Follow-Up on TCMA Cardinals '40s set

Boy, was I ever wrong.

Monday I posted the TCMA '42-'46 Cardinals set. Near the end, I noted that the set had been reissued in 1983. Based on what I knew of TCMA and what I had seen of the cards online (or thought I had seen) I assumed that two versions were basically the same. Not so.

Here is the Buddy Blattner card from the '83 version of the set:

And Ray Sanders:

The player's name and position are now rendered in black in a slightly narrower (and cleaner to my eye) font.

The bigger difference is on the reverse...

The '83s were printed on gray cardboard. Each player gets a summary paragraph dealing with his career with an emphasis on the '42 thru '46 seasons. The stats are much more presentable than the typewritten ones of the earlier version. There is no comparison, the '83s look much more professional.

The difference in the shades of gray between the two '83s above is a scanner thing, they look the same in hand. Note that the copyright is updated and the cards are now numbered.

Ken Burkhart's card was one I had in the 'red cardinal' version and I thought I had found the regular version. But the card I acquired turned out to be the '83:

This leaves me with the '75 variation and the '83 non-variation. Scanning them together allowed me to notice that I had assumed the '73s were 'standard' sized. Nope, they are about 5/32nds taller than standard. The '83s are exactly 2.5 x 3.5, the size card we know today.

I also picked up the second of the two different 3-player specials that featured Stan Musial, Mgr Billy Southworth and a third player. Johnny Hopp in one, Ray Sanders in the other. '83 w/Sanders on top, '75 w/Hopp on the bottom.

TCMA moved the text to the side, bordered the photo, and added the era/team designation that the player cards have. The reverse is also different in style.

So I have ended up with a mixed set. LOL...I may poke around and try to find '75 versions of them all and keep the '83 in the back pages like I do with my '62 Green Tints. Or not.

It was kind of fun discovering these things. TCMA was a weird and wonderful company.

TCMA Cardinals, 40s Version

Last week I posted the oddball Gashouse Gang TCMA set from 1974 that was given to me by a dealer a few years back at the hotel show I attend frequently. The majority of the cards in my 'brown bag gift' were also from a Cardinals-related set issued by TCMA. This one was done originally in 1975 and it commemorates the Cardinals club from 1942 through 1946.

St. Louis was the toast of the National League during that span. They took home four league titles and won World Series championships over the Yankees in '42 and Red Sox in 1946.

Their rosters back then were dotted with stars and Hall of Famers, particularly among their everyday players. The '75 TCMA set is much larger than the Gashouse Gang edition, both in terms of card size and checklist size. These (mostly) black and white cards are standard size. I was wrong...they are slightly 'taller' than standard card size. See the follow-up post for more. The checklist stands at 61 plus a couple of variations which we will deal with in a bit.

The Stan Musial card at the top is my favorite of the bunch. I always like bat rack photos used on cards and, well, it's Stan The Man! Next up is shortstop Marty Marion, a four-time All-Star and 1944's MVP. Marion and I share the nickname, 'Slats'. I don't know how Marion earned it and I'm sure not telling how I did.

The regular, single-player cards have the same style of typewritten stat backs as was seen in the '74 set. These carry four seasons of basic numbers for players who were with the Cards for all four seasons. Players have no stats for the years they were elsewhere.

Another fun card is that of infielder Frank Angelo Joseph Crespi, aka 'Creepy' Crespi. That is one of the great names in baseball history. Crespi is an interesting guy. He was the Cards' starting second baseman in 1941 but lost his job to Jimmy Brown in '42. He still got into over 90 games and scored a run in the '42 Series.

Crespi declined a military deferment that he was entitled to as sole supporter of his elderly mother. He said, "I don't think I'm too good to fight for the things I've always enjoyed." Crespi entered the Army in '43 and ended up breaking his leg three(!) times during his military service (though not in combat). The first break came while playing on an Army ball club in Kansas. The second break came as a result of a training accident. The third, well, he apparently was racing other patients in his wheelchair and wrecked. 😧

He never returned to baseball. After numerous attempts to qualify for a big-league pension, he finally gave up and continued his post-baseball work in the financial offices at McDonald-Douglas. Many years later it was determined that Crespi had never officially retired and was credited with time on the DL. He got his pension.

Terry Moore roamed center for the Cards when he wasn't serving with Uncle Sam. He was a four-time All-Star.

Joe Garagiola played was platoon catcher for the Cards and a hometown favorite. He debuted in 1946.

Harry 'The Hat' Walker was familiar to me from his days as the manager of the Astros.

Red Schoendienst spent almost seven decades in baseball in one capacity or another before he passed at the age of 95 a few years back.

Pepper Martin had been an integral part of the cards of the 30s and returned to the team in 1944 as a stopgap infielder due to the shortage of players during WWII. He hit pretty well that year at the age of 40 but didn't get into the Series.

Enos Slaughter was another long time baseball guy who won four titles, two in St. Louis and two with the Yankees. He was known for his hustle and for scoring the winning run in the last game of the '46 Series. He was also (allegedly, and along with Terry Moore) behind an attempt to keep Jackie Robinson off major league diamonds.

Like the previous set, there are oversized cards, two in this case. One shows the team in 1942.

The back has the story of their exploits.

The other shows old Sportsman's Park and has a list of the players who were members of the Cards in this era who were not included among the cards.

Four multi-player cards are part of the set. All have World Series notes on the back. Musial is shown on two similar cards. Here is one of them.

Notice anything odd about that last card? It's the inked red cardinal on Johnny Beazley's jersey. There is another version which shows the bird without the red coloring. I'm lacking that one.

The other 'red bird' variation' is Kem Burkhart's card. His 'normal' card is headed my way at some point from COMC.

There is another variation which I haven't seen. It is a 'missing name' Lon Warneke. I haven't seen it available anywhere but It's listed on the checklist at the Trading Card Database site.

The last 'variation' is supposedly one involving Ernie White's card. 

The 'variation' is listed simply as just that, 'variation'. I've looked at a bunch of White cards over the last month or so and I'll be damned if I can figure out what the notation is supposed to indicate. The  best I can figure is a difference in how the name/team/position is situated in relationship to the photo. To tell the truth, I think I'm probably just imagining that.

This is really a more fun set than the Gashouse Gang issue. 'Fun' as in 'easier to figure out' and keep straight. I have, or will have some time in the near future, the thing finished except for the three variations I've noted. So the bottom line is I have every card.

Oh, I forgot to mention one detail. This set was 're-issued' by TCMA in 1983. Since there are no telltale markings or even cardboard color differences in the ones I have I really don't know if any I own are from the reprints. One eBay seller had his listed as '75s and '83s, but they looked identical down to the amount of wear and in every other way. If TCMA just rolled the presses in 1983 using the same original 1975 sheets there wouldn't be any difference anyway.

UPDATE--A few '83 'remakes' have arrived, and they have several significant differences. I'll get them posted in a follow-up to this soon.

TCMA Cardinals, The Gas House Gang

A few years ago I was at the regular hotel card show buying a stack of cards for a set I was building at the time. As I was paying, the dealer, one of the few who has stuff worth looking at, handed me a paper sack. It was one of those in which you'd tote a school lunch. He said he'd bought a collection earlier in the day, and he had no use for the bag's contents so it became his 'gift' to me.

I peeked inside and saw an unruly jumble of Cardinal cards that I didn't recognize. I stuck it in my backpack and forgot about it until I was going back to the next show. Turns out that the cards were TCMA near-sets from 1974 and '75.

The first is the oddly interesting Gashouse Gang set of 31 cards issued in 1974. As with many TCMA issues, figuring out just what you have can be challenging. There are 26 different players represented. These are narrower than standard-sized modern cards, though just as tall.

Here are a few of the individual player cards. I say 'player', but player/manager Frankie Frisch and a coach or two are also in there.

This illustrates how they differ in size from standard cards:

Ernie Orsatti has two different poses, a portrait and a full-length shot of him with a bat.

There is also a card of the Dean brothers, Dizzy and Daffy. That brings us to 27 plus the Orsatti variation.

The backs of these have nominal stats for most players, a blurb for the coaches, and a notation of games played with other teams in 1934.

There are also four over-sized cards. These clock in at 3.5" x 4.5" and feature action from the '34 World Series, and one showing Dizzy Dean and Leo Durocher celebrating the title.

Here is the back of the oversized Dizzy and Leo photo card:

 And the others:

Oh, the backs are darker you say? Hold that thought, because, as with a lot of things TCMA, stuff gets a bit complicated.

You may have noticed that some cards have '1934 Cardinals' at the top, others show 'The Gashouse Gang'. I haven't seen both versions for every card, but I saw enough in my travels down eBay and COMC rabbit holes to be fairly confident that the whole bunch comes in both versions.

Then there's this....

The cards (all? some?) also have blue tint versions.

And then there's this:

I mistakenly picked up a second Daffy Dean card. When it arrived it was obviously printed on brighter paper. And the back, like those of the oversized cards, was on darker cardboard. The Trading Card Database calls these 'graybacks' but the checklist is identical. Were these reprinted by TCMA? Did someone go to the trouble to 'counterfeit' these? Surely not.

The whole deal is more than I can process. There is a 'regular set' with white backs and '1934 Cardinals' on the front, a set with white backs but with 'The Gashouse Gang' on the front. Plus a blue tint versions of both of the above. Then there are the 'dark cardboard' versions.

I may need to consult Twitter acquaintance Andrew Aronstein, son of the company's founder, Micheal Aronstein, to help me sort it all out.

Running down the checklist I found on the Trading Card Database told me I needed four cards. I was able to find them without too much hassle on SportsLots and COMC. Then, when I became aware of the multiple version fun, I decided that one of each player (and the two Orsatti poses) would be plenty for me. I went ahead and picked up a blue tint or two just as examples. 

Once COMC starts shipping again I'll have everything in hand. Then I'll turn to the other TCMA Cardinals set which was in the paper sack. That's the 1942-46 Cardinals set...it has 'red jersey Cardinals' variations. Oy vey.

New TCMA 1930s Photocards

I picked up this set of 20 postcards from Andrew Aronstein, son of TCMA's founder Michael Aronstein. Andrew has become a Twitter fixture lately and is also a member of Net54 which is where I first 'met' him. Long story short...he used these terrific images from the 1930s in a photo exhibition recently near his home in Peekskill, NY. On Net54 he posted some shots of the framed photos and offered them for sale.

I knew I wanted one but while I was deciding on which one the whole lot was purchased. But my bad luck turned to good as Andrew found a Lou Gehrig photo from the same era, matted and framed and offered me first shot. I didn't hesitate. The Gehrig is beautiful but I'm still struggling to find a place to display it and even worse, I can't get a decent picture of it with my phone camera so I'll dig out my good camera and try with that.

Meanwhile (OK, this story isn't that short, is it?) Andrew had postcards of the original photos available and I purchased a set. I won't post all 20 of them today but I'll get them all up soon enough. Maybe the rest will get posted with the Gehrig photo once I get that worked out. Meanwhile, enjoy these shots of players from the 1930s. Some are Hall of Famers and others were everyday guys.  I've typed enough so I'll let the cards speak for themselves with mostly just a line or two from me.

Yankee great Bill Dickey posed atop the Yankees dugout. His Yankees clubs played in eight World Series, winning seven.

I'll post just one or two backs to give you an idea of how they look.

Jimmie Foxx, 3-time AL MVP. He topped 150 RBIs four times!

Lefty Gomez  He was on five Yankees title teams and was a perfect 6-0 in seven WS starts.

Paul 'Daffy' Dean, of course, was Dizzy's brother. Began his career with back-to-back 19 win seasons. He won twice in the '34 Series versus Detroit.

Sam Leslie had a career .304 average in 10 seasons with the Giants and Dodgers.

Bill Terry, Hall of Famer and career .341 hitter. It took him 15 years of voting to finally get elected to the Hall. I love this dugout pose. This was one I thought about buying as a framed photo.

'Dixie' Walker, pictured here with the Yankees early in his career, went on to star with the Dodgers in the 1940s. Truth be told I thought this was the best photo of the entire lot.

Joe Stripp...who, according to Wikipedia, was the last player to bat against a legally thrown spitball, at the end of the career of Burleigh Grimes in 1934. He hit .294 over eleven seasons with the Braves, Reds, Cardinals, and Dodgers.

Al Lopez caught in the majors for nearly two decades and later won two pennants in his 17-year managerial tenure with the Indians and White Sox.

Luke Appling won two batting titles and was a seven-time All-Star with the White Sox. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1964.

Charlie Grimm was a baseball 'lifer' who played, managed and worked in baseball-related broadcasting for almost fifty years.

Joe Shaute pitched for thirteen seasons, mostly for the Dodgers and Indians. He earned 20 of his 99 career wins in 1924.

Slick Castleman pitched for the Giants in the mid- to late1930s and had a career-best 15 wins in 1935.

Harold Schumacher and Lefty Gomez from the 1936 World Series. They were the Game Two starters with Gomez winning in a Yankees romp, 18-4. Schumacher came back to pitch (and win) Gave Five and went 10 innings to do so. Gomez pitched for the Yanks in Game Six which they won to take the series. He went six+ shaky innings but it was enough in a game that was close until the Yanks exploded for seven runs in the top of the ninth to seal it.

Again, thanks to Andrew Aronstein for making these great cards available. I'm really enjoying them.