Jimmy Collins -- Boston and Providence Manager, Winner of Boston's 1st WS in 1903

Photos: Jimmy Collins T206 front and back, from my collection

I wouldn't have known the importance Jimmy Collins had on the Boston and Providence teams if I hadn't looked him up. And I wouldn't have appreciated his HOF stats--which are not impressive just by looking at them online, especially baseball-reference's JAWS scores for him. I look up every player's stats when I do a blog entry on them, and I always use baseball-reference.com. I also sometimes look up the player on Wikipedia if the stats show me something that seems interesting, suspicious, etc. about that player. Since I mention it, you can look at Jimmy Collins' stats here and you can read about him on his Wikipedia page here.

Collins is on the card with the Minneapolis Millers, which--like Joe Kelley--I assumed meant he was playing in the minors at the time, waiting to be called up. (This is considered his RC.) But I forgot that the leagues then weren't like the leagues now. In short, there were no minor leagues. A player played for a team and the owners and managers (no GMs then, either) would trade them or release them. So a major league player could be traded to Minneapolis, which was in the American Association (a major league for a very short time in the Victorian Era). It was a good, quality league by 1909, though not as good as the majors. A comparison today would be that it was quality-wise at least as good as AAA, and would sometimes be in between AAA and the Majors.

Good leagues then--defined as leagues that had decent quality of play, and where the players and managers could make a decent living, even if they never left--included the Majors, the AA, the Pacific Coast League (notorious for tiny ballparks and big, affluent crowds, especially in California), the Eastern League (of which Providence, RI was a member), the Western League and the Southern League. Lots of T205s refer to the Triple-I League, which were the states of Illinois, Iowa and Indiana. That was also apparently a helluva league. The pay and play in these leagues would vary, with the Majors being at the top in quality, but not always in pay. (The Texas League and the Southern Leagues were often not of the best quality of play. Often, players having a good year would hit 60+ homers and drive in over 150 like clockwork, but then struggle when they advanced to a better league, with better quality players.) In fact, Joe Kelley, by 1907, had played and managed in the majors for about 15 years. But although he was offered Major League jobs, he left the majors and played/managed in Toronto, in the Eastern League, in 1907. He returned to the Majors with the Boston Doves of the National League, but returned to Toronto for 1909 and 1910. Why? More money, he said. The Eastern League was a decent league, and Toronto drew well and played well, so it paid well. So Joe Kelley's T206 is of him with the Toronto Maple Leafs (he's got a bat in his hands, like he's ready to swing or bunt, but he's also smiling, so it's obviously a pose, and he only managed that year anyway), and I assumed without looking it up that he was in the minors, waiting to get called up. Turns out, he was at the tail end of his managerial career, and he'd been done playing for awhile. (It's still his RC.)

Which brings us back to Jimmy Collins. He wasn't near the quality player Joe Kelley was, in roughly the same time span. Collins started playing in 1895 and was a much better defensive player than he was with the bat. (Then and now, you can make a good career in baseball in the Majors if you're great with the glove and at least a bit decent with the bat.) Collins became better than just a little decent with the bat. After averaging 6 homers a year with maybe 30-50 RBIs, and okay averages, he suddenly had 2 straight years of 132 and 111 RBIs and .346 and .328 averages, in 1897 and 1898. He had 3 more straight years of 90+ RBIs without breaking 100. Good numbers, but really good hitters hit for crazy high averages in the 1890s, with tons of hits and RBIs. Wee Willie Keeler and Billy Hamilton, for example, did that every year, and Joe Kelley had 5 straight years of crazy Runs Scored and RBI totals, while averaging about .360 for those 5 years. (There was an offensive explosion in the mid-1890s that nobody's ever explained to me. There was no expansion, and players for the first time almost universally wore gloves in the field, which you would think would make run totals go down, not explode.)

Anyway, Jimmy Collins never led the league in much (homers in 1898, with 15 and total bases that year, plus ABs and PAs another year, but that's it) and he retired with 1,999 hits, because nobody cared about totals and stats as much then (Sam Rice retired in the 20s with 2,987 hits, for example) and because there was no Hall of Fame to continue playing for. Collins's career stats are not impressive when you look at them on the page; he finished with just over 1,000 runs scored and just under 1,000 RBIs. These are essentially Al Oliver numbers (though Oliver's career stats are superficially better because he played a lot longer, but he was terrible defensively).

So I was thinking that Collins was yet another Veterans Committee disaster pick for HOF until I read up about him. Turns out, while he was playing, he was regarded as the best third baseman, especially defensively. It was said that he "revolutionized the position," specifically by his ability to field bunts. (Fieldwork used to be so bad that players would frequently lay one down to get one base. The shortstops were considered the better athletes and they were usually in charge of fielding bunts, even ones that hugged the line.) Collins had such good instincts that he was amongst the first to play in on the grass to cut down on the bunts. His defensive play, plus his very good to good to adequate hitting, made him the first third baseman to be inducted into the HOF in 1945.

And that's what the numbers don't show. They're not impressive now. In fact, JAWS says he's just the 20th best third baseman. But that's now. Until 1945, he was the best third baseman in the majors. He held the record for most putouts, in a short career, until Brooks Robinson broke it in the 1970s--over 60 years after he retired. While active, he was written about and spoken about as the best third baseman. For some reason, the position remained somewhat stagnant until the 60s, and even now there aren't that many in the Hall compared to other positions. A quick look at the 19 third basemen in front of him, according to JAWS, shows me that only Home Run Baker (another HOFer) played in the same era as Collins. Everyone else, from George Brett to Eddie Matthews to Paul Molitor to Wade Boggs to Mike Schmidt to Chipper Jones (#6) and Adrian Beltre (very quietly #5 all-time)--as you can see, they're all post-1950.

So the numbers lie. You can't judge something just by the numbers, or by your limited understanding of the numbers, or of the era the numbers accumulated in. You have to look into the numbers and understand the time in which they were amassed. On their own, the numbers look like nothing. But in the context of their time, they make him an obvious HOF choice. In fact, I wonder who the HOF Committee thought should be represented at 3rd by their first few choices in the years after the Hall opened in 1933.

But wait, there's more. Jimmy Collins was the Boston Red Sox's first-ever manager, in 1901. The American League first became a league after 1900. Collins was also playing and managing the Boston Red Sox when it won its first-ever World Series in 1903, beating Honus Wagner and the Pirates 5-3 in a best of nine series. Collins also managed Boston to another first-place finish in 1904, but John McGraw and the New York Giants refused to play them in another series. After that, though, things went bad between Collins and Boston's owners, to the extent that he was suspended a few times, accused of quitting on the team--and he was managing them to a last-place finish. So the team president hires Chick Stahl to manage the team, while Collins stays on as a player, which must've been awkward as hell. Stahl was feeling a lot of pressure and depression, and committed suicide after the 1906 season ended. Boston let Cy Young manage in 1907 and traded Collins away.

By 1909 Jimmy Collins was managing the Minneapolis Millers (and playing; he had 152 hits and batted .273), which is where he was when the T206 was produced. So this is another manager card and not a player card. (The T206s don't list position or title, and there are no stats or writing on the back. This is unique, because the T205s, also produced between 1909-1911, have writing and stats, making them the preferred card for some. I like those backs, but I don't like the fronts, or the thicker gold borders that chip very easily.)

In 1910 and 1911 he managed the Providence Greys, of the Eastern League, who played in a park in Olneyville, just up 95 from here. (The Greys were the first World Series winning team in general, winning it in the 1880s when it was a Major League team. It folded, surprisingly, soon thereafter, reappearing in a few years as a minor league team.) He took over for Hugh Duffy, a HOF player from Cranston, RI, also just up the road from here. And within a couple of years after Collins retired after 1911 and moved back to Buffalo, the Greys had another HOFer on its roster--a pitcher named Babe Ruth.

The Retirement of Adam LaRoche

Photo: from his Wikipedia page. Or, this is Adam LaRoche, running from his responsibilities.

--Read Justin Gorman's short article about Adam Laroche's sudden retirement here, at the Sons of Sam Horn page. I couldn't agree more. Brilliant move by Executive Vice President (and former GM) Ken Williams, if it was indeed planned. Had LaRoche stayed, the White Sox would've had to pay $13 million for the honor of having LaRoche ride the bench with his son beside him, and at most LaRoche would've come in as a defensive replacement in the later innings. The South Siders thought so much of LaRoche that they've given him five Spring Training at-bats. In 2009, the Red Sox traded two prospects for him, but had him for all of 6 games and 19 ABs, before they decided they'd rather have Casey Kotchman. And the Nationals were so pleased with his 26 homers and 92 RBIs last year that they bought out his option for $2 million. Williams said, "In what other business can you bring your son to work every single day?" and he's right. Now the Pale Hose have $13 million in their pockets, and two lockers for more deserving bodies.

--Yes, that's right. Two lockers. The son was there so often that he got his own locker. The kid must've been there longer than many minor leaguers, some prospects, and a few veterans.

--And I don't care what Chris Sale says. So Williams went back on his verbal agreement about the kid from last year. If LaRoche hadn't been paid $12 million just to barely hit above the Mendoza Line, maybe this wouldn't be an issue. (Though Williams never should've agreed to that to begin with.)

--Then again, he never should've signed LaRoche to begin with.

--My guess is that Gorman was right: Ken Williams wanted to get rid of this contract, and he knew the button to push. I say, good for him.

--This is all about one word: Entitlement.

--Now, because I can't say it any better than this, I offer you, off her social media, the sage wisdom of Bethany Randa, wife of former major league third baseman Joe Randa:

“I’ve gotten so many messages about what a wonderful thing it is that Adam retired for his son ... and yes, my boys spent time in the clubhouse when it was approved and appropriate and loved every minute of it!!! My concern is and ALWAYS has been that these kids already live a privileged life, where rules don’t always apply, where ridiculous money just pours in, where so many of the things we could afford were free, and where we were offered immediate seating at restaurants and other events ahead of hard working people who were there before us. My boys saw this. It sounds ridiculous to most people, but our job is to raise dependable hard working and respectful men. It’s hard enough in the world they see, but to teach your child that when your boss makes a decision you don’t agree with, you just 'retire'?? In the REAL world, that’s not an option.’’

Wildfire Schulte, M101 Sporting News Supplement, March 2, 1911

Photo: Frank "Wildfire" Schulte, Sporting News Supplement, March 2, 1911. From my collection.

This is my other M101 Sporting News Supplement photo, bought for me by my better half for Christmas. You can read about the other one, Bob Harmon, by clicking here.

As I mentioned about the previous one, these very large photos are not considered cards, per se, as there were actual Sporting News cards published after these supplements proved popular with the public.  The photographers must've been amongst the best of their time, because these images are all classically striking.  I wish I could've gotten them all. Unfortunately, I've only got two, and this is the second one I got.

These supplements were just that: included in issues of The Sporting News between 1909 and 1911, which in itself looked more like a newspaper than a magazine, just like it does today.  They were often folded, which is not considered a detriment to their value, but they are extremely thin and therefore very fragile.  Since I had this one bought for me, I don't know how much it sold for (though I could find out easily on Ebay), but Wildfire Schulte was a heckuva player, and popular in his time. He is not a HOFer.

But he did have a Hall of Fame season in 1911. That year he won the MVP, then called the Chalmer's Award. They gave you a great car, since the award was named after the car company, but once you won the award, you couldn't win it, or even be nominated for it, again--a rule not changed until long after he retired. It was a fluke season for him. He led the league in homers (21), RBI (107), slugging % (.534), OPS+, and total bases (308). He scored 105 runs and batted .300. He walked more than he struck out, for a .384 on-base percentage, and he had 173 hits and a .918 OPS. He did all of this for a great Chicago Cubs team, which went to 4 World Series with him. He won two of them.

He was the first player ever to have more than 20 stolen bases, doubles, triples and home runs in the same season. Willie Mays did this next, in 1957.

He never had more than 68 RBIs in any other season; never more than 12 homers; never more than a .769 OPS and never more than a .418 slugging %. Those MVP numbers were also way above any season before 1911, too, though he did also lead the league in homers in 1910, with 10. His career slashline is .270 batting average; .332 on-base percentage and .395 slugging percentage. His offensive WAR was 5.5 in 1911 and 3.5 in 1910. It was never higher than 1.7 in any full season after 1911. (You can see all of his stats on his baseball-reference page. Just click.)

Schulte was a full-time player until 1915, but then spent the next three years with four teams. One wonders what happened to him. His 1911 season was one of the most out-of-context for a player's career, ever. JAWS puts him as the 101st best right fielder ever. He's compared favorably to Jimmy Piersall and Johnny Damon (who were much better fielders, and probably better hitters. Damon definitely was a better fielder and hitter), and Red Murray (a contemporary). In 1916 he and another player were traded for Otto Knabe and Art Wilson--which is not a compliment, as Knabe (another T206 guy, as is Wildfire) and Wilson were not good players. 

He played in the minors (which were not the same as they are today, but that's another blog; though you didn't have to be a worse player to play in the minors, or the PCL, or Canada, or the Independent League, or any of the many other types of leagues at the time, he was.) Overall, he peaked, then fell off the cliff.

I wondered why, so I did a little research. I didn't find much, but I did read that he got the Wildfire nickname when he saw a play by that name, and then named his racehorse the same. I also read that he married in 1911, and then fell off the precipice, but my better half says that had nothing to do with it.

From his Wikipedia page, I can show you that up close he looked like this:

Opening Day 2015 Red Sox 8 Phillies 0

Photo: Dustin Pedroia, in Baltimore, 2012.  From his Wikipedia page.

It's just one game.  But my observations so far:

--You can't ask for more than 7 shutout innings from Buchholz.  He struck out 9 and allowed only three hits and a walk.  He'll face teams better than the Phillies this year, but he came through in a start in which he had to show he could step up and be the Jon Lester fill-in.  He did that.

--And don't miss the work by the unknown starting catcher (with Christian Vazquez on the shelf), Ryan Hanigan.  He called a good game and caught a good game, and even had a base hit and a walk.

--Dustin Pedroia, of course, had two homers and two Gold-Glove calibre plays.  Good to see that his finger injuries are behind him for the first time in a couple of years.

--And Hanley Ramirez's 2 homers and 5 RBIs, including an Opening Day grand slam.

--And Mookie Betts had a homerun, a walk and a single so far.  Experts have picked him to lead the league in runs scored.  Let's hope he does.

--Pedroia had seven homers all of last year, and has had two already.  Thou shalt not try to sneak a fastball inside on Pedroia.

--Or Mookie Betts, apparently.  Also, Mookie Betts has one of the great baseball names today.

--As does umpire Fieldin Culbreth.  That's right: Fieldin.

--Pablo Sandoval turned two walks into two outs when he flailed on garbage with a 3-2 count on him each time.  He needs to take more and sport a better OBP.  But he's clearly a better fielder than Middlebrooks was.  I'll say it again as I said it frequently last year and already this year: I do not miss Middlebrooks.  Except for how he kept Jenny Dell happy, of course.

--Jenny Dell can do better, by the way.  The word is that she's actually a very nice person.  She'll talk to anyone, and went to a kid's prom, and didn't just treat it as a publicity stunt.  She'll sign and take pics without a problem, too.

--Right, Salad?

--Speaking of Salad, I dedicate this year's blog posts to ya, big guy.  Thanks for all the games.

--First up: April 14th, the second Fenway game of the year.  Against the Washington Nationals, so I'll probably blog about their pitching staff--the best since the Braves' staffs of the mid-90s. 

1923 Willard's Chocolates--George H. Burns--20 Fair 1.5

Today I'm starting a new feature that spotlights one of my cards per week.  I'll try to keep the cards and the players as varied as I can.  I'll write about the player first, then the card.  Sometimes the card will be available for sale.  I'll say so at the bottom of the entry.  So look back here for a new entry, on average once per week, about a card and player.  And look back to previous entries about some cards I've already written about.

This one is a 1923 Willard's Chocolates: George H. Burns--in 20 Fair 1.5 condition, which isn't too bad for the age.  I mean, this card is 90 years old, after all.  I hope I look as good at 90, if I even reach that age.

The backs are blank, like the 1887 N182 Old Judges and the 1921 Exhibits.  (Love those, too, but they're very expensive.  The 1887s cost at least $100 each, in authentic, presentable or fair condition, which are the three lowest.  Crazy money, for me, anyway.)  This one has writing on the back, which I'm not crazy about.  Normally I don't buy blankbacks that aren't blank, especially if there's writing on it.  But this card was at a price I couldn't refuse.  It's the only 1921 Willard's Chocolates I own.

The Player

I was interested in the card partly because I was vaguely familiar with the player.  I knew that a George Burns led the league in hits in the 20s for a year, and won an MVP, and was a solid player.  The Hall of Famers' cards cost more, of course, so I had to stay away from those.  But you tire of buying commons of good cards, too--though this card is more a commons than a star card.  Still...So if you look him up on baseball-reference.com, which is the site I always use to get stats, you'd find that there were actually two George Burns playing in the 20s.  There's my guy, at this address, and then there's another guy, who played in the mid-10s to the mid-20s, at this address.  They were both good players, but time being what it is, let's focus on my guy.

He had an odd career, if you look at the stats.  In 1918 he led the league in games, hits and total bases, while batting .352 and with an almost-.400 on-base percentage.  Despite this, he only scored 61 runs, which tells me that he either didn't bat leadoff (or even in the top-5 in the order) or that the Philadelphia Athletics of 1918 was a bad team.  Or both.  Anyway, in spite of his good play, he was a part-time player in 1920 and in 1921--two prime years, when he was 26 and 27, peak years for many ballplayers.  He apparently got stuck in the depth chart behind another first baseman, and he was flat-out bought by the Cleveland Indians (for whom he was playing in 1923, the year of my card).  He was a part-time player for them, before being traded to the Boston Red Sox for Stuffy McInnis, an extremely good player.  He played very well for Boston, which traded him back to Cleveland in a huge trade you can read about at the bottom, beneath all the stats.

He played great in Cleveland, batting .306, .328, .310, .336, .358 and .319.  While averages across the league were up between 1921 and 1939, this is still very good.  In 1926 he was the MVP, with 216 hits and 64 doubles, a record until Earl Webb hit 67 for the Red Sox a few years later.  (Webb's record still stands today, so Burns' 64 is still in the top-5 or so.)  He had 3 triples, 4 homers and 115 RBIs, which means those doubles drove in a ton of runs, plus whatever singles he hit.  (This also means Cleveland was a good team, with lots of runners on base, and that Burns hit between 2nd and 5th in the lineup.)

But something happened, because two years later he was flat-out bought by the New York Yankees, who barely used him for a couple of seasons, before selling him back to the Philadelphia Athletics, who rarely played him.  And that's it.  He played twice for two different teams, and he seemed to be wanted, yet easily sold or traded, at the same time.

A very strange career for a very good player.  He led the league in hits twice, eight years apart, which is hard to do in general, but especially if you're playing in the same league as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and all those guys.  He finished second in hits and average one year; finished second to Babe Ruth in RBIs during his MVP year, and constantly was among the league-leaders in hits, average and defensive statistics, including consecutive games played and fielding percentage.  He snagged an MVP from them as well, when he was 33.  He had over 2,000 hits and hit over .300 for his career.  A quick glance at his defensive stats shows that he was good, maybe a little better than average.  Not a Gold Glove winner, but solid enough not to make a jerk of himself there, and he once made an unassisted triple play, which is very rare. Burns also played in two World Series, and won both of them, nine years apart.

I went to his Wikipedia page to see why he was traded or sold so often, and why he was made a part-time player in the middle of his career after very good seasons, and at the end, just a year after winning the MVP.  It didn't tell me a thing, except that there might not be anything to say, and that he became a good minor-league player and manager, and then a sheriff of a small town.  I guess injuries could explain the part-time status and the trades, but I would've thought Wikipedia would show that.  Maybe he had Rogers Hornsby disease: despite a HOF career and being a world-class hitter as the National League's Babe Ruth (and a second basemen!), Hornsby was also an uncontested jerk who teams couldn't wait to get rid of, and which actually became better after getting rid of him, despite replacing him with a worse player.  (A-rod is a present-day example.)  But, again, I would guess that the Wikipedia page would've mentioned that he was hard to get along with.  Instead, this article's writer seemed to be obsessed with Burns' greatness as a right-handed hitter, and with right-handers in general.

I suspect that there's more here to know.  If you feel like it, please investigate and leave a comment.

The Card

As stated by PSAcardfacts.com (click this link and look at the beautiful Babe Ruth card):

"The 1923 Willards Chocolate set consists of 180 cards, each measuring about 2” x 3-1/4”. Produced by a Canadian firm, the Willards Chocolate Company, the unnumbered cards feature a sepia-tone player photo with a white border. A facsimile autograph is printed across the image. The back of every card is blank. The key cards belong to Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and of course, Babe Ruth. This set is also anchored by Grover Cleveland Alexander, Stan Coveleski, Hugh Duffy, Johnny Evers, Frank Frisch, Kid Gleason, Burleigh Grimes, Harry Hooper, Rogers Hornsby, Miller Huggins, Connie Mack, Branch Rickey, and Tris Speaker. The company inserted one card into packages of their products. The set’s unique imagery has kept the Willards Chocolate issue extremely popular with collectors, and partly as the result of coming from a Canadian manufacturer is seen as being relatively rare."

Apparently they're commonly found trimmed, with the white border cut away, leaving just the picture.  (Some of the T206s I've seen were trimmed, too, like we do today with a copy that has too much black ink.  I don't get the point of doing this to baseball cards, but whatever.  Who knew in 1922 that they'd be worth so much?)  Anyway, they're worth less, obviously, if they're trimmed.  Mine isn't.  A graded set of 6.+ sold in 2010 for $71,700.  The Babe Ruth was $35,000 in Mint condition, and $315 in poor condition, which is a worse state than mine's in.  The Ty Cobb was $18,000 in Mint condition, and $155 in poor condition.  I don't own those, of course.  I make it a point not to buy cards for more than $15 to $25, and for even less, when I can.  I did so for this card, and it's not for sale.

 

Boston 11-4; 2 GA of NY

Photo: Movie poster for Major League, from its Wikipedia page.

It's been awhile since the Sox played a game, and even longer since I posted about it.  Hopefully Boston will play today--Saturday, 4.20.13--as the city needs the distraction and celebration.  It'll be a soggy Fenway, unfortunately, if they play.  Speaking of rain, I got rained out of Fenway last Friday, and my next game, on the 23rd, looks like rain, too.  Thanks...

--It's odd and sad to see Terry Francona in a Cleveland Indians uniform.

--About 9,000 people, on average, watched each of the three games at Cleveland's Progressive Field, ex-Jacob's Field, ex-Municipal Stadium.  That's pathetic.  The Red Sox's AAA team, the Pawtucket Red Sox, draw more than that at its McCoy Stadium on a nice summer day.

--I don't miss Mike Aviles.  And didn't he go to Toronto in the deal for John Farrell, the Sox manager?

--Nick Swisher doesn't look right in a Cleveland Indians uniform, either.

--The Indians team right now--and its attendance at the park--is exactly like the Indians in the movie Major League.  Watching the series was like watching the movie.

--I wouldn't pay to watch the Indians play, either, but I would pay to see some of the Indians play, and some of the players on any visiting team.

--Mike Napoli can motor for a big, stocky guy.

--The Sox are playing Billy Beane ball: Don't swing for the fences; work the count; make the pitcher throw a lot of pitches; wear out the starting pitcher; get into the bullpen; hit singles and doubles; draw walks; keep the line moving.  Just like 2003, 2004 and 2007.  And not at all like last year.

--The Sox defense is the most steady I've seen it, at least since 2007, and maybe better than 2003 and 2004.  Maybe the best, day by day, since I've been watching.  And I've been watching since Ned Martin and Bob Montgomery, if you know what I'm sayin'.

--I'll say it again: Lester and Buchholz are pitching with rhythm, efficiency and confidence, and they're both 3-0 with ERAs hovering near 1.00.

--And Lester is keeping his fastball down and not trying to blow everyone away with high heat he doesn't have, a la Josh Beckett.  (Though, truth be told, Beckett's pitching very well, so far, for the Dodgers this year, with a 3.26 ERA and a 1.1 WHIP.  But he hasn't won a game yet, which leads me to say--)

--This year's team is a perfect example of addition by subtraction.  Yes, the guaranteed money to these guys is gone, too, but so are Bobby Valentine, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, and all of the obnoxiousness and ridiculousness.  Any team without these guys is bound to get better.

--Couldn't the Sox management have done all that and kept Francona to begin with?  (Though I do like John Farrell.)

--I'm changing my tune.  (Get used to that.)  With Ortiz due back, it's right that the Sox send down Jackie Bradley, Jr. and keep Mike Carp, who's hitting well, especially considering his lack of playing time.  Bradley needs to get himself straightened out.  His time will come again.

--Speaking of that, I don't like that sometimes these things are called "demotions," as in "Bradley was demoted to Pawtucket."  Iglesias was hitting over .400 when he was "demoted." Can't we just report it as "sent," as in "To make room for Ortiz, Bradley was sent to Pawtucket?"  It's not just semantics; sometimes it's inaccurate, as in the Iglesias example.

--Jamie Erdahl and Jenny Dell are wonderful, but they're not Heidi Watney.  Who's sort of wasted in MLB Network's Quick Pitch, I might add.

--If you're interested, my thoughts about the marathon massacre and its aftermath will soon be on my regular blog, here.

--And my review of the movie 42 will be on that site, and on this one, as well.

Luke Sewell--1933 Goudey

Photos: Luke Sewell's 1933 Goudey, front and back, from my collection

Important recent card in my collection because a) my better half bought it for me for Christmas, and b) I love Goudeys.  The 1933 set is an iconic set to begin with; it was one of the few sets since the early Cracker Jack cards, the famous T205 and T206 cards, or the ones made in triptych in the late 1800s, to be considered art.  The 1933 Goudeys are smaller than today's cards, almost square, with a painting likeness of the player (sometimes accurate, sometimes not) against a solid color background.  The likeness of the player was often outlined very sharply against this background, as Sewell's is.  The cards, individually and as a set, are of high aesthetic value: the colors hold together well; the cardboard is thick and sustains (except around the corners, notoriously for this set); the printing conditions were very high; and, most importantly, all of the major players of the day are there, including 3 or 4 Ruths and Gehrigs.  A rarity in this set is that many of the players have duplicate cards, and not always because they changed teams, retired, etc.

Family lore has it that my father probably had a ton of these when he was a kid growing up in the 40s or early 50s.  He didn't remember which ones.  One day his mother came in and cleaned up his room, which involved throwing many of them away.  He had maybe three or four left over, which he either demolished by attaching them to his bike spokes, or lost by playing betting games with them--usually by flicking them against brick walls; he who had his card land face-up took the lot.  If this is accurate, he lost some HOF players, and maybe a few grand worth of cards.  But nobody thought of collecting and making money from these things back in the day.

This card:

This one is probably in G-VG condition.  It's not professionally graded, but since I'm holding on to it forever, I'm not going to bother.  It has slight creases of wear in the upper portion, noticeable only in a slanted light, and even slighter ones in the upper left corner, beneath the name, and in the direct center.  The corners are very rounded; this is notoriously common for this set.  Someone had to have the mindset of a collector in 1933 to somehow protect the card (probably in a book, or maybe a cheese box, back then) and its corners.  (There's a set of 114 cards of this condition on ebay right now, going for just over eight grand.)  That just wasn't the case most of the time back then.  Schoolboys played with them, folded them, flipped them, put them in their bike spokes, etc.  Some kid definitely played with this one back in the day; the creases tell me that it's been flipped on its head or tail quite a bit; it's probably seen its share of walls.  That means more to me, somehow.  It's got more character, more story, behind it, then if some guy just put it between the pages of a hardcover book in 1933 and didn't often look at it.  Mine's been used and abused.  It's got patina, as a picker would say.  (Though if someone wants to give me a 1933 Goudey of any player in great condition, please feel free.)

The player:

Some interesting tidbits from his Wikipedia page: He came up fast, after just 17 minor league games, and was probably signed by the Cleveland Indians to begin with because his brother was already an infielder for them.  He was part of a righty/lefty platoon; he never hit in League Park, the home park, which had a right field fence only 290 feet from home plate.  Known for his defense, he threw out 71 runners one year, 60 another, and so on, which tells me that not only did he have a very good throwing arm--but, apparently, everyone ran, all the time, once they got to first.  (Babe Ruth famously ended a World Series by getting thrown out at second base.  The old sped-up clips show his spindly legs moving quicker than you would think, but that's not enough to convince me that he had any business stealing bases, at any time.)

His defense was so good, and maybe his handling of the pitching staff so well-respected, that he did very well in MVP voting at a time when hitters stats were comparable to the steroid era.  For example, he finished fifth in the MVP voting in 1937, and was an all-star.  The league average, batting, that year was .281, and the average OBP was .355.  That means that your average ballplayer, who nobody's ever heard of before, could be a good to decent leadoff or number-two hitter today.  (A slightly below average year for Pedroia would be .281/.355 right now.)  The #10 hitter in the league hit .331 with a .407 OBP and a .546 slugging %, with 111 runs scored, 25 homers and 110 RBIs.  Sewell, as I mentioned, finished 5th in MVP voting, way ahead of all the guys whose stats are mentioned above; Sewell had 111 hits, with 1 homerun, 61 RBIs and a .269 batting average--all very, very, very below the league average.  More than five guys finishing in the top-25 behind him had over 25 homers and 100 RBIs each.  The guys in front of him were your DiMaggios, Greenbergs and Gehrigs, with over 37 homers and 159 RBIs apiece (those were Gehrig's stats, whose numbers were lower than the guys in front of him on the MVP list).  Guys in front of him hit .371, .346, .337, .351, and .332., with RBI totals of 167, 183, 159 and 133.  Then Sewell, hitting .269, with 1 homer and 61 RBIs.

Now that's respect.  Or else, he had pictures.  I don't know.  I'm guessing respect.  He must've been some defensive catcher and handler of pitchers.  The equivalent today would've been Jason Varitek finishing #5 in the MVP voting between 2000 and 2007.  Not happenin'.  Sewell finished 9th, 12th and 15th in the MVP voting in other years.  You can find these stats at baseball-reference.com, here.  He threw out 53% of the baserunners for two straight years, and was annually in the mid- to upper-40s.  That's incredible, for any era.  For his career, he struck out just 307 times in over 6,000 plate appearances; this averages to just 30 strikeouts per 600 plate appearances, per season.  In 1933, he had 24 strikeouts in 536 plate appearances.  Of course, he walked about as often, too.  In those 536 PAs in 1933, he walked just 48 times--though this is, of course, double his strikeout total.  With his good MVP standing, I'll bet he made the most of all those outs--moving the runners along, hitting to the right side, bunting, sacrifice flies.  All that.  He still holds the American League record for most consecutive seasons as an active catcher, with 20.  This also speaks to his defensive prowess.  Something else that also does is that he caught three no-hitters from three no-name pitchers.  Varitek, who also caught three no-hitters, probably caught them from pitchers of higher caliber.

His brother, Joe Sewell, is a Hall of Fame shortstop.  As I've barely heard of him, I'll bet it's because of his defense, as well.  Let's look 'em up...Woops!  I'm wrong.  Clearly one of the better hitting shortstops of the 20s, if not the best, and his strikeout ratios are even better than his brother's, to the point of silliness.  He struck out 114 times in just over 8,300 plate appearances for his career.  (By comparison, many of the best hitters today K well over 114 times in about 600 plate appearances in just one season.)  On average, per season, he would K just 10 times in over 700 plate appearances, with 72 walks, 189 hits, 90+ RBIs, a .312 batting average and a .391 on-base percentage.  He once had 115 consecutive games between strikeouts.  He still holds the MLB record for fewest strikeouts per AB, averaging just one K per 63 at-bats for his career.

Pappa Sewell taught his boys to make contact.

Though this was a great time to be a hitter, the juiced-up ball and smaller ballparks didn't lead to Joe Sewell walking as much, getting as many hits, and K'ing so rarely.  His D was good, too.  Overlooked player by the HOF and voted in by the Veterans Committee in 1977 in one of their rare good moves.  He died in 1990, aged 91, so he saw himself inducted into the Hall, which is rare for an overlooked ballplayer from a bygone era.

In an odd coincidence, Luke Sewell (back to him; sorry for the brother sidetrack) was traded by the Washington Senators, with cash, to the St. Louis Browns for Bump Hadley--whose 1933 Goudey I had just bought at a flea market a few weeks before.  (Hadley, a pitcher, had hit him in the head and knocked him unconscious in 1934, ending his season.)  Until Christmas, Hadley's was only one of the two Goudeys I owned.  (I got his card, and Bing Miller's--both in Good condition--for $20 total at that flea market.)  Weird.  He won two awards for Manager of the Year (one in the majors, one in the minors) but never seemed content anywhere and stepped down all the time.  Just kept moving around.  (He had a .622 record over two seasons for one team as manager, but stepped down and re-signed elsewhere anyway.)  In 1944, he led the St. Louis Browns to its only World Series in its 52-year existence, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals.