It's Babe Ruth's Birthday! Let's Open Some Babe Ruth Cards

Aloha, everybody, 

It's the Bambino's birthday today. There's no better way for me to celebrate the Sultan of Swat's big day than opening a few packs from The Babe Ruth Collection. 

I've been hitting the weekly card show lately (I have one more report to show you all, coming up soon), and the last time I was there, at the show, I spied a dealer selling off boxes of this Babe Ruth product. 

I couldn't find any info about it, so I'm going by what I can see on the box. These were produced in 1992 by Megacards. They resemble the Conlon Collection cards in style and substance, with old-time photos on the front, and extended stories on the backs. 

Each pack contains 10 cards and the box is stuffed with 48 packs, so I'm going to have quite a few Babe Ruth cards by the time I'm done ripping! I'm hoping to complete the 165-card set, but I'll have a whole lotta dupes, so if anybody out there is interested in some, drop me a line or mention it in the comments below. 

The set doesn't have any inserts to chase - which is a drag - but the cards are chock full of rarely seen photos and long-forgotten tales of the Bambino. That's good enough for me! 

Let's take a look at some of the cards I pulled from the first two packs I opened. 

The Commissioner of Baseball, Judge Mountain Landis, forbade players from World Series teams to do any barnstorming in the 1921-22 offseason. 

Ruth ignored the order and played with the traveling teams. As a result, he was suspended for the start of the 1922 campaign. 

Look, the Babe's just like you and me, hanging out at home with the little woman. 

Now here's a great photo...

This next card celebrates Ruth, pitching for the Red Sox in the 1916 World Series against the Dodgers, and his 14-inning complete game victory. 

In that game, Ruth gave up an inside the park home run. He never surrendered another, and thus began his record 29 2/3 innings  WS scoreless streak. 

Did you know the Babe was a great base stealer? He led the Yanks in steals for three seasons. 

How about this photo...

The Babe played in the first All-Star game. Although he was older and chubbier than most of the other players, Ruth swatted the first home run in AS history, leading the AL to a 4-2 victory. 

He also made a running catch in the outfield to snuff out the last rally and hope for the National Leaguers. 

Badass!  

The Babe as a Red Socker...

Ruth tore up the 1928 World Series. He had 10 hits, 9 runs, 2 doubles, and 3 homers. 

Oh yeah, this other guy named Gherig played for the Yankees too. 

Aloha! 

Heroes of the Deadball Era Do Not a Dead Post Make

Aloha, everybody, 

Let's return to the early 20th century and the Deadball era. It was named that because the same balls were used for entire games, making them mushy and harder to see as they got dirtier and games wore on into the twilight. Besides that, all sorts of crazy ball-doctoring was allowed. 

This resulted in low-scoring games that eventually caused a retooling of the sport through rules and equipment changes. Let's take a look at some of the players who excelled despite, and perhaps because of, those deadballs. 

Dig the high collar and button front with the word "Brooklyn".

Leading off is a Conlon Collection Dodger, Jake Daubert. While some guys had trouble hitting the ol' shineball, Daubert batted over .300 for ten seasons and was an outstanding triples hitter. 

Next up is some righteous numbered goodness (60/825) of Honus Wagner and his bat that looks like it's made of solid lead. 

Shoeless Joe isn't on a whole lot of cardboard out there, and I'm lucky enough to have some of it that's a bit scarcer than most. 
 

This Joe Jackson card is from a limited run of custom cards that commemorate the Black Sox scandal. They were created by my friend Terry, the director of The Institute for Baseball Studies (there's more from me on that Black Sox set here). 

Here's the card back. Terry listed Jackson's numbers for the season, and for the infamous World Series...
 

At a time when pitchers routinely used the spitball as one of their primary pitches, Christy Mathewson is said to rarely have used it...
 

Mathewson pitched three shutouts in the 1905 World series. He was exposed to chemical weapons during army training, which permanently damaged his respiratory system. He eventually died from tuberculosis in 1925, and later bacame one of the inagural class of five to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Next up are a couple of 1961 Fleer cards. These cards are real vintage beauties. I only have a handful, but I eventually plan to chase the set as a collecting goal.
 

Walter Johnson is another pitcher who didn't have to rely on tricks to beat the batters of the day. He had a fastball that was said to be over 90 miles per hour - pretty much unheard of for that era. Add his sidearm delivery to that fastball and you get a strikeout record of 3,508 that stood for 55 years. 

Time for Zack Wheat, who left his mark as a Brooklyn Superba, Robin and Dodger....
 

Wheat made a pretty good living selling pack mules to the U.S. Army, so he often bragged he didn't have to play ball in order to make money during the season. He routinely held out for more money, and every year he got what he demanded. 

The final Dodger in ATBATT's Deadball line up is a pitcher...

This cardboard beauty is from 2003 SP Legendary cuts. The mahogany red and deep blue compliment each other and give a warm, cigar room feeling to the Conlon-style photo. 

The spitball was so much a part of Grimes' arsenal, that when baseball outlawed the pitch, he was grandfathered in, with some others, and went on to become the last man allowed to throw the spitball. 

We close out with another Conlon.
 

Veach played for the Detroit Tigers. When Ty Cobb won the batting title in 1919, Veach was right behind him in second place with a .355 average. 

In fact, despite playing above the levels of most players from his time, Veach remains little known because it was his luck to be overshadowed by three of the other greatest outfielders Detroit ever had - Cobb, Sam Crawford and Harry Heilmann. 

In 1919 Baseball introduced a livelier ball, outlawed doctored and dirty baseballs, and killed the Deadball Era. 

Aloha!

 

 

Ty Cobb - Hero of the Deadball Era and Cardboard Values

Aloha, everybody, 

In my previous post we broke down a Conlon Collection card featuring Chief Meyers. Something in his words on the back of the card got me to thinking.   

Meyers talked about pitchers from his day being scared of the new "jackrabbit ball". This highlighted that he was a player in the Deadball Era, a time I've heard of, but never thought much about. 

 I was pretty sure that faster ball he referenced was something baseball had introduced to increase runs and kill the low-scoring times. I hit the net and learned some interesting tidbits, but I'm not here to school you on the Deadball era - I just wanna show off some baseball cards. 

Let's begin with one of the most (in)famous players to come out of the times, and the guy who's cards are rocking the foundations of the baseball card-collecting world as you read this. 

Did you hear about the find of seven Ty Cobb T-206's in a crumbled up paper bag?  A family from perhaps South Carolina found seven tobacco Cobb cards, pushing the number of known specimens from 15 to 22. They say the find's worth is measured across seven digits! 

My Cobb cardboard won't fetch that kind of money, but then again, I'm happy keeping them all in my collection.

 It seems Cobb's career was directly influenced by the jackrabbit ball that Meyers talked about, as his batting average jumped up to .420 when cork-centered baseballs were introduced. 

 This 2001 Upper Deck Cooperstown Collection card is no T-206, but it's a jewel to me, with its gold stamping and poignant photo of a thousand-yard-staring Cobb. 

Finally, the Georgia Peach, coming at ya! 

Next time: More heroes from the Deadball Era. Aloha!

 

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Aloha, everybody,

This Conlon Collection specimen is an absolute cardboard home run.

 It fires on a few different levels, so let's begin with the politically incorrect nickname - "Chief".  On one hand, it's an insensitive and disrespectful label, dropped onto a Native American by early 20th-century racism. 

On the other hand, it's the type of nickname that we tend to accept and not think twice about because of "baseball nostalgia" and a misplaced "cool" factor we might imagine goes along with being an old-time ballplayer with a nickname.

Let's move on to the photo, which magnificently captures a baseball day during the early 1900's. 

We get a wonderful view of Meyers' billowy-sleeved uniform, mini-baseball cap and early catcher's gear; the shin guards and mask wonderfully displayed. 

Off in the background is a sprinkling of spectators, almost everyone dressed in matching black hats and suits. Note the wooden equipment wagon over by the infield wall. Straight outta Dances With Wolves! 
 
I flipped the card over and discovered Myers hails from Riverside, California, a desert community about an hour's drive to my east. 

Finally, this beautiful card closes with Meyers' words on the back. He played the game over 100 years ago, and yet, the baseball gripe he lays out is still relevant and argued over in the game today. 

The good news is MLB isn't deaf, and it took a baby step in addressing his century-old concern just last season. 

If you are reading ATBATT on a laptop today, you can probably see the text on the card, and I encourage you to read what Meyers had to say. 

However, if you're using a phone or otherwise can't or don't want to read the cardback, I'll transcribe the important part for you below the card...

"Nowadays, the pitcher wastes so much time out there it's ridiculous - fixing his cap...pulling up his pants...rubbing his chin...wiping his brow...pulling his nose...scratching the ground with his feet. 

And after he does all that he looks all around at the outfield, and then he staaaaaaaares in at the catcher giving the sign. Why, he's afraid to throw the darned ball! 

And with this modern jackrabbit ball, I don't know as I blame him. 

They waste an hour or so every day that way. We always played a game in less than two hours. Never longer."  


I hear ya, Meyers. Aloha! 

Old Bloggers Never Die - They Just Fade Away Into The Trading Zone

Aloha, everybody, 

When I first started blogging, it was a truism in the blogosphere that there were more Dodger bloggers than those from any other baseball team. 

That of course brought with it various plus and minuses. An example of a "negative" is all of the other bloggers out there had to somehow divvy up their Dodger giveaways if they traded with more than one of us. On the flip side, the Dodgers are somewhat plentiful on cardboard, which means there are lots of cards to go around. 

I haven't checked lately on how the high number of Dodger bloggers is holding up, but I do know that number dropped by one when Jim, from the now defunct, but forever cool,  Garvey, Cey, Russel, Lopes, hung up his keyboard. 

Jim didn't disappear, though. He's remained in the background dropping comments on our blogs, and dropping packages off at the post office. A couple of days ago I received a fat one of those myself. 

Jim's GCRL blog focused on "the Dodger infield of his youth". I've thought about focusing ATBATT in a similar way, but my collecting brain just doesn't compartmentalize like that. While I do love collecting the Dodgers, I'm more of a "shotgun collector", with interests that scatter around a variety of themes and teams. 

Jim's note was the first time I've seen cards referred to as "sludge", but I immediately knew what he meant. While every jam-packed package is going to have a few pass-along cards, there were far more than just "one or two" that filled player/set needs and satisfied my cool cards wants. 

 Believe it or not, it's only recently that I've begun to focus on completing team sets from past Topps issues. I've got a pretty good start on them, and Jim helped me to fill in a lot of blanks. 

I'll be updating my team set want lists shortly after this, so you all can see if you've got any extra past Dodgers that can help me complete those sets. 

To a scattershot collector like me, it's even better when cards hit on more than one level, like the Conlon Collection, players with cool nicknames, and old-time Brooklyn Dodgers...

The back of this card says Rattlesnake got his nick from his oft-told stories of growing up in Texas with snakes galore. According to the story on this card, a rattler once bit into one of his car's tires, and the rush of escaping air filled the unlucky snake like a balloon, until he actually exploded. Yikes! 
 

Often the best parts of these cards are the backgrounds featuring long gone stadiums, rudimentary wood dugouts, and fans in suits. 
 

Below is a great card from a great set. Once upon a time I had a lot of cards from this Upper Deck set; I think I sold most of them back in my old card show days. 
 

What a photo! A play at the plate, Billy Martin flying, World Series action, and best of all, Campy giving it his all on two good legs. 

 Above is an aging Duke, no longer in Flatbush, but always a Dodger. 

When I first saw this card, I figured it to be a pretty good action shot (despite the bad crop job) of Carter about to throw down to second. 

Thinking more about that half-unseen batter and Carter's eyes, I imagine that would be something like the look on Johnny Roseboro's face when Juan Marichal was coming at him with a bat and the intent to rearrange his hairstyle. 

More scattershot cardboard appreciation...

 Brett Butler was another one of those ex-Giants whom I came to appreciate as a Dodger. This is a a very cool action shot capturing Butler just at the end of his crow's hop - which is such a simple, yet graceful, baseball maneuver. Extra bonuses in the photo are Wrigley's ivy and the Tim Crews death patch on Butler's sleeve. 

Finally, a card from a set that I've always loved more for the photos on the rear, rather than the fronts...

1993 Leaf shopped the players onto their team's cities in such a way that presented them as gargantuan athletes. I've always dug the Godzilla feeling of these players stomping around and throwing baseballs between skyscrapers. Awesome. 

That's it for Part one of the GCRL package. Tune in next time for Part Two. 

Until then, let's dig some 60's go-go action...

Aloha!