#54 Norm Siebern

Norm Siebern was a baseball and basketball star in college. He played at Southwest Missouri State Teachers College along with Yankee teammate Jerry Lumpe. He had a military stint and a long minor league stretch before making the Yankees for good in 1958. He won a Gold Glove that season. He went to Kansas City in the trade that brought Roger Maris to New York and later preceeded Boog Powell as the Orioles' first baseman. 

He won two World Series with theYankeess and played in a third while with the '67 Impossible Dream Red Sox.  In his bast season, 1962, Siebern hit 25/117/.305/.412 and garnered enough MVP votes to finish 7th on the list.

The Yanks don't have many yellow cards in this set. their main color is orange. 

#277 Virgil Trucks

Virgil Trucks pitched for five different AL clubs in a career that spanned two wars. After three years honing his craft in the minors Trucks made a quick appearance with the Detroit Tigers in 1941. He established himself with a combined 30 wins over the '42 & '43 seasons. Then he spent two years in the service on active duty in the Pacific with the Navy.

In 1944 and '45 Trucks pitched for Navy baseball teams alongside big league stars including Phil Rizzuto, Johnny Mize, Dom DiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese and Johnny Vander Meer. His career win total of 177 would have likely topped 200 had he pitched those two years in the bigs.

He was injured and discharged from the service in the summer of '45 and rejoined the Tigers just in time to appear in the 1945 World Series. He made two starts against the Cubs and won Game Two.

Twice an All Star Trucks, in 1952, became the third pitcher to throw two no-hitters in a season. He won 20 games in 1953 with the Browns and White Sox and 19 the following season in Chicago. 1958 was his last big league season and he was clearly hanging on to the game he enjoyed.

The Yankees traded for him that year in a June deal with the Athletics. After an up and down second half of the season he was left off the World Series roster and reduced to a role as batting practice pitcher. In 1959 he was released during Spring Training by the Yanks, pitched some for the Orioles farm club in Miami and then retired. His final card is in the 1959 set.

Trucks died at the age of 95 in 2013 and was known as a good TTM signer.

#185 Ray Boone

Ray Boone, father of one big leaguer and grandfather of two more, began his pro career in 1942 with a productive season in the Indians' chain. He then spent three years in the military and the same in the minors on his return before getting a shot in Cleveland in 1948.

He took over as the Indians third baseman in '49 and held that job until he was traded to Detroit in 1953. It's not often that a guy traded in June ends up with a Top Ten MVP finish but Boone slashed 26/114/.296/.390 that season. With the Tigers he had some outstanding seasons including 1955 when he led the league with 116 RBI. he made the AL All Star team in '54 and '56.

In June of 1958 Boone was traded by the Detroit Tigers with Bob Shaw to the Chicago White Sox for Bill Fischer and Tito Francona. He was hitting just .237 at that point and the trade to Chicago didn't help improve that much. He finished at .242 with 13 homers. That trade was just the first of three straight 'in-season' deals he was a part of. He bounced to Milwaukee and Boston before retirement after the 1960 season.

This card has a couple of fun cartoons on the back and gets bonus points for the red background. It was part of my original lot purchase. A second copy I bought that looked nice in an eBay picture (better corners, nicer color) turned out not to be in lesser condition so this one remains in the binder.

#365 Tom Morgan

For a relatively unknown guy Tom Morgan had a very serviceable career. He pitched for 12 seasons from 1951 through 1962 and finished with a 67-47 record and a 3.61 ERA for five different AL clubs.

He began as a starter in the Yankees system in 1949 and had a very impressive two plus seasons which earned him a call-up to a stacked Yankees staff. Over the next five seasons in the Bronx he pitched very well as he spent a year in the military and was transitioned into a reliever. He pitched in three World Series in pinstripes, winning two rings. He lost his only Series decision in Game Two of the 1956 Classic versus the Dodgers. In a wild 12-6 Dodger win Morgan was knocked around in two innings of middle relief. But also in that game he got a hit (and score a run) in his only career World Series at bat so he will forever hold a 1.000 post-season batting average.

With a drop off in his numbers in '56 the Yanks dealt him to the Athletics for 1957 and he was moved to Detroit as part of a 12 player deal a year later. He went on to pitch for the Senators and Angels until 1963. He was so effective out of the pen for LA in 1961 (8-2 2.36 10 saves) that he earned some MVP votes.

In 1958 Morgan served as a middle reliever for the Tigers. His 2-8 record doesn't reflect his otherwise solid statistics.

I love pink cards and this set has 'em. Morgan is wearing what surely is his Yankee uni with an airbrushed cap.

Below I have a Morgan montage. I've snipped his '52, '58 and '53 Topps cards. I think are all variations of the same original photo. Anyone want to weigh in?

#264 Jack Sanford

Jack Sanford was coming off a terrific rookie season when this card was being pulled from packs. As a 27 year old in 1957 he went 19-8 for a Phils club that played exactly .500  baseball. He led the league with 188 K's (and 12 WP, not the last time that would happen). He made the All Star squad and grabbed R-O-Y honors.

He had been a rookie but he was no kid. He'd pitched for seven seasons in the Phils' chain and done a military service hitch. His numbers fell off in 1958 and the Phils traded him to the Giants for Ruben Gomez and Valmy Thomas. He had an solid career in San Francisco and helped them win the 1962 pennant winning 24 games. He pitched three games in the World Series that year going 1-2 but his work exceeded that W/L record. He pitched a shutout in Game Two over the potent Yankees and pitched well in the deciding seventh game as well.

As always SABR has a really well done bio posted for Sanford. A lengthy but worthwhile read.

I like the red/blue combo Topps used. It shows off the Phillies' logo well. My copy is in pretty good shape. I had to re-scan it a few times while making calibration adjustments because the orange-ish tone to the red background  keeps looking 'mottled'. I never did get it to reflect how the card looks in hand.

#234 Carl Sawatski

Carl Sawatski played in all or parts of 11 seasons spread over 16 years from 1948 (cup'o'coffee with the Cubs) through 1963. He spent two years in military service and was a feared minor league slugger.

His big league stats never approached his farm system ones but he carved out a nice career as a back-up and platoon catcher for five different clubs. He hit .293 with nine homers and 43 RBI in 1959 for the Phillies. That was probably his best overall season.

In 1958 he was coming off a World Series title with the Braves. He had gotten a couple of at bats in the '57 Series as a pinch hitter. In June of '58, after just a handful of at bats for the Braves he was dealt to the Phillies and split the catching duties with Stan Lopata.

He retired after the 1963 season having finished up with four seasons with the Cardinals. Following his playing days he served as GM of the Arkansas Travelers and president of the Texas League. The MiLB blog has a cool entry on Sawatski including the story of his first stolen base (it came in his last season!).

This is another off-center card that suffers from the '1958 Topps back discoloration' syndrome. Pretty typical of the ones in my binder. The light green is one of the more rare card colors. Add in the Braves old school logo and it's a great '58!

#145 Ed Bouchee (A Bob Lemke Custom Card)

As noted in my last post hobby pioneer, historian and custom card producer par excellence Bob Lemke passed away Tuesday at the age of 65. This is from Sports Collector's Digest which in years past he edited and published:

Bob Lemke, former editor and publisher of Sports Collectors Digest, passed away Tuesday morning, Jan. 3, at a hospital near his home in Central Pennsylvania. Those in the sports collecting hobby/business know what a towering figure he was and his influence and impact over almost four decades was enormous.

Lemke began in the sports card periodical market as editor of Baseball Cards magazine when it was launched in 1980.

In Sept. 1981 he became editor of Sports Collectors Digest. He became executive editor of SCD in Oct. 1982. In May 1983 Lemke was promoted to V.P. of Sports at Krause Publications.

In addition to his work on sports card and memorabilia collecting periodicals, he also became well known for his work on the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, considered the bible of card collectors across the country. He was the founding editor of the book and served in that capacity for around 30 years.

He had had some health issues in the last few years, some of which contributed to his decision to curtail his production and sales of his wonderful custom cards. Luckily for fans of his cards, like me, he had made them available again sometime last year. 

I was fortunate enough to have been able to correspond with Bob through the years. He had a bit of the curmudgeon in him but I always found him polite and generous. He included 'extras' in a couple of my orders. I feel somewhat guilty in that one of my first thoughts after hearing of his passing was that I still had a bunch of his cards on my 'wishlist'. 

In the back of the binders that hold my '58, '59 and '60 baseball sets I have a page that contains cards issued by Bob that supplement each set. They are nice 'companion' pieces to the original cards. My last order from Bob was for a couple of his '58 cards including this one of Phillies first baseman Ed Bouchee. Bob's intent was to fill in the gap left when Topps decided that Bouchee wouldn't be included in that set. 

You can read about the reason on Bochee'sWikipedia page. And on Bob's blog you can read about his creation of the card. 

I guess collectors of the '58 set have always had to leave a 'hole' on that page, make their own #145 or deal with the numbering being 'off'. Being able to slot a card into the '58 binder of such high quality was very satisfying.

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After three strong minor league seasons and a military stint Ed Bouchee made the majors with a splash in 1957. He hit 17/76/.293 and had a league second-best .394 OBP. He was among the Top 10 in numerous offensive and defensive categories. He finished second (to teammate Jack Sanford) in the NL ROY balloting. Interestingly he also led the league by being hit by a pitch 14 times. In his seven year career he totaled 27 HBPs so the '57 numbers exceed the entire rest of his career.

Bouchee was never quite able to replicate those rookie numbers. In him abbreviated '58 season he hit .257 with nine homers. His '59 season nearly matched his rookie year but after that he stats dropped off. He was dealt to the Cubs in May of 1960 and was picked by the Mets in the expansion draft the following year. He split the '62 season between New York and the minors and after spending 1963 in the minors he retired. He went on to work for ACDelco and retired to Arizona. He had a son, Chris, who played in the Phillies organization for a couple of seasons.

I really like that Bob did this card with a black background. That is rare in the '58 set and a nice change from the numerous yellow cards that predominate. Bob usually 'cribbed' the cartoons from other cards and re-purposed them for his customs. But his work was so painstakingly good you'd never know without him telling you. The ones he used for the #145 were perfect.

Speaking of yellow backgrounds...Bob made an alternate front for his Bouchee card. I like it but the black one feels more 'authentic' so that's the one I have in the proper slot in my 1958 Topps binder.

Every time I flip though the set I'll come across that Bouchee card and be reminded of Bob. RIP