quickly discovered that since his professional baseball career ended in the late 1990s, the once-shy kid from Huntington Beach has, perhaps unsurprisingly, lived outside the public spotlight.

Fortunately though, after a little effort, I was recently able to track down Newfield and speak to him about his personal and professional journey, and of course, about his baseball cards. Like all of us, he’s grown up in the intervening three decades since these cards were issued. But he maintains a sharp memory of those early days of his pro baseball career. He’s also patient and generous with his time. The humble kid from the early 1990s maintains a low profile these days, and, consistent with the personality he showed as a teenage baseball star, he’s still eager to come through for others. It was a real pleasure discussing his cards, and as a result of those conversations, I’m now a bigger fan of his than when he was a hero of mine as a youngster.

The Favorites

*Newfield in his Marina High School varsity uniform*

The first card I’ve always loved is the 1991 Topps “#1 Draft Pick” (#529). It shows a 17-year old Newfield in his senior year of high school, wearing his Marina Vikings pinstripes. On one knee in a traditional amateur baseball pose, an aluminum bat leaning into his body, a Mizuno batting glove on his left hand, and stirrups showing from below mid-calf, Newfield displays the widest, most sincere smile ever featured on a professional baseball card. The obvious happiness in his face reminds me of the great joy that baseball has brought so many of us. Newfield told me that, indeed, the most fun he ever had on the diamond occurred, not during his ten professional seasons or when he was in the major leagues, but in high school. He specifically recalls the summer of 1989 following his junior year, when he was learning to play first base on a Mickey Mantle 16U team that won tournaments all over the nation before securing a National Championship at Waterbury, Connecticut. The reverse side of the card lists this accomplishment along with Newfield’s high school offensive statistics and many prep accolades, the sort of eye-popping achievements that explain the swarms of scouts in attendance at his high school games.

As a child, I did not understand why this Seattle Mariners baseball card did not show a player in a Mariners jersey. It made no sense. But it also made the card unique. None of the other cards in my collection had players wearing another team’s uniform. And back then, the card’s uniqueness made it stand out against others.

*Just a couple of kids, waiting for a ride to the big leagues*

Perhaps my favorite card, though, is the 1992 Upper Deck Top Prospect (#51) checklist. I liked it for the same reason as the 1991 Topps card: it was unique. Newfield is not even in a baseball uniform, but rather street clothes, looking like a teenager waiting for a bus. And here, the card shows two players, a second unique trait!

Newfield stands with Montreal Expos prospect Rondell White, and each has a team-issued duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Newfield sports a San Bernardino Spirit hat, and his oversized outfielder’s glove pokes out of his unzipped bag. But I’ve wondered: why doesn’t he have a bat in his bag the way White does?

The card shows the two young men standing in grass, seemingly along a road. Newfield pointed out that in the card, he is wearing two different shoes—I’d never observed this detail before. The grey shoe on his left foot is actually a medical boot. Following the 1991 season, he had undergone a surgery to try to correct a foot issue that had been bothering him for years and had become increasingly painful. He was recovering from that surgery when Upper Deck staged this photo. That surgery, however, did not alleviate the pain, and he was forced to undergo a much more invasive foot surgery in 1992 that cut short his season at AA Jacksonville.

White’s right hand rests on Newfield’s left shoulder, like a nurturing big brother. Interestingly, Newfield explained that he and Rondell White had no prior relationship—they were not friends, nor did they enjoy a personal connection. Upper Deck simply paired them together for this card. Nevertheless, the men gaze, together, into the dream-filled distance.

Behind them is a short wire rope fence, and a post rises over their heads with two signs attached. One sign points left toward Seattle; the other right to Montreal—with this signage, the photo should have been taken in central North America at a geographic point between those two big-league cities. But rather, Upper Deck had flown White out to Orange County, California, where Newfield lived in Huntington Beach and was recovering during the offseason. They staged the photo nearby, along California’s iconic Pacific Coast Highway.

Newfield has his own favorite cards from his playing days, though unlike me, he was never much of a baseball card collector growing up. Early in his career, he admitted that seeing himself on baseball cards was exciting and surreal, if not a little odd: “I’ll get a card, or my friends get the cards, and we kind of laugh because we all grew up together. It’s weird that one of us would be on a baseball card.” In 1994 he told Beckett magazine that his favorite of his cards was the 1994 Fleer Major League Prospects (#26), in which he is shown following through on a swing, in front of a Mariners logo.[6]

But these days, his favorite card is the 1996 Select Team Nucleus (#22) that pictures Newfield, with Padres teammates Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti. He smiles and suggests how “ridiculous” it was that Select included him on a Team Nucleus card in 1996. After all, the Padres had acquired Newfield from the Mariners at the 1995 trade deadline, and he’d played just 21 games in a Padres uniform by the time the card was produced. But those 21 games represented the first time in Newfield’s young career in which he was afforded the opportunity to play every day and adjust to big league pitching without fear of imminent demotion or losing his place on the lineup card. And Newfield excelled, hitting .309/.333/.491 during that stretch. That late season performance in 1995 landed Newfield on this 1996 Team Nucleus card alongside first-ballot Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn—Mr. Padre himself—and Ken Caminiti, who would win the NL MVP after that 1996 season and eventually land in the Padres Hall of Fame. And though he still thinks the card is ridiculous, Newfield values this card because he was featured alongside two baseball legends. It is also not lost on him that, of the three ballplayers on the card, he’s the lone survivor.

*Newfield’s all-time favorite card from his playing career*

Though the vendors at the January 1992 Huntington Beach card show may be disappointed that Newfield’s cards won’t finance a lush retirement, I still enjoy flipping through my Marc Newfield collection and adding more to my growing set. Each card tells its own story. And now, after I’ve had the good fortune of meeting Marc Newfield and getting to better know the man pictured in the cards, they are more valuable to me than any others in my collection.

[1] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.

[2] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.

[3] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.

[4] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.

[5] Jim Callis, “On the Mark,” Baseball Cards, January 1992: 55.

[6] Matt Hayes, “Focus on Marc Newfield,” Beckett Focus on Future Stars, April 1994, No. 36: 20.