That's why I enjoy writing these posts. With a few taps on the keyboard, I can quickly go back and refresh my memory on topics that were interesting to me at one point or another.
Today's post is about a hall of famer who is a member of the very exclusive 3,000 Hit Club. How exclusive is it? Well as of today, there have been over 19,000 guys to play at the MLB level and only 32 have collected 3,000 or more hits.
I'm sure you're thinking this is another post about Gwynn, Henderson, or maybe even Carew, Rose, or Ichiro... since I actively collect cards of these gentleman.
However today I'll be writing about an old-timer who played his final MLB game over ninety years ago. His name is recognizable to most baseball fans, but he doesn't receive the same level of publicity as legends like Ruth or Gehrig. Yet he has more hits than either of them.
Meet Eddie Collins:
2002 Topps Tribute Milestone Materials #MM-EC
Collins played thirteen seasons with the Philadelphia Athletics and twelve more with the Chicago White Sox. And yes... he was a member of that famous team, but he wasn't one of the eight players permanently banned from baseball by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. As an A's fan, I remember reading about him being a part of the famous $100,000 Infield that also featured fellow hall of famer... Frank "Home Run" Baker.
According to his Baseball Hall of Fame page, he's one of only five MLB players with 500 stolen bases and a career .400 on base percentage. He is also one of only ten members of the 3,300 Hit Club (yeah, I made that up).
Anyways... I have wanted to add a memorabilia card of his to my A's PC for years. Then Jim over at cards as i see them wrote about his copy back in early June, which motivated me to add Mr. Collins to my eBay watch list.
Two months later, I bid and won the card you see above for $11.61 (+ $3.99 shipping and $1.07 tax). In an era where collectors are paying outrageous prices for rookie cards of top prospects and for certain Project 2020 cards, I think it's pretty awesome that you can still grab (supposedly) game-used memorabilia cards of legends like Eddie Collins for less than $17.
By the way for bookkeeping purposes, this was actually purchased using an eBay gift card, so I didn't have to use any out of pocket funds.
On the other hand, I did have to spend $99.99 (+ $9.99 shipping) for this Fernando Tatis Jr. autographed full-size bat (JSA certified):
Here's a closer look at the signature:
It's not game-used and Tatis isn't a legend, but I was pretty excited to add this to my autographed bat collection that includes guys like Tony Gwynn, Frank Thomas, and Kurt Suzuki.
Well that's it for today.
Do you have any favorite old-timers not named Ruth, Gehrig, Young, Johnson, Cobb, or Hornsby?
If so, what's drew your attention to them?
Happy Throwback Thursday and sayonara!
22 comments:
Tons of them!! Growing up, I spent a lot of time reading about the old timers. Some favorites are Tris Speaker, Three Finger Brown, Gabby Hartnett, Dizzy Dean and Tinkers to Evers to Chance. Plenty of others, but I will stop there.
Look up Harry Heilmann. Very underrated HOFer, won four batting titles in 1920s with the Detroit Tigers.
OH...GREAT CARD!
Love the Deadball Era, so I have a lot of favorites. Mathewson, Three Finger Brown, and Deacon Phillippe come to mind. Grover Alexander too. All pitchers!
Awesome Collins card! I am kind of a baseball history buff and write about it quite a bit on my blog. I often wonder if anyone enjoys the baseball history posts or if they would rather just read the posts about cards in general. One cool thing about Collins (other than he was a great guy and one of the best second baseman of his time); Collins is largely attributed to bringing some kid named Ted Williams to Boston to play baseball. Collins first caught a glimpse of Williams while on a scouting trip to evaluate another future Hall of Famer, Bobby Doerr. Over the next year and change, Collins kept in touch with the Padres brass and on Dec. 7, 1937, he struck a deal to bring Williams from the Pacific Coast League to the Red Sox for $35,000. A few of my favorite "old timers" are Len Koenecke - he recorded 147 hits with a .320 batting average in 1934 and then died in 1935 trying to hijack a plane. Another interesting player is Mo Berg - a catcher in the 20's-30's - Casey Stengel referred to him as "the strangest man to ever play baseball" - A graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read 10 newspapers a day. He also gained notoriety among his fellow teammates because he would repeatedly call into the radio show 'Information Please' and win every time. Oh, he was also a spy. He would travel to Yugoslavia to gather intelligence on resistance groups which the U.S. government was considering supporting. He was sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the Nazi German nuclear program. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the OSS's successor, the Central Intelligence Agency.
Chief Bender is my #1, Rube Oldring, Bender's teammate in the 1910s is a guy I read a lot about while researching Bender. He struck a chord with me for some reason and so I have a handful of his cards. I have a couple of vintage Mathewsons as well.
Way too many, but Christy is way up there.
My favorite pre-integration players are probably Bob Feller and Charlie Gehringer. I was always a bit of a fan of Feller prior to an unexpected meeting prior to an independent league game in Bridgeport, CT in 1999 and was able to have more of a prolonged conversation with him than did the other kids on hand, as I was actually familiar with his career and achievements. When it came to Gehringer, I liked the fact that his nickname was "The Mechanical Man" due to his stoic nature and, like Eddie Collins, think that Gehringer has been somewhat underappreciated historically despite being a HOFer.
I like some of those tribute card. When did you pickup the Tatis bat? One of these day I’ll post about some of the bats I have.
I don't have much vintage at all. It's something I need to work on
Those early years of topps tribute included some beautiful relic cards. Thanks for the shout out. I spent a lot of time learning about the players from that era and would add bonus Wagner, tris speaker, mathewson, and mel ott to the list of players you mentioned.
the diamond king - great list of names. i remember reading about three finger brown when i was a kid. and i've always wanted to get playing era cards of tinkers, evers, and chance.
john sharp - very cool. didn't know about the batting titles and honestly not even sure if i had heard mr. heilmann's name before. i will check him out
wax pack wonders - never heard of deacon phillippe, but i'll look him up. thanks
troublewiththecurve.net - dang. that's some great baseball stories. i had read the thing about spotting williams, but never heard the name of koenecke or the story of him hijacking a plane. and the mo berg story is fascinating
commishbob - rube oldring's name sounds familiar, but couldn't tell you anything about him until i just looked him up. but i definitely know bender and mathewson
johnnys trading spot - yeah. probably should have included his name in this post
mike - very cool that you had the chance to meet mr. feller. i never did, but i did find an autographed baseball of his at the flea market a few years ago for $5. as for gehringer, i learned his name when i was younger, because i played a video game on my apple iie that had a bunch of baseball teams from different eras
steve at 1975baseballcards.com - picked up the back on june 25th on a site called shoprsa
sport card collectors - me either. and with my recent cutbacks, not likely to add any vintage early 1900's players anytime soon
gcrl - thanks for pointing out this card on your blog. probably would never have looked for a copy without your inspiration.
Wow, super nice card. I like the M-shape, too. That seems unique. Sweet bat, too. I think my favorite old timer would be Ralph Kiner.
Sweet card and sweet bat! Tatis may not be a legend, but he's well on his way!
Joe Posnanski wrote a lot about Bob Feller over the years. This piece in particular was pretty representative of my meeting with him and the enthusiasm that Feller had for signing autographs. https://wp.joeposnanski.com/rip-bob-feller-2/
I would have to say Edd Roush. Even though he's a Red, Roush always argued that his 1919 Reds would have won the World Series regardless if the White Sox had cheated or not. He never took the initiative to go to spring training workouts with the team and he was never afraid to sit out a season if he felt like he wasn't being compensated enough for his talents. Beautiful Collins card btw Fuji.
Not sure I have any one particular vintage guy I follow. But that certainly is a cool card.
Tough question. I really don't. I would probably say Rizzuto, although he almost feels too new for the question.
Joe Posnanski made a really good case about Arky Vaughan. More fans should know him.
That is an awesome card! I love the first few Tribute sets. Great stuff. Favorite old time players, low key and under the radar. George Whitted, also known as Possum. Also Jack Coombs.
peter k steinberg - as an autograph guy, i was shocked to see see how affordable kiner signatures can be picked up for.
matt - i sure hope so. the padres could use another legend in their franchise history
mike - thanks for sharing that article. we don't always take into consideration just how much more impressive some of these athletes career stats would be had they not went off to serve in the armed forces during their peak years.
reds card collector - had to look up roush. heard his name before, but had no idea he was a career .333 hitter. that's impressive
sumomenkoman - what about a favorite sumo old-timer?
the lost collector - i asked my dad about athletes he liked when he was younger. pretty sure rizzuto was on that list
adam - i had heard of mr. vaughan, but didn't realize he was a hall of famer. i'll have to look up mr. posnanski's post on him.
the snorting bull - now these guys are old timers. wasn't familiar with either of these guys, but i enjoyed looking them up.
Not my favorite old time player but I saw a something about an Indians pitcher names Ray Caldwell who made his MLB debut on 8/24/19. You should google him, it's worth it.
adame - caldwell was struck by lightning and refused to leave the game. that's pretty cool
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