Nice thread, guys. 1887 scorecard, I'm impressed. I have a bunch of Cardinals scorecards, oldest is 1915, Robison Field. I liked that 1887 St. Louis team.
My friend Ted, Yankee fan that he is, puts that !952 Mantle up there. You guys in the urban areas of the north east coast had an advantage on getting those; the last series of 1952 cards weren't distributed well.
I REALLY like that reconstructed gold border card of one of my favorite players, Ed Reulbach. That's a card I'd care for, if it changes homes.
Groucho!!!! What a rich life he had, he's brought smiles to millions of faces. The Goodwin album is nice, but to me The Cigarette Picture-Card Album tops it. And that 'Dad' playing for Enid...
I share G1911's sentiment and reasoning: "The cards that bring me the most joy have nothing to do with money, and that realization is why I don’t play in the realm of expensive investor cards. I buy the stuff I wanted as a kid, who didn’t care about creases or bragging rights but about old sets I thought were cool."
So for me, it's what I thought was a signed picture of a Yankee player that sat in a frame on my grandfather's dresser. I remember seeing it when I was a little kid, probably age 5 or 6. I saw the NY on the hat and thought it had to be a Yankee. I knew nothing of the AL and NL, and had no concept of teams moving from cities to other cities... Daddy Wake, as I knew him, was born in 1880. In 1947 he lived in Pembroke, Kentucky, just outside of Hopkinsville; he had lived in an adjoining county for years, then moved to Pembroke, and he would be there for at least a dozen more, before he moved to where I lived. In 1947, the Hopkinsville Hoppers of the class D Kitty League had a 20 year old outfielder who was with his first professional team... Dusty Rhodes. Hitting .326 that season had him moving up the ladder through the minors, and he was playing in AA Nashville in 1952, when he signed with the Giants who brought him up to New York.
As a little kid then, I was a bit scared of him. He was tall, slender, and he looked like Kennesaw Mountain Landis without the beard (although I had not seen or heard of Commissioner Landis back then). He told me a tiny bit about the ballplayer, which I promptly forgot. Daddy Wake died in 1965. And I got the picture. It sat on my desk in my room while I was in grade school, and I'd look at the picture when I should have been doing homework.
Eventually I acquired a bit of baseball knowledge. Dusty Rhodes had played with the Giants. But I knew the Giants were in San Francisco, so why was "NEW YORK" across his chest? Ah... Mr. Rhodes was with the Giants back when they were in New York, before the move west. Maybe a few years later I saw a newsreel segment on TV (old TV...) and I see Mays' catch, but then they mention Dusty Rhodes winning the game with a home run. That's the guy who's picture is on my desk!!! Older, more reading... And all was good until I find out I can buy old '50s cards through the mail. I buy a few Boman's, whatever they were... hadn't ever seen any of those. Topps. Those I had heard of, and it was Topp's cards I bought with allowance money and money made from returning Coke bottles. Some mail listing I get shows that card #1 in the 1955 Topps set was Rhodes. Could that be the guy on my desk? Half a month later, in the mail, I have a 1955 Topps #1 card, and not only is Rhodes my Dusty Rhodes, but the card looks like My Picture!!!
Years go by and I'm out of college, finally, and I'm piddling with cards, when I find out that there's this guy named Jack Smalling, and I can get ballplayer addresses from him. A few weeks later I'm writing Dusty Rhodes; and he responds, he's alive and well, living in California. He's answered my few questions, and he's sent me his phone number. Dare I call?
Time out. I take Daddy Wake's picture and a photographer is going to make copies for me so I can send Dusty photos, he can sign two for me (one for me and one for my cousin) and keep a few for himself. When I go to get the copies I'm told that it isn't a photo. What? It looks like an 8x10 b&w photo. My photographer friend tells me it's a PMT- a photo mechanical transfer... it's a bunch of dots. He says he can get copies made, which he does. I send them to Mr. Rhodes, he signs and returns two to me and keeps the rest. I call Mr. Rhodes and we have a good conversation.
He hit .341 in 1954. But it was his World Series exploits that landed him on card #1.
1953 #1 Jackie Robinson
1954 #1 Ted Williams
1955 #1 Dusty Rhodes
1956 #1 Hank Aaron
1957 #1 Ted Williams
4 for 6 in 3 World Series games, 2 home runs, 7 RBI's. He was winning that 1954 World Series with his bat. A 10th inning pinch hit walk off HR, off of a HOF pitcher. Next game a pinch hit RBI, and staying in the game he hits another HR off of a different HOF pitcher... that's why he got a number #1 card that year.
That team... Durocher managing, Willie Mays and Monte Irvin, Al Dark, Don Mueller, Marv Grissom, Wes Westrum, Joe Garagiola, Whitey Lockman, Hoyt Wilhelm, Sal Maglie... they were some ballplayers.
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