Barrier Breakers: 1954 Carlos Paula - Washington Senators

Carlos Paula was the first Black player on the Senators.  Born in Cuba, he was signed by Washington and invited to spring training.  Although he was praised for his arm, his speed and his hitting, manager Bucky Harris thought he had a "hitch in his swing" and needed more time in the minors.  He batted .309 with 14 homers for the Charlette Hornets and the Senators promoted him on September 6th, 1954. In 1955 he was their everyday right fielder hitting .299. 

Although Paula was the first black player on the Senators, there were 24 other Cuban players on the team between 1935 and 1954. In 1955 three more black players joined the roster in DC. Two were Cubans, Juan Delis and Julio Becquer, and one was Panamanian, "Webbo" Clarke. It wasn't until 1957 when the Senators signed the 1952 Rookie of the Year, Joe Black, that a US born African American joined the team.  (I made this 1957 Joe Black card nearly ten years ago for this blog.)

Barrier Breakers: 1954 Nino Escalera - Cincinnati Redlegs

The Reds (or Redlegs as they were called at the time) were the second to last NL team to integrate.  On April 17, 1954 they debuted two black players.  Nino Escalera and Chuck Harmon,  Nino pinch hit to lead off the 7th inning with a single.  The very next batter was Chuck Harmon, also pinch hitting.  He popped out. 

Nino hit a meager .159 in 1954 then returned to the minors until retiring in 1962.  The player that was one at-bat later, and the second black player on the Reds, hit a mildly better .238. Chuck Harmon would play for the Redlegs, Cardinals and Phillies until 1957.  He never rose above a utility player but did have a somewhat better career than Escalera.  He also had Topps cards in 1954, 55, 56, 57 and 58. Nino never had a card.

Allegedly, it was manager Rogers Hornsby that didn't want black players on the team.  The Hall of Famer managed the Reds in 1952 and 53. I understand that Hornsby's views were not far from the norm of that era. But by 1952, he hadn't managed a team above a 6th place finish in 20 years.  I had always felt the front office in Cincinnati was cowardly for believing that keeping Reds moniker would somehow confuse people into thinking they communist sympathizers.  My opinion of that era's management is even lower for allowing their manager's racial bias cloud his decision making.

On a more positive note,  by 1956, Cincinnati had more African American players than any other Major League team with 8. 

 

Barrier Breakers: Tom Alston, St. Louis Cardinals

 

The integration of the Cardinals was a complicated story. First, the Cards' owner from 1947-1953, Fred Saigh, was opposed to signing any black players.  When he pled guilty to tax evasion, he was forced to sell the team to August "Gussy" Busch Jr.   Busch is credited as saying "Wow can it be the great American game, if we don't have any negro players? We've got to get colored ballplayers." That sentiment was less progressive than it was pragmatic.  He followed that up with "Hell, we sell beer to everyone."

The rest of the story is a tale of two players, Tom Alston and Len Tucker.  In 1953 the Cardinals signed Len Tucker as their first black player. Tucker was an all around college athlete at Fresno State. He was a track star, he led the Basketball team in points per game and led the baseball team in homers and RBIs.  Despite performing well in the  Cardinals minor league system but never got promoted to the bigs.  

Instead the Cardinals went with a more proven player.  They purchased Tom Alston from the San Diego Padres of the Pacific League.  They immediately experienced buyer's remorse.  Alston was two years older than they had thought and asked for $20,000 of the $100k they spent on him to be returned.

Alston was hitless in his first seven at-bats, but his first two MLB hits were both over the fence. By mid-May he was batting over .300 with 4 homers.  After that, he cooled off quite a bit. By the end of June he had the same 4 homers and an average of .246. He spent the rest of the season in the minors. He played in just 25 more MLB games over the next three seasons.

1954 Topps Joe Garagiola

1926-2016

Joe Garagiola passed away yesterday at he age of 90. A St. Louis native who spent most of his career with the Cardinals. He also played for Pittsburgh and ended his career with the New York Giants in 1954. He came to the Cubs in 1953 in a trade that also brought Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. Athough he appeared on Bowman cards from 1951-1954 his only Topps card was in 1952. So here is my tribute to him representing my hometown team in 1954.

After baseball, Garagiola went into broadcasting. But his skills went beyond just calling the plays or providing color. He was on the Today Show, hosted several game shows and even guest-hosted for Johnny Carson. During that time his business card was actually a Topps-made 1973 style baseball card. There are several of these floating around out there, many of them signed by Garagiola himself.

Selling Fake Cards

You may or may not have noticed that I have been absent from this blog for a couple months now. I have just been overwhelmed by work, family, the holidays, you name it. As a result have had less time to spend on my hobby.

And that is what this is, my hobby. It is not a money making proposition. In fact it costs money and produces nothing. And I am fine with that. But lately a couple of eBay sellers have been using cards from various blogs and selling them. Including this blog plus Bob Lemke's Blog, When Topps had (Base) Balls, Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be and several other.

Several times I have had request for physical cards. I have always responded that I make virtual cards only but you are free to use them as you like. I understand collectors (I am one myself). There a many completionists (for lack of a better word) who want to fill in the blanks left by Topps of their favorite player, team or set. Go ahead print one out and put it in your binder.

Just don't put them on eBay. Please.

The problem comes when somebody who is not familiar with the hobby pays $40.00 for this:

I posted this as part of my Mets Favorites series here. This guy has used several other cards of mine most selling in range of $8-$18. Except for this one selling for only $0.99 :

You can see the disappointment on Joe's face. LOL

The funny thing is this guy has lifted cards from this blog that are not even mine. Including this one that was put out by Topps themselves. Which proves that the guy selling our cards, is just looking at the pictures and not reading the text.

Some poor sucker paid $15.50 for a print of this with a blank back. He could have bought the actual card with an actual back, printed by Topps as part of their 2012 Archives set. It is currently going for as little as $0.73 on COMC.com. That's even less than my 1966 Joe Torre All Star.

I know I've been rambling on a bit here. I don't have a solution to this. There will always be hucksters trying to make a quick buck. And I agree with the blog written on Baseball Card Breakdown that it DOES hurt the hobby. The best we can do is bring these people into the light and expose them for what they are.

A couple decades ago somebody was printing fake Pete Rose rookie cards. They got caught and the judge allowed the cards back into the market as long as they were stamped "counterfeit". I knowingly bought one of these stamped cards a long time ago for about $10 bucks. I collect rookie of the year cards and there was no way I would be able to afford a real one. It is currently filling the hole in my binder.

Other expensive holes are filled by Topps reprints such as:

Topps included an almost exact reprint of this card in its 1999 Topps Stars set. No gold foil stamp on the front, No refractor imaging, just a nice clean reprint. This particular card is extremely hard to find. I don't remember what I paid for it but it wasn't cheap. Oddly the autographed version is easier to find and goes for $50-$100 on eBay.

I know, rambling again. The point is, I know the hobby. I know what I am paying for. I have knowingly bought fake cards but I knew what I was getting. 

Not everybody does. 

I made this blog for my own entertainment. It is awesome that other people enjoy it as well. The truth is I would like to have hard copies of a few of my cards as well as some of the cards created by other hobbyists. But I don't want to contribute to these scams. 

Sorry for not posting in 2 months and then posting a long babbling semi-coherent post. 

I welcome and encourage comments on this issue. You can post them here, or on Baseball Card Breakdown's post on the same subject. Or on When Topps had (Base) Balls post that started the dialog. I am following all the comments closely.

1954 Topps Leo Durocher

New York Giants CTNW Favorites #3

In 1954 Leo Durocher led the Giants to their first World Series championship in 21 years.  This was Durocher's only championship as a manager. He had won 2 pennants earlier. In 1941 with the Dodgers and in 1951 with the Giants. Both times he lost the World Series to the Yankees. In 1954 he beat Al Lopez's Cleveland Indians. For his efforts Leo won his 3rd and final Sporting News Manager of the Year award.

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.

1988 Topps Mickey Mantle

The 2012 Archives cards are out and I thought for sure that Topps would take the opportunity to create a Mantle card from 1971, 1980 or 1984. When I started this, there were exactly 25 Topps series with out a Mickey Mantle card. 1971-1995. Since then Topps created a 1975 Mini for last year's Lineage set and a 1987 Mini for this year's base set. The Archives set presented an opportunity to reduce the number to an even 20.  Instead they created another 1954 Mickey Mantle card. Go figure.

Can somebody please explain why Topps felt the need to change the team logo? This just looks wrong.

1984 Topps Mickey Mantle

On May 23rd Topps will release the 2012 Archives set. It will include a 1967 Sticker and a 1968 3D card of Mickey Mantle. Both of these were test sets and neither featured Mantle originally. It will also include a Mickey Mantle card in the base set. The base set will feature players on 1954, 1971, 1980 and 1984 cards. I'm not sure which year card will feature Mantle but with this posting I've beaten Topps to the punch on 1971, 1980 and 1984. The 1954 Mantle, though not actually issued in 1954 has been done several times.

Originally it was done by Upper Deck in 1994. Upper Deck had the exclusive rights to Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle the same year Topps was producing the 1954 Archives set.

In 2006 eTopps issued a Mantle set that included the 1954 and 1955 Cards That Never Were.

In 2007 Topps inserted "Mickey Mantle Story" cards into packs. This was a 75 card set featuring the style of 1952-1957 Topps cards. 15 different Cards (MMS31-MMS45) were based on the 1954 design.

In 2008 Topps inserted Mantle cards into their factory sets including this card. They basically took the 2006 eTopps card and gave it either a blue or gold background.

In 2011 Topps issued a subset of "Lost Cards" including this card.

1954 Topps Ralph Kiner

 

The 1954  Topps set did not include Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. That's not surprising given the issue with players signing contracts at the time exclusively with either Topps or Bowman. What is disappointing is that his card also wasn't included in the 1994 Archives set. Topps expanded the 1953 set in its 1991 Archives by 57 cards but the 1994 Archives set was only expanded by 8 "Rookie Prospects". I think they missed an opportunity to include several great players like Kiner.  

October Shout Out

Bob Lemke's Blog

This is one of my favorite websites. If you are a baseball card geek like I am you will recognize the name. Bob is the Editor of the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards.  His blog is full of information and quit a few custom cards.

His creations are head and shoulders above any I have seen on the web. He is obviously a perfectionist and it shows.

His cards all have a front and a back that is both true to the original set issue format and informative.

I could (and I have) spend hours going through his blog. Also if you are so inclined, he sells a limited number of hard copies of his creations. 

I really had a hard time narrowing down the cards to include on this page. I had to include Wheaton, IL native John Belushi and Brian Piccolo (note Lemke spelled his name correctly but Topps did not).  I love to see cards of famous players on unfamiliar teams (Robinson, Doby, Namath) or people who never had cards (Madden, Pride). I don't want to give away too much but go visit his blog. If you are like me, it's like being a kid in a candy store.