Never in the majors

[matty39]

As some of you may know, I collect 1936-8, BF3 pennants. Recently I was going over my type nine pennants. This is a group of 78 player pennants, with 26 players from the cubs, 26 from the White Sox and 13 each from the Bees and the Cardinals. I don't know the size of the rosters in 1937, but 26 seemed too many. I presumed that the player lists were from Spring training, so I tried to check the pennants against a player roster for that year.
The result was I found that I have six pennants of players who never made it to the majors. Is this unique or do many card sets have players in them who never got to the majors? Below are the pennants of the players who I think never made it to the majors.

[nolemmings]

Walter Highbee was really Kirby Higbe. Ken Silvestri did make it up to the big club in 1939. Andy Lotshaw was likely a coach--he would have been 57 the year of your pennants.

Vic Frazier played in the Bigs too.

[Vintagecatcher]

There are players that have zeenut cards that never made the PCL teams. If my memory is correct, the pictures were taken during pre-season. I was attempting to identify players by their complete names, and I was unable to find them on the official team rosters.


Patrick

[spec]

Originally Posted by nolemmings

Walter Highbee was really Kirby Higbe. Ken Silvestri did make it up to the big club in 1939. Andy Lotshaw was likely a coach--he would have been 57 the year of your pennants.

Vic Frazier played in the Bigs too.

Andy Lotshaw was the longtime trainer of the Cubs. Perhaps some of the other pennants also honor non-playing personnel.

[t206hound]

Ken Silvestri made his debut with the White Sox in '39:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Silvestri

Vic Frazier played for the Boston Bess in '37:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Frazier

Walt "Kirby" Higbe played for the Cubs in '37
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_Higbe

"Gus" Cherry and Henry "Hank" Meyer played in the Cubs minor league system in '37
http://www.baseball-reference.com/mi...=CHC&year=1937

[Bugsy]

Originally Posted by matty39

As some of you may know, I collect 1936-8, BF3 pennants. Recently I was going over my type nine pennants. This is a group of 78 player pennants, with 26 players from the cubs, 26 from the White Sox and 13 each from the Bees and the Cardinals. I don't know the size of the rosters in 1937, but 26 seemed too many. I presumed that the player lists were from Spring training, so I tried to check the pennants against a player roster for that year.
The result was I found that I have six pennants of players who never made it to the majors. Is this unique or do many card sets have players in them who never got to the majors? Below are the pennants of the players who I think never made it to the majors.

This is interesting because Red Ball was based in Chicago and all these players are from a Chicago team with the exception of Frasier and the Frasier pennant is most interesting. He was in the White Sox minor league system in 1936, was purchased by Boston on September 7, 1936, and was returned to Chicago on May 15, 1937.

It really narrows down when this set was produced. Are there any known examples of a player's pennant being updated because of a team change? I suppose that is academic since this set is quite rare.

[jschris]

Just wanted to bump this thread because I got off the phone today with none other than Hank Meyer. 95 years young and sharp as a tack, Henry called me today to let me know he received my letter with the picture of the pennant above. He had never seen the item and was amazed by it--I passed his gratitude on to Jim. He believes it was probably the result of some good performance at Catalina Island with the Cubs in Spring, 1937. He was never compensated for it, obviously.

We cut short our phone conversation because Henry wanted to get out to the golf course.

Henry is a living link to my Eau Claire (WI) baseball history quest. He helped me with my book almost a decade ago and is still going strong. Not every day you can talk baseball with a guy who played 75+ years ago.

[Jay Wolt]

Wow! 95 and still golfing, good for him!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by jschris

Just wanted to bump this thread because I got off the phone today with none other than Hank Meyers. 95 years young and sharp as a tack, Henry called me today to let me know he received my letter with the picture of the pennant above. He had never seen the item and was amazed by it--I passed his gratitude on to Jim. He believes it was probably the result of some good performance at Catalina Island with the Cubs in Spring, 1937. He was never compensated for it, obviously.

We cut short our phone conversation because Henry wanted to get out to the golf course.

Henry is a living link to my Eau Claire (WI) baseball history quest. He helped me with my book almost a decade ago and is still going strong. Not every day you can talk baseball with a guy who played 75+ years ago.

It's great to hear a 95 yr old, ex-baseball player still being active...thanks for sharing.

[Theoldprofessor]

Originally Posted by matty39

As Is this unique or do many card sets have players in them who never got to the majors?

I know this answer crosses the line into post-war, but the questioner might be interested anyway. 1954 Topps Angel Scull, and 1955 Topps Jack Parks, Tom Casagrande and Lou Ortiz never played a game of ML ball.

[Bob Lemke]

From my blog entry of March 14, 2011 . . .

Uncommon commons. Based on contemporary accounts from The Sporting News; tidbits that as a collector of baseball and football cards I found interesting because they help bring to life the faces on the cards I collected. I figure that if I found these items of interest, so would other vintage card collectors.


A couple of days back we featured Jack Parks, a player who appeared on both regular and Doubleheaders Topps cards in 1955, but never had a major league appearance. Here's another player in the same situation.

Scouts called Tom Casagrande the "next Babe Ruth," when he was being recruited out of Fordham University. At over 6'2" and 210 lbs., he was not only a powerful pitcher, but also swung a big bat.

The Phillies won the bidding war by paying Casagrande a $40,000 bonus, with an eye towards converting him to a slugging first baseman if he didn't make it as a major league pitcher.

During spring training at Clearwater, Fla., in 1953, Casagrande's teammates were surprised one evening when local police scooped up the youngster at the team's hotel and took him downtown.

At the police station, the Phillies' prospect was faced with the choice of paying a $50 bond for half a dozen overdue parking tickets, or spending the night in a cell. It seemed Casagrande was in the habit of parking in a metered lot at the spring training facility, but only putting in the first nickel, then letting the meter expire during the day.

Casagrande was able to pull the $50 bond out of wallet, but he lost the money when the team went north three days before his court appearance, and he had to forfeit the bond.

Casagrande played seven seasons in the minor leagues. He had three stints with the Phillies' organization, 1951-53, 1955 and 1957, also spending time in the farm systems of the Boston Red Sox (1954-55) and Washington Senators (1956). He had a lifetime minor league pitching record of 50-37 with a 3.27 ERA. His batting never reached Ruthian levels; his career mark was .241.

After baseball Casagrande was a railroad brakeman and conductor.

The regular 1955 Topps card was his only major baseball card appearance.

[jschris]

Just wanted to bump this old, old thread up once again.

A few months ago, Chris ("Bugsy") pointed out a Hank Meyer pennant available for sale on eBay. I was lucky enough to get it for under $10.

I hadn't heard from Henry for almost a year and I hadn't received a Christmas card, so I feared the worst. But just after Christmas I received a note that said he was in a rehab facility and was hoping to come home soon. I packed up the pennant and sent it to him along with some information about it, figuring he deserved to finally own basically the only collectible ever made of him. As luck would have it, it arrived the day after he got home.

He called me that day and thanked me for the gift. Then he said, "I am so glad to have you as a friend."

Those ten words officially made this pennant the most valuable collectible I ever owned. He lives only about 20 minutes from the Chicago National site, so I am hoping to finally meet my friend this summer. Maybe even play a round of golf with him!

[autograf]

Great story............

[slidekellyslide]

Originally Posted by jschris

Just wanted to bump this old, old thread up once again.

A few months ago, Chris ("Bugsy") pointed out a Hank Meyer pennant available for sale on eBay. I was lucky enough to get it for under $10.

I hadn't heard from Henry for almost a year and I hadn't received a Christmas card, so I feared the worst. But just after Christmas I received a note that said he was in a rehab facility and was hoping to come home soon. I packed up the pennant and sent it to him along with some information about it, figuring he deserved to finally own basically the only collectible ever made of him. As luck would have it, it arrived the day after he got home.

He called me that day and thanked me for the gift. Then he said, "I am so glad to have you as a friend."

Those ten words officially made this pennant the most valuable collectible I ever owned. He lives only about 20 minutes from the Chicago National site, so I am hoping to finally meet my friend this summer. Maybe even play a round of golf with him!

Awesome!

[Bugsy]

Thanks for the update! I was happy to hear it ended that way

[jerseygary]

That's a great story and a really kind thing to do!

[jschris]

I received a call from Henry's son today. Sadly, Henry passed away yesterday at the age of 97. I had just talked with Henry a week ago Friday and he sounded wonderful as always.

His son told me that his dad had showed the pennant to everyone he knew--he was so proud of it! They even took pictures of it and sent them to all of his family. This week, Henry entrusted his son to keep the pennant to remember his baseball days.

Thank you very much to the original poster as well as Chris for showing me this pennant existed and pointing me in the right direction to pick one up. We really made a difference in this man's life.