A group of autographed 1960 and 1961 Fleer cards came up recently on EBay. I targeted, and won, four of them, two from each year. Here are the 1960s.
Lou Boudreau is an interesting guy. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame, as a player, in 1970. Over the course of a 15 year career (1938-1952), he had a respectable triple slash line of .295/.380/.415 while playing premier level defense as a shortstop. 13 of those years were in Cleveland, with the final two in Boston. In that final season, he only appeared in 4 games mid-season. He won a batting title in 1944 and was the AL MVP in 1948, when he hit .355/.453/.534 with 18 HRs and 106 RBIs. The second and third place finishers in the MVP ballot that year was no less than Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams.
What is interesting about Boudreau is that, for 10 of those years he was a player/manager. Starting in 1942, and through 1950, he managed the Indians, including during their World Series Championship season of 1948. Get this: his first year as a player manager in 1942? He he was 24 years old. Crazy huh?
Johnny Mize is also a Hall of Fame inductee (1981). He enjoyed a 15 year career (with 3 years missed during WWII) with the St Louis Cardinals (6 years), NY Giants (6 years), and tghe NY Yankees (5 years). He put up a .312/.397/.562 triple slash over the course of that career, knocking in 2011 hits and 359 home runs. He managed to be on 5 world championship teams, all with the Yankees at the end of his career. By the time he played with the Bombers, he was mainly a role player. What I know today as a fourth outfielder. However, at the age of 39, in the 1952 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers, he went 6 for 15 with 3 home runs and 6 RBIs. This included a pinch hit home run off Preacher Roe in the bottom of the 9th in game 3, which was won by the Dodgers; a solo home run in the Yankees 4th game victory, and a 3 run dinger of Carl Erskine in game 5 (won by the Dodgers.)
What I am listening to: Jump Around by House of Pain (don't judge)
Boudreau was also the long time voice of the Cubs on WGN radio. I grew up listening to him.
ReplyDeleteAnd he's often credited with inventing, or at least popularizing, the infield shift.
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