My favorite cards, Part I: Roberto Clemente, 1971 Topps

So, it's been over a month since I received a baseball card in the mail. I have no money for cards at the moment and probably for a couple more months. Purchasing holiday gifts have trumped adding to my collection. I've been avoiding eBay and other auction websites. I've been writing about my want list, which helps a little bit at diminishing the collecting fever, but there's always a need in collecting to amass more. It's an aspect that collecting detractors point out: A collector is only happy with a new acquisition for a short time before the need for more things arises. I myself am guilty of loving a card, placing it in a plastic sheet, forgetting about it, and soon I'm out buying more in the span of a week. I've decided instead of moping around about my lack of funds and lack of any new cards, I'm going to focus on what I already own. So begins a series of posts dedicated to my favorite cards.

My favorite cards, Part I: Roberto Clemente, 1971 Topps


Roberto Clemente was a bad-ass, plain and simple. I think most people would agree that possessing an arm that could double as a rocket-launcher, running the diamond like a crazy man to stretch doubles into a triples, hitting above .300 for a career, and being a humanitarian and an idol to thousands of Latino kids, makes one a bad-ass.

The 1971 Topps card showcases Clemente in all of his bad-assery. He's all business. It looks like he's aiming his bat to take out the photographer. His stoic and surly appearance stems from not only his utter dominance on the ball field, but from his difficulties during his early MLB career.

If this card was issued during the late 50s, Clemente's demeanor would be a window into the turmoil caused by rampant racial discrimination of the era. Clemente never dealt with racism in his Puerto Rico home. Coming to American proved a rude awakening of racially divided hotel rooms and water fountains, public jeers, and loneliness from not being accepted by whites or blacks due to his Latino heritage.

Clemente received a large signing bonus compared to other rookies, and when he didn't produce immediately, the media, the public and even his team mates turned on him causing his life to be even more hellish. But, by 1960, Clemente came into his own. A World Series win, his first all-star appearance, and his first great season created good will between him and the people of Pittsburgh. I guess winning causes color-blindness.

The Want List, Part II: Grover Alexander (1933 W517)

Every baseball card collector has a most wanted list of cards. Some collectors need a card to complete a set, and others want a card of a favorite player. I want a card because it looks cool (whether it's the player's pose, face, or the card's colors), or I want a card because of the player's history. Until I can afford the cards on my want list, I will have to be happy with writing about them. 

The Want List, Part II: Grover Alexander (1931 W517 #15)
With a blank stare, looking disconnected from the world, this is the last card appearance of Grover (Pete) Alexander. Back with the Phillies, where 15 years before he won 94 games in three seasons, Alexander posted a 9.14 era in 1930 along with three losses. After his release, he quit the majors, but went on to pitch in the minors and the House of David team.

Grover Alexander W517

At the end of his career. At the end of his rope. Alexander's post-baseball life follows the familiar story of a washed-up former star: fighting a drinking problem, keeping poverty at bay, dropping into obscurity, re-assimilating into society like a prisoner on parole. Adding to his pile of Dickensian troubles, Alexander suffered from epileptic seizures, and shell-shock caused by his horrific experience on the front lines of WWI, including participating in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive where the U.S. suffered 117,000 casualties (1)(2). His wife, Amy, divorced him for the first time in 1929. Things were crumbling around him.

So, why is this strip card on my want-list? This card shows what life after baseball looks like, before pensions and million dollar contracts. It shows a former star facing destitution. It shows what happened to forgotten heroes after the cheers go silent and baseball turns its head.


1. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_meuse_argonne.html
2. SABR Biography of Grover 'Pete' Alexander: http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=140&bid=945

The Want List, Part I: Rube Waddell (1910 E93)

Every baseball card collector has a most wanted list of cards. Some collectors need a card to complete a set, and others want a card of a favorite player. I want a card because it looks cool (whether it's the player's pose, face, or the card's colors), or I want a card because of the player's history. Until I can afford the cards on my want list, I will have to be happy with writing about them. 


The Want List, Part I: Rube Waddell (1910 E93 Standard Caramel)

Rube Waddell
1910 E93 Caramel Card

Rube Waddell was a man who would get into a fight over a straw hat. He was a man who could be distracted from a game by tinker toys or fire engine bells. He was a free-spirit, who was known to assist firefighters as well as disappearing for days on drinking binges.

Anecdotes about Rube Waddell are as numerous as his strikeouts. Known as the first power-pitcher of the 20th century, Waddell's 1904 total of 349 strike-outs remained a towering single-season record until Sandy Koufax eclipsed it with 382 strikeouts in 1965. When the Rube was on, he was ON. The dichotomy of Waddell the goof and Waddell the dominating player secured his place in baseball lore and attracts collectors to his baseball cards. Of his tobacco and candy cards, Waddell's E93 card is arguably the most attractive.

Unlike their tobacco card counterparts, the cards from the E93 set were packaged with caramel candies. The quality of the player picture was higher than the tobacco cards of the era. Using a player photograph, artists colored in the player photo matching the uniform colors, while making the background a solid color. Collectors love the card's colors and player picture detail. Demand for this set is high and so are their prices.

Basis of the E93?

Waddell's card catches him about to fire one over. Rearing back and gathering his arm strength, who knows which pitch is coming? Is it a blazing fastball, or one of his diving curves? Waddell had very large hands that could wrap around the ball causing it to spin left or right or waif in the air like a knuckleball (1). Waddell, captured here as the dominating player, stares at his target, concentrating.

Aided by color, the E93 card trumps its B&W photo origins in bringing these players to life. His golden belt buckle, the red of his undershirt and collar, the matching green background combine to create a striking life-like portrait of this exasperating man-child who was known equally for his antics as his pitching prowess.


(1) Rube Waddell: the zany, brilliant life of a strikeout artist By Alan Howard Levy, Page 1

Hack Wilson 1933 Goudey

1933 Goudey Hack Wilson

There he is, the slugger twisting after taking a mighty swing. It's just for show, a pose, but you know if he truly connected with a fastball, it would ignite and disintegrate before it left the field. He resembles a cartoon baseball predecessor of the Gas-House Gorillas, but drawn more handsome and clean-shaven. His tiny feet couldn't possibly hold the large frame as he swivels quickly to slug 56 home runs and drive in a record amount of runners in 1930.

It seems unlikely, but Goudey's caricature accurately depicted the real man. Lewis (Hack) Wilson possessed cartoonish body proportions. He was 5 feet, 6 inches tall, but had powerful shoulders moulded from years as a youth wielding a sledge hammer.. He wore a size 5 and a half shoe, but required dress shirts with a size 18 neck. His perfect nickname could have derived as much from his all-or-nothing swing as his physical resemblance to turn of the 20th century wrestler George Hackenschmidt. He was one of a kind, but he succumbed to an addiction that was all too common among his peers.

Wilson loved to drink. Whiskey, gin, beer, it didn't matter. Nightly visits to brothels and speakeasies kept his weight up and his production down. Empty beer bottles surrounded his dug-out locker. He never replicated his production during the 1930 season, and major league baseball had no more use for him by 1935. Over 30 years after his death, the Veteran's Committee saved Wilson from obscurity and enshrined him into Cooperstown.


Hack Wilson's biography: Fouled away: The baseball tragedy of Hack Wilson
Hack Wilson's stats: Baseball Reference

"He was a faithful player, liked by his team mates and respected by the public..."

The T205 baseball tobacco card set has been a favorite with Pre-War baseball card collectors for years. Their ornate gold border catches the eye, and the period player biographies transport the collector back almost 100 years.

The cards depicting American League players are especially attractive. The player's name written on a flowing banner, the player's head and shoulders bordered by the classic baseball diamond, and the antique glove and catcher's mask sitting at the bottom of the cards gives the collector a sense of history and beauty like no other set.

One card stands out as a masterpiece of the T205 American League sub-set, if not of the entire pre-war card galaxy. The card boasts the most beautiful portrait in all of the baseball tobacco card sets. The cap, tight around his head, is slightly tilted. The uncapped brown hair flows out. His head is also slightly tilted on a neck covered by the upturned collar of a classic baseball uniform. The collar is upstaged by a blue and yellow kerchief around his neck. His eyes, carrying bags, appear sleepy. One eye appears lazy; pointing upwards. The nose is large, and the ears poke out a little.

What makes the T205 tobacco card of Addie Joss a classic is his smile. The right side of his lips are almost impassive, but the left side has a little smirk. It may just be the cocky smile of a pitcher with the 2nd lowest ERA in baseball history, but, hyperbole aside, it is almost as inexplicable as the smile of a certain young lady in the Louvre.

Addie Joss's lifetime stats: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jossad01.shtml
Addie Joss's bio: http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=7202&bid=1782