First Appearance Of a Baseball Card In a Movie?

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I was watching Pride Of The Yankees today and got to wondering if this is the first appearance of a baseball card in a movie. When Gehrig is young he tries to "buy" his way into a game with the neighborhood kids by giving them his cards. He pulls out a stack of cards from his pocket and starts naming off players he'll give up (Tinker, Wagner, Collins, et cetera) and holds one back. One of the kids asks who he's holding back and he shows them a 1915 Sporting News(?) Ruth. Anyone else ever notice this?

[Archive]

Posted By: B.C.Daniels

guess they could not come up with a real Shoeless Joe to display in the very first frames of the film~

[Archive]

Posted By: pete

wow...cool. i don't remember that scene but it's been a while. i think it was stephen kings needless things where theres a shopkeeper flipping through a box and he skips by a honus wagner t206. anyone remember this?

pete in mn

[Archive]

Posted By: scgaynor

There is an episode of Leave it to Beaver in which the Beav is holding some 1959 Topps cards.

Scott

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I don't think I've seen that episode of Beaver. I like the one where Beaver, Gilbert and Whitey get in trouble for making a long distance phone call to Don Drysdale.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

Rocky Dennis has a board on his wall where he pins sandwich
bags with "1955 BROOKLYN DODGERS". He talks a friend out of his '55 Rube Walker for a '74 someone-or other. Someone tells him later on that he has a Campanella for him..

[Archive]

Posted By: Lentel

The devils assistant gives the kid a 1956 Mantle card to throw apples and break out all of a neighbors windows. When he touches the card he is transformed back for a moment to a point in a game where Mantle hits a home run

[Archive]

Posted By: Zach

There was a simpsons episode where Homers boss gave everyone their christmas bonuses and gave Homer a 1939 Playball Joe. D. which he then sold to the local comic book store for more than the christmas bonus others recieved.

[Archive]

Posted By: scgaynor

In that Simpsons episode, Mr Burns call's the 1939 Playball a confectioners card of one of the New York Nine and expresses surprise that they are letting "ethnics" into the game.

Scott

[Archive]

Posted By: T206Collector

...card in Pride of the Yankees. I noticed it a few months ago when I was watching it on AMC, or something akin.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

It was Larry and Whitey who had the 1959 Topps cards, and they appear so quickly you would have to recognize the card to know who it was. In a later episode Don Drysdale guest stars as Beaver and Gilbert make a long distance call to Dodger Stadium.

[Archive]

Posted By: Scott Mosley

Theres at least one episode of Seinfeld (if not more) where there is a nice display of T205s (and possibly T206s) on the wall of "Mr. Steinbrenners" office.

I wonder if the real Steinbrenner has a display of cards in HIS office

Wish I could remember the specific episode but it escapes me at the moment.

Scott

[Archive]

Posted By: Adam J. Moraine

I VIVIDLY remember the part in "The Pride of The Yankees" when a young Gehrig, holds back the Ruth 1915 Sporting News card. Also, there are TONS of cards thumb tacked in the treehouse in my favorite baseball movie "The Sandlot".

Best Regards,

Adam J. Moraine

[Archive]

Posted By: jay behrens

There is another Beaver episode where Lumpy talks Beaver into playing catch with his dad's autographed baseball. I forget if the ball got lost or ran over by a car, but they try to replace and fake the sigs, with names like Baby Ruth, etc. Can't remember all the names that were supposed to be on the ball but I remember Kiki Cuyler and Rogers Hornsby being on it.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

[Archive]

Posted By: Greg Ecklund

One recent movie with baseball cards was "Blast From the Past" which is from 1999.

In that movie a scientist and his pregnant wife go into their elaborate bomb shelter during the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962. While in there, a jet crashes into their home, leading him to believe that nuclear war has ensued. He closes the door, which is rigged to a timer and won't open for 35 years. The movie opens 35 years later when the parents send their son (Brendan Fraser) out to gather supplies. The parents give Fraser some money and his dad's baseball card collection, which he is supposed to try to sell if he runs out of money.

Eventually, Fraser gets lost and runs out of money, so he tries to sell the collection at a card shop, where the owner attempts to rip him off. Seeing this, the shop assistant (Alicia Silverstone) tell Fraser how much the collection is really worth and promptly gets fired. Seeing how naive Fraser is, she discovers his predicament and finds him a place to stay in exchange for a Rogers Hornsby Goudey card.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Larry Mondello throws the autographed ball over Beaver's head and a garbage truck runs it over. Larry tries to forge a new one but adds names like "Ki Ki Gehrig" and "Baby Ruth." Ward unsuspectingly shows off the ball to obnoxious Fred Rutherford who spots the fakes.
There are numerous Seinfeld episodes where replica baseball cards appear in various places; besides T205 and T206 I think I've spotted some replica 52 Topps. The shots are always from a distance so they are a bit tough to make out.

[Archive]

Posted By: Anson

Makes you wonder why, in Blast From the Past, the father would have felt his baseball card collection was worth something. After all, in 1962, baseball cards were still collected for fun. Folks didn't associate a lot of value with them.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

15-20 years ago there was a TV episode of a mystery series where a crook broke into a house--but it took most of the show to find out what he stole: the boy's baseball cards (they caught the crook). I remember several fairly close-up frames of a '52 Topps Mantle in a slender slab (not graded--doubt there were any grades at that time). All the Mantle shots looked the same, with a single hand holding it carefully by the border. (I couldn't tell if it was real, but from the way the card was handled in the show, I would guess it was). The point of the episode seemed to be "baseball cards are worth stealing; be careful with them" not "we caught the bad guy."

[Archive]

Posted By: scgaynor

I think that you are thinking of the "HEart to Heart" episode with the stolen 1952 Mantle. That single episode was huge in promoting Baseball Card collecting, probably one of the biggest promotions of the time.

Scott

[Archive]

Posted By: Ed McCollum

but in the movie "Fat Man, Little Boy" (about development of the U.S. nuclear weapons program), John Cusack is pinning several cards to a bulletin board in his barracks. I wasn't a collector of vintage at the time, but I remember the scene, and thinking, "Man, if those are real, why would they be putting pin holes in them?"

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Come to think of it, Eric Stoltz was collecting Dodger cards in the movie "Mask." He had this unique method of putting the cards in a baggie and then tacking them to a bulletin board. He bamboozled his buddy out of a Rube Walker card, and pronounced it "Ruby" Walker as if to pretend he didn't know who the player was; but it was the last one he needed to finish his team set.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

the whole column! The Rube Walker was NOT the last card he needed (someone found him a Campanella later in the movie), but he had despaired of being able to find the '55 common. I wish I could remember the name of the player in the '74 set he traded for it--it was a good player, but Rocky had three of them (the '74s had just come out--in the movie).

At the only show I set up at, I put up a board with "1955 BROOKLYN DODGERS" on it, and all the cards in were in sandwich bags, like Rocky Dennis's. I also wrote his poem on the board "These things I like--these things are a drag."

[Archive]

Posted By: Darren J. Duet

"Rain Man" Dustin Hoffman's chararcter's room is clad in baseball cards from the 1950's.

"Major League" Jaboo (?sp) the Cuban slugger's locker is decorated with cards. I recall seeing a 1954 Aaron pinned to a locker wall.

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

Unless Cusak were into older stuff, the pickens would have been poor (saw the movie, but don't remember the cards--I don't mean there weren't any, but I don't remember them).

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Sorry Julie, I missed your post. I do remember the 74 Topps card his buddy needed- I'm thinking it might have been a Red Sox player, perhaps Yaz, but I could be way off. In the Simpsons episode where Martin, Milhouse, and Bart buy Radioactive Man #1, Milhouse asks Comic Book Guy for the Yaz with the sideburns, so maybe I am getting the two mixed up.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Rousseau

in an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO, his agent Jeff takes in a kid - sort of as a foster kid- and the kid robs his house, including his baseball card collection which I think we find included a '52 Mantle. Upon hearing about the theft happened and realizing how extensive it might have been, he yells "My Mickey Mantle!" and goes running to check, while his foul-mouthed wife yells at him "Oh sure- you're worried about [expletive] Mickey Mantle- that kid stole jewels my grandmother brought with her to Ellis Island!" (or something like that).

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

You have it down almost perfectly. It was the episode "The Wire" and Susie loses her grandmother's broach that she brought back from a pogram; and at that point Jeff realizes he may have lost his baseball cards. It's Susie who blurts out the Mickey Mantle card. My favorite episode of a really funny show.

[Archive]

Posted By: Chris Counts

In "The Natural," there's a scene showing baseball cards being printed. The movie is set in 1939. The cards, which all show Robert "Roy Hobbs" Redford, appear to be a hybrid of the 1940 and 1941 Play Ball sets, but with color photography, which I don't believe existed on cards in 1941.

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Curb Your Enthusiasm is one of my favorite shows. Is Larry David looking to continue this show or is it done? I haven't heard anything.

[Archive]

Posted By: Chris Counts

It's not quite the movies or television, but this seems like a reasonable place mention the appearance of baseball cards in the "Peanuts" cartoon strip. In particular, I remember a strip that mentions by name dozens of early 60s players that Charlie Brown found in card packs in his search for an elusive Joe Schlabotnik (forgive me if I spelled it wrong). I'm guessing this was in about '62 or '63. For what it's worth, there's another strip that has Linus mourning over the last out of the '62 series (McCovey's line drive to Richardson), proving, at the very least, that Linus was (is?) a Giants fan.

[Archive]

Posted By: Richard

I have one of those Roy Hobbs cards!

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I used to have cards from the movie "Bull Durham" that came in a POP kit given to video retailers. I still have a bat pen that came with the POP kit to "A League Of Their Own". I remember when "The Natural" came out on video, but I only got a poster for that one. I don't remember ever receiving anything for "Eight Men Out".

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Curb Your Enthusiasm appears to be done after four seasons. There certainly has been no mention of a fifth one- what a wonderful show for Seinfeld watchers, really a continuation of that same misanthropic humor. The reruns are on every night on HBO Comedy- I think I have them all memorized by now.

[Archive]

Posted By: tbob

You're right Barry, Bart's buddy Milhouse intends to go in and buy the "Muttonchop" Yaz card (the one with the big sideburns), but they end up buying Radioactive Man #1 along with the fat kid and all 3 end up doing a parody of Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Bart being the Humphrey Bogart character who becomes filled with greed and distrust of his partners. Fred C. Dobbs was the character's name as I recall.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Lemke

In that 1949 movie, Gene Kelly and Frnak Sinatra are shown on the train looking over their T206 "Wolves" cards. When they get off the train they're mobbed by kids begging for "baseball pictures." One of the players throws a handful of the cards in the air for the kids and says something like, "I'm the baseball picture king!" The actual prop cards for the movie were sold in a major hobby auction in the last 3-4 years.

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Isn't Bud Abbott wearing a Wolves uniform in the famous Abbott and Costello "Who's on first" routine?

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

I didn't realize that the Simpsons episode was a parody of the Treasure of the Sierra Madre; thanks for that tidbit. I'll have to check my Simpson's trivia book and see if that is mentioned. And the Frank Sinatra-Gene Kelly cards were part of the Halper Sale- I don't know if they have traded hands since. Finally, Bud Abbott does wear an early Wolves uniform when they do their bit in "The Naughty Nineties."

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

According to the Complete Guide to the Simpsons: "The suspicion that develops between the boys, and Bart's subsequent paranoia is reminiscent of the classic 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre.'" Did they read comic books in that film too?

[Archive]

Posted By: Julie

"Who's on First" recording in it), Abbott is wearing a uniform which says "St. Louis Wolves."

The Hobbs (Roy, that is) cards are designed like the '41 Playballs, but those are color copies, or colorized photos; Redford is in high tech color.

[Archive]

Posted By: Jon Canfield

It could just be that I'm one of the youngest members of the board but I remember watching "The Goonies" at the movies where Chunk (or possibly one of the other characters) discovers a baseball card of Lou Gehrig in the wallet of the dead man who went after the treasure. I believe the card was acually the 1979 Topps greatest moment card but the movie makes it out to be an original.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bob Rousseau

I remember one Simpsons when Krusty was shown throwing money away right and left- and he lit a cigar by setting fire to a copy of Action Comics #1! They should have had him make a house of cards with some Wagner T206s and then set fire to that!

[Archive]

Posted By: will watson

apparently, the obese comic store owner in the Simpsons was modeled after TJ Schwartz....no idea if its true or not

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

Hey, maybe MR X is Matt Groening???

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

That is correct- Krusty did once light his cigar with Superman #1. And Homer was once at a flea market and rummaged through the five cent box and found a Superman #1, a complete sheet of upside down jenny airmail stamps, a stradivarius violin, and a declaration of independence- and passed on them all. Just a little too pricey at five cents each.

[Archive]

Posted By: Wayne Grove

starring David Jansen as Richard Kimball had Gerards son flipping his baseball cards out the window trying to leave a trail for his dad as Kimball drove. Don't remember all of the details but vividly remember Kimball putting the cards that he had taken from the boy and putting them in an envelope to mail back to him.

[Archive]

Posted By: Adam J. Moraine

I just remembered, during "The Sandlot" there's a part when Benny has a dream about how to take on the beast. He dreams of some type of ghost image of Babe Ruth. The actor playing Ruth comes into Benny's bedroom, and picks up one of Benny's cards, a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron rookie card.

Best Regards,

Adam J. Moraine

[Archive]

Posted By: Tom

I captured the card of Babe Ruth on the movie Pride of the Yankees. The picture is similar to the 1915 M101-5, Sporting News, but a complete different pose. I would email this photo to someone on network 54 for all to see. Based on what I have seen about this card I believe this is Babe Ruth true rookie card not the one that everyone been selling or think it is. I will leave the decision up to you experts to decide what you think after you see the photo that I send to you that is in the movie.

[Archive]

Posted By: Daniel Bretta

I noticed when I watched that it wasn't exactly a Sporting News card because it didn't have a number on the front of the card, but I thought that was probably the best way to describe it because I didn't know exactly what it was.

[sac_bunt]

Resurrecting an old thread.

Last night, watching a classic movie (Christmas Story) with the kids and in one of the very first scenes Ralphie has a few cards behind his head.

I immediately yelled out O'Brien (middle card) then pondered the scene as the movie went on and thought maybe it was Ruelbach-no glove. Now, I'm just not sure at all. Any guesses?

BTW - If you haven't seen the movie - its a great family holiday classic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Story

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by sac_bunt

Resurrecting an old thread.

Last night, watching a classic movie (Christmas Story) with the kids and in one of the very first scenes Ralphie has a few cards behind his head.

I immediately yelled out O'Brien (middle card) then pondered the scene as the movie went on and thought maybe it was Ruelbach-no glove. Now, I'm just not sure at all. Any guesses?

BTW - If you haven't seen the movie - its a great family holiday classic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Story

I actually think its the Reulbach-Glove Showing T206.

Either way it makes sense since Reulbach played for Chicago and the film was based in or near Chicago


Jantz