SPECIAL INSERT: 1951 BLUE-BACK JOE DiMAGGIO

Up on the blog today, my special insert for my "Whole Nine: Series 2" set released a few months ago, this being a fun 1951 Topps Blue-Back Joe DiMaggio card:

Really fun to get this in that set as a special little bonus, hand-cutting each one by hand but well worth the effort!

As we all know the "Yankee Clipper" never did get on a Topps card as his career was wrapping up just as Topps was getting into the card market in the early-50s.

DiMaggio spent his late-teens putting up softball type numbers with the San Francisco Seals between 1932 and 1935 before taking the Majors by storm.

Over that time in the Minors he hit as high as .398 (1935), collecting 270 hits, with a staggering 456 total bases!

The kid was giving everyone a glimpse of what to expect when he reached the Major Leagues in 1936, instantly becoming one of the greatest to put on a Big League uniform.

"Joltin' Joe" put together a legendary career that eventually made him an American Icon, taking home three league MVP Awards, hitting safely in a record 56 straight games in 1941 and being a part of a staggering NINE World Champion teams between 1936 and 1951.

If not for his military service, losing three years during his prime between 1943 and 1945, his already lofty numbers would have been even better.

One of my favorite career stats for the guy? Let's admire his incredible feat of hitting 361 home runs while striking out only 369 times over his Big League tenure.

Now, while I certainly don't think he was the game's "greatest living ballplayer" as they voted him later on, the man was definitely up there, especially capturing the nation's attention the way he did.

A true legend.

JAPAN SPECIAL: 1951 SHIGERU SUGISHITA

Time for another "Japan Special" here on the blog, so today I post my 1951 card for all-time Japanese pitcher Shigeru Sugishita, who pitched between 1949 and 1961:

Over his career the righty posted 215 wins, twice winning 32 games in a season (1952 and 1954) with six straight 20+ win seasons between 1950 and 1955.

His 1954 season was tremendous, as he appeared in 63 games for the Chunichi Dragons, going 32-12 with an incredible 1.39 earned run average over 395.1 innings, completing 27 of his 32 starts while tossing seven shutouts.

He also set a career best when he whiffed 273 batters, one of three seasons where he topped 200 strikeouts.

His career totals: 215 wins, a 2.23 ERA over 525 appearances and 2841.2 innings, with 31 shutouts and 1761 strikeouts, taking home three Sawamura Awards as top pitcher (the first pitcher to win three such awards), getting elected to the Japan Hall of Fame in 1985.

REVISITING A BLOG POST FROM 2015: ALLIE REYNOLD'S TWO NO-HITTERS

On the blog today, we revisit a blog post from November of 2015 celebrating Allie Reynolds and his two no-hitters of 1951 on a 1971 "Turn back the Clock" card:

Here's the original write-up for the post as it appeared back then:

Today we celebrate Allie Reynolds and his two no-hitters in 1951, which he threw against the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox, in my “Turn Back The Clock” series.

The “Super Chief” had it going on in 1951, winning 17 games and leading the league with seven shutouts.
On July 12th of that year he faced his old team, the Indians, and beat them 1-0 thanks to a solo home run by Gene Woodling. He retired the last 17 batters he faced, and his rival pitcher, Bob Feller, pitched a no-hitter himself just eleven days earlier!
On September 28th, he faced Boston and easily beat them 8-0, which allowed the Yankees at least a tie for first in the American League.
Reynolds struck out nine and walked four, and of course we all know that the final batter he faced was none other than Ted Williams, arguably the greatest all-around hitter in baseball history.
All Reynolds had to do was, in a sense, retire him TWICE, as Yogi Berra dropped a foul pop-up for the final out, before catching the very next one, as Williams popped out to end the game.
Only six pitchers have thrown two no-hitters in one season, with Roy Halladay (2010) and Max Scherzer (2015) being the most recent to the exclusive club.

 

REVISITING AN OLD BLOG POST- DECEMBER 30TH, 2013

Thought it'd be fun to revisit an old post from the blog from about eight years ago, dealing with my imagined 1975 "Cy Young" sub-set mimicking the MVP sub-set, then going one further by citing an old SABR article from a 1993 journal guessing at who would have won the award before it's inception in 1956.

In this case we're looking at 1951, and my card creations for both men since they didn't have cards in the actual 1951 Topps set.

Here's the original write up:

"Back in the early 1990's I picked up the latest SABR Journal and it had a great article that wondered who would have won the Cy Young Award, had there been one, between 1901 and 1955, and who would have also won the award had they given it out in both leagues between 1956 and 1966.

I LOVE stuff like that, as I was also always imagining what the outcome would have been if "this or that" had come to pass.

Well, I recently got the idea to create a "Cy Young Award Winners" series based on the awesome 1975 "Most Valuable Players" sub-set, highlighting who the winners were, or WOULD have been, between 1951 and 1974.

For the "winning" pitchers prior to 1956, as well as the OTHER league winner for those "single-winner" years (56-66), I went with who the SABR people felt would have won as covered in that previously mentioned article.

Heck, if it was good enough for SABR, it's always good enough for me!

Now I'm sure there will be a pick or two that you don't agree with (there were some I wasn't totally convinced of myself). But it IS fun to start the discussion with the SABR picks!

Today we'll start with 1951, as I created a card that showcases who SABR assumed would have won the award: Sal Maglie in the National league and Ed Lopat in the American League.

Take a look at my card design:

Both Maglie and Lopat didn't have a Topps card that year, so I created one for each player (as Topps did for Roy Campanella and Maury Wills for their M.V.P. set). So in essence, I have imagined cards for an imagined card.
Here's a closer look at the "created" cards for this post:

Maglie had a brilliant 1951 campaign, as he lead the Giants in that dramatic pennant winning season with a 23-6 record along with a 2.93 E.R.A.

He pitched in 42 games, of which 37 were starts, and he not only threw three shutouts that year, but threw in four saves as well. Not bad for a guy pitching in only his second full season in the big leagues, at the ripe "old" age of 34!

As it was, Maglie finished fourth in Most Valuable Player voting that year. But it seems he would have been a good pick to win a Cy Young Award in the National league if there was one that year.

For the American league, SABR felt that Ed Lopat of the Yankees would have own the award, based on his 21-9 record and 2.91 E.R.A.

Lopat appeared in 31 games that championship-winning season in the Bronx, and pitched four shutouts with 20 complete games.

There were some other big game winners that year for the A.L. (Bob Feller, Ned Garver, Vic Raschi), but oddly enough they all had high earned run averages that off-set their other accomplishments, and I think that's why SABR went with Lopat.

I think I personally would have gone for Bob Feller instead, or maybe Raschi, but hey, like I said earlier, if SABR makes a pick I can easily go with it too and sleep well at night."

TURN BACK THE CLOCK 1951: ALLIE REYNOLDS SPINS TWO NO-HITTERS

Today we celebrate Allie Reynolds and his two no-hitters in 1951, which he threw against the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox, in my “Turn Back The Clock” series.
Take a look at the card I created:

The “Super Chief” had it going on in 1951, winning 17 games and leading the league with seven shutouts.
On July 12th of that year he faced his old team, the Indians, and beat them 1-0 thanks to a solo home run by Gene Woodling. He retired the last 17 batters he faced, and his rival pitcher, Bob Feller, pitched a no-hitter himself just eleven days earlier!
On September 28th, he faced Boston and easily beat them 8-0, which allowed the Yankees at least a tie for first in the American League.
Reynolds struck out nine and walked four, and of course we all know that the final batter he faced was none other than Ted Williams, arguably the greatest all-around hitter in baseball history.
All Reynolds had to do was, in a sense, retire him TWICE, as Yogi Berra dropped a foul pop-up for the final out, before catching the very next one, as Williams popped out to end the game.
Only six pitchers have thrown two no-hitters in one season, with Roy Halladay (2010) and Max Scherzer (2015) being the most recent to the exclusive club.

TURN BACK THE CLOCK 1951: BOB FELLER TOSSES HIS THIRD CAREER NO-HITTER

Today’s “Turn Back the Clock” card creation celebrates all-time great Bob Feller’s third career no-hitter, which he achieved on July 1st, 1951 against the Detroit Tigers.
Take a look:

Feller was already on his way to a legendary career when he posted the third no-no of his illustrious career. He already owned the Major League record for strikeouts in a season, strikeouts in a game, and pitched two previous no-hitters before taking the mound that day in 1951.
Funny enough he had no command of his fastball that day and was relying on his slider, not even thinking of what he was accomplishing until the seventh-inning.
In pitching his third no-hitter, Feller joined Larry Corcoran and Cy Young as the only pitchers to do so at the time in Major League history, adding yet another feat to an already incredible career.
What I always wonder is what kind of career numbers could we have been looking at had he not missed some prime seasons because of World War II?
The man could have whiffed close to 4000 while easily posting over 300 wins, if not close to 350!