Barrier Breakers: 1951 Minnie Minoso - Chicago White Sox

 

Although Orestes "Minnie" Minoso broke the color line for the White Sox in 1951, he made his MLB debut on the Indians in April of 1949. He hit .188 in 20 plate appearances with 2 walks and 2 hit-by-pitch. He spent the rest of '49 and '50 in San Diego of the PCL hitting .297 and .339 respectively. That earned him a short-lived promotion to the Indians in 1951.  It was short-lived because he was dealt to the South-Siders in a six-player, three-team swap. Once on the Sox, he batted .324 with 10 homers and 74 RBIs.  He also led the league with 31 stolen bases and 14 triples, was 4th in MVP voting and second in Rookie of the Year voting.

Minnie is a favorite of mine and has been featured on this blog several times.  This 1951 Bowman first appeared here in August of 2011.  I also made a 1951 Topps card for him as an Indian.

I've made several cards of the Cuban Comet over the years, but wanted to find another to make for this post.  I settled on a 1965 "Career Capper".  I considered a 1963 Fleer card featuring him on the Senators because he doesn't have a card in a Washington uniform.  But decided that this post was about the White Sox.  That'll be a project for another day.

Minnie Minoso

1925-2015

Another one of my all-time favorites passed away today. It's odd that the player who broke the color barrier for the White Sox died within weeks of the player who broke the color barrier for the Cubs. I can't express what these 2 great men meant to the city of Chicago and to baseball. Today's news just amplifies the tragedy of the recent "Golden Age" Hall of Fame ballot.

Minnie Minoso has always been one of my favorite subjects.I made the card above back in 2011 to commemorate his brief appearance playing for the Sox in 1980. I changed up the Topps cap design a bit to look more like the Sox cap of the era. Ultimately, I wasn't happy with it and never posted it until today.Instead went with this 1981 Fleer card:

I had also created 2 different cards for Minnie from 1951 sets. A 1951 Bowman of Minoso on the White Sox:

And a 1951 Topps card of Minnie on the Indians:

He even made it onto one of the leaders cards that never were, this 1961 RBI leaders card:

#2 - Hardrock, Coco and Joe

My Top 5 Christmas Cartoons

Over the Christmas holiday I thought I would post my favorite Christmas Cartoons and/or Animated Specials.  In keeping with the theme of this blog, I made cards of them from their "rookie" season.  

For my number 2 pick I went local.  If you grew up in Chicago, you know this animated short very well. It was shown on Ray Rayner and Garfield Goose during the holiday season on WGN TV. If you are not from Chicago it is quite possible that you have never heard of Ray Rayner or Garfield Goose, let alone Hardrock, Coco and Joe.  I will just let you google them.

Although this short was shown in Chicago starting in 1956 it was actually made in 1951 so I made 3 1951 Topps cards of the trio. Sorry about the quality, I was forced to use video stills. Below is the full video. It's only 3 minutes long but it brings back great childhood memories.

1975 Topps M.V.P. and R.O.Y. Cards: 1951-1959

Now that I have finally finished my run of Rookie of the Year cards as they might have appeared on 1975 Topps MVP cards I thought I would look back and see how they stacked up.

Neither Gil McDougald, nor Willie Mays had 1951 Topps cards so these were some of my earliest works. To Topps' credit, a '51 Campanella didn't exist either. For the MVP card they also modified the existing Yogi Berra card.

They increased the size and darkened the font of his name and eliminated the other text. They followed suit on the Campy cards as well. I tried to stay true to the original but it made the card harder to read. Topps made the right move.

For the 1952 card I needed only to create the Harry Byrd card. 

For the 1953 card I chose to use the Kuenn card Topps created for the 1991 Archives set. Kuenn did not have a card in the original 1953 Topps set.

Once again I used the Archives card for this one. Bob Grim was not included in the original set but was in the 1994 Archives set.

1955 shows 3 "Cards That Never Were". The first being the Campanella card Topps created for the 1975 MVP. Both photos black and white and what is worse, he is wearing an L.A. Dodgers cap. On the ROY card I used the 1955 Herb Score card that was created by Topps as a V.I.P. give-away at the National Sports Collector's Convention in 2005. The Virdon card was mine.

Mantle, Newcombe and Aparicio all had cards issued by Topps in 1956. The Robinson card was also a Topps creation. Once again I used a VIP card from the Nationals, this time from 2006.

For the first time all 4 cards were actually issued in the original set.

Ditto for 1958.

For the 1959 card I needed to create a McCovey rookie card. In this case I decided to make it look like a regular issue card as opposed to the Rookie Stars card like Bob Allison. If Topps had issued these cards they might've gone the other way because the standard 1959 set was already well represented on the MVP card. I felt that as a stand-alone card I needed to show off the standard set.

1951 Topps Orestes "Minnie" Minoso

Cleveland Indians CTNW Fan Favorites #4

I'm putting together 5 "Cards That Never Were" fan favorites from each team. These are not necessarily the 5 best players from the franchise. So as David Letterman used to say before Stupid Pet Tricks, "This is only an exhibition. This is not a competition. Please, no wagering."

Minnie Minoso was signed by the Cleveland Indians in 1948, played briefly on the big league team in 1949 and began the 1951 season on the Tribe. He would rejoin the Indians in 1958 and 1959. 

Minnie played a significant role in the integration of Major League Baseball. In his first season, Minoso was one of 3 former Negro-Leaguers playing for the Indians, a MLB first. The other two were Larry Doby and Satchel Paige. When he was traded to the White Sox he would become the first black player on any Chicago MLB team. Chicago would then become the first city with black players on both National and American League teams when Ernie Banks joined the Cubs in 1953.

1951 Gil Hodges - Football vs. Baseball

In the 1951 All Star game Gil Hodges had 2  RBIs and 2 runs scored with a single and a 2 run homer. His homer broke the 3-3 tie in the 6th as the Nationals cruised to an 8-3 victory. All Star game MVP awards were not given out until the 1962 season but I think a good case could be made for Hodges in 1951.

In 1991 Topps began using the same layout for its football cards as it used on their baseball cards. I decide to compare the baseball and football card formats of the past. 

 

The 1951 Bowman football cards were not that different from the baseball cards except that the player name was larger and there was a somewhat oversized team logo above the name.

 The 1951 Topps Baseball cards were part of a game that could be purchased in packs or as a complete 52 card game. Their football cards were collegiate and very plain looking but feature posed "action" shots in color compared to the black and white head shots on their baseball cards.

1975 Topps 1951 Rookies of the Year

1975 is the first time Topps made their own "Cards that Never Were". Their MVP cards featured 1951 and 1955 Roy Campanella cards and a 1962 Maury Wills card that didn't exist. In fact the 1955 card they made for Campanella not only used black and white photos instead of the color photos (or colorized photos) but he is wearing an LA Dodgers cap. Of course the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn in 1955. 

In their 1951 MVP card, Topps also printed the players' names larger and eliminated the rest of the text to make the card more readable. I didn't, but I can see their reasoning. I think if they had done the same thing for Rookies of the Year, they would have been really busy making new cards, especially in the early years.

1951 Topps Gil McDougald

Gil McDougald was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1951. Unlike his NL counterpart, Willie Mays, he didn't have a card in the 1951 Bowman set either. But after his performance in 1951 he appeared on 1952 Topps, Bowman, Berk Ross, Red Man Tobacco, Tip Top Bread and Coke cards. He played on the Yankees through the 1960 season and retired when it became apparent that he would be selected in the expansion draft.

1951 Topps Willie Mays

It's no surprise that there wasn't a Topps card of Willie Mays in 1951 despite the fact that he was the NL Rookie of the Year. He actually spent the first part of the season playing for the Minneapolis Millers. In fact that is mentioned on the back of his 1951 Bowman card. The Bowman cards were printed in seven series with Mantle and Mays rookie cards appearing in the final series which came out in July. Topps of course, had only 2 series. I'm not sure when they were produced but with a total of 104 cards, it's not surprising that several notable players were absent.