#16 Lloyd Waner - Pittsburgh Pirates

Lloyd James Waner
Pittsburgh Pirates
Oufield

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'9"  Weight:  150
Born:  March 16, 1906, Harrah, OK
Major League Teams:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1927-1941; Boston Braves 1941; Cincinnati Reds 1941; Philadelphia Phillies 1942; Brooklyn Dodgers 1944; Pittsburgh Pirates 1944-1945

World Series Appearances:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1927

Died:  July 22, 1982, Oklahoma City, OK (76)

Hall of Fame Induction:  1967

Lloyd "Little Poison" Waner, along with his brother Paul "Big Poison" Waner (#83), served as cornerstones of the Pirates outfield throughout the 1930s, eventually setting the major league record for hits by a pair of brothers with 5,611.  Lloyd, the younger Waner brother, settled in as the everyday center fielder for the Pirates in 1927, leading the league with 133 runs scored, collecting a career-high 223 hits and finishing sixth in the league's MVP voting.  Waner's 223 hits in his first year still stands as the all-time single season record for National League rookies.  He'd see his only postseason action that year, batting .400 (6 in 15) in the World Series ultimately won by the powerhouse Yankees in a four-game sweep.  Waner continued his steady output throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, leading the league in triples with 20 in 1929, and hits with 214 in 1931.  With little power, Little Poison led the league in singles four times, and had a batting average over .300 in 11 seasons.  He made his only All-Star team in 1938.

Waner spent the latter part of his career bouncing around a bit, but finishing back with the Pirates in 1944 and 1945.  He was a lifetime .316 batter with 2,459 hits and 1,201 runs scored.  The Veteran's Committee voted Waner into the Hall of Fame in 1967, and he was part of the inaugural Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame Class in 2022.

Building the Set

September 15, 2022 from San Diego, CA (Kit Young Cards) - Card #62

This Waner card was part of a larger stress-induced purchase from Kit Young Cards in mid-September.  The stress was all work related, and while some people choose to relieve stress through less productive means, I opted to purchase several vintage baseball cards.  The centerpiece of the haul was the 1965 Topps Carl Yastrzemski card, which dropped the number of cards needed for that complete set down to five.  Joining Yaz were Waner, the Diamond Stars card of Joe Stripp (#89), and a League Leaders card from the 1969 Topps set, which will be my focus after the last five cards needed from 1965 are tracked down.  

September 2022 was a blur.  I travelled for work the better part of two weeks, school started, the boys' fall sports schedules (cross country and baseball) were non-stop and there was little to no time to rest or to enjoy baseball card purchases.  

Taking a mental health day in early October, I'm happy to have the time to catch my breath and truly appreciate the new baseball cards that helped get me through the last month.

Variations Available

1 - 1934 / green back / 1933 statistics / 1934 copyright ✅

2 - 1935 / green back / 1934 statistics / 1934 copyright

3 - 1936 / blue back / 1935 statistics / 1934 copyright

The Card / Pirates Team Set

In my opinion, this is one of the most iconic cards of the set, and the bright art deco colors are on full display behind the posed shot of Waner reaching for the ball.  The tip on the back of the card implores outfielders to catch fly balls high above your head, in order to give yourself a second chance in case you bobble and drop the ball.  I can't say I've ever heard this as the reason for catching a fly ball above your head before.

1934 Season

Now a veteran on the Pirates, Waner was again the team's regular center fielder, appearing in 140 games and batting .283 with 173 hits.  Older brother Paul made 145 starts in left with Lloyd to his left in center field for 139 starts.  The Pirates finished in fifth place with a 74-76-1 record with third baseman Pie Traynor (#99) taking over as the club's manager a few months into the season.

Phillies Career

Waner was released by the Reds on October 8, 1941, signing as a free agent with the Phillies less than two months later on December 4th.  If that date seems vaguely familiar it's because Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces three days later on December 7th, sending the U.S. into World War II.  Because of current events, I imagine the signing of the aging Waner went largely unnoticed by Phillies fans.

The 1942 Phillies would lose 109 games.  Waner was the team's opening day center fielder, and he'd make 70 starts overall at the position.  In 101 games, he'd bat .261 with just 10 RBIs, the lowest total of any of the team's regular players.  His time in Philadelphia lasted just the one season as he was dealt to the Dodgers on March 9, 1943 with infielder Al Glossop for first baseman Babe Dahlgren.

1933 Goudey #164

1934-36 Batter-Up (R318) #17

1939 Play Ball #89

1961 Fleer Baseball Greats #84

1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes #22

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1933 Goudey #164

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (0):  N/A

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2018 Panini Diamond Kings #13

267 - Waner non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/3/22.

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
National Baseball Hall of Fame
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #15 Dick Bartell - Philadelphia Phillies

Next Card: #17 Frankie Frisch MG - St. Louis Cardinals

#56 "Gus" Suhr - Pittsburgh Pirates

August Richard Suhr
Pittsburgh Pirates
First Base

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  180
Born:  January 3, 1906, San Francisco, CA
Major League Teams:  Pittsburgh Pirates 1930-1939; Philadelphia Phillies 1939-1940

Died:  January 15, 2004, Scottsdale, AZ (98)

A steady slugger who rarely missed a game, Gus Suhr played 11 seasons in the majors, primarily with the Pirates.  Suhr starred for five seasons with the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals between 1925 and 1929, and compiled one of the best all-time single seasons in 1929.  He batted .381 that year with 51 home runs and 177 RBIs, causing the Pirates to acquire him and immediately name him their everyday first basman.  Suhr would hit at least 10 home runs in five different seasons, and drove in at least 100 runs in three seasons.  He compiled a National League record 822 consecutive games played streak beginning in 1931, that stood until broken by Stan Musial in 1957.  His career year came in 1936 for the fourth place Pirates when he was named to the National League All-Star team, and finished the season batting .312 with 11 home runs and 118 RBIs.  Suhr concluded his major league career playing parts of two seasons with the Phillies, and he'd return to the Seals for three seasons between 1943 and 1945 for a few more successful years.

Suhr collected 1,446 major league hits while batting .279 with 84 home runs and 818 RBIs.  He ranks in the top 100 among all first baseman with 1,406 games played (78th) and 13,103 career putouts (70th). 

Building the Set

September 9, 2022 from La Verne, CA - Card #61

In early September, I found myself taking the first of two required work trips and I purchased Wifi access on a flight to Orlando in order to catch up on work e-mails.  Dutifully catching up, and not having enough time to watch a full movie, I turned to eBay for the duration of the flight and found this Suhr card for sale at the very reasonable But It Now price of $32.50 from seller earhart47.  Not wanting the card to travel by itself from La Verne, California, I found four more cards for future set builds at reasonable prices and from high above somewhere over Georgia I clicked Add to Cart on those four cards too.  The Suhr card and its traveling companions were waiting for me when I got home late on the night of September 9th.  Sadly, during the second work trip, this time to Dallas, no new baseball cards were purchased while in flight.

Variations Available

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

The Card / Pirates Team Set

Given the angle of this photo, Suhr has caught the ball at first, forcing out the runner who continues to run down the first base line unaware of his fate.  The back of the card discusses the abilities needed from a first baseman to start double plays.  Suhr is a great subject for this tip, as he led the league twice in double plays turned by a first baseman, with 142 in 1930 and 150 in 1938.  His 1,086 double plays at the position are currently ranked 80th all-time.

1935 Season

Suhr was named the Pirates' team captain before the start of the season, and he appeared in all 153 games, starting all but 11 games at first base.  He batted .272 with 10 home runs and 81 RBIs, third on the team behind the RBI tallies of Arky Vaughan (#151) and Pep Young with 99 and 82, respectively.

Phillies Career

The Pirates traded Suhr to the Phillies on July 28, 1939 for pitcher Max Butcher.  He had held out on a contract extension from the Pirates for the third time in five years that spring and lost his starting job to prospect Elbie Fletcher in June.  With the Phillies, Suhr took over regular first base duties from Jack Bolling and Gibby Brack, making 59 starts over the remaining months of the season.  He'd return in 1940, starting the first seven games of the Phillies season at first base, before being replaced for good by Art Mahan.  Batting just .160 in his final big league season, Suhr was released by the Phillies on May 14, 1940.  In 70 games with the club spanning two seasons, Suhr batted .300 with five home runs and 29 RBIs.

1933 Goudey #206

1934-36 Batter-Up (R318) #41

1936 Goudey Wide Pen Premiums (R314) #A96

1939 Play Ball #83

1940 Play Ball #94

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1933 Goudey #206

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (0):  N/A

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1972 TCMA The 1930s #170

49 - Suhr non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/3/22.

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #55 Tony Cuccinello - Brooklyn Dodgers

Next Card: #57 "Cy" Blanton - Pittsburgh Pirates

#92 Ethan Allen - Philadelphia Phillies

Ethan Nathan Allen

Philadelphia Phillies

Outfield

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'1"  Weight:  180

Born:  January 1, 1904, Cincinnati, OH

Major League Teams:  Cincinnati Reds 1926-1930; New York Giants 1930-1932; St. Louis Cardinals 1933; Philadelphia Phillies 1934-1936; Chicago Cubs 1936; St. Louis Browns 1937-1938

Died:  September 15, 1993, Crescent City, CA (89)

Outfielder Ethan Allen played for 13 seasons in the majors with six different clubs, finding the most success of his career in the mid-1930s with the Phillies.  Signed by his hometown Reds, Allen was the club's regular center fielder in 1928 and 1929, batting .305 in 1928 and finishing second on the club with 62 RBIs.  Traded to the Giants during the 1930 season and then the Cardinals for the 1933 season, he'd play sparingly with his offensive output tailing off.  Allen would find new life with the Phillies in 1934, and his time with the club was the best stretch of his career (see below).  He'd finish up his playing career spending two seasons with the Browns, but his time involved with the game of baseball was just getting started.  He retired with an even .300 batting average and 1,325 hits.

Allen was known for his intelligence and he'd publish several books following his playing career, mainly focused on technical aspects of baseball and the history of the game.  He also invented the popular board game All-Star Baseball, first sold to consumers in the early 1940s and continually produced in its original form until 1993.  In 1946, Allen was named the head coach of Yale's baseball team, and he'd hold that position until retiring in 1968.  His team reached the College World Series in 1947 and 1948, and among his players was future U.S. President George H.W. Bush.  Allen never stopped teaching the game, publishing his books, creating his boardgames and running baseball clinics at military bases during the Yale offseason.

August 23, 2022 - Shortly after purchasing the card

Allen with the Phillies in 1934

Pre-jailbreak

Building the Set

August 31, 2022 from S. Burlington, VT - Card #60

I pulled the trigger and bought this card while my family and I were vacationing at Walt Disney World in late August.  It was our second day there, a scheduled Disney Springs/pool day, and while resting in our room at Saratoga Springs I received an e-mail from the seller offering to sell this card at a reduced price.  The card had been on my watch list for quite some time, and maybe even as long as a full year.  I thought the seller's original price had been fair, but I was hesitant to buy as the card was encased in a PSA graded slab.  I realize some of the pricier cards in the set will most likely need to come graded, but for the bulk of the set, I want to have those placed in their proper place in nine-pocket pages in the set's binder.

Not able to pass up the reduced price, I bought the card from eBay seller bserenil2 from S. Burlington, Vermont, and it was waiting for us when we returned from our wonderful trip.  I took a picture of the slab for posterity's sake, freed Allen and happily slid the card into its proper sleeve among the set's other high numbers.

Variations Available

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

The Card / Phillies Team Set

I could be wrong, but I believe this is the first card in the set I've added with a scoreboard clock in the background.  The back of the card mentions Allen being "disabled through illness," but I couldn't find any specific illness mentioned in his SABR biography that would have kept him benched for any lengthy periods of time.  Allen did fracture his cheekbone in early 1928, so maybe that's what's being referenced here.  I also need to highlight that Allen was named after Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen, who was one of the founders of Vermont and is known for leading the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.

Phillies Career / 1936 Season

The Cardinals sold Allen to the Phillies on February 5, 1934, and Allen would be the team's opening day center fielder that season.  It was to be a career year for him, as he appeared in 145 games, batting .330 with 10 home runs and 85 RBIs, all career highs.  He tied Kiki Cuyler (#31) for the league lead with 42 doubles.  He was back as a Phillies regular in 1935, appearing in 156 games, while batting .307 and leading all National League outfielders with 26 assists.  Allen received 17 MVP votes that season.  He began 1936 with the Phillies, again serving as their opening day center fielder.  Perhaps his salary was getting too high for a team that would lose 100 games, and he appeared in only 30 games with the club before being dealt to the Cubs.

On May 21, 1936, Allen and Curt Davis were traded to Chicago for Chuck Klein (#139) and Fabian Kowalik.  (This was Klein's second of three separate stints with the Phillies.)  Allen moved to left field with the Cubs, and his new team finished in second place, five games behind the pennant-winning Giants.  For the season, Allen appeared in 121 games, batting .295 with four home runs and 48 RBIs.  For his two-plus seasons with the Phillies, he appeared in 331 games, batting .316 with 19 home runs and 157 RBIs.

1929 Kashin Publications (R316)

1933 Goudey #46

1934-36 Batter-Up (R318) #76

1935 Goudey 4-in-i (R321)

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1929 Kashin Publications (R316)

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (0):  N/A

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1994 Conlon Collection TSN #1128

32 - Allen non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 9/4/22.

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Phillies Room
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #91 Bucky Harris MG - Washington Senators

Next Card: #93 Alvin Crowder - Detroit Tigers

#87 Steve O'Neill MG - Cleveland Indians

Stephen Francis O'Neill

Cleveland Indians

Manager

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'10"  Weight:  165

Born:  July 6, 1891, Minooka, PA

Major League Teams:  Cleveland Naps 1911-1914; Cleveland Indians 1915-1923; Boston Red Sox 1924; New York Yankees 1925; St. Louis Browns 1927-1928

World Series Appearances:  Cleveland Indians 1920; Detroit Tigers 1945

As a Manager:  Cleveland Indians 1935-1937; Detroit Tigers 1943-1948; Boston Red Sox 1950-1951; Philadelphia Phillies 1952-1954

Died:  January 26, 1962, Cleveland, OH (70)

As a player, Steve O'Neill was the primary catcher for the Indians for over a decade, playing steady defense and using a strong throwing arm to catch would-be base stealers.  His career year of 1920 coincided with the Indians winning the American League pennant and ultimately defeating the Brooklyn Robins in that year's World Series.  O'Neill batted .321 in a career-high 149 games that season and batted .333 (7 for 21) in the seven-game World Series.  He'd finish sixth in MVP voting in 1922, batting .311 with a career-high 65 RBIs.  O'Neill led all catchers in double plays in five seasons, and his 198 double plays rank second all-time.  He led the league in runners caught stealing three times, and his career total of 937 runners caught is currently 13th all-time.

Following his playing days, O'Neill began managing in the minor leagues in 1929 and was named the Indians' manager in 1935.  In 14 big league seasons at the helm of the Indians, Tigers, Red Sox and Phillies, he never had a losing record and he guided the Tigers to a 1945 World Championship title.  O'Neill's career managerial record was 1,040-821, and he's one of 12 major league managers to have won 1,000 games without also losing 1,000 games.  He was one of 10 inaugural members inducted into the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame in 1951, along with Earl Averill (#35), Tris Speaker and Cy Young.

Building the Set

August 5, 2022 from Tomball, TX (The Battersbox) - Card #59

I got an itch for some vintage baseball cards in late July, as I hadn't added any new cards to our 1965 Topps set since May or my Diamond Stars set since June.  Taking advantage of some discounts offered at The Battersbox online store, I settled on a relatively pricey Ernie Lombardi (#36) card along with this O'Neil card.  Also arriving in the package was the 1965 Topps Willie Stargell card, which gets us down to needing just seven cards before that set is completed.

I'm now officially half-way through completing the Diamond Stars set, with 59 cards in hand and 59 more cards needed.  That tally includes all 108 cards in the base set, along with ten notable variations.  I've got a lot of big ticket cards to go before I complete the set, and I may try to add one of those before the year is out.

Variations Available

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

The Card / Indians Team Set

He's touted as "one of the great catchers of all time" on the back of the card, yet National Chicle still spelled his last name wrong, using only one "L."  The back of the card contains a brief recent history of the Cleveland franchise, noting O'Neill was replacing Walter Johnson as the team's manager.  O'Neill is credited as helping pitchers Stanley Coveleski (misspelled Coveleskie) and Duster Mails while serving as their catcher, and it's also pointed out he was on the Speaker managed team that won the pennant in 1920.  The last line is prescient, as the Yankees and Tigers both finished ahead of the Indians in the standings in 1936.

1936 Season

O'Neill's Indians team finished in fifth place in the American League with a 80-74-3 record, 30 1/2 games behind the pennant-winning Yankees.

Phillies Career
His SABR biography notes O'Neill was a player's manager who served more as a mentor than an adversary to his team.  He was working as a scout for the Red Sox when he was named to replace Eddie Sawyer as the Phillies manager on June 28, 1952.  The team had been seven games below .500 when he came on board, and they finished the season going 59-32 and climbing into fourth place.  O'Neill guided the Phillies to an even better third place finish in 1953 and he started the 1954 season with a 40-37 record before being surprisingly fired on July 15th and replaced by Terry Moore.  He was 182-140 in his three seasons at the helm for the Phillies, and I can't help but wonder if the Phillies would have continued to improve under his guidance.

O'Neill received a manager's card in the 1954 Topps set, and Topps created a card that never was for O'Neill as part of its 1991 Topps Archives 1953 set.

1915 Cracker Jack #48

1916 Sporting News (M101-5) #314

1921 American Caramel Series of 80 (E121)

1951 Bowman #201

1954 Topps #127

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1915 Cracker Jack (E145) #48

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (1):  1954

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1995 Conlon Collection TSN #1356

88 - O'Neill non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 8/12/22.

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Phillies Room
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #86 Frank Crosetti - New York Yankees

Next Card: #88 Geo. Selkirk - New York Yankees

#36 "Ernie" Lombardi - Cincinnati Reds

Ernesto Natali Lombardi

Cincinnati Reds

Catcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'3"  Weight:  230

Born:  April 6, 1908, Oakland, CA

Major League Teams:  Brooklyn Robins 1931; Cincinnati Reds 1932-1941; Boston Braves 1942; New York Giants 1943-1947

World Series Appearances:  Cincinnati Reds 1939-1940

Died:  September 26, 1977, Santa Cruz, CA (69)

Hall of Fame Induction:  1986

Called by baseball writer Bill James, "the slowest man to ever play major league baseball well," Ernie Lombardi was a fan favorite, the National League's MVP in 1938, a World Series winner in 1940 and posthumous Hall of Fame inductee in 1986.  Lombardi, given the affectionate nickname "Schnozz," spent 10 of his 17 seasons with the Reds, where he first rose to stardom.  He batted over .300 in ten seasons, winning his first batting title in 1938 when he hit .342 on the way to also winning the MVP.  He caught both of Johnny Vander Meer's back-to-back no hitters that season on June 11th and June 15th.  Lombardi helped lead the Reds to the World Series in 1939 and 1940, hitting .333 in the 1940 series in which his team downed the Tigers in seven games.  Sold to the Braves before the 1942 season, he won his second batting title by hitting .330.  Lombardi was named to eight All-Star Games.

He finished his career with a .306 batting average, 1,792 hits, 190 home runs and 990 RBIs.  Battling depression later in life, he struggled after leaving baseball and was disgruntled by his exclusion from the Hall of Fame.  Lombardi was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame in 1958, and finally got the call to Cooperstown in 1986, nine years after he had passed away.

Building the Set

August 5, 2022 from Tomball, TX (The Battersbox) - Card #58

I got an itch for some vintage baseball cards in late July, as I hadn't added any new cards to our 1965 Topps set since May or my Diamond Stars set since June.  Taking advantage of some discounts offered at The Battersbox online store, I settled on this relatively pricey Lombardi card along with the card I'll feature in the next post, Steve O'Neil (#87).  Also arriving in the package was the 1965 Topps Willie Stargell card, which gets us down to needing just seven cards before that set is completed.

I'm now officially half-way through completing the Diamond Stars set, with 59 cards in hand and 59 more cards needed.  That tally includes all 108 cards in the base set, along with ten notable variations.  I've got a lot of big ticket cards to go before I complete the set, and I may try to add one of those before the year is out.

Variations Available

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

There's an error version of this card with Lombardi's first name misspelled as "Earnie," and this is one of ten variations I'll ultimately track down for my set.

The final 12 cards in the Diamond Stars set, released as part of series three in 1936, contain the exact same photos and players as earlier cards from the set.  Lombardi shows up again as card #105, with the same text on the back save for his 1935 statistics at the bottom replacing his 1934 statistics.  The ink on the back of card #105 is blue, similar to all cards from the third series.

The Card / Reds Team Set

That's a strange tip on the back of Lombardi's card, going into great detail about choosing a light bat over a heavy bat.  Babe Ruth (#109) is name-checked here, noting he used to swing a 54-ounce bat but he's cut back to a 36-ounce model in his later years.  Lombardi's full name is listed with a middle initial "C" on the back as well.  They got that wrong, but at least this version of the card spelled his first name correctly.

1935 Season

Lombardi had his break-out season this year, five seasons into his big league career.  The Reds weren't great, finishing in sixth place with a 68-85-1 record, but Lombardi was a bright spot as the team's best hitter.  In 120 games, he batted .343 with 23 doubles, 12 home runs and 64 RBIs.  Despite his productivity, he spent the entire season in a platoon behind the plate with the left-handed hitting Gilly Campbell.  On May 8th, Lombardi tied a league record with four doubles against the Phillies

1933 Tattoo Orbit (R305)

1934 Goudey #35

1934-36 Batter-Up (R318) #129

1938 Goudey Heads-Up #246

1961 Fleer Baseball Greats #55

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1933 Tattoo Orbit (R305)

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (0):  N/A

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2006 SP Legendary Cuts #69

150 - Lombardi non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 8/12/22.

First complete page!

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
National Baseball Hall of Fame
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #35 Earle Averill - Cleveland Indians

Next Card: #37 "Billie" Urbanski - Boston Braves

#112 Leon Goslin - Detroit Tigers

Leon Allen Goslin

Detroit Tigers

Outfield

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  185

Born:  October 16, 1900, Salem, NJ

Major League Teams:  Washington Senators 1921-1930; St. Louis Browns 1930-1932; Washington Senators 1933; Detroit Tigers 1934-1937; Washington Senators 1938

World Series Appearances:  Washington Senators 1924-1925, 1933; Detroit Tigers 1934-1935

Died:  May 15, 1971, Bridgeton, NJ (70)

Hall of Fame Induction:  1968

South Jersey's own Goose Goslin compiled his Hall of Fame career playing 18 seasons primarily with the Senators.  As one of the game's top left fielders of his era, Goslin led the league in triples in 1923 and 1925, and won the league's batting title in 1928 with a .379 mark.  He collected at least 10 home runs in 12 different seasons, including a career best 37 home runs playing for the Senators and Browns in 1930.  He also drove in 138 runs that season, another career-best, and Goslin collected at least 100 RBIs in 11 seasons, leading the league in 1924 with 129.  He played in five different World Series, winning rings with the Senators in 1924 and the Tigers in 1935.  Goslin's glove could at times be a liability, and he led all left fielders in errors in eight different seasons, with his 184 errors at the position currently second all-time behind fellow Hall of Famer Zack Wheat.  His 3,826 putouts in left are currently fifth all-time and his 181 assists are sixth all-time.

Goslin was a lifetime .316 batter, with 2,735 hits, 500 doubles, 248 home runs and 1,612 RBIs.  The Veterans Committee inducted him into the Hall of Fame in 1968.

Building the Set

December 11, 2020 from San Diego, CA (Kit Young Cards)

On the night I impulsively decided to collect the original Diamond Stars set, and I subsequently purchased the Harvey Hendrick (#41) card from Kit Young Cards, I also added the complete, and first, extended set to my cart for the very reasonable price of $7.50.  The 12 cards in this first extended set were originally issued in 1981.

In the early 1980s, a family member of a former National Chicle employee discovered an uncut sheet of 12 unused cards presumably meant as a 1937 continuation of the Diamond Stars set.  As originally advertised, and as mentioned on the back of every card issued, the company had intended for the set to contain 240 subjects.  They only produced 108 cards before production was halted, and the theory is this newly found sheet represented a "lost" continuation of the set.  Fortunately, the images of the cards made their way into the collecting world and a 12-card "what if" set was created.  (More on the uncut sheet can be found here from SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee and from this Ryan Cracknell article for Beckett.)

Another great article was recently published to SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee website taking a closer look at these extended cards.

The Beckett online database lists the set as "1981 Diamond Stars Continuation Den's" and the set's description notes "This set was created and produced by Denny Eckes.  Hobbyist Mike Galella was involved in bringing this sheet to the the public.  These cards were originally available from the producer for $3."  The back of the cards have a 1981 copyright attributed to Den's Collectors Den, the company belonging to the aforementioned Eckes.

The 12 cards include more ambitious geometric designs than the original Diamond Stars cards,  although the overall color template remains the same as their 1934 to 1936 counterparts.

Variations Available

1 - 1981 / blue back / 1936 statistics / 1981 copyright

The Card / Tigers Team Set

The back of the card mentions Goslin's start as a pitcher, and he made 18 appearances on the mound in 1920 for the Columbia Comers in the South Atlantic League before his strong bat necessitated a change to the outfield.  His heroics from 1935 are also noted on the back.  Goslin was second on the Tigers' in RBIs with 111, far behind the 168 driven in by slugger Hank Greenberg (#54).  He appeared in five different World Series, batting a solid .287 (37 for 129) with five doubles, seven home runs and 19 RBIs.

1937 Season

In his penultimate season, Goslin appeared in 79 games for the Tigers, batting .238 with four home runs and 35 RBIs.  He was the club's opening day left fielder, but started only 39 games at the position and in his final month with the team he was used almost exclusively as a pinch-hitter.  He was released in October, signing with the Senators right before the start of the 1938 season, where he'd play in his final 38 big league games.

1922 American Caramel Series of 240 (E120)

1933 DeLong Gum (R333) #24

1933 Goudey #110

1940 Play Ball #232

1961 Fleer Baseball Greats #35

Other Notable Baseball Cards

First Mainstream Card:  1922 American Caramel Series of 240 (E120)

Topps Flagship Set Appearances (0):  N/A

Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2020 Panini Diamond Kings #39

176 - Goslin non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 6/20/22.

Sources:

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
National Baseball Hall of Fame
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

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