Putnam Baseball Team Histories: Reference Thread

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As Mike noted, one of the more collectible book "sets" is the Putnam team histories, and hopefully, this thread can continue from the Mastro auction thread.

Mike's beta checklist is at the top of the thread

Baltimore 1955 (actually history of the St. Louis Browns)
Boston Red Sox 1947
Chicago White Sox 1952
Cleveland Indians 1949
Detroit Tigers 1946
New York Yankees 1943, 1947, 1948, 1951, 1958
Washington Senators 1954
Connie Mack 1945, 1948 (history of Athletics)

Boston Braves 1948
Brooklyn Dodgers 1945, 1947, 1948
Chicago Cubs 1946 (at least 3 printings with no additional year listed)
Cincinnati Reds 1948
Milwaukee Braves 1954 (update of the Boston Braves)
New York Giants 1952
Philadelphia Phillies 1953
Pittsburgh Pirates 1948
St. Louis Cardinals 1944, 1945, 1947, 1950

The Umpire Story 1953
The Story of Baseball 1950
The World Series Story 1949, 1950
Lou Gehrig 1942
John McGraw 1944

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If Umpire, Gehrig and McGraw are part of the Putnam set, what about and why not Lieb, The Baseball Story and Lieb, The Story of the World Series?

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More Putnam. Here is an advertising poster for Graham's bio. Interestingly, it looks nothing like the book cover (of any edition I've seen, at least)

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Originally Posted by Hot Springs Bathers

Just as an aside, has anyone ever seen a McGraw with a clean white dust jacket, they all seem to be dingy.

Mike

I have a very nice copy (after having looked at what seems like hundreds of dust jackets of the book over the last 20 years). It's an off-white, and there is a rag fibre appearance in the jacket paper. I'll try and remember to post a scan tonight. Given that it was printed with war-time low quality paper, I suspect we'll not ever be certain what the original white was really like.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Wow! I have owned 5-6 copies and all seem to be a dingy/dirty white. your copy may be one of the few that has stayed close to white.

Max, what is the publication date on your french edition?

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Here's the nice McGraw dj. The scan accentuates the browning at the bottom; the jacket is nicer in person



Here's the French language edition of McGraw, 1945 publishing date:

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Here's the 1958 Yankees revised edition

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Max that is another one that is tough to find in nice shape!

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A while back, I purchased a couple of later edition Putnam books still in their original shipping cartons. They were apparently sold as part of the People's Book Club. (I'm assuming they were sold that way, as the books fit perfectly in the cartons, and they are still crispy fresh as if they've only rarely been taken out of the carton) Nothing about the books indicates they were "book club editions"; that is, there is no blindstamp, no book club printing indication, and the books are the same size as other printings.

[toppcat]

I won a '45 edition of The Brooklyn Dodgers signed by Graham. Once my scanner is up again, I'll share a pic.

[Tigerden]

I have always considered my Putnam team series complete at seventeen books, only with the edition of Connie Mack as representative of the A's team history. The completion of the series is probably just subject to personal opinion.

Max, the Gehrig ad poster is definately cool and I always enjoy looking at it. A great find for sure and now residing in a world class baseball book collection. Adam

[baseballart]

One area of baseball books I haven't collected for some reason is the paperback baseball books for armed forces members. I recall seeing the Yankees, the Cardinals, and McGraw, but I'm sure others in the Putnam series were published, as many baseball books of the 40s were printed in this format.

Here's a scan from an HA auction of the Gehrig Putnam bio.