44 To Go

It's been a few days.  

I would like to tell you that I haven't posted in the past week because I have been on a fun vacation or a regular at the Durham Bulls games. 

I have been to one game.  

The Bulls lost on a long Tristan Gray home run.  

My Spring Break actually ended last week and I returned to work.  My free time evaporated.  

While I did not find time to type up a blog post, I did find time to find another 1952 Red Man tobacco card. Even found another Hall of Famer, my second in a row.  

Here is the card......

Ralph Kiner is easily the nicest card I have added since I started this project at the beginning of the year both in terms of the card condition and significance of the player. The tab is included and the surface and corners are all above average. I have a few other Hall of Famers on the National League side of the checklist. Kiner is my third behind Musial and Schoendienst, fourth overall when I included Larry Doby from the American League checklist.  

It's Saturday, the sun is shining, and my youngest wants to ride bikes. Sorry, no time to scan the card back. 

45 To Go

I am excited about my latest pick up for the Red Man Tobacco set I am attempting to assemble. As you can imagine, there are quite a few Hall of Famers on the checklist and are also the more expensive. Last week, I was able to acquire a copy of the Larry Doby card, who is my first Hall of Famer on the American League side of the checklist.  

Here is the front of the card.  

No tab, which is fine.  I am not being picky about the tabs. The surface of the card is clean, but three of the corners are soft with wear.  It's also a baseball card that is more than 70 years old.  Not sure how picky I should be about things like corner wear.  I am going to live with this one for the time being. Really happy with a clean surface.  

The card back is decent shape outside of some red spots. Not sure if that's marker or something else. 

Overall, very happy with my first American League Hall of Famer.  

46 To Go

I had no idea who Earl Torgeson was before I bought this card a few days ago, but was intrigued when I Google Searched him and the bio from his SABR page started out with this sentence: 

"In a 15-year major-league career filled with great stories and accomplishments of various stripes, Earl Torgeson was well known for getting in brawls."

The card was sold before I could read the second sentence of his bio.  

Here is the card.

This is my first Red Man card with a tab.  

A few facts I learned about Earl after reading his full SABR Bio:

-His nickname was "The Earl of Snohomish" after his hometown in Washington. The nickname was shared with Indians Hall of Famer Earl Averill who was from the same town. In fact, Torgeson grew up playing at Averill Field in Snohomish.   

-Prior to his rookie season he faced assualt charges in Washington for beating two men who had used vulgar language in front of his wife. Torgeson was found not guilty after the judge agreed with his actions.  

-Torgeson was in dozens of fights during his Major League career. After breaking his glasses in his first MLB brawl, he infamously would slowly remove them before charging pitchers or players to fight. 

-He chain smoked cigars

-The majority of his baseball career was spent with the Braves and White Sox, but he also appeared for the Phillies, Tigers, and Yankees. 

-After baseball, he was a County Commisioner representing the Snohomish area.    

I need 46 more cards.  

47 To Go

I picked up two more cards for my 1952 Red Man Tobacco set project over the past weeks. No big names, but this is a small set, so every card helps. Plus, it's fun to learn more about the 1950s players as I go through and find their cards.  

First up, three time World Series winner Murry Dickson.  

The Missouri native (Kansas City area) actually started his career with the Cardinals and won two World Series playing along side Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst as an spot starter and long reliever early in his career, but would end up being a mainstay of the rotation by the mid 1940s. Dickson started two World Series games for the Cardinals in 1946 when they defeated the Red Sox. 

He spent the middle part of his career on the Pirates where he led the National League in losses three years in a row, but also made the All-Star team and had an ERA in the 3s. I looked around the 1952 Pirates Baseball Reference page and found the team hit .231 and had a .331 slugging percentage. If Ralph Kiner did not hit a home run, they did not score.  

Hard to win that way.

His career ended in the late 1950s with the Yankees where he won a third World Series ring.  

This card is in good condition outside of the corners, which are worn. It's hard being a 70 year-old piece of cardboard. 

 

My first American League card out of the Red Man Tobacco set is Tigers outfielder and first baseman Vic Wertz. As the card describes, Wertz was a very good hitter, lots of home runs, doubles, and RBIs. He played in a bunch of All-Star Games over his career, but is more a Hall of Very Good Player than Hall of Fame.  Wertz ended up getting traded at the end of the 1952 season to the Browns where he was on their final team in St. Louis and their first team as the Baltimore Orioles. He also played for the Indians and Red Sox before ending up back on the Tigers at the end of his career.  

I need 47 more cards.....

National League 

5. Murry Dickson 

16. Stan Musial 

19. Al Schoendienst 

23. Eddie Stanky 

American League 

22. Vic Wertz 

Let's Talk Tobacco

Two years ago, I worked on putting together a set of 1964 Topps Giants cards. It took me roughly a year to complete, but was fairly inexpensive compared to other 1960s baseball card sets. Giants was a fun project for three reasons:

1.The set was small

2. The cards are inexpensive outside of a few short prints

3. It's a good looking set. 

I have decided to work on another card project based largely based on the fact that it largely fits the same criteria as the Topps Giants set. So, for the next year or so, I will be tracking down cards from the 1952 Red Man Tobacco set trying to put together a complete run of 52 cards. 

The good news is that I already have three cards from the set, which leaves me with 49.  

Here are the three, all of which are missing their bottom tab.  

Obviously Stan is one of the better cards in the set and I have a really clean copy. I would love to upgrade to a clean copy with the tab attached to the bottom of the card, but that is low on the priority list. In fact, I am fine collecting cards without the tabs. Feels like that may make this an easier project, less expensive too.  

There is also Eddie Stanky.  

This is another very clean card.  Love the pinkish background.  

Last.....

Alright, Red is a little rough around the edges with a few other creases. He's going to get replaced at some point during this project.  

So, here is where we stand on this project.  

I need 49 cards. I have:

National League: 

16. Stan Musial 

19. Al Schoendienst 

23. Eddie Stanky