Bill's Baseball Card Blog

  Ever since I can remember, No. 44 has always been my favorite number. I can't say for sure when it started, but during my formative years I recall the likes of Hank Aaron, Jerry West, and Leroy Kelly wearing that number and that was good enough for me. And being from the Syracuse area, well, no. 44 is famous here for all the great SU football players that wore that number. In baseball, we'll start with two baseball greats that wore No. 44. National Baseball Hall of Famer, Hank Aaron. 1973 Topps card #100. National Baseball Hall of Famer, Willie McCovey. 1970 Topps card #250. Next we'll show early famous No. 44's from Syracuse University starting with Jim Brown (1954 - 1956), followed by Ernie Davis (1959 - 1961 including the 1961 Heisman Trophy winner, becoming the first African-American to do so), and then Floyd Little (1964 - 1966). These gents rank among the finest running backs to ever play the game. National Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown.   Image of Jim Brown ...

This week we have lost several former MLB players, including Jay Johnstone, Bob Gibson, Lou Johnson, and Ron Perranoski. Yes, another former MLB player died this week at his own hands after reportedly killing a woman. This post will say no more about that. Lou Johnson played 8 MLB seasons with the Chicago Cubs, California Angels, Milwaukee Braves, L.A. Dodgers, and Cleveland Indians. He hit .258 with 48 homers and 232 RBIs in 677 games. Johnson is a also member of the Syracuse Baseball Wall of Fame. In 1963, Johnson batted .296 with 15 HR and 71 RBI in his only season in a Chiefs uniform. 1963 (#238), 1966, (#13) & 1968 (#184) Topps cards. Ron Perranoski and Lou Johnson were Dodger teammates from 1965 to 1967. Perranoski played in the major leagues from 1961 to 1973 for the Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and California Angels. He had a career record of 79-74 with 178 saves and a 2.79 ERA. 1971 Topps card #475. Jay Johnstone was good enough to play 15 full seasons in t...

  Here are a few recent pickups of Hall of Famers and some misc. cards. HoFer Bill McKechnie managed for 25 years and had four pennants and two World Series championships (1925 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and 1940 with the Cincinnati Reds). 1976/77 Shakey's Pizza, card #89. HoFer Sparky Anderson was featured here . Sparky Anderson, 1975 SSPC, card #22. HoFer Tony Perez was the heart of the Big Red Machine's "Great Eight." The seven time All Star had over 90 RBIs 12 times in his 23 year career. Tony Perez, 1975 SSPC, card #22. Love this card showing the slugger in a bunting pose! HoFer Warren Spahn is 6th in all-time wins (363) and has the most of all left-handed pitchers in MLB history. The 17 time All Star won 20 games or more 13 times, and was the NL Cy Young winner in 1957. After pitching 4 games for the Boston Braves in 1942, Spahn missed the next three seasons due to military service (thank you). Imagine how many wins he would have finished with if he didn't ...

Here are some recent pickups for my Syracuse Baseball Wall of Fame collection.  In Red Barrett's two seasons in Syracuse, he went 16 - 3 with a 2.34 ERA (1938) and 20-12 with a 2.05 ERA (1942). Clearly worthy of Syracuse Baseball Wall of Fame recognition. In 1945, Barrett went 23 - 12 with a 3.00 ERA combined between the Boston Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals.  Red Barrett 1983 TCMA, NNO. The scanner didn't scan the card front text that said "Red Barrett, Pitcher, 1942 - 1946 St. Louis Cardinals." Red Barrett, 1977 TCMA The War Years, card #23. Sadly the scanner would not cooperate with a scan of the card reverse which says "The War Years," and shows his name and statistics during the war years clouded from cannons in the lower corners.  Pepper Martin played with the Syracuse Stars in 1926 and batted .300 and led the team with 29 stolen bases. Martin went on to play 13 years with the St. Louis Cardinals and was a four time All Star.   Pepper Martin, 1983 ...

Finally! I finally landed a baseball card of Hall of Famer Bill Veeck! With this card, after a re-count, I'm down to waneeding four "cards" to complete my goal of having at least one card of every National Baseball Hall of Famer. My new self-imposed definition of a "card" excludes postcards. You see, I have postcards of the following individuals, but I waneeded a "regular" card of Veeck, and I  waneed a "regular" card of Bill Foster, John Schuerholz, Frank Selee, and Deacon White to meet my goal. By "regular", I'm thinking of something that, in my mind, was more of a retail issue size card and will fit in a 9-pocket sleeve. BTY, I hereby coin the terms " waneed ," " waneeded ", and " waneeding " as something that you want, wanted, or are wanting so badly that you convince yourself that you need, needed, or are in need of it, respectively, - LOL!  The cards shown herein were from the Chicagoland Co...

As mentioned in my One Card Away post, I've been trying for 15 years to collect at least one card of each member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In that post, I exclaimed my excitement of obtaining Ben Taylor and Andy Cooper cards from the superb the Graig Kreindler Negro League Centennial Set , which whittled my HoF want list down to one card -  John Schuerholz. From my experience, the Taylor and Cooper cards were thee most elusive of all Negro League cards to collect; however, there were several other Negro League cards that took quite a long time to collect as well. These elusive cards include the following Hall of Fame players: 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #74. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #26. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #136. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card #93. 2020 Negro League Centennial Set, card#56. The 2020 Negro League Centennial Set is by far the most comprehensive card collection of people associated with the Negro L...