My Childhood Romance with Baseball Cards and the Game Itself

It was early spring and red alert had sounded among the kids as rumor had it the new Topps baseball cards were in the stores.

For my friends and I on Lookout Mountain in the mid-to-late 1950s that meant one thing.

Gathering as much spare change as possible – from our mothers purse (with or without permission), finding a few coins under the cushions of the living room sofa or trading in soft drink bottles found on the side of the road - getting on our bikes and a quick trip to Sam Robinson’s Pharmacy or Massey’s Grocery (200 feet apart on the Tennessee side) to see the new design.

For a fanatic lover of the game and ardent collector as much as 10-year-old could be (as well as the late Johnny Van Cleave), buying those first few nickel and penny packs was as close to Christmas morning for us without being December 25.

Who would be the first to get those cherished and always in high demand Mickey Mantle’s, Hank Aaron’s, Willie Mays’ and Stan Musial’s and who would who open 10 packs and head home with five Jerry Lumpe’s and three Mary Throneberry’s.

Or maybe a good blend of a Rocky Colavito, Minnie Minoso, Wally Moon and Ryan Duren but over the summer way too many Dick Drott’s, Johnny Kucks, Sammy Esposito’s, Carl Sawatski's, Norm Zauchin’s and Gino Cimoli’s. 

 Yes, those 3 ½ x 2 ½ pieces of cardboard with our heroes faces on the front and great stats on the back mesmerized me and several others as we longed for each day’s dawn to scour the sports pages for box scores to see if there were any big trades or maybe learn that Jerry Lumpe went 3 for 5 and helped he Yanks win a key game.

But who at Topps was the driving force behind the baseball card boom of the 50s and 60s?

For myself I had no clue and had no idea where the Topps Company was until years later.

While Mantle was my baseball hero, a man named Sy Berger at Topps – who passed away Sunday Dec. 14 at the age of 91 was the unknown hero of myself and every card collecting kid from Des Moines to Brooklyn, from Fargo to Fort Myers and Seattle to Shreveport and all in between and those who were fortunate enough to live within a ground rule double of Sportsmans Park and the Polo Grounds and Forbes, Wrigley, Crosley and Ebbets Fields.

Known as the father of the modern baseball cards, Berger was a savvy businessman getting players under contract, leading the way to buy out Bowman (a rival card company) and except for regional sets and a 1963 Fleer set (which came with a cookie instead of that famous stick of pink bubble gum) he was the guy who gave Topps the corner on the sports card market for years.

He teamed with Woody Gelman, another Topps employee who designed the cards, to produce high quality cards and give kids days, weeks and years of pleasure.

Not only did those gentlemen give us a great hobby opportunity, the cards gave us a gateway of knowledge to the major league players that for at least the baby boomers would otherwise not have.

There was no internet, no 24-hour sports talk shows, no Beckett Cards or internet purchasing opportunities as there are today.

In the book Mint Condition by Dave Jamieson, auctioneer and card expert is quoted as saying, “Gelman wasn’t just a creative genius with cards, he was behind the wrappers and the boxes, all the color, a whole kaleidoscope of things. He was responsible for everything innovative with Topps in those years (1950s).”

Jameison went on to write, “While much of the scuffling between Topps and Bowman was about player contracts (won by Berger), the rivalry was also about aesthetics.

Which company had the creative team that could design cards that spoke to the American child’s imagination.”

While I am collecting cards from the late 50s to the early 60s faster than the Yankees could collect World Series title  two future high school friends – Sam Heys and Gary Davis  - in the Brainerd area were stock piling cards via Tunnel Drugs and a store in Eastdale.

Heys recalls that, “my favorite set is 1959, simply because that’s the first year I got into it heavy. So many of the cards bring back memories.

“I also like the 1957 cards and the 1954 Topps set, again simply because I can remember buying those cards. Always at Brainerd Drugs. Not many other places in our area carried them. (Within the city, St. Elmo Pharmacy was known for getting the later series in.)

“I do remember trading all night with you one night when we were in college and being fascinated – and trading for – with your dozen or so 1953 Bowmans. You also had some 1953 Topps and I didn’t even want them. Now they are legendary for their artwork.

“I also remember the day a 64 Mantle fell out of your pocket in front the lockers in McCallie Jr. School building and you gave it to me, saying you already had two others. That was my permission to go start buying cards again. I had stopped after the 1962 set, thinking I was too old to buy cards.

Davis states, “I also started collecting baseball cards in 1959, but actually it was football cards (both Topps) in 1958 that were the FIRST cards I actually purchased.

 

“Brainerd Drugs would sell a penny pack (1 card) and a nickel pack (5 cards) and there was a small corner store in Eastdale at Tunnel Blvd and Shallowford Rd that also sold cards. It was an easy bike ride for me.

 

“My grandfather in Knoxville gave me hundreds of Topps 1957 and 1958 cards that I thought at the time were "old fashioned" and no good.......it is today my most treasured collection.”

Good Trivia Info: While Berger and Gelman might not have had this in mind, the collecting and pouring over the names and stats for hours on end during those long winter days and nights helped is with reading, spelling and adding and subtracting.

The cards also provided such vital and good trivia information such as name the four Chicago White Sox catchers on the 1959 American League pennant winning Chicago White Sox?

The foursome was Sherm Lollar (red card), journeyman Les Moss (red card), Earl Battey (orange card) and Joe Romano (special rookie card set design).

Or Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Moose Skowron’s real names?  (Edward, Lawrence and Bill)

Or name Mary Throneberry’s brother who also played in the major leagues? (see next paragraph).

Brothers: Thanks to buying pack after pack and/or trading and discussing with friends such as Sam and Gary, we discovered there were three Boyer brothers – Cloyd, Ken and Clete – who made it to the “bigs”, while pitcher-catcher duos were Bobby and Billy Shantz, Larry and Norm Sherry – plus Marvelous Marv and Faye Throneberry (from Tennessee), Lindy and Von McDaniel and Frank and Joe Torre.

Spelling Bee: Not only did the cards give me hours of fun as a child, hey also came in handy in school.

It was late spring 1959 in Mrs. Gregory’s third grade class at Lookout Mountain Elementary School and one day we had a spelling bee contest. The only memory I have of the contest was when she announced the next word to spell was “pierce”. I was in seventh place out of about 20 students at the time and when the six classmates ahead of me all mispelled the word, the memory of a recently purchased 1959 Bill Pierce card came to mind (red card with head shot of Billy Pierce a pitcher with the Chicago White Sox) which I then spelled his name correctly.

To my delight, I quickly moved to the front of the class, but do not recall who won the contest that day, but now years later thank Berger and Gelman for creating such a great set of cards to memorize with plenty of color on the front along with the player’s name, position(s) and team logo and name.

Whiffle Ball: During my elementary school years, many of my friends would go to the movies on Saturday afternoons in the spring and summer, but not me.

I am watching the baseball game of the week - hopefully from Yankee Stadium - and then would take some cards outside to our side yard and play whiffle ball by myself for hour upon hour. The yard was great as it had a short right field fence (a low wooden fence connecting our property with that of Hardwick Caldwell's) and I labeIed it 296 feet to the corner just like at Yankee Stadium.

Left Field had large green bushes which of course was Fenway Park's Big Green Monster II  and a home run over the bushes landed on Scenic Hwy

Big Deal to be on a Bubblegum Card:

"Everyone talks about how great Beethoven was. Beethoven wasn't so great. He never got his picture on bubblegum cards, did he? Have you ever seen his picture on a bubblegum card? Hmmm? How can you say someone is great who's never had his picture on bubblegum cards?"

— Lucy Van Pelt (to Schroeder), "A Charlie Brown Christmas," 1965

Favorite Year: The 1959 set is my favorite as mentioned above with a certain color for each player on a specific team – New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox (predominantly red cards), L.A. Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves (yellow), Cincinnati Redlegs (black) – plus only the second set of cards to have career stats (major and minor league) on the back.  

The 1958 set is my next favorite as each player had a solid colored background, yet only the previous season stats and career totals on the back with a few interesting career notes.

So while many of us from the 50s look back on our childhood hobby and still thumb through them for the umpteenth time the ’59 Yankee team set or the ’58 Braves set (predominantly green cards) we recall playing with them in the yard during whiffle ball games.

And having to bat the way that particular player did - Ted Kluszewski batted left handed and so did you to stay true to the game – and while the kids of today would shutter and maybe even get physically sick knowing a 1959 Mantle or 1958 Warren Spahn would get some dirt on them or a corner bent during an important neighborhood game, we all owe a great deal of gratitude and a heartfelt thanks for misters Berger and Gelman for our heroes who came alive on a 2 x 3 piece of cardboard.

Merry Christmas 2014

Topps Baseball Card Permission:

"1958-1960 Topps Baseball Cards used courtesy of The Topps Company, Inc. For more information about The Topps Company, please see our website at www.topps.com."

contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net