So Close With 7 To Go

I picked up a few 1948 Bowman cards off of Ebay recently after I sold a Mookie Betts auto for $30 to a guy on Instagram.  I got this Tommy Henrich card at around $7 because the seller had its condition marked as "poor."  I can see the crease on the card, and the centering isn't that great, but I would never grade it as poor.

I have a lot of respect for Henrich after reading about him a few years ago (I forget which book, it was either We Played the Game or The Glory of Their Times).  I picked up a ball signed by Henrich in Cooperstown back in 2013.

Here is card #27, Sid Gordon.  Gordon seems like he was a pretty decent ballplayer.  He was a 2-time All Star and hit 30 home runs in the 1948 season.  Not bad, I think.

Finally, I added this Bobby Thomson RC.  Thomson is famous for his "Shot Heard Round The World" home run in 1951 that gave the Giants the NL pennant over the Dodgers.

Adding these three cards puts my set needs at 7 cards remaining.  I never thought I would be this close to finishing the set.  It really is just one Ebay binge away from being done.  The last big name I need is Enos Slaughter.  A Hall of Famer, sure, but Slaughter isn't mearly as big a name as the ones that I have chipped away from this set since I started it a few years ago.  I'm hoping I can get this one wrapped up in a few months, that way, I can go into the National Card Show in July with one less set hanging over my head.

Cooperstown Pickup - Tommy Henrich Signed Baseball

While we were at the card show in Cooperstown, I picked up this signed baseball by Tommy Henrich from the same vendor that I got the Harmon Killebrew from.  I saw the Henrich and really liked it because of reading about him in the book The Glory of Their Times.  Henrich was known as a great storyteller and I definitely could tell when reading that book.

Henrich (b. 1913 - d. 2009) played in the majors from 1937 to 1942 and 1946 to 1950 for the Yankees.  He had 1,297 hits, 183 home runs and a .282 batting average over the course of 11 seasons.  He was an All Star 5 times and finished as high as 6th in the MVP voting (1948 and 1949).  He won the World Series 4 times (1938, 1941, 1947 and 1949) with the Yankees.