Greetings From Forbes Field by Russell Streur

 

GREETINGS FROM FORBES FIELD

BARNEY DREYFUSS

Born in 1865 in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Barney Dreyfuss was the son of an Americanized father who made a fortune selling liquor to Native Americans before returning to Europe at the outbreak of the Civil War. Reversing the steps of the father, the younger Dreyfuss emigrated to the United States at the age of 16 to evade the Imperial German Army draft.



Working his way through the ranks of the family bourbon business, Dreyfuss found a talent in his spare hours to first organize baseball clubs of distillery workers and then to operate semi-pro baseball teams. In 1889, Dreyfuss bought a share of the Louisville Cardinals of the American Association, absorbed later by the National League when the Association collapsed. At the end of the century, Dreyfuss parlayed a Louisville line-up that included Honus Wagner, Rube Waddell, and Fred Clarke into the ownership of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Bible of Baseball credits Dreyfuss with ending the war between the National League and the insurgent American League with the creation of the World Series in 1903.



Dreyfuss remained president of the Pirates throughout his life.

 

FORBES FIELD

                                                         Postcard, Forbes Field, 1910

 

Dreyfuss opened the first concrete and steel National League stadium on June 30, 1909. Resisting the temptation of the time to name the stadium after himself, Dreyfuss instead chose Forbes Field, naming the grounds after an adjacent avenue honoring the British general who founded Fort Pitt during the French and Indian War. A second bordering street was named after a Swiss mercenary who served under Forbes, Henry Boquet, who later gained permanent infamy with his role in deliberately exposing Native Americans to smallpox during the Pontiac War.



The city certainly needed a new stadium. Exposition Park, built in 1882 and the original home of the Pirates, had the benefit of a downtown location on the banks of the Allegheny, but the low-lying outfield often resembled a marsh and flooded knee-deep in water when the river overflowed its banks.



Early observers questioned Dreyfuss’ judgment in choosing the outskirts of the city to place his new stadium. Critics labelled it Dreyfuss’ Folly and warned the owner that fans would turn their backs on the place as being too big, too fancy, and too long a trolley ride from downtown.



Talk of folly disappeared when the park opened. Writers lauded the “subtle elegance” of the stadium when it opened. “For architectural beauty, imposing size, solid construction and for public comfort and convenience, it has not its superior in the world,” the 1910 edition of the Reach Guide said. Baseball Magazine agreed. “The new park is the greatest achievement in civil engineering—and as beautiful as well as secure a construction as has been undertaken in this country since baseball first began to be the national pastime.”



The Pirates celebrated their new home by winning the World Series in 1909, defeating Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in seven games behind the bats of Wagner and Clarke and the pitching of Charles Benjamin "Babe" Adams. Allowing six hits in each of his three outings, the rookie right-hander won the opener, Game 5 next, and then the finale with a complete game shut-out.

 

                                                         Forbes Field, Game Time 1912

 

THE CATHEDRAL OF LEARNING

 Postcard, Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh, circa 1940

Construction began 1926; officially dedicated 1937.

Paul Goldberg, in his book, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City, gives special mention to the unique placement of Forbes Field next to the woods and trails of Schenley Park in Pittsburgh’s upscale Oakland neighborhood.



The area, Goldberg writes, “already had a Carnegie library [and] would in time become the city’s main cultural center, with several museums, the University of Pittsburgh, and what would become the Carnegie Mellon University . . . No other city could claim a major league baseball park as part of its cultural mix, either in 1909 or anytime afterward. The geographical intersection of the ballpark with other cultural institutions would have no other examples other than Forbes Field at Schenley Park."

Less than a mile from home plate, the Cathedral of Learning towers above Forbes Field.

 

 

HOMESTEAD GRAYS

Cum Posey, Negro Leagues Legends No. 65 (2020)

 

The Pirates weren't the only home team playing at Forbes Field in the 1920s and 1930s. The Homestead Grays also regularly played at the park.



A white black double header was played at Forbes in May of 1932. The Pirates played the Philadelphia Phillies in the opener. The Grays played the Philadelphia Hilldales in the nightcap.



One of the longest-lived black teams, the Grays were organized by Cum Posey in 1912. The team mostly played as an independent club until joining a rebuilt Negro National League in 1935. The Grays were declared league champions in 1937 and 1938. During the years of World War II, the Grays increasingly shifted operations to Washington, DC, pulling in larger crowds at Griffith Stadium. Under the leadership of team captain Buck Leonard, the Grays won six more pennants before the league disbanded at the end of the 1948 season. Leonard's 15 years with the Grays was the longest stint of any player with any team in the history of the Negro Leagues.

Posey was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. The national pastime wasn't Posey's first sport--basketball was. A Pittsburgh-area high school and college standout, Posey later organized, played for, and ran the Loendi Big Five. A dominant team during the Black Fives era of hardwood segregation, Posey's team won four consecutive Colored Basketball World Championship titles in the early 1920s. Posey was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, the only person in both the baseball and the basketball halls of fame.

                                                            Homestead Grays, 1931

Postcard, Negro League Legends, 1991, No. 82

 

 

PITTSBURGH CRAWFORDS

Gus Greenlee, Negro Leagues Legends No. 44 (2020)

 

The Pittsburgh Crawfords were the third great Steel City baseball team. Hill District nightclub operator and numbers king Gus Greenlee bought the Crawfords in 1931 and raided the Grays and other clubs to replace a neighborhood roster with future Hall of Famers including Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson and Cool Papa Bell. Unhappy with the rent charged at Forbes, Greenlee built and named for himself a concrete and steel stadium that seated 7,500 spectators. It was home to the Crawfords until Greenlee sold the club off after the 1938 season. The Crawfords won three pennants of the revived Negro National League between 1933 and 1936.



Some diamond historians consider the 1935 version of the team the best ever in the history of the Negro Leagues. Others give the nod to the 1931 Grays.

 

Pittsburgh Crawfords, 1936

Postcard, Negro League Legends, 1991, No. 84

 

 

OVER THE ROOF

 

Barney Dreyfuss thought home runs produced a boring brand of baseball, and he made sure his park wouldn’t permit any cheap shots into the seats. The original dimension of the field measured 360 feet down the left field line, 462 feet to center, and 376 feet in right. Dreyfuss got the running game he wanted—Pirate right fielder Owen Wilson set and still holds the major league record for most triples in a season with 36 in 1912, and the Pirates hit a record eight triples in a single game against the Cardinals on May 30, 1925.

Cast loose by the New York Yankees in the dead of winter, an overweight and fading Babe Ruth signed with the Boston Braves in the spring of 1935. On May 25, Ruth hit the last three home runs of his career at Forbes Field. The third of the blasts was the first to clear the recently-constructed 86-foot-tall roof in right field. Ruth retired a few days later after going hitless the rest of the month. Over the next 35 years, only 17 more homers cleared the roof. Willie Stargell hit seven of them.

While the dimensions of the park changed over the years, the field was always big, and it was still spacious enough in 1956 to allow Roberto Clemente to become the only major league player to belt a walk-off inside the park grand slam, speeding around the bases in a 9 to 8 Pirate win over the Cubs on July 25.

                            Topps, Circle K Boxed Set, All Time Home Run Kings No. 16 (1985)

FORBES FIELD AT NIGHT 

The Pirates played their first night game at Forbes Field on June 4, 1940. But if wasn’t the first night game ever played at the park. Under the portable lights of the pioneering night-ball playing Kansas City Monarchs, the Homestead Grays defeated the visitors in 12 innings, 5 to 4, on July 18, 1930.

 

Forbes Field at night, circa 1949.

 

1960 WORLD SERIES

 

 

 

Topps saw the Pirates as a club on the rise in 1959. Three out of the 17 cards in that year's subset of team stars featured Pirate combinations. The chewing gum company was a year early. The Pirates took home a World Series championship in 1960.

 

Topps No.312 (1961)

 Postcard, Forbes Field, 1961

 

FORBES FIELD MAINSTAYS

 

Forbes Field opened on June 30, 1909, with the Pirates losing to the Chicago Cubs, 3 to 2. The two teams also played the last games at the park, a double-header on June 28, 1970. The Pirates swept the Cubs, 3 to 2 in the opener and 4 to 1 in the nightcap. The careers of six Pirates span the lifetime of the stadium.

 

Babe Adams 1909 to 1926

One story says Adams earned his nickname during his 1908 Louisville season when female fans greeted the handsome pitcher with cries of “Oh, you babe!” whenever he took the mound.



Adams lost an epic duel at Forbes against Rube Marquard and the New York Giants on July 17, 1914, falling 3 to 1 when Larry Doyle homered in the top of the 21st inning. Adams walked no one during the marathon, setting the record for the most innings pitched in a game without giving up a base on balls. Adams pitched into his 40s, and logged a scoreless inning in relief during the 1925 World Series, won by the Pirates four games to three over the Washington Senators.

 

Babe Adams, Fleer Baseball Greats No.90 (1961)

 

Paul Waner 1926 to 1940 

Said to be always a threat to break up a no-hitter but never a party, the hard-drinking Waner credited his batting success to the whiskey he drank before batting. “When I walked up there (to the batter’s box) with a half-pint of whiskey fresh in my gut, that ball came in looking like a basketball,” he would say. “But if I hadn’t downed my half-pint of 100 proof, that ball came in like an aspirin tablet.” Waner may have been better off with a trip to the eye doctor. He played half-blind from nearsightedness.

 

Paul Waner, Conlon Collection No. 5 (1991)

 

Rip Sewell 1938 to 1949

Sewell joined the Pirates as a reliever in 1938. Late that year, Sewell was shot with two loads of buckshot to his lower legs during a deer hunting accident in the Ocala Forest. With the big toe on his pitching foot permanently mangled, Sewell was forced to revamp his delivery and was credited with inventing the eephus pitch, a slow and high-arcing blooper throw that baffled batters. The pitch revived his career, bringing him 17 wins in 1942, 21 wins in each of the next two seasons, and four NL All Star selections.



Not everyone was a fan of the pitch. National League President Ford Frick turned thumbs down on Sewell’s artistry after attending the All-Star Game in 1946. “I can take it if we lose, but I strongly object to our league making a burlesque out of the All-Star Game,” Frick declared. “I never want to see such an exhibition again.”

 

Rip Sewell, Reprint, Bowman No. 234 (1949)

 

Ralph Kiner 1946 to 1953 

Kiner led the NL in home runs seven straight seasons with the Pirates, from 1946 to 1952. His bat earned him the highest salary in the National League but couldn’t lift the Pirates into contention. The Pirates hit bottom in 1952, finishing the season with 42 wins against 112 losses, 54 ½ games out of first. When Kiner reported to the club in 1953, Branch Rickey offered the slugger a pay cut. Kiner didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. “We finished last with you,” Rickey told Kiner. “We can finish last without you.” Rickey sent Kiner to the almost equally hapless Cubs in June. Pirate fans hanged Rickey in effigy. The Cubs finished in seventh. True to Rickey’s prediction, the Pirates finished last.

 

Ralph Kiner, Topps Archives No. 191 (2001)

 

Bob Friend 1951 to 1965 

In the fourth of consecutive last-place Pirate finishes in 1955, Friend became the first pitcher to lead the league in ERA while pitching for a cellar team. A workhorse, Friend led the league in starts three times and never spent a day on the disabled list during a 16-year career. Friend holds the Pittsburgh franchise record for games started, innings pitched, strikeouts and batters faced.

 

Bob Friend, Pacific Trading Cards, No. 78 (1988)

 

Roberto Clemente 1955 to 1970

Roberto Clemente was interviewed for the pregame show before the finale at Forbes. A transcript survives. “This is a big emotion for me,” said the Pirates star. “I’ve been here 16 years, almost half my life. I’ve been here 16 years in this ballpark,” Clemente emphasized, “and this ballpark been great for me right here, and the fans have been great for me here, too. So it’s like I was telling some of the fellows today: You’ve been married to your wife for 16 years and so all of a sudden something happen, and you gonna be hurt about it.”



Out in left field, above the scoreboard, the minutes on the Longines clock swept by in mechanical progression, passing from one hour to the next.

 Roberto Clemente , Baseball Immortals No. 135 (1980)

 

 Last Out, 1970

Memories of Forbes Field No. 19 (2000)

--Russell Streur 

Thanks  for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

Next Friday: I’m bringing back The Quitter…and we’re gonna talk 1986 Topps Football cards.

Here's to the guys on the bench! R.J. Reynolds and how there is no shame in the common card

But I always liked this image of R.J. Reynolds

    I won’t get into how absolutely wonderful 1987 Topps baseball cards are. At least not again. Instead I want to focus on the image of Reynolds. Happy. Relaxed. Back in the dugout at some point in the 1986 season. Maybe after driving in a run. And lord knows the Pirates could’ve used all of the runs they could get in 1986. The team went 64-98 that season. The last truly bad season they’d have before the rebound. Before all of those bittersweet playoff seasons that began in 1990.

    I found myself thinking about R.J. Reynolds this morning. I was on my walk to work and listening to Dejan Kovacevic’s Daily Shot of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s a small daily 10-15 minute podcast that Kovacevic does daily for the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins...if hockey is your thing. In his Daily Shot of the Pirates, Dejan was discussing Ben Gamel, or rather the Pirates need to keep Ben Gamel come 2022 and beyond. I’m not going to get into Gamel too much here, except to say that Kovacevic made the point that on the Pirates, any Major League team for that matter, Ben Gamel would be a great fourth or fifth outfielder because of the hard-nosed yet fun way in which he plays the game of baseball.

    Admittedly...I'm a Ben Gamel fan. 

    But fouth or fifth outfielder?

    My Delorean mind immediately went back to R.J. Reynolds.

 

    When I think of fourth or fifth outfielders for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and especially during the time that I was a little bit more than emotionally vested in the team (1984-1992), R.J. Reynolds is one that comes to the top of my list. Though we did have a bit of a contemptuous start. The Pirates aquired Reynolds in a deal that would send one of my favorites, Bill Madlock to the Los Angeles Dodgets (a deal that would later also include another cornerstone of the those championship teams..and historical thorn in the side of any Pirates fan, Sid Bream), on August 31, 1985. 

Another dark day for a Pirates fan in the mid-80s But I did take quickly to Reynolds, who ended up batting a solid .308 in his first thirty-one games as a Pirate.

    And his 1986 Topps card was no slouch.

 
    From 1986 to 1989, R.J. was more of a third-ish outfield rather than a fourth or fifth. The Pirates were solid with Bonds (centerfield but ultimately moved to left field) and Andy Van Slyke in center. But with the decision to play Bobby Bonilla at third base, a number of guys got shoved out to handle right field, to the point where it became a platoon position. Who could forget such players as Mike “Rambo” Diaz or Darnell Coles (remind me to close with my Coles story). But of all of the players put in right, and at times filling in in left or center, it seemed as though good ol’ R.J. got the call the most.

    He was also a pretty steady bat off of the bench in pinch-hit situations.

 

    One of the things that I’ve loved about returning to The Hobby was meeting collectors who collect those fourth and fifth outfield guys. Or are avid collectors of any role playing, non-star player. The collectors who want their Lee Lacy cards Steve Garvey be damned. The collectors who put their Sixto Lezcano or Steve Kemp card in penny sleeves...not to drudge up the 1985 Pirates again. The collectors for whom after Lee Mazzili there is no greater God.

    Someone out there has to be super collecting Tito Landrum.

 
       I know I’ve got me a budding collection of this guy.

         For a while I kept my R.J. Reynolds card with the players whom I collected, or the star cards that I kept in their star boxes. Kept him right in there next to the Pucketts and Ripkens. But I was always embarrassed about stuff like that. LIke when a kid would being going through my cards, as kids were apt to do, and they’d hold up a penny-sleeve R.J. Reynolds card and show it to me, like they’d found mold or a cockroach in my collection. It felt unseemly to take so much care of a common card. Like I’d somehow soiled the box.

    So I'd take those guys out.

    Stick them in a team box instead.

    Fucking conformist.

    But those guys, the fourth or fifth outfields, the role players, those were the players that I always related to the most. The also rans. The common card but not common player. The ride the pine guys who get to come in when the game is really on the line. Two-outs, baseloaded and the pitcher coming to bat in the bottom of the seventh? Need a pinch-hitter? Someone who you can rely on? Who you gonna call?

    R.J. Reynolds that’s who.

     R.J. Reynolds played in almost six seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates. During that time he emassed 475 hits and had a respectable .269 batting average. Reynolds was a part of the first Pirates team to reach the post-season since 1979, where he appeared in all six NLCS games getting two hits in ten at bats. After the 1990 season, R.J. Reynolds plays three years in Japan and one final season in the Mexican leagues before calling it quits at age 35. At last I heard Robert (R.J.) Reynolds was giving hitting instruction to baseball and softball players of all ages in Sacramento California.

    Now about Darnell Coles?

 
        It’s Sunday, September 21, 1987. The Pirates are down 6-2 in the bottom of the 6th to division rivals, defending World Series champs, and outright bad guys, the sinister New York Mets. Sid Fernandez is pitching. There doesn’t seem to be much hope in this one. Then a Bucco hits a single. Then Dave Magadan makes an error. Fernandez walks the next batter to load the bases. Who should come up next to the plate for the Pirates? None other than Darnell Coles.

    Coles had been with the Pirates just over two months. He’d been brought over in a trade with the Seattle Mariners, to play some first base, some third base, and, yes, to help out that platoon over in right field. When he stepped to the plate the fans weren’t expecting much. No one was expecting much...except for me.

 
    I was a thirteen year-old kid sitting in a reserved seat way above home plate. I think we got the tickets as part of the bring a can of Coke, get a ticket for $2.50. My family had drank a lot of Coke in the summer of 1987. I remember I had my scorecard. What kid didn’t back then? My old man looked at me and said, I hope he hits the goddamned ball out of here. That’s how dad’s spoke to kids back then. No pal. No buddy. Just a lot of goddamns.

    I wanted Darnell to hit that home run my dad mentioned. Wanted him to hit a grand slam. I wanted it so much that, offical score be damned, I drew a penciled line around the diamond in my scorecard and lightly wrote “HR” above it. Then I sat back to watch.

    And Darnell hit the home run.

    And the Pirates ended up winning 9-8 in the 14th inning.

    It was one of the most exciting baseball games that I was ever at.

    And the Mets watched the 1987 NLCS on TV that year.

    

    And when 1988 rolled around, my Darnell Coles cards went in the good box.  

    Maybe I should start rounding up my Ben Gamel cards?

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

If you'd like to learn more about the career of R.J. Reynolds you can do so HERE and HERE

***I know I've been promising that blog post where I tie racism to baseball cards in my own life...but it just ain't happening. I actually spent most of the week writing it, but in the end decided against posting it on here. For a bunch of reasons. The most obvious is that I couldn't tie the blog post to baseball cards as much as I wanted to. The other reasons are personal. But I'm thinking it will appear at some point. Probably not on Junk Wax Jay. I am working on creating a new version of WineDrunk SideWalk to showcase some of the writing I do. I don't know what that's going to look like yet, except it'll be very minimallist like this blog. But it will be coming soon. ****

NEXT FRIDAY: Our old buddy Russell Streur will be stopping by to take us back to Forbes Field.

Fear & Loathing at the Jefferson Burdick Exhibit

 

We’d just gone careening past the72nd Street stop.

            That was when my wife turned to me and said, I think we’re on the wrong train. Wrong train, I thought. I looked at her as if the words coming out of her mouth were foreign. Intelligible. There was no goddamned way we were on the wrong train. We were New Yorkers. Sixteen-year veterans of the city that never sleeps. I’d been studying the trains for years. I could get a tourist to hell in back if forced. I could at least get them around Brooklyn.

            Being on the wrong train was an impossibility.

We were on the D train. The D train went from 7^th Avenue over to 63^rd Street. Whatever had caused it to pass 63^rd then 72nd and now 86^th Street had not been our fault. It had not been our mistake, but another nefarious act by the MTA in the guise of weekend track maintenance. Their fault. Not ours. But wait? Then the lightbulb went on in my head.

            My wife was right.

            We were on the wrong train.

            It was the F not the D that went over to 63^rd Street.

            The D went to The Bronx.

            No wonder there were so many goddamned Yankees fans on the thing.

            For the record, our train mishap wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was something called a mistake. Apparently, mistakes are common. For others. For me mistakes are colossal failures. Small ones stick with me for hours. Big ones; it takes me years to fully get passed them.

I don’t make mistakes. I fail. Then I’m mad at myself. I yell at whomever is with me. I don’t recommend being this way as a guidepost in life. I hate myself for being this way. But I can’t help it. This has always been the case for me. Just once I’d like to laugh off a mistake. Be carefree when faced with a blunder.

I fear at my age I’ll never change.

            Mistake = failure.

            That’s how it’s always been.

            I seethed on that D train as we passed stop after relentless stop, going express. Going to hell. Gone was getting off the train at 63^rd street and then taking a leisurely stroll up Lexington Avenue. Gone was casually finding something good to eat for lunch. Maybe Vietnamese? Maybe ramen? Something new but delicious. Gone was another leisurely stroll up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

            Why had I even wanted to go to the museum anyway?

            Museums have people.

            I’m not big on people.

            Plus, there’s a pandemic raging on.

            But the MET was putting on an exhibit of baseball cards from the collection of Jefferson R. Burdick. For those of you who don’t know who Burdick is…a little interlude before we return to my misery, if I may.

            Jefferson Burdick (1900-1963) was an electrician from Syracuse who was also an avid collector of printed ephemera, i.e. postcards, posters, that sort of thing. Burdick’s collection also included quite a large amount of baseball cards. Some 30,000 baseball cards. Burdick began to donate large batches of his card collection (as well as donations of other printed ephemera) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He donated 303,000 items in total which the MET still has to this day. Burdick even worked at the MET for 15 years, creating a cataloging system that he published as The American Card Catalog (ACC) in 1939, 1946, 1953, and 1960. The T206 baseball card set received its name because of Jefferson Burdick.

            You know…this set…featuring this guy.

            And I wanted to see that exhibit.

            Had been thinking about it all week while trying to keep my soul intact at my job.

But now my wife and I were at the mercy of this ever-loving D train and whatever would be its next stop. We blew passed 96^th Street. We blew passed 103^rd. We raced by 110^th Street. 116^th. I worried we were going all the way up to The Bronx. More and more people clad in Yankees gear were getting on the train. Unmasked A-holes in faded Derek Jeter jerseys still living vicariously through 1990s baseball glory. The D train didn’t stop again until 125^th Street at the cusp of Harlem.

            My wife bade good riddance to the D train.

We waited for a downtown C train.

A C-train that would get us back to 86^th Street

But on the west-side of the city.

With the entirety of Central Park now between us and the MET.

We’d miss our timed entry for sure.

No Burdick exhibit for me.

            I sulked the whole train ride back.

            Mistake = failure.

            I get fatalist when I fail…er…make a mistake. Some would say I get nihilistic. Everything goes to shit. Everything is rushed. Everything is now ruined. I’m apathetic to a fault. Lunch doesn’t matter. Our destination doesn’t matter. I hate the city all of the sudden. Nothing matters but my mood and ambivalence about the course of the rest of the day.

I feel bad for my wife when I get like this. There’s no reasoning with someone who has suddenly thrown in the towel on a perfectly good day, opting for a temper tantrum instead. Because of a simple mistake. But was it simple? Again, I’m a New Yorker. I’ve clocked sixteen years in this city. I shouldn’t be making mistakes like the one I made. The D train goes this way. The F train goes that way. It’s simple. They even make maps that will show you, if you can’t remember.

Christ, what a loser I am.

Mistake = failure.

We roamed Columbus Avenue looking for food. I don’t like the Upper West Side. It’s rich, which means it’s a bore. There are no little holes selling noodles in strange and spicy broths. No Indian food kept warm with Sterno or gas. The Upper West side is bistro upon bistro serving brunch. The Upper West side is well polished brumch people eating eggs and sipping mimosas before noon.

Even the pizza joints carry a pretentious air.

And to hell with brunch.

My wife and I argued as we looked for somewhere to eat. She thought we could find somewhere decent for a bite, salvage the part of our day before the museum. I wasn’t so sure over here in la-la-land where there’s nary a Golden Arches or taco stand. I was content to brood over time and lament my sense of direction.

Still, I needed sustenance.

Not only was I sulky but I was what the kids call “hangry.” It was almost 1pm. I’d been up since six messing with my cards. I hadn’t eaten in some fifteen or sixteen hours. But our timed ticketed entry was at two. One hour to eat and get across that damned behemoth of a park. I wanted to give up the ghost and just get to the museum. Eat a lousy, over-priced hot dog from a vendor. Take the loss on a fine lunch. Call it a meal.

Suffice it to say, my wife and I weren’t really talking by the time we traversed Central Park. Or we were arguing which direction to go, because Central Park is all twists and turns and you’re never sure if you’re making it straight across or going out of your way. I’ve wound up ten blocks away from where I meant to be while in Central Park. It spits you out dazed and confused. It’s a miserable labyrinth.

Parks stress me out.

Full disclosure, I don’t like nature. This means I don’t like parks. Give me artificial light in an air-conditioned room (unless it’s at a job) and I’m happy. The majesty and landscaped beauty of Central Park is lost on me. I don’t understand why everyone looks so relaxed and happy in that park. In any park.

That being said, I certainly wasn’t in the mood for a park all things considered.

I was tired by the time we got out of the park. Tired and hungry and angry. A bad combination for a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of a three-day weekend. And it was hot. Not heat index hot. It was all sun and no clouds. What the stiffs call “a beautiful day.”

If I haven’t mentioned it on here before, I don’t like the sun.

I’d gleefully watch the sun burn out of the sky.

It was way after 1pm. I’d been on the wrong train. I’d been on the wrong side of the city. I’d been in a park. In the sun. The area around the MET was crowded. There was a snaking line of masked people waiting to get inside. I began to question my sanity. Why had I wanted to go to one of the most famous art museums in the world? On a Saturday? On a holiday weekend? During a pandemic.

Oh…because of baseball cards.

Yeah, well, fuck Jefferson Burdick and his cards, I thought.

I just want to go home.

I told my wife as much. It was a good thing she was wearing sunglasses because she would’ve burned a hole through me with her eyes. We’d come all this way. We’d been on the wrong train. We’d suffered the West Side. We’d traversed the park. And I was pulling this shit?

Yeah…I was.

I also have the huge problem of not thinking before I speak.

That’s a bigger failure than making a mistake.

We ate lunch in silence. I had that over-priced hot dog from a vendor and it was just as depressing as I thought it would be. We had to eat standing, across the street, because that was where the only shade was. As I stood there, I watched people waiting in line to get into the MET. I watched happy families playing with their kids. Kids playing in the fountains in front of the museum. Everyone happy. The MET people. The park people. The brunch people. Everyone enjoying themselves and their day.

Except me.

Because I got on the wrong train.

Mistake = failure.

Yet we soldiered on.

The Burdick exhibit itself was…small. But I should’ve expected small. The MET’s website listed the exbibit as only containing 100 cards from his collection. But I wanted bigger. Felt I deserved bigger. For the train ride. For the mistake. For the failure. For having to watch pasty white people eat runny eggs and sip mimosas. People who never got on the wrong damned train in their life. If they even had to take trains to places. Limo and cab people.

            For having to eat a shitty hot dog on the street.

            For arguing with my wife and ruining her day.

            But the exhibit was eleven panels of cards on four walls, tucked away in a corner of the American Wing. In that room that has all of the wooden shelves. And pictures and other museum items under glass. Rows and rows of pots and kettles. I never understood a room like this in a museum. Like their “junk” room. No way to really display so might as well just overwhelm.

            I figured screw it.

            I went looking at cards.

            The first panel housed the Buchner Gold Coin Cards, or N284, from 1887.  These are some of the oldest tobacco cards out there, and certainly some of the oldest, if not thee oldest (I’d have to really check my memory banks from a 29-year-old trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame to find anything older), baseball cards I’d ever seen. They lightened my dark mood upon site. There is truly something uplifting in seeing baseball history preserved from this long ago. Card history as well. That damned Burdick was onto something…even if he did technically ruin cards by taping their backs to paper and cardboard.

            Which I actually did with my 1981 Topps cards…but I was seven.

            All the same…impressive.

            For a deeper dive into the Buchner Gold Coin Cards, the fine folks at Sports Collector’s Daily offer THIS.

            The next panel of cards that we came across were the white border T206 cards and the brown background T207 cards.

The T206 cards came out between 1909-1911, and could be found coupled with products from the American Tobacco company. The T207 cards are from 1912 and just as with the T206, they could be found in a variety of tobacco products.

And the fine folks at PSA can do a way better job of explaining them than I can both HERE and HERE.

The T206 set is the set that produced the infamous Honus Wagner card. And because of that I spent some time perusing the small sample of them. I began to realize looking at those cards that despite the trails of the day, we’d made it to exactly where I wanted to be there. I suddenly felt good. But then I felt bad. Looking at my wife looking at those cards with me, I pondered the arguments that we’d had. My tantrums on street corners. The moments of frustrated silence. A lunch eaten in with no conversation. And I felt bad. I felt ashamed. I felt like the worst human being on the planet.

            I felt guilt.

            As I stood there looking at the T206 and T207 cards I thought back to the morning of that day. The joy and promise that comes with making plans that you are excited for. Good plans are hard these days. My wife and I love to travel. Other than to visit relatives in Buffalo and Pittsburgh, we haven’t traveled in almost two years. That might not mean much to some, but traveling is part of the world we’ve cultivated for ourselves. Dreams fulfilled from when we were two young kids living paycheck to paycheck, and not even almost that.

            The loss of travel has been hard for us during this pandemic, aside from general fear of death and survival. There’s been a void. What I’m saying is that small plans have had to take its place. Just going to an art gallery now feels like a big event. A museum? A monumental excursion. We actually hadn’t been to the MET since 2019. And I screwed it up. Over getting on the wrong train. And then acting like a child about it.

            Guilt consumed me at the Jefferson Burdick exhibit.

            And, yes, I did apologize for my behavior.

            But…still…

            Let’s move on.

            The next two panels that we saw housed the Baseball Series (Gold Borders) AKA T205 tobacco cards from 1911, 

            and the Hassan Triple Folder, T202, cards from 1912, a product of the Hassan Cigarette company. I’d never seen a product like the Hassan cards before, two photos on the end and a black and white, sometimes action, shot in the middle. From what I’ve read the two player pictures on the end folded so that the card could fit into the cigarette packs.

            America’s encyclopedia (which I shouldn’t promote as a librarian) Wikipedia has the lowdown on the Gold Series HERE, and the folks at Cardboard Connection can help you out if you want to dig deep on the Hassan T202’s right HERE.

            The rest of the exhibit went as such:

           The Cracker Jack cards (and the first appearance in the exhibit of non-tobacco cards) came out in 1914 and 1915 and you can find out more about both right HERE and HERE

               Hey! Our first bubble gum cards! Really enjoyed looking at the Tattoo Orbit cards from 1933. Sports Collectors Daily has a fantastic article on the by Bob D’Angelo right HERE.

 

               Alright now we’re getting into more familiar territory (for me at least) with the Goudey 1933 cards. Spotlight on Lou Gehrig.

               And how about the Heads Up cards that Goudey put out in 1938

               Mr. Joe DiMaggio

               These Topps Team Cards from 1951...I'd never seen or heard of them before. But it was the first panel in the exhibit to mention the name Topps. I don't want to say my mood darkened again, but being faced with Topps, with its history, just kind of drudged up the whole Topps/Fanatics business again, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.  That said, here's a fine article on collecting those 1951 Topps Team Cards from Doug Koztoski at Sports Collectors Digest.

               I think these next few panels of cards will be familiar to most collectors.

               I took a close-up of that Ted Williams for my buddy Miller (at least his name on here) because his dad was a big Ted Williams fan as a kid.

                One day I'll own this one:

            

            If I can go back to the Hassan Triple Folder cards for a moment, and I say a moment, because my word count tells me that I’ve rambled on too long; well, those cards were the turning point for me that day.

            Yes, my wife and I were talking by then. We’d established a détente, if you will. I had apologized. But the Hassan cards were the first ones that she and I were really jazzed about together. And no, my wife is NOT a card collector, although she knows the lingo now with me back in the game these two plus years. They were the first panel where we discussed the cards like we discuss regular art. The first panel where that morning vibe for the day seemed possible.

            Overall, I loved the Burdick exhibit. I loved it for its cards and for the history it gave me that day. I loved it because it got me out of that funk (yes, even after what I said about the 1951 Topps Team Cards) or feeling that my hobby is somehow going to go away when Fanatics rules the universe. I know that isn’t true. But it still feels like that to me. Cards will exist. And there will still be history to witness in The Hobby.

            More than anything I want to thank the Burdick exhibit for righting my head. For taking all of that anxiety and stress, my inability to process a simple mistake, and just pushing all of that back inside for a while. Deep inside. A kid fear I’ll work to not let out.

            And maybe next time a mistake can just be that.

            A mistake.

            Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

            If you’d like to learn more about the 1933 and 1938 Goudey releases you can do so HERE and HERE.

            Same thing if you’re curious about the 1951 Bowman and 1954 Topps releases. You can find out more HERE and HERE.

         Next Friday: Wasn’t I supposed to write about racism and 1990 cards? Yeah…well…sometimes you just can’t find the words. But I’m going to try it again for next week. If it happens it happens. If it doesn’t, I’ll at least try to not be as long-winded as I was this week.