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My Archie Manning custom was on ESPN

As an Ole Miss fan, there were few highlights on Saturday night's telecast of the Texas-Mississippi game on ESPN.

I saw some encouraging moments from Jeff Scott and transfer quarterback Bo Wallace (could there BE a better name for an SEC quarterback?), but overall the 66-31 beating the 'Horns put on Ole Miss was painful t watch.

There was a personal highlight for me, however, when my 1955 Topps All-American style Archie Manning custom card was shown -- twice!

Luckily I had recorded the game because I had to pick my wife up from the airport. At 33 minutes into the game, in a cutaway before a commercial break, I caught a glimpse of something familiar. I had to rewind to be sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me.

Sure enough; there was my Archie Manning custom on the screen.

It came on again at 2:33 into the game, in a little longer segment about Manning. The corner of my Eli Manning custom card was also visible on the screen. 

If you go back to my blog posting of just about a year ago, on Sept. 25, 2011, you can find the story about how my four Ole Miss customs came to be on display in Hollingsworth-Manning Hall on the campus.

It was a real thrill to see my work on national television.

In that same 2:33-in segment, a photo of Archie Manning in an Ole Miss baseball uniform was shown. I'd love to get a copy of that photo to create some sort of custom of Archie Manning as a baseball player.

As the on-air commentators did a couple of times towards the end of the game, I have to mention the class shown by Texas coach Mack Brown in not running up the score on their last drive. As bad as the loss was, having an opponent score 70+ points would have been even worse.

Boys of summer?

When I left the employ of Krause/F+W publications in May, 2006, I arranged to buy about a million sportscards that had accumulated in the company's warehouse.
 
These were mostly cards that had been sent to our sports collectors' periodicals (SCD, Tuff Stuff, Baseball Cards/Sports Cards, et al.) by the card companies for product reviews, cataloging, etc.

The vast majority of the cards were from the 1990s.


As I sorted through these cards, a couple of themes caught my attention, and I thought it might be fun to see how many cards I could find that fit that theme. I limited my searching to baseball cards, though I imagine the same, or similar, themes could have been found among the football, basketball and hockey cards. 

One theme that I noticed was cards of players who were dressed for cold weather.  Baseball is largely thought of as a summer game, but in the early days of the season and in the postseason in northern climes, the weather can be awfully chilly.  

By the mid-1990s the proliferation of card companies, and the proliferation of card sets from each of them, flooded collectors with new cards. At the peak of (over)production, there were at least 20,000 new baseball cards being produced each year.

Most of these cards used at least two, and sometimes three, photos on each player's card. This created unprecedented demand for player photos . . . portraits, candids and game-action. Today, with far fewer cards, the need for photos is nowhere near as acute, so photos such as these are seldom seen on cards from the late-1990s to date.

I came up with about 40 cards that fit the cold-weather theme; there are probably more. Putting together a collection like this proves that the card hobby can still be fun, and isn't exclusively the province of superstars, autographs, game-used inserts and 1/1s. 

Pretty Pictures: The unserious side of baseball

Continuing with my periodical presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this pair of photos of baseball players cutting up for the camera.

In today's world of professional baseball, the players are evidently too cool for such antics.

The first photo is undated, but based on the caption most likely dated to 1949. 

Joe Migon shot the photo for International News Soundphoto. The caption on the back pretty much says it all . . . 

You just can't hardly get rookies like this no more

Miami, Fla . . . The prize rookie of the season showed up today when Jimmy Durante reported to the Dodger training camp. Here the 'Snozz' looks as if he's trying to convince catcher Roy Campanella, left, and pitcher Don Newcombe that 'Dis baseball playin' is a serious business.' Their acquisition of Durante-type noses doesn't help matters, however.

Back then, it seems making fun of the proboscisally-enhanced wasn't a matter for the political correctness police.

The second photo is also undated, but appears to be a 1964 shot.

A newspaper clipping that accompanies it reads . . . 

BASEBALL'S BEATLES--There may be only three, but Tracy Stallard, right, now with the St. Louis Cardinals; Phil Linz, center, of the New York Yankees, and Jim Bouton of the Yankees manage to make as much noise as the four Beatles. And they sound almost as good, too.

Phillies' pioneer John Kennedy now has a card

It's not surprising that a guy whose entire major league career comprised five games in 1957 never had a Topps baseball card.

What is surprising is that so many collectors clamor for such a memento.

The cup-of-coffee major leaguer is John Kennedy, the first black man to play for the Philadelphia Phillies, the last National League team to integrate its roster.

More than 10 years after Jackie Robinson had broken the modern major league color barrier, and four years after the cross-town rival Philadelphia A's had integrated, the Phillies decided the time had come when Kennedy tore up the ball in spring training.

With the aging (30) and sore-armed Granny Hamner being moved from short to second, the Phillies wanted to bring some youth to the infield. Ironically, in choosing to promote Kennedy, they actually got a shortstop who was the same age as Hamner.

Like many ballplayers in that era, especially veterans of the Negro Leagues, Kennedy lied about his age, convincing the Phils he was in his early 20s. Many believe that on the eve of the '57 season, the team discovered his true age and traded five players and $75,000 to the Brooklyn Dodgers for shortstop Chico Fernandez, age 25.

The digest version of Kennedy's pro ball career is that he appears to have started out with the hometown Jacksonville Eagles of the Negro Southern League.

In 1950 and 1951, Kennedy played "up North" in the independent Mandak (Manitoba-Dakota) League. He was with Hall of Famer Willie Wells' Winnipeg Buffaloes in 1950-51, hitting .324 in the latter season. He also played briefly in Organized Baseball in 1951 with Albany of the Eastern League.

In 1952 he played with the Mandak Champion Minot Mallards, impressing a New York Giants scout enough to be signed as a free agent prior to the 1953 season.

With St. Cloud, the Giants' Class C team in the Northern League, Kennedy hit .262 in 1953 and was released prior to the 1954 season.

Kennedy played in the Negro American League in 1954-56, mostly at shortstop and third base. He was with the Birmingham Black Barons (where he was a teammate of Charley Pride) in 1954-55. In 1956 he was with the Kansas City Monarchs and led the team with a .356 average, second-best in the NAL.

Following the 1956 season, he joined the NAL All-Stars, barnstorming throughout the South and West as opposition to the Willie Mays All-Stars team of black major leaguers.

Again, somebody in major league ranks saw something they liked, and the Phillies purchased Kennedy's contract from the Monarchs for 1957.

Kennedy's big league career lasted only five games. He debuted on April 22 when the Phillies played the Brooklyn Dodgers in one of the Bums' "home games" at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. 

In the top of the eighth inning, Kennedy pinch-ran for Solly Hemus, who had doubled. He was left stranded on second, then replaced by reliever Turk Farrell. The Dodgers won the game 5-1.

On April 24 at Connie Mack Stadium against the Pirates, Kennedy again came in as a pinch-runner for Harry Anderson in the bottom of the sixth, with the Phillies down 0-2. He went from first to third on a Solly Hemus single, then scored his only major league run when Ed Bouchee hit a bases-loaded triple.

Kennedy got his first big league at-bat later in the inning, grounding out to end the Phillies' seven-run rally. He was then lifted for relief pitcher Don Cardwell. Philadelphia won the game 8-5.

Facing his third opponent in three games, Kennedy came in at shortstop in the top of the ninth inning after Chico Fernandez had been lifted for a pinch-hitter. Kennedy did not bat in the 3-6 loss to the Reds.

On May 1, after Philadelphia had rallied to tie the Reds 6-6 in the bottom of the 13th, Kennedy came in at shortstop after Hemus had pinch-hit for Fernandez.

In the top of the 15th, Kennedy was charged with an error on a Frank Robinson ground ball, but then started an inning-ending double play. Those were his only two fielding chances in the majors. Coming to bat in the 15th, Kennedy struck out against Warren Hacker. The Reds scored twice in the 16th to win 8-6.

Kennedy made his final major league appearance on May 3, with the Phillies hosting the Cubs. Kennedy once again pinch-ran for Hemus, who had walked in the bottom of the seventh. The Phils took an 8-6 lead as Cubs pitchers walked in a pair of runs and Kennedy advanced as far as third base. 

In the top of the eighth, Kennedy was replaced at shortstop by Roy Samalley. The Phillies won 9-6.

When the Carolina League season started, the Phillies sent Kennedy -- who was said to be suffering from a shoulder injury -- to their Class B affiliate at High Point-Thomasville. He hit .270 for the Hi Toms, with 19 home runs and 26 doubles.

Kennedy played three more seasons for Phillies farm clubs. He was with Tulsa (AA) in 1958, batting .225. At Class B Des Moines in 1959 he hit .228 for the III League champion Demons. In 1960, at Class A Asheville, he hit .246.

In 1961, Kennedy ended his professional career with a single game for the Jacksonville Jets in his home town. The team was the Sally League affiliate of the expansion Houston Colt .45s.

While his pro career was over, Kennedy continued to play baseball in Jacksonville, playing in an over-30 league in the late 1990s at the age of 70.

While I've given you a summary of John Kennedy's baseball career, for a fuller look at the life of the man, I recommend a Sept. 16, 2008, article by Mike McCall on The Florida Times-Union Jacksonville.com website: 
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/091608/spo_332792811.shtml ; and an interview by Mark Kram less than a year before Kennedy's death on The Inquirer Daily News Philly.com site: 
http://articles.philly.com/1997-05-29/sports/25565233_1_john-kennedy-color-barrier-jackie-robinsonI

I think if you read that, you'll understand why I'm happy to add a John Kennedy card to my collection of custom creations.

Ballplayers get the best-looking babes, Part 2

Continuing with my periodical presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this selection of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees or girlfriends. 

I presented a trio of similar photos almost exactly a year ago, in my blog of 9/9/11.

Pictures of players and their babes were common in decades past. It's not something you see much today.

Might as well present these chronologically . . . 


First is Philadelphia A's pitcher Bob Hasty, with his wife, in an undated photo. 

The rampant elephant patch on the uniform was worn by the Athletics 1921-23. 

Hasty pitched for Philadelphia from 1919-24, with a big-league record of 29-53 and an ERA of 4.65.

You'll recognize the guy in the next photo, of course. But the future Mrs. Joe DiMaggio in the picture is actress-wife #1, not Marilyn Monroe.

She's Dorothy Arnold, a stock actress with Universal Studio. The two met in 1937 on the set of Manhattan Merry-Go-Round, a movie in which Joe Di had a small speaking role, but in which Dorothy had no lines.

The couple was married on Nov. 18, 1939, about a month after this wirephoto was run in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. 

A clipping from what appears to have been some sort of sports' personality column read, "Joe DiMaggio has been seen doing a lot of Fifth Avenue shopping during the last 10 days. He has been buying wedding presents for Mrs. Joe-to-be, who is a young and pretty movie actress named Dorothy Arnold. Already he has collected a mink coat as one of her gifts."

Arnold bore DiMaggio his only child, Joe, Jr. The couple divorced in 1944, while DiMaggio was in the Army in Hawaii.

Evidently fur coats were favored by ballplayers' wives, if the photo here is any indication.

Perennial All-Star left fielder Joe Medwick is pictured in this Acme news service photo at Ebbet's Field on Oct. 4, 1941, before Game 3 of the World Series with the Yankees. 

He had wed the former Isabelle Heutel in 1937. 

Ducky went 1-for-4 in the game, with a strikeout. The Dodgers lost the Series to New York 4-1.

Collect St. Patrick's Day uniform cards

When I left the employ of Krause/F+W publications in May, 2006, I arranged to buy about a million sportscards that had accumulated in the company's warehouse.
 
These were mostly cards that had been sent to our sports collectors' periodicals (SCD, Tuff Stuff, Baseball Cards/Sports Cards, et al.) by the card companies for product reviews, cataloging, etc.

The vast majority of the cards were from the 1990s.


I spent the next five years sorting more than 180 monster boxes down, separating the wheat from the chaff (OK, these were 1990s cards, so it was mostly separating the chaff-ish from the chaff). Mainly I was setting aside cards and sets that I felt had a value of $1 per card or more, or might in the future.

As I shuffled through these cards, a couple of themes caught my attention, and I thought it might be fun to see how many cards I could find that fit that theme. I limited my searching to baseball cards, though I imagine the same, or similar, themes could have been found among the football, basketball and hockey cards. 

One theme that I noticed was cards of players wearing special St. Patrick's Day cap and/or uniforms. St. Paddy's falls in the middle of spring training and for more than 25 years some teams have honored the occasion by sporting green jerseys and/or caps for that one day. I suppose most of these specialty uniforms are then sold for team charities, etc. 

By the mid-1990s the proliferation of card companies, and the proliferation of card sets from each of them, flooded collectors with new cards. At the peak of (over)production, there were at least 20,000 new baseball cards being produced each year.

Most of these cards used at least two, and sometimes three, photos on each player's card. This created unprecedented demand for player photos . . . portraits, candids and game-action. So it's no wonder that in the rush to get enough unique player photos for each new set, it's not surprising that some of the photos featured the spring training St. Patrick's Day outfits.

I came up with eight cards that fit that theme; there are probably more. Putting together a collection like this proves that the card hobby can still be fun, and isn't exclusively the province of superstars, autographs, game-used inserts and 1/1s.

UPDATE: This Classic St. Patrick's Day uniform card was mentioned in a reader's comment.

Allan Lewis, "The Panamanian Express," finally gets a card

Until I recently began a correspondence with collector extraordinaire Keith Olbermann, I had never heard of Allan Lewis.

In kicking around some ideas for additions to my list of custom card creations, Olbermann mentioned that Lewis had played in parts of six major league seasons between 1967 and 1973, but never appeared on a Topps card.

Intrigued, I started poking around baseball-reference.com. What I found there convinced me that Lewis should have a baseball card, even if it was four decades late.

You can read all about Allan Lewis' baseball career on the internet (I especially recommend Rory Costello's article on the SABR BioProject site --http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/75f838b4).

Basically, Lewis was maverick A's owner Charles O. Finley's first "designated runner." Though he played some in the outfield -- not too badly in the minor leagues -- Lewis was brought to the majors to steal ballgames on the base paths. He appeared in 156 major league games and had only 31 plate appearances.

In the bigs, Lewis stole 44 bases in 61 attempts, a 72.1% success rate. Conventional baseball wisdom holds that a success rate of 67% is about break-even in terms of helping or hurting a team's chances. By contrast, all-time stolen base leader Ricky Henderson had an 80.8% base-stealing success rate. Current active major league leader Juan Pierre is at 75%. While caught-stealing stats weren't kept throughout his career, for those seasons in which that number was available, Ty Cobb's success rate was 64.6%. And, the top base stealer of my generation, Maury Wills, had a lifetime swipe rate of 73.8%.

As enamored as Finley was of the concept of a designated runner, his managers were -- at best -- unreceptive to the notion, feeling that such a one-dimensional player was wasting a roster spot that could have been more effectively filled to benefit the team.

It appears as if his teammates at the major league level took their cue from the skipper. In 1973, when the A's won the World Series, his teammates voted Lewis only one-tenth of a share of the bonus money. 

Lewis retired after the 1973 season with a pair of World Championship rings. He was replaced on the A's roster by Olympic sprinter Herb Washington (who DID appear on a baseball card, in Topps' 1975 set).

After his playing days, Lewis served the A's as an instructor for several years, then scouted in his native country for the Indians and the Phillies. He helped convert Panamanians Einar Diaz and Carlos Ruiz from infielders to major league catchers. He is now fully retired.

From his work in Topps' photo archives, Olbermann had a trio of images of Allan Lewis, spanning his days with the Kansas City and Oakland A's. One of them jumped out at me as belonging on an early 1970s Topps-style card.

Initially I thought my choice of Topps formats might be limited by the lack of certain minor league stats Runs, RBI, SB) on baseball-reference.com. During Lewis' playing days, Topps cards in 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972 and 1973 printed (usually) complete minor and major league stats. 

Lacking R and RBI figures for many of Lewis' minor league stops, I thought my choices for a custom card might be limited to 1971 or a post-career 1974. The photo I wanted to use showed Lewis in a 1970-71 uniform. While it would not have been unprecedented to use a three-year-old photo on a Topps card in that era, I decided to work with the 1971 format. 

I actually completed the computer work for both front and back of a 1971-style Allan Lewis custom card. I'm showing it here, but this may be the only time you ever see it. I'm probably not going to print that design.

Upon reflection it seemed to me that the '71 style was somewhat lacking in that Lewis' considerable minor league career was ignored. 

On a hunch, I asked Olbermann if he had access to a late-1960s or early-1970s Sporting News Baseball Register, which would likely have full minor league stats for Lewis' 1961-66 minor league stops. He did, and now I do.

That opened up more of the era's Topps designs, and I decided to work with a 1970 format. That's the one I'll be printing.

A custom card is never "done"

I guess I never consider my custom cards to be "done." Maybe that makes me anal.

But when I discover an error in one of my creations, or even just a way the card could be significantly improved, my inclination is to update the card.

I've done that dozens of times in the past nine years, sometimes just correcting a stat or a misspelling, sometimes replacing a picture.

A trio of examples will give you an  insight into my thought process.

On Saturday, while watching the Wisconsin Badgers survive an opening-game scare from Northern Iowa, I noticed that the Panthers had on their helmets a logo of a brown panther.

Five and a half years ago I had created a 1955 All-American style custom card of Kurt Warner, who had played at Northern Iowa.

For that card I used as the team logo on front a black panther. It was the black panther that Topps had used on one or two of the original AA cards in 1955. I just associated the word "panther" with "black."

I could have easily ignored the faux paw (sorry), but I decided to go ahead and change the logo on my Kurt Warner custom.

Because the Topps' panther was black, there wasn't much detail to the big cat. When I tried simply changing the black to brown, the result looked like roadkill.

So I scoured the internet for a new panther logo. A google search on mascot>illustration>panther gave me some workable choices and by adding some color to a black-and-white picture, I came up with the result you see here.

I'm not going to do a special press run to print up new Kurt Warner cards for my two personal "master" sets, but next time I'm printing some new cards, I'll add the revised Warners to the printing.

Another example of an updating was undertaken a week or so ago.

I was working on a 1970-style baseball card (you can see the finished card on my blog in two days) when I had to refer to a stack of reference cards to see how Topps handled switch-hitters -- Bats: S, Bats: B or Bats: L&R.

While looking over card backs, I discovered that on pitchers' cards (at least those with a cartoon element), Topps indicated the throwing preference on the first line of biographical details under the the player's name. Pitchers' batting choice was shown on the second line, with the birth date.

The opposite was true on position players' cards: "BATS" was on the top line, "THROWS" on the second.

Since the template that I used when I created the back of my 1970 Carlton Fisk card four or five years ago was a pitcher's card, I figured I might have got that order mixed up. Sure enough, upon checking my Fisk creation, I found I'd had it wrong.

I made the correction to my computer image and printed up a couple of the new version while I was printing the new 1970 custom card.


Similarly, when I first printed my 1952 Topps-style Rogers Hornsby manager card earlier this year, one of the first persons to see the back image noticed that I had used "BATS" and "THROWS". In those years that Topps issued manager's cards, they used "BATTED" and "THREW".

I reviewed all of my manager and coaches cards and found that while I had the correct tense on my 1955 Charlie Grimm and 1956 Grimm and Casey Stengel customs, I had used the present tense on my 1972 Larry Doby (Expos coach), 1975 Duke Snider (Expos coach) and 1979 Bill Mazeroski (Mariners coach) customs. Corrections will be forthcoming.


A lot of work goes into researching and designing my custom cards. I can own up to my mistakes but feel a compunction to correct them when I can. I don't mind those who see my cards thinking I was careless or mistaken, but I wouldn't anybody to think that I didn't take pride in my creations.

Early mobile phones featured on baseball cards

When I left the employ of Krause/F+W publications in May, 2006, I arranged to buy about a million sportscards that had accumulated in the company's warehouse.
 
These were mostly cards that had been sent to our sports collectors' periodicals (SCD, Tuff Stuff, Baseball Cards/Sports Cards, et al.) by the card companies for product reviews, cataloging, etc.

The vast majority of the cards were from the 1990s.


I spent the next five years sorting more than 180 monster boxes down, separating the wheat from the chaff (OK, these were 1990s cards, so it was mostly separating the chaff-ish from the chaff). Mainly I was setting aside cards and sets that I felt had a value of $1 per card or more, or might in the future.

As I shuffled through these cards, a couple of themes caught my attention, and I thought it might be fun to see how many cards I could find that fit that theme. I limited my searching to baseball cards, though I imagine the same, or similar, themes could have been found among the football, basketball and hockey cards. 

One theme that I noticed was cards of players speaking on mobile phones. And what cell phones they were back in the early 1990s! 

By the mid-1990s the proliferation of card companies, and the proliferation of card sets from each of them, flooded collectors with new cards. At the peak of (over)production, there were at least 20,000 new baseball cards being produced each year.

Most of these cards used at least two, and sometimes three, photos on each player's card. This created unprecedented demand for player photos . . . portraits, candids and game-action. So it's no wonder that in the rush to get enough unique player photos for each new set, it's not surprising that some of the photos featured the earlier generations of mobile phones.

I came up with nine cards that fit that theme; there are probably more. Putting together a collection like this proves that the card hobby can still be fun, and isn't exclusively the province of superstars, autographs, game-used inserts and 1/1s.

Cecil Cooper, St. Louis Cardinals?

For a guy who barely made my Top 5 list of favorite Milwaukee Brewers from the Bambi's Bombers and Harvey's Wallbangers teams of the 1970s-1980s, I've made a lot of custom cards of Cecil Cooper.

Heck, I've only done two cards of my all-time favorite Brewer, Gorman Thomas. And just one of Robin Yount. And I haven't done any customs of Paul Molitor yet (I'm still waiting to find some good early Molly pictures).

Previously I created a 1977 Topps-style card of Coop as a brand-new Brewer that was designed to update his "real" 1977 Topps card picturing him with the Red Sox, and be more appealing than the airbrushed O-Pee-Chee card. Then I put together a "pre-rookie" 1971-style card of Cooper as a young Red Sox player.

Now comes a third Cooper custom -- also a 1971-style -- picturing Cooper with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Oh yes he was!

After hitting .338 at Class A in the Red Sox' organization, the St. Louis Cardinals selected Cooper in the Rule 5 minor league draft on Nov. 30, 1970. Apparently with Joe Torre's imminent move to third base, the Cards were looking for backup to light hitting Joe Hague who was to take over at first base.

Cooper went to spring training in 1971 with the Cardinals, but on April 5, the day the season opened, he was returned to the Red Sox, spending most of the year at AAA Pawtucket before making his major league debut on Sept. 8.

I had discovered all this while working on my 1971-style Cooper card. I presented that card on my blog on March 10, 2011 (feel free to pause here and look it up in the "older posts" section). 

In an addendum to that post, I added a photo that had been taken by Topps at spring training in 1971. I indicated it wasn't a good enough photo to inspire me to make a Coop-as-Cardinal custom card.

In recent correspondence with veteran collector and long-time hobby researcher/writer Keith Olbermann, he volunteered that he had a better image of Cooper with the Cardinals. Some years back, Olbermann had been privileged to comb through the Topps image archives and had acquired a number of great player photos from 1956-1980 or so.

He sent me a scan and I found that it was sufficient impetus for me to make a Cardinals version of a 1971 Cecil Cooper card. 

Having completed the Red Sox version, the Cardinals card required relatively little new work to complete the project as you see it here, thanks to Keith's willingness to share this resource with the hobby. 

You'll be seeing more collaboration in the future.

Note to blog spammers: Give it up!

For the past several months I've been getting as many as three "comments" on my blog, all from "Anonymous" and all trying to spam this site.

Here's one that came this morning:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Print run on '51 Cardinals postcards revealed": 

I'm excited to discover this site. I wanted to thank you for ones time for this wonderful read!! I definitely liked every little bit of it and I have you book marked to look at new information in your web site.
Here is my web page : XXXXXXXXXXX.

These comments are usually written in English-as-a-second-language and all include a link to another web site. 

Lord only knows what they are trying to sell you on those sites, or what viruses you'd be exposed to if you clicked their links. 

Fortunately, when I began this blog more than three years ago, I opted for the feature that requires all comments to be reviewed by me before they are posted.

I'd learned to do that from the experience of a friend whose blog on the Sports Collector's Digest web site was constantly bombarded by the ravings of a self-appointed hobby savior.

This is just another sad example of people misusing the internet to try to get over on their fellow man.

Rest assured that I'll continue to try to protect my readers from anything more harmful than my own ramblings.

Baseball cards by the numbers

When I left the employ of Krause/F+W publications in May, 2006, I arranged to buy about a million sportscards that had accumulated in the company's warehouse.
 
These were mostly cards that had been sent to our sports collectors' periodicals (SCD, Tuff Stuff, Baseball Cards/Sports Cards, et al.) by the card companies for product reviews, cataloging, etc.

The vast majority of the cards were from the 1990s.


As I sorted through these cards, a couple of themes caught my attention, and I thought it might be fun to see how many cards I could find that fit that theme. I limited my searching to baseball cards, though I imagine the same, or similar, themes could have been found among the football, basketball and hockey cards. 

By the mid-1990s the proliferation of card companies, and the proliferation of card sets from each of them, flooded collectors with new cards. At the peak of (over)production, there were at least 20,000 new baseball cards being produced each year.

Most of these cards used at least two, and sometimes three, photos on each player's card. This created unprecedented demand for player photos . . . portraits, candids and game-action. 

One theme that I pursued involved players' uniform numbers. I wondered if it would be possible to put together a set of cards showing players wearing each number from 1 through 99.  

Naturally, for all of the numbers from 1 into the 90s, I had a wide range of choices, and could pick a card showing a favorite player, or a number being prominently displayed. 

Beginning at #80, however, things got tight. While a few players chose numbers in the upper reaches as a matter of personal preference, a high uniform number was usually relegated to spring training use. And even in the days when the card companies were scrambling to produce "rookie cards" of every player with any chance of making the big clubs, there were just not a lot of cards issued showing players wearing numbers in the 80s and 90s. 

I never did find cards depicting uniform numbers 80, 81, 82, 85, 89, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 or 98 . . . though I did find players with #0 and 00.

Putting together a collection like this proves that the card hobby can still be fun, and isn't exclusively the province of superstars, autographs, game-used inserts and 1/1s.