Niche set collecting

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

One of the niche sets which I most enjoy collecting are common players who for a fleeting moment achieved a level of “greatness” unusual in their careers. Generally the players and their achievements go unnoticed. And generally these “achievements” are not really very noteworthy.

But my enjoyment comes in part from the baseball research and the subsequent discovery and insight into these players. An additional attractive feature is that their cards are often inexpensive.

It makes for a fun collecting subset, even if not a particularly valuable one. A few of these players and their claim to fame are described below.

Pat Seerey, a lifetime .224 hitter who always swung for the seats, and struck out >25% of his ABs; put it all together on 7/18/48 hitting four HRs in a game. He was then the fifth man to accomplish that feat. Six days later he became the only man to strike out seven times in a double header.

Johnnie Burnett in July, 1932 set the single game record for hits with nine (well it was an 18 inning game – but still: 9 hits). In the 1920 Cadore/Oeschger 26 inning marathon, Charlie Pick sets the opposite record: 0-11 as a hitter.

The trivia one can focus on as “important” is endless here, as are the cards which you can assemble in this endless trivial collection of “achievements”.

Similarly, just making it to the big leagues is an achievement, of sorts. Im sure everyone who joins the Show feels it. A collection of the cards of players who did make it on to a team’s roster, but never actually got to play makes for an interesting research project which results in cards from a variety of pre-war sets, but many post war examples. Some of these post war cards do have a level of interest. Eddie Gaedel, Herb Washington (who got into >100 games, but only as a pinch runner), are examples of some of the more recent examples who present some interest.

What "special interest" sets do you collect?