Better Late Than Never

Sometimes it's better to learn something later, than to never learn about it at all.  As a baseball fan for almost my entire life, I had heard Don Newcombe's name on numerous occasions.  I knew that he was a black pitcher who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but it wasn't until I started doing research on my left-handed Cy Young Award Winners project that I discovered he was the first person to win the Cy Young Award in 1956.

I immediately began searching for an autographed card of his for my collection.  My preferences were to have it be pack pulled and hard signed, however I'd be willing to add a slabbed copy if the price was right.  Here's what I ended up purchasing:

2001 UD Legends of New York Game Bat Autograph #SDB-DN

It's one of his first certified autographs and supposedly contains a piece of one of his game used bats.  Newcombe was exceptional at the plate.  Just ask Night Owl.  That's where I discovered that he was one of the greatest hitting pitchers in the history of the game.  In 1955, he had one of the greatest seasons at the plate for a pitcher in MLB history when he batted .359 with seven home runs in 125 plate appearances.

Brian over at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary mentioned in his tribute that Newcombe was used as a pinch hitter and we eventually converted into a first baseman after wrapping up his MLB career and crossing the Pacific to play in Japan.  Sean's tribute over at Getting Back into Baseball Cards... in Japan confirmed that.

In fact, I've learned so many cool facts and stories about Newcombe this week.  It's just unfortunate that I didn't appreciate him more while he was still with us.

In fact, the only other card I could find of him within my scans is this 1951 Bowman card I picked up at the Branham Flea Market back in 2014:

1951 Bowman #6

I went back to the Flea Market Find post that featured this card and discovered that I had done a little research myself back in the day:

I guess my mind isn't what it used to be.  I appreciate all of the bloggers out there who wrote tributes to Newcombe and have given me a nice refresher course.  Sure I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't remember this information, but this time I assure you that I've learned just how important Newcombe was to the game I fell in love with as a kid.  And like the blog title states... it's better late, than never.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Contest Winner

Thank you to all of those who participated in my first contest of the year.  Eighteen different people left comments on my post.  Three of those people weren't interested in the prize, which means that there were fifteen entries.  Since I was going to pick the 16th person after 5 randomizations, I ended up needing to put everyone's name in twice.

Here's the results:

Congratulations John Miller!  I'll package up your set and try to ship it out to you as soon as I can.