1934-1936 Diamond Stars: #68 "Sam" Leslie

Sunday, October 3, 2021

#68 "Sam" Leslie - Brooklyn Dodgers

Samuel Andrew Leslie

Brooklyn Dodgers

First Base

Bats: Left Throws: Left Height: 6'0" Weight: 192

Born: July 26, 1905, Moss Point, MS

Major League Teams: New York Giants 1929-1933; Brooklyn Dodgers 1933-1935; New York Giants 1936-1938

World Series Appearances: New York Giants 1936-1937

Died: January 21, 1979, Pascagoula, MS (73)

Behind future Hall of Famer and first baseman Bill Terry (#14) on the Giants' depth chart, Sam Leslie spent the first four and a half seasons of his big league career seeing limited playing time. Between 1929 and 1932, he appeared in 133 games for the Giants, with 125 of those appearances coming as a pinch-hitter. He established a major league single-season record (since broken) of 22 pinch-hits in 1932 which is still the Giants' franchise single-season record. On June 16, 1933, Leslie finally got his chance at regular playing time when he was dealt to the Dodgers for Watty Clark and Lefty O'Doul. He enjoyed his finest seasons in Brooklyn, batting .332 with 102 RBIs in 1934 and following that up by batting .308 with 93 RBIs in 1935. Both RBI totals led the club in those two years but Casey Stengel's (#150) Dodgers club couldn't crack the second division in the league.

Leslie was sold back to the Giants before the 1936 season, and he'd play three final seasons in mostly a back-up role again, this time to Johnny McCarthy. Leslie was a key player in the Giants' push to winning the pennant in both 1936 and 1937, unfortunately losing to the Yankees both years in the World Series. Leslie retired with 749 hits, a .304 batting average, 36 home runs and 389 RBIs.

Building the Set

August 31, 2021 from Niwot, CO - Card #28

To close out the summer, and after adding a trio of cards from Clean Sweep Auctions, I decided to add another trio of cards, this time from eBay seller Vintage Card Company from Niwot, Colorado. I had a few of these cards on my watch list for a good chunk of the summer and while parsing down that watch list recently I opted for the Buy It Now option in lieu of the Remove from Watch List option. The former option is always more fun. The trio of cards arrived the day of my Mom's back surgery so they were a welcome sight in my mailbox after a day of anxiety and waiting. (She's doing great now, slowly but surely recovering.)

Variations Available

1 - 1935 / green back / 1934 statistics / 1935 copyright

The Card / Dodgers Team Set

There's quite a bit of grime on this card, but I guess that's to be expected from a well-loved, 86-year-old baseball card. I had to double check the wonderful reference book Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century by Marc Okkonen to see if the Dodgers ever had their team named spelled out on their jerseys in red. In 1933, their road uniforms spelled out Dodgers in blue with a red outline. Beginning in 1934 and through 1936, both their home and away uniforms spelled out Brooklyn in blue with a red outline. I believe the artist here was taking some liberties as the source photograph most likely has Leslie in a Giants uniform and the artist needed to swap that for a Dodgers uniform. The tip on the back of the card instructs first basemen how to take a throw at the bag, especially when needing to stretch or when there's danger of collision with the runner.

1935 Season

In his final full season with the Dodgers, Leslie was again their every day first baseman, most regularly sharing the Brooklyn infield with Tony Cuccinello (#55) at second base, Lonny Frey (#117) at shortstop and Joe Stripp (#89) at third base. Leslie won the team's batting title (.308) and RBI title (93) and his 30 doubles were second on the club behind Frey's 35. Leslie appeared in 142 games. It's a shame he didn't get more regular playing time during his career as he truly excelled when given the chance.