My Hall of Fame Collection - 1951 Bowman #31 Roy Campanella

I recently opined on the twitter that "modern cards and prospecting are like one-night stands...vintage is true love."

I truly believe that and it appears that I am falling in love again thanks to this Campy! Introduce yourself, Roy...

I encountered a well-priced batch of graded '51 Bowman's on the Bay of E earlier this year. The Ryan's Pitch Collection welcomes all forms of vintage cardboard  - graded, non-graded, degraded, whatever the case may be - but my adrenal gland kicks in when a seller has numerous graded cards of players I really enjoy, at great prices, with combined shipping and (the kicker) a 'Make An Offer' option available.

I'm shy by nature and dislike the art of negotiation, but only because I wish I were better at it. And even when I decide to face this inner demon, the Bay is usually a hostile environment in which to attempt to do, particularly in the card market. Sellers are there to profit and the Bay is known to be full of buyers that are short of hobby knowledge but accompanied by deep pockets. This produces a beneficial equation for the sellers and gives them little reason to suffer through the entertainment of an offer from a spendthrift like me.

But this was true vintage love, you see....the stuff miracles are made of!

I quickly checked PSA's SMR database to ensure that my eyes were not deceiving me and formulated an offer amount on this Campy along with a few others. I wanted to cause deliberation without insulting and, after some quick emails, the Seller and I reached a mutually beneficial arrangement for the whole lot. I could barely contain my excitement then, and it persists today as I am very excited to share this particular card with you.

Campanella has a special place in the history of the game as one of its finest catchers, despite only playing for ten seasons. His Hall of Fame career, spent entirely with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was cut much too short due to a paralyzing injury suffered during a car accident in the winter of '58. Prior to that horrible twist of fate, Roy had earned a World Series ring (against my Yanks in '55), 3 National League MVP Awards, 8 All-Star appearances, led the league in RBI for a season and caught 3 no-hitters!  

"Campy" was one of the pioneers in breaking the color-barrier in baseball, joining Brooklyn during Jackie's sophomore campaign. He was one of the first four African-American players to appear in an All-Star Game, joining Robinson, Larry Doby and Don Newcombe. Yes, Roy, who passed away in 1993, holds a special place in the hearts of Dodgers and baseball fans in general, including myself. And now this card has joined him!

Where to start with this card?! It's pretty well centered and has excellent edges, two attributes that I really enjoy. The grade was most likely given for the corners, slight surface 'dent' in the upper right corner and border fading.

No problem.

A VG-EX "4" '51 Bowman is a GEM in my collection, any day of the week! The coloring of this card is amazing and the pose for this shot is baseball perfection. From my humble sampling, action shots appear to have been few and far between for '51 Bowman, so this look at Campanella tossing his old-school catcher's mask aside while he focuses on a pop-up is a real treat! How about that catcher's gear, though? I know many of you enjoy catcher's cards in particular and it's easy to see why. The chest protector, knee pads and backwards ball cap..... great coloring. Even the background calls your attention! The vivid green stadium seats in the background provide a very 'you are there' experience, enhanced by the depth perception provided through the stadium's deepening shadows as our eyes follow up into the stands......can anybody confirm if these green seats indicate Ebbets Field?

And who's that guy? Why only one spectator, a spectator wearing a mustard-colored shirt and sunglasses?    

Well focused.......the player and the card!

The back only adds to my enjoyment of this card, offering Bowman's traditional and simple approach: name, bio-stats, brief summary, card number. In 1951, he was coming off his third season in which he had surpassed the 30 HR mark (31) and approached 90 RBI (89) while batting .285. Bowman mentions that Roy held a .985 fielding percentage in 1949...he matched that in 1950 and would never drop below that mark for the duration of his career.

The back is in great shape, with no paper loss or markings to interfere with enjoyment of the information. The coloring is great, too.....just an all around great card, condition-wise. Interestingly, the write-up mentions that the Dodgers first noticed Campy when playing against him in an exhibition game. Hmmm, I wonder what the story is behind that statement? Well, as usual with the game we all love, here's the tale, according to SABR:

"In October 1945 Campanella caught for a black all-star team organized by Effa Manley against a squad of major leaguers managed by Charlie Dressen in a five-game exhibition series at Ebbets Field. Dressen, a Dodgers coach at the time, approached Campanella to arrange a meeting with Dodgers general manager and part-owner Branch Rickey later that month. Campanella spent four hours listening to Rickey, whom he later described as “the talkingest man I ever did see,” and politely declined when Rickey asked if he was interested in playing in the Brooklyn organization. Campy thought he was being recruited for the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, a new Negro League outfit that Rickey was supposedly starting. A few days later, however, he ran into Jackie Robinson in a Harlem hotel. After Robinson confidentially told him he’d already signed with the Dodgers, Campy realized that Rickey had been talking about a career in Organized Baseball for him. Afraid that he’d blown his shot at the big leagues, he fired off a telegram to Rickey indicating his interest in playing for the Dodgers just before he left on a barnstorming tour through South America."    

Like I always say, all baseball cards are great pieces of history. Some have great players while others have great stories. And some, like this '51 Campanella, just seem to have both. I've only touched on the very tip of the iceberg that was Roy's contribution to the game and to the world, but this is a great way to start a conversation that I hope continues for a long time. I can't wait to add more of Campy's cardboard to my collection and learn more about his legacy, but I'll never lose my excitement and love for this card. I am thrilled to add it to my collection and could easily file this one under the "One of My Favorite Cards" title.

Either way - here's to you, Roy. Rest in peace and thank you for this walk into history.

Thanks for reading!

The Vintage Stack: 1952 Topps #194 Joe Hatten

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a batch of vintage cards that I was able to pick up off the Bay of E for slightly more than the price of a couple of blasters.   I was able to to finally sit down and dig through my new treasure stack.   Here were the breakdown statistics [year and (# of cards)]:

1952 (one), 1954 (one), 1955 (one), 1959 (nineteen), 1961 (one), 1962 (eleven), 1963 (one), 1964 (sixteen), 1965 (twenty), 1967 (two), 1971 (three), 1972 (one), 1974 (one), 1977 (one) and one 1978 football card.

Kind of an interesting breakdown, right?   Heavy on '59, '62, '64 and '65.   Fifty-two cards total, which means I'm at about 84 cents per card.   I would say that most of the cards top out around 'VG', condition-wise.   No big tears or paper-loss, so I should be able to read and appreciate each one.   Hmmm.....for vintage, I'm pretty much okay with this already - but let's see what we have.

First up - the oldest card in the stack: 

You can never go wrong with a '52.   This is THE set for so many of us, so any example is typically a great card.   Joe's card appears to have some staining issues along both edges but is actually very well centered.   The vintage Cubs logo is terrific but I am not so sure what the glowing bands are above Joe's follow-through pose.   I am assuming that we're staring at the upper roof line of Wrigley behind home plate?   Is that the home uniform worn by Joe?   In '51/'52, should the "C" be there on the front?   Hopefully a Cubbies fan can help me out!   Regardless, it looks to either be a beautiful sunset in Chicago or Hatten is about to be beamed up by aliens.

Focus.....

Joe Hatten played in the majors from 1946 until 1952.   It looks like this may have been his last card?   I can't find anything from Bowman or Topps for Joe in 1953.   Mr. Hatten was a fellow Navy man, serving during WW2 (beginning in 1942), so this card is already highly coveted in the Ryan's Pitch Collection.

Upon returning home from war, Joe hooked up with the Brooklyn Dodgers and pitched for them until 1951.   During that time, he was their Opening Day starter twice -  in 1947 and 1949.   He went 6 innings against the Boston Braves on 4/15/1947 but ended up with a no-decision.   In 1949, he opened up against the New York Giants and tossed a complete game, beating the Giants 10-3 on 4/19.   Way to go, Joe!   His finest season came in '47 when he went 17-8 and he even started one game against the Yankees in the '47 Series - it was Game 3 and he would unfortunately (fortunately) give up 6 runs in only 4.1 innings....though the Dodgers would eventually win the game.

Joe was traded to the Cubs in 1951 and as you can see below, he was slowly losing control of his pitches:

I love the middle name, Hilarian!   The back of this card is in pretty good shape, too.  Most importantly -  I can read everything, so everything after that is icing.   The extra 1/2" on Hatten's height listing caught my eye and made me chuckle a little bit.   I don't know if I've ever noticed a "1/2" denotation before....but I'll probably be on the lookout for them from here on out.

The career BB:K ratio isn't looking so hot here, but out of a total of seven years in the big leagues, the back of this '52 denotes the ONLY losing season that Hatten ever had, his 3-6 campaign in 1951.   Not too shabby, Joe.

As you guys know, I love these old cards.   Each one tells such an amazing story, branching off into a million other baseball tales.   The fact that my first card from the E-Bay vintage stack is a WW2 veteran is a good sign.   I think I have some enjoyable cardboard appreciation on the way and this Joe Hatten gets us off to a great start.

Glad to add you to my collection, Joe.

Thanks for reading and keep collecting!

One of My Favorite Cards: 1954 Topps #153 Albert "Rube" Walker

As promised, some Dodger "blue"!

I love this card.   It's a 1954 Topps card, so I would love it anyways - but this one definitely has my attention.   It's in pretty good shape, so I feel lucky to have it in my collection as a great representation of baseball in its golden age.   The coloring is terrific and the old-school look of Rube's collapsed hat should be in the dictionary to explain what exactly a "ball cap" is!

Classic. Period.

The details on the front side of this card provide you everything you need to know - team, team logo, position, autograph, close-up and "position action shot".   Rube was a catcher for the Dodgers, so this card provides the extra bonus of getting to see some of that classic catcher's gear.   Love it.

The back of this card is just as good.   It divulges the full spectacle of Albert Bluford Walker Junior's name.   Would never have guessed he was from North Carolina with a name like that, eh?   Rube batted left but fielded as a right hander.  Rube never played ball in college and was drafted by the Cubbies out of high school in 1948.   The write-up gives a great tidbit on a couple of records that Mr. Walker lay claim to as a young player with Brooklyn who was finally getting a shot in '52.   Campanella was obviously the main guy behind the plate for the Dodgers at this time, so I can only imagine the frustration that Rube felt as he battled to make the starting line-up.   Or, perhaps he was enjoying every minute of it!?   Topps squeezes even more information into the comprehensive review of Walker's minor league batting numbers.   That's good stuff and something we don't see too much of anymore.

Call me Al......unless it's the FRONT of this card...

Topps provides the previous year's statistics along with the cumulative career numbers, as was the standard.   It looked like Rube was a pretty good fielder with a .978 fielding percentage.   You combine that with a .250 average and I think you have the makings of a solid back-up catcher.  Plus, his name was Rube and that's just awesome in itself.

Ah, the cartoon strip, "Inside Baseball".   Love these things, and this particular 3-panel strip is a great example.   It relates a portion of Rube's contribution to the epic Dodger-Giants playoff series of 1951.   Most of us know about that (the "Shot Heard 'Round the World") Series and its incredible/terrifying finish but what I personally did not know was that MVP Campanella did not play in Games 2 or 3.   If I am reading the comic correctly, the "...a Dodger was hurt..." refers to Campy, right?   First of all, I am a bit shocked that Topps didn't provide the star player's name here......perhaps it was a simple factor of not being able to fit "Campanella" - but I don't think so!   There's a lot of space still available in Panel #1.   My second complaint is that I can only find mention of Campanella's injury in one remote space in the internet universe......somebody refers to Roy "injuring his thigh" at some point.   But I can't find a write-up of Game 2 that describes some type of in-game injury or event and the resulting substitution.   In fact, Baseball-Reference.com doesn't portray Campanella as being on the starting lineup.   Therefore, I'm assuming that the Dodger backstop suffered something during Game 1 and just couldn't make the start in Games 2 or 3. 

Can anybody confirm this?   For you Dodgers fans - do you think this had any impact on the Series' outcome.......well, more than that whole telescope, thing?

Anyways - Rube Walker got his chances in Games 2 and 3 and, as it says on the back of this card, made good use of his time.   He pounded 3 hits and 2 homers to assist the Dodgers on their way to a 10-0 victory that necessitated that epic Game 3.

Or did he?

The back of this 1954 Topps card credits two home runs to Walker but the box scores at baseball-reference.com do not agree - they report only 1 home run, in the 9th inning, for 'ol Rube.   Huh.   I wonder what happened there?   Does anybody know?   Perhaps some kind of in-the-park deal from earlier in the game?   You can read over the numbers from that Game 2 here.   That would be interesting - again, if anybody can provide some insight, I'd be grateful.   Otherwise, it may just be a baseball card curiosity! 

Rube much closer to achieving "full Medlen" than Tom.

Walker went on to do some managing for the Dodgers and Yankees farm systems before becoming a pitching coach for the Senators, Mets and Braves.   A testament to the role a good catcher can play in successful pitching, he was a pitching coach for the Mets from '68 through '81, including the Amazin' Mets of '69 and oversaw development of two pitchers that made their way through the Metropolitans organization: Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver.   'Nuff said, Rube!

Guess what just got added to my "Want" list?

Mr. Walker finished out his days in the Game as a scout for the Cardinals and passed away in '92.

So there you go - some great stories to go along with this Rube Walker card from 1954.   I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did researching (even though I feel a bit incomplete for the effort).   Mr. Walker sure is a great part of the Dodgers' franchise history and another classic component of our great Game, too.

Thanks for reading!

A look at Gil Hodges: 1954 Bowman #138

Finally.  

A major component of the mission statement for Ryan's Pitch was a promise to take a look at cards from my collection.   To share and enjoy.   To remember and appreciate - both the card and the player.   I've had a healthy run of trade reviews and new card reviews on here, mixed in with some good tidbits of TTM success and other random topics.....but here's a great example of what I consider to be the favorite part of my sports card collection:

Gil Hodge's 1954 Bowman card, Card #138

Egads! 

But...but....It's not even a Yankee, you may say......and you're right!   It surely isn't.   Don't worry, fellow Bombers fans.   I promise that there will be pinstripes aplenty as this blog marches on.   But the Ryan's Pitch Collection (that sounds so enjoyably corny to me as I write it) appreciates greatness from the game in all shapes, sizes and colors - and this is no exception.

The Card.

No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you and I don't have a defective scanner.   This card is horribly trimmed.   In fact,  I can't imagine that this card could have been in a worse shape to have caused the guilty trimmer to reach the point at which he or she stopped and said, "OH YES - THAT looks so much better!"

But that's fine by me.   I can see color.   I can see Mr. Hodges.   I can see his signature.   We're good to go.   I love vintage in any shape, form or fashion (especially for 99 cents)!   The '54 Bowman set is certainly not going to cause you to jump in jubilation.   It's a simple design, much more so than the Topps set from that same year for sure.   But it IS color, which by '54 had finally become the prevailing medium (Deckle Edge and other special sets to come notwithstanding).   And these colors are sharp.   The yellow highlighting has nothing to do with that beautiful Dodger Blue but the clear skies and fluffy clouds behind Gil's huge smile brings it all back to order.   There are creases all over this great card but they don't take away anything from Gil Hodges, arguably the finest first baseman from the golden age of baseball and a true gentleman as well. 

“If you had a son, it would be a great thing to have him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.” -- Pee Wee Reese

He was loyal to the Dodgers from '43 on through 1961 when he finished things up with the Mets.   He would also then manage for the Senators and Mets until 1971, highlighted by his role as leader for the "Miracle Mets" in 1969 when they overcame the machine that was the Baltimore Orioles and claimed the first World Series title for any expansion team.   As a player, though, Gil was an eight time All-Star and three time World Champion.   He garnered three Gold Glove Awards and ended his career with a total of 370 HRs.   I'm always a bit partial to those amazing players who broke away from the game to defend our country during WWII and Korea.   Mr. Hodges was one of these heroes, leaving after that initial '43 season at the age of 19 to join the Marines and, you know,  man some anti-aircraft guns at the Battles of Tinian and Okinawa in the Pacific Campaign.  

Reflect on that for just a moment.

He earned a Bronze Star for his meritorious service and returned to baseball in 1946.   Job well done, Mr. Hodges.   I have some other Gil Hodges cards in my collection that I can't wait to share here - so I'll save a few of my other favorite stories of Brooklyn's beloved ballplayer from Indiana.   It's all good stuff - this man was amazing.   In the meantime, let's wrap up this look at his '54 Bowman card!

Here's the back of this great card:



The classic design is at work here for Bowman.   Dominating the back of the card is a great write-up to devour that starts off with a very proper, dated comment:

"Big Gil is one of the nicest fellows in baseball and one of the most capable and dangerous of players."

I love it.   He's a great guy......but he's dangerous.   The ying AND the yang.    The write-up also describes Hodges' four HR game in 1950.   In light of Josh Hamilton's recent tying of that mark, this certainly seems appropriate.   This '54 card notes that Gil tied a major league mark with his four dingers.   So who had previously slammed four round trippers in one game?

Bobby Lowe (Boston Beaneaters) in 1894

Ed Delahanty (Philadelphia Phillies) in 1896

Lou Gehrig (New York Yankees) in 1932

Chuck Klein (Philadelphia Phillies) in 1938

Pat Seerey (Chicago White Sox) in 1948

Impressive, Phillies!   The Hambino was the 16th player to join this list in baseball statistics when he knocked four out against the Orioles on May 8th. 

The back of the card also delivers both offensive and fielding statistics for the previous year and Mr. Hodge's career averages.   Gil would slam 42 home runs in 1954, taking back the Brooklyn team record for dingers in a season from Roy Campanella (who bested the previous mark of 40, set by Hodges in 1951.   Duke Snider would overtake Hodges again in '56.

A great vintage baseball card of a great ball player from the game's golden age.   I am thrilled to have it in my collection and to be able to share it with you.

Thanks for reading!