Something Different

At the beginning of the year I made a post all about the different goals that I was going to achieve collecting baseball cards this year.  One of my goals this year was to put together four or five different sets.  It has not really happened.  I am feeling done with sets at this point.  I am almost sure I have finished Topps Series 1.  I thought about working on a Bowman set until it actually came out, and prospectors started throwing around crazy amounts of money.  

The Stadium Club cards look nice, so maybe that will be a set I put together, but I am still not sure.  These are nice.....

So, single cards.  I have decided to give myself a little focus, and do something a little different with finding my single cards the rest of the year.  Sure, there will be plenty of the usual modern cards with autographs, Cardinals cards, and Durham Bulls cards on here.  Just going to spend a little bit of time finding some older cards.  That means different things with my Cardinals and Durham Bulls collections.  

Let's do the Durham Bulls for this post.  

I want some old Durham Bulls cards.  The team has been around since 1902 and there have been plenty of notable players who have appeared in Durham prior to some of the more modern cards that I post in this space.  I have posted a few cards from the 1950s and 60s, but not much from before that time.  

I want to do more with older Durham Bulls cards, but more outside of the single card posts I do about a former player.  I recently found two older Bulls cards last week.  Pretty nice cards from the 1940 Play Ball set. 

First up is former Bulls pitcher Mace Brown.  I have not written about him before, so he definitely deserves a post at some point.  He played for the Bulls in 1931 after graduating from the University of Iowa, and eventually ended up playing for the Pirates and Red Sox.  Brown was one of the first full time relief pitchers, and also spent time working for the Red Sox after he retired as a player.  More on Brown on a different day.  Love this card.  

Next up a little bit more consequential player.  

"Buck" McCormick is actually Frank McCormick who was the National League MVP in 1940 with the Cincinnati Reds.  He had played for the Bulls while he was in the Minors, and went on to become one of the better hitters in baseball during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  

I like the little pennant up in the top left corner of the card.  The Reds went to the World Series in both 1939 and 1940 with McCormick as their main offensive cog.  The 1939 team lost to the Yankees, but the 1940 defeated the Tigers.  Great card that will look nicely in my small collection of Frank McCormick cards.  

Project Durham Bulls #52 - Merrill "Pinky" May

1933 Durham Bulls 

Background- Merrill May was originally a Yankees farmhand after graduating from Indiana University.  At some point in the lower Minors he picked up the nickname "Pinky", but he still has a few baseball cards that refer to him as Merrill.  He played for the Durham Bulls in 1933, who were a Yankees affiliate for just that season, and hit .309 with 3 home runs, and 31 doubles. The Phillies picked him up in the Rule 5 Draft at the end of the 1938 season.  May was the Phillies starting third baseman from 1939 until 1943.  He was best known for his strong defense at the hot corner, and posted a slash line of .275/.354/.337 for his career.  May was drafted into the Navy after the 1943 season.    

After returning from the war, May spent two years playing in the Pirates Minor League system before he was given the opportunity to take over the team's managerial job.  May would spend the the next twenty-five years managing in the Minors for the Pirates, Indians, Yankees, and Reds.  He had some great years mixed in there though, including a 90 win season with Keokuk Kernels, which is a rarity in the Minors.

One of May's other notable moments in his Minor League managing career came in 1967 while managing the Indians Class A Ball team in Statesville, North Carolina.  The league also featured a Pirates affiliate with his son Milt as the starting catcher.  Milt May ended the season with 10 home runs hit against his father's team.  Those ten included an inside the park home run where Pinky was ejected for arguing that the ball got stuck in a net and should only be a double. In another game, Milt hit two home runs in consecutive at-bats, Pinky ordered him to be hit. 

Milt ended up playing 15 years, primarily for the Pirates, Giants, and Tigers.  

Card- Pinky May has several different cards floating around out there, most of them come from the late 1930s and 1940s Play Ball sets.  I did not want to pay a ton of money for some slabbed card, so I watched a few that were in decent shape, and ended up with the one pictured above.  It's off center, the corners are worn, there are some surface issues, but overall I really like this card.  Obviously there are not a ton of 1930s baseball cards in my collection, so it's nice to end up with another one at a reasonable price.