Baseball Card Show Report - Valley Forge 4

1941 Play Ball #9

1957 Topps #174

1958 Hire's Root Beer #43

1959 Topps #338

On Sunday, Doug and I attended the Philadelphia Sportscard & Memorabilia Show in Valley Forge. Doug had actually saved Christmas money for this show and he's spent the last few weeks preparing his checklists.  We had a fantastic day, and I'm OK with the fact that Doug came away with way more cards than I did.  I'm always grateful to those dealers that give Doug some extra attention, especially when they realize that this kid is truly a collector and not just looking for the big hits.

There were four former Phillies signing autographs on Sunday, and Doug admittedly had never heard of any of them.  That being said, we still decided to buy four autograph tickets so that he could at least meet them and add to a growing autograph collection.  I'll have a separate post coming up to show off our new autographs.

Doug was very happy going through the bargain bins and he added a small stack of vintage (1970s is vintage to him) Hall of Famer cards to his collection.  He also came away with a bunch of newer Phillies cards and some more Mike Trout cards for his growing player collection.  He's within a few cards now of completing his 2016 Topps Opening Day set, and he needs just one more card (Johnny Bench) for a complete 2016 Topps Bunt set.  Not to leave out his brother Ben, Doug hunted down an autographed Ben Revere card and a signed 8 x 10 photo of Revere for his brother's collection.

1948 Philadelphia Bulletin Stand-Ups

1949 Philadelphia Bulletin Phillies

While we weren't adding cards to Doug's collection, I managed to add a bunch of cool cards to my collection as well.  The "newest" card I brought home was from 1971:

• I wanted to add at least one of the four following big stars to my 1971 Topps set:  Ernie Banks, Willie Mays, Bench or Roberto Clemente.  I came away with both the Banks and Bench cards along with several other semi-stars and a few high numbers.  I'm slowly making progress on this set and once it's completed I'll be the proud owner of a complete run of Topps sets from 1970 through 2015.
• I picked up a nice assortment of Phillies cards from the 1950s and 1960s, with the highlight being the addition of Sparky Anderson's rookie card from the 1959 Topps set.
• I found a gorgeous (and cheap!) Pinky May card from the 1941 Play Ball set.
• I found a few oddball Dick Sisler items from newspaper sets from the late 1940s.
• Finally, I added two 1911 T205 Gold Border Phillies cards to my collection, and I'll show these off in a future post.

It was truly a fantastic day and we're already making plans for our next big baseball card show outing!

Memory Lane

Valley Forge 1 - September 2010 - Thinking of my Dad
Valley Forge 2 - October 2012 - Doug's first baseball card show
Valley Forge 3 - September 2014 - Meeting Darren Daulton
Valley Forge 4 - September 2016

1939 Play Ball - Phillies Team Set

I recently put the finishing touches on a complete 1939 Play Ball Phillies team set, adding the card of Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy to my collection.  I thought it would be cool to present the entire 10-card team set here with a brief blurb on each player's Phillies career.

The 1939 Phillies have the distinction of being one of the worst teams in franchise history, finishing with a .298 (45-106) won/loss percentage and eclipsing the 105 losses suffered by the 1938 Phillies team.

#12 Hershel Martin

#28 Sylvester Johnson

#33 Del Young

#37 Virgil Davis

#45 Merrill May

#46 Morris Arnovich

#63 Emmett Mueller

#98 Pinky Whitney

#127 Gil Brack

#145 Hugh Mulcahy

#12 Hershel Martin - One of the regular outfielders for the 1939 Phillies, Martin hit .282 in 111 games for the club that season.  I wrote about Martin in this post, and I also featured a color picture of the 1938 club's blue and yellow uniforms.  I also have Martin's 1940 Play Ball card in my collection and I featured it in a post along with the next two players listed below.

#28 Sylvester Johnson - Johnson was at the end of his 19-year career in 1939, and he served as the team's pitching coach that season as well as appearing in 22 games.  Johnson pitched in three World Series games for the 1931 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.

#33 Del Young - Infielder Young appeared in 309 games with the Phillies between 1937 and 1940, hitting .224.

#37 Virgil Davis - "Spud" Davis was the Phillies regular catcher from 1930 to 1933 before escaping to the Cardinals and Reds for 4 1/2 seasons.  He'd come back to the Phils in 1938 and in 1939 he'd hit .307 in 87 games.  I published a more detailed post on Davis' career six years ago when I originally picked up his 1939 Play Ball card.

#45 Merrill May - 1939 was third baseman "Pinky" May's rookie season in the Majors.  I published a detailed look at May's career in this post from August 2009.  I also have cards of his in my collection from the 1940 Play Ball and 1941 Double Play sets.

#46 Morris Arnovich - Outfielder Arnovich was the club's leading hitter in 1939 with a .324 batting average and he was also the lone Phillies representative at the 1939 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.  I previously featured Arnovich's 1940 Play Ball card in this post.

#63 Emmett Mueller - "Heinie" Mueller played his entire four-year career with the Phillies between 1938 and 1941 before serving in World War II.  He hit a home run in his first big league at-bat off the Brooklyn Dodgers' Van Lingle Mungo.

#98 Pinky Whitney - One of the greatest third basemen in franchise history, 1939 was the 12th and final year of Whitney's big-league career.  I wrote about Whitney in this post, and his daughter (or relative) left a comment about Whitney being a wonderful father.

#127 Gil Brack - Baseball Reference lists Brack as "Gibby" Brack, and the outfielder spent two seasons with the Phillies in 1938 and 1939.  In 163 games with the Phils, Brack hit .288 with 10 home runs and 69 RBIs.  After his playing days were over, Brack was employed as a steel worker and unfortunately he met a tragic end.

#145 Hugh Mulcahy - Mulcahy started more games (32) than any other pitcher for the 1939 Phillies, going 9-16 with a 4.99 ERA.  As I wrote when I posted his 1940 Play Ball card, Mulcahy earned the "Losing Pitcher" nickname by going 42-82 with the Phillies over the first six years of his career.  He was the first Major Leaguer to be drafted to serve during World War II, and he'd miss four seasons (1941-1944) serving his country.

1940 Play Ball Phillies - Part 1

1940 Play Ball #98, #97, #96 and #95

As part of the "Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim" haul, my Mom added seven Phillies cards from the 1940 Play Ball set to my collection.  I'll feature the first four here.

The 1940 Play Ball set (designated R335 by Jefferson Burdick) contains 240 cards - 15 of which are current and former Phillies.  14,000 Phillies has a nice write-up on the set within its Phillies Database.  I now just need seven cards - including cards of Hall of Famers Chuck Klein and Grover Cleveland Alexander - to complete the Phillies team set.  All four players featured here were also World War II veterans.

This is the third card of "Pinky" May in my collection and the second card of May's added as part of my amazing Christmas haul.

"Morry" or "Morrie" Arnovich came up with the Phillies in 1936 and played outfield with the team until his trade to the Reds in June 1940.  His best season was the 1939 campaign, when he made the All-Star team and hit .324 with 5 home runs and 67 RBIs.

My six-year-old son, Doug, was very amused at Emmett Jerome Mueller's nickname - "Heinie."  Mueller played his entire four-year career with the Phillies between 1938 and 1941.  Primarily a second baseman, Mueller appeared in 441 games with the Phils, hitting .253 with 17 home runs.  I have both Arnovich's and Mueller's cards from the 1939 Play Ball set.

Finally, Gum, Inc. was kind not to include Hugh Mulcahy's more well known nickname, "Losing Pitcher," on his card.  So named because of his 42-82 record with the Phillies over the first six years of his career, Mulcahy was the first Major Leaguer to be drafted during World War II in March 1941.

1941 Double Play (R330) #45 & #46 Dan Litwhiler & Merrill May

She's done it again.

Last year, I chronicled my Mom's quest to continue the annual "Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim" tradition.  (See the posts linked below.)  This year, the tradition continued and I added several amazing vintage Phillies cards to my collection.  Similar to last year, I'm going to take my time in featuring the cards I received and spread them out over several posts.  As a teaser of what's to come, I can reveal that my Mom took care of two of the cards previously listed on my "Ten Most Wanted" list on the sidebar.  The list has since been updated to the "Eight Most Wanted," and I'll need to figure out two more cards to eventually add to the list.

Cross two cards off this list!

The card featured at the top of this post is the first Phillies card in my collection from the 1941 Double Play (R330) set.  According to my new copy of the Standard Catalog of Vintage Baseball Cards, which my Mom also gave me for Christmas, the 75-card Double Play set was issued by Gum Products, Inc., based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I found it amusing that the Catalog mentions, "Cards which have been cut in half to form single cards have little collector value."  This is something I definitely would have done had I been a kid in 1941.

This is the first card of Danny Litwhiler in my collection.  Litwhiler spent only parts of four seasons with the Phillies, from 1940 to 1943, enjoying his best season with the Phils in 1941.  That season, he hit .305 with 18 home runs and 66 RBIs.  More impressively, in 1942 he played 151 games in left field for the Phils and did not committ a single error, becoming the first player in history to play 150 or more games in the outifield in a season without an error.

Litwhiler went on to find great coaching success with the Florida State and Michigan State baseball programs and he was elected into six different baseball or athletic hall of fames.  He's also credited with developing the Jugs Speed Gun and as a member of the U.S. Olympics Baseball Committee from 1969 to 1983, he was instrumental in bringing baseball to the Olympic Games.  He passed away in Clearwater last year at the age of 95.

I featured a brief write-up on Merrill "Pinky" May a few years ago when I obtained his 1939 Play Ball card.

As confirmed with the 14,000 Phillies Database Project, there are two more Phillies cards in the 1941 Double Play set.

2011 Santa Brings Way Too Many Awesome Baseball Cards to Jim
Part 1 - Continuing a Tradition
Part 2 - 1971 Topps Set - 13 More Down
Part 3 - 1952 Topps Phillies
Part 4 - 1951 Bowman Phillies
Part 5 - Curt Simmons - Two New Bowman Cards
Part 6 - 1955 Bowman and Topps Phillies

1939 Play Ball #45 Merrill May

For less than a week, the 1948 Bowman Dutch Leonard card was the oldest Phillies card in my collection, until I added a few reasonable priced 1939 Play Ball cards via eBay auctions.

I’m told by my Sports Collectors Digest Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards that with the issue of the 1939 Play Ball set "a new era of baseball cards was born." The 161-card set was issued in a larger size than cards of the prior era, and the card backs contained full biographies of the players pictured. (I'm not sure why the bottom of the card advertises a 250-card set.) There are ten cards in the Phillies team set, and I now have four of them.

After attending Indiana University, Merrill "Pinky" May was selected by the Phillies from the New York Yankees system in the 1938 Rule 5 draft. He spent the next five seasons (1939-1943) as the Phillies starting third baseman before joining the Navy and serving in World War II. Pinky was one of the bright spots for the 1940 Phillies (a team that lost 103 games) making his first and only All-Star Game appearance. He led the team in runs scored, hits, walks and OBP, and he tied for the team lead in doubles. In total, he’d play 665 games for the Phillies, hitting .275 with 4 home runs and 215 RBI.

Following his time in the navy, Pinky retired from baseball as an active player and managed in the minor leagues for 27 years (1947-1972), compiling a record of 1658-1560. Given his winning record and his time in the minors, it’s surprising to me he never got a shot to manage in the Majors. Pinky passed away in September 2000 at the age of 89.

Son of Merrill: Pinky’s son, Milt May, played 15 seasons in the Majors from 1970 until 1984.