30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Make Money Money

Let's go ahead and preface things by stating this post is more about baseball trivia than making lots of money.  That being said... you never know.  The things you read in this post might end up putting some cash in your pocket if you play your cards right.  Okay... now let's get to the heart of the matter.

I've never been a book worm.  My mindinterests, and attention span are much more suited for blogs and magazinesCard blogs allow me to read amusing and thought provoking short stories about the hobby we love as well as an opportunity to check out pieces of cardboard that are special to the writer.

It also allows me to walk away with tidbits of sports trivia which could one day help me win millions of dollars on Jeopardy.

As for magazines, my two favorites are Baseball Digest and Sports Illustrated for Kids.  And wouldn't you know it... both are filled with sports trivia which provide short term entertainment.

March/April 2020 Issue

Today I thought I'd share one of my favorite pieces of trivia discovered in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids.


It's an article written by Sam Page that talks about six coincidences in sports history that are so strange, it's hard to believe they're true.  The one I'm going to spotlight features Stan Musial and Nate Colbert.


In the history of Major League Baseball, there are only two men who have hit five home runs in a double header.  The thing that first caught my attention is that this is something that has only happened twice in MLB history.  You don't need to be a mathematician to figure out that this is pretty darn rare.

When you add the fact that one of these players was present for both of these historical moments, that's when my mind was blown.

Let's start with the first hitter to accomplish this feat:

2002 Topps Team Topps Legends Autographs #TT

On May 2nd, 1954... the St. Louis Cardinals hosted the New York Giants for two day games at Busch Stadium.  The Cardinals won the first game and the Giants won the second, but that's not really important for this post.  The important thing is that Musial hit three home runs in the first game and two more in the second.  And he did it in front of approximately 26,000 fansTwo of those fans were Nate Colbert and his father.

2012 Panini Cooperstown Famous Moments Signatures #9

Eighteen years later on a warm night on August 1st, 1972... Colbert would match Musial's feat by hitting two home runs against the Atlanta Braves in the first game and another three in the second.  His thirteen RBI's carried the last place Padres that day and helped them sweep the Braves.


According to the back of this sticker-graph, Colbert told his father that he wanted to pull off that feat some day... which is pretty darn cool if it's true.

By the way... here's a few more pieces of trivia related to this historic eventColbert's five home runs were hit off of five different Atlanta pitchers.  One of them was a grand slam off of Pat Jarvis.

1960 Topps #572

As for Musial, two of his home runs were hit off of hall of famer, Hoyt Wilhelm, another two off of fan favorite John Antonelli, and one off of all-star Jim Hearn.

1956 Topps #148

And one more thing... Alvin Dark, who was mentioned in Moonshot article involving Gaylord Perry and the Apollo 11 moon landing (see above), also witnessed Musial's five home runs.  He played shortstop for the New York Giants in both games and went 1 for 9 at the plate.

There were a couple of other interesting articles in this issue of SI for Kids.  But this post is starting to drag on, so I'll wind things up with the main reason I subscribe to this magazine:


I've gotta admit that I'm only familiar with Travis Kelce and Marcus Semien on this sheet, but I'm not complaining.  It's pretty rare to see an Oakland Athletic get featured on a sheet of these cards.  However... not quite as rare as Musial and Colbert's home run accomplishments.


Well that's it folks.  Hope you enjoyed this little morsel of baseball trivia.  And who knows... maybe you'll be on Jeopardy one day and it'll help you make money, money... which you can use to buy tons of toilet paper, bottled water, and baseball cards.

By the way... if you're interested in increasing everyone's chances of winning big money on a game show, answer today's question of the day:

What is one interesting piece of baseball trivia that you've recently learned?

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

18 comments:

gcrl said...

not recently learned, but i think it's crazy that steve garvey was on the field when two of baseball's greatest records were broken - babe ruth's home run record and ty cobb's all-time hits record. he was at first base when hank aaron hit 715 in 1974 and when pete rose got hit 4192 in 1985. he also witnessed a third record as a player when nolan ryan threw his fifth no-hitter to pass sandy koufax on the all-time list.

Jim from Downingtown said...

1950s Phillies' outfielder was noted for hitting a lot of foul balls.

One time a foul hit an older lady, and while she was being wheeled out of the stands by the EMTs, Ashburn hit her again!

sg488 said...

Never knew this and wish I could remember what card I read it on,in 1972 Cal Ripken Jr. was 11/12 years old kid at an AA Asheville Orioles game (his dad Ripken Sr. was manager).Apparently he was about to get beat up by bullies and Doug DeCinces noticed it and chased the bullies off.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

My mind is drawing a blank.

The Lost Collector said...

I read an ESPN.com article today on each MLB team’s top pitched game based on pitching score. A lot of names were not the ones one might think, such as Rob Gardner having the Mets best pitched game according to this metric. It was interesting.

night owl said...

Well if I told you the interesting piece of baseball trivia I learned recently it will spoil my blog post, so y'all have to wait.

Also, SI For Kids over SI?? Really? As a writer, you're killing me. And, please look up Mikaela Shiffrin, you won't be disappointed.

POISON75 said...

Well...like someone else mentioned that they didn't recently learned I noticed it back in 1984. What event was that simple I was 9 years old when it was brought to my attention by my father he said 2 ex-Michigan State Spartans took place in the World Series that being Steve Garvey & Kirk Gibson that's when I told him did he forget that 3 former Spartans took place 10 years earlier in a the World Series & he was like WTF!!! So I explained it was Steve Garvey at 1st base trying to nab the Pinch Runner for the Athletics Herb Washington & the pitcher who was on the mound for the Dodgers was none other than Dr. Mike Marshall. That's Strange But True fact #1. Now another is back in 1987 the Stanford University Cardinals took on the University of Oklahoma Sooners the batter was having a great 58 game hitting streak before they ended it. Those 2 players involved were later 2 #1 Picks consecutively picked by the Chicago White Sox in 1987 they chose Jack McDowell & in 1988 Robin Venturs. It was Ventura who had the hitting streak. I amazed myself that I know these things.

Matt said...

I like the Shiffrin card on SI for kids! Hometown celeb here. ONly one we got haha. I should have kept my subscription going for SI For Kids but it ended and my wife thought we shouldn't extend it anymore for cards. sigh. I may have to find a way to get it back some time. Has been a year now and I like collecting the cards

Chris said...

I second N.O.'s comment about Mikaela (and SI). She's amazing. I think that's only her third card though, and all of them are SI for Kids cutouts.

This is such a fun idea for a post that I was trying to rack my brain thinking of a good piece of trivia that isn't common knowledge among the blogsphere. I guess that Randy Moffitt being Billie Jean King's brother counts, but I feel like there's a better one I'm not thinking of!

shoeboxlegends said...

I don't have any trivia to comment with, but wanted to say that Stan Musial autograph is just amazing!

Nick said...

One of my favorite pieces of trivia also involves Stan Musial: he finished his career with 3,630 hits -- 1,815 of those came at home...and 1,815 on the road.

The Snorting Bull said...

1. Nate Colbert is from St. Louis

2. Since your post mentions Stan Musial, I will give you a cool fact that I know about Stan. He had 3,630 hits in his Major League career. If you look at his career splits, exactly half of his hits were in St. Louis, and half were on the road.

Steve at 1975BaseballCards.com said...

Great post! This is what I like about our blogs too. The last trivia that came to mind was about Harvey’s perfect game that I wrote about here: http://athleteswithphones.blogspot.com/2019/06/an-almost-perfect-game.html

NPB Card Guy said...

My favorite bit of Stan Musial trivia is that there are two Hall Of Famers from Donora, PA - Musial and Ken Griffey, Jr. - and they share a birthday - November 21st

Matt said...

While researching for a blog post earlier this year, I learned Dennis Lamp gave up Rod Carew's 3000th hit and also Cal Ripken Jr's 1st!

The Snorting Bull said...

Dennis Lamp also gave up Lou Brock's 3000th hit.

Comatoad said...

Here's another trivia fact - I love those cards in the SI for Kids. That's one of the easiest ways I can keep up on my track and field cards. If you come across any dupes of the track and field, you can always send them my way.

Fuji said...

gcrl - that's some excellent steve garvey trivia. thanks for sharing

jim from downingtown - oh man. i hope ashburn visited her at the hospital. great stuff.

sg488 - hadn't heard that story, but i always did like decinces when i was a kid.

johnnys trading spot - it happens to me all the time

the lost collector - i saw that article. didn't read the entire thing, but it did actually inspire a new mini collection for me... which i'll share in the near future

night owl - when i was a kid, i did like sports illustrated, but it was mainly to cut out the photos. these days i prefer si for kids. not for the photos, but for the cards. i have much respect for your writing skills though. keep up the fantastic work

poison75 - wow. interesting stuff. i wonder if mcdowell ever joked around and gave ventura a hard time for ending his streak

sport card collectors - i consider myself lucky. my school has a magazine fundraiser and teachers get a 40% discount, so i subscribe through that. plus padrographs usually sends me his extra issues, which i usually break down into individual cards.

chris - i'll definitely look her up after i publish these comments. and thanks for sharing the tidbit on moffitt and billie jean king. great stuff

shoeboxlegends - thanks to an overabundance of his autographs released recently, there are a lot of affordable autographs of musial out there.

nick - wow. that's awesome stuff. i didn't know that.

the snorting bull - you and dimebox nick are on the same wave length. great stuff.

steve at 1975baseballcards.com - i knew i wanted to track down a harvey haddix autograph, but couldn't remember why. now i do. awesome piece of baseball trivia.

npb card guy - wow. another great piece of musial trivia. thanks for sharing

matt and the snorting bull - that's some great dennis lamp trivia.

comatoad - i think i have a few. email me your address and i throw some into a pwe.