1934-1936 Diamond Stars: #90 Ray Hayworth

Sunday, September 19, 2021

#90 Ray Hayworth - Detroit Tigers

Raymond Hall Hayworth

Detroit Tigers

Catcher

Bats: Right Throws: Right Height: 6'0" Weight: 180

Born: January 29, 1904, High Point, NC

Major League Teams: Detroit Tigers 1926, 1929-1938; Brooklyn Dodgers 1938-1939; New York Giants 1939; St. Louis Browns 1942; Brooklyn Dodgers 1944-1945

World Series Appearances: Detroit Tigers 1934

Died: September 25, 2002, Salisbury, NC (98)

Known as a strong defender behind the plate, Ray Hayworth spent almost 50 years in professional baseball as a player, manager and scout. Beginning in 1934, after a few seasons of seeing regular playing time with the Tigers, Hayworth settled in as the back-up for future Hall of Famer and player/manager Mickey Cochrane (#9). He was a member of the 1934 and 1935 Tigers teams that won the American League pennant, although he didn't appear in the 1935 World Series when the Tigers defeated the Cubs in six games. Hayworth briefly returned to regular starting duties in 1936, but then spent the remaining years of his playing career as a back-up with the Tigers, Dodgers, Giants and Browns. He appeared in nine games with the Dodgers in 1944 and 1945, as one of the oldest players in the league as World War II had severely depleted major league rosters. Hayworth retired with 546 career hits and a .265 batting average.

He began his managerial career in 1946 when Dodgers president Branch Rickey hired him to manage the Fort Worth Cats, the Dodgers' Texas League affiliate. He moved to the Cubs organization in 1947, and served as their chief of scouting operations in 1959. Hayworth scouted Ernie Banks, signing the young star to a $22,000 contract in 1953. Hayworth later scouted for the Braves (1960-1970) and Expos (1971-1973), before finally retiring from baseball.

Building the Set

August 26, 2021 from Port Washington, NY (Clean Sweep Auctions) - Card #26

I returned to Clean Sweep Auctions for a trio of cards for my Diamond Stars set to celebrate recent positive work-related news. Again, while some people would prefer expensive trinkets or a fancy night on the town after a professional achievement, I prefer to celebrate by buying a few old baseball cards. I'm getting more familiar with a lot of the usual players involved in eBay auctions for these older pre-war cards, and I've found Clean Sweep regularly has the most reasonable prices for their cards. I've learned to steer clear of certain sellers who typically mark up their prices at what are occasionally twice as much as the same cards from Clean Sweep. Another challenge while trying to build this set is trying to stay away from graded/slabbed cards. I'd like to house the entire set in nine-pocket pages, in order, and so far I've been able to save myself the trouble of buying a slabbed card and having to jailbreak it from the hard plastic casing. I realize I may decide to break this rule for some of the pricier cards in the set when I get to the point of adding those.

This is the second card I've added from the set's third and final series, issued in 1936. All the cards issued in 1936 by National Chicle contain blue ink on the card backs, instead of the green ink used for the cards issued in 1934 and 1935.

Variations Available

1 - 1936 / blue back / 1935 statistics / 1936 copyright

The Card / Tigers Team Set

I'm assuming National Chicle intended that to be outfielder Goose Goslin (#112) making a cameo appearance on Hayworth's card, having a conversation with an umpire. Goslin, a future Hall of Famer, played with the Tigers between 1934 and 1937 and wore #4 while with Detroit. While Goslin didn't appear in the originally issued Diamond Stars cards released between 1934 and 1936, he did have a potential fourth series card that presumably could have been released in 1937. Goslin would have to wait until the 1981 issuance of the extended set collector's series to finally receive his own Diamond Stars card. Then again . . . maybe that's not even a Tigers player. Hayworth is shown wearing a white Tigers hat while the mysterious #4 is shown wearing a dark hat. The Tigers wore the white hat worn by Hayworth on the road for just the 1935 season.

The back of the card discusses Hayworth's role as Cochrane's back-up, and notes the Tigers are favored to repeat as American League champions in 1936.

1936 Season

But the Tigers did not repeat, dropping to second place and losing manager Cochrane to a nervous breakdown in early June. Hayworth again assumed every day catching duties, ultimately appearing in 81 games and batting .240. Coach Del Baker would take over for Cochrane during his absence.