1955 bowman set complete through 40!

as i mentioned in last saturday's post featuring "two and two to" harvey kuenn, i've been buying some cards here and there for my 1955 bowman set build. i finally added the last piece to the next page in the binder, and now have a complete set through card number 40. here are cards 33-40:

and here are the backs:

three hall of famers there with nellie fox, pee wee reese, and early wynn.

it was the reese card that was the last one i needed for this sheet, and i didn't want to pilfer my dodger collection so i had to have some patience to find one that was right for my set and my wallet.  it looks like bowman goofed with the checklist, putting wynn at 38 instead of reese's teammate bob darnell. this marks the first time in the set where teammates aren't back-to-back in the order.

seeing a vic wertz card from 1955 makes me think of the previous season where he hit the ball that willie mays caught in the 1954 world series. no mention of "the catch" on wertz's card, but he does give some good advice to the kids.

my retired number collection - 37

this is the 37th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here is the one person for whom number 37 has been retired:

casey stengel (retired by the mets in 1965) 2001 topps tribute

stengel was the fist manager in the history of the mets, taking on the job with their inaugural season of 1962 and staying in the role until he retired on august 30, 1965. a few days later, on september 2, 1965, the team retired number 37 in his honor, making him the first met to have their number retired. under his leadership, the mets didn't finish out of the cellar, but he brought credibility to a young team (except for warren spahn and yogi berra who both suited up for the club in '65).

overall, the mets won 175 games under stengel which puts him at 11th for the franchise all-time, sandwiched between buck showalter (176 wins) and mickey callaway (163). because stengel was a met at the beginning, and they retired his number immediately after he retired, no other met has ever worn the number. 

casey stengel (retired by the yankees in 1970) 2001 topps tribute

it's fitting, i think, to have cards from the same set (2001 topps tribute) for stengel in this collection, even if neither card shows his number. stengel took number 37 when he began managing the yankees in 1949, and no yankee would ever wear the number again. the franchise retired it on august 8, 1970 - old-timers day at yankee stadium, making stengel the fifth person (after gehrig, ruth, dimaggio, and mantle) to have their number retired by the franchise.

stengel had managed the dodgers and braves (and in the minors) prior to getting the yankee job in 1949, but he had nowhere near the success at the big league level that he would have with the bronx bombers. he won the world series in each of his first five seasons at the helm of the yankees, and he won two more, along with three additional pennants, over the next seven seasons. he was fired after the yankees lost the 1960 world series to the pirates, but had amassed 1,149 regular season wins in his 12 years as their manager with a winning percentage that is only bested by joe mccarthy in the team's history.

stengel was elected to the hall of fame as a manager by the veterans' committee in 1966, becoming only the seventh manager so honored up to that time, and he was certainly the first to have managed in the expansion era.

to date, stengel is the only person to have number 37 retired in their honor, but towards the end of last season there was news that the nationals were going to retire it in honor of stephen strasburg. i was prepared, picking up the wrapper redemption refractor rookie card from 2010 topps chrome

for the collection. however, things soured between strasburg and the nationals (as i understand it) due to how his retirement would affect his contract terms, and the plans were scrapped. maybe someday the nats will follow through and if so, i will update the post. for now, i do not include strasburg in the numbers below.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 37 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 32, 37, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 36, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 33, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 34, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 32, 34, 36, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 31, 35, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 31, 36, 37, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 33, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 32, 34, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 34, 36, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 35, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 34, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 31, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 31, 35, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 34, 42

angels - 11, 26, 30, 42

expos - 8, 10, 30, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 34, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 32, 42

rockies - 17, 33, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

28 - retired by 1 team

29 - retired by 4 teams (retired by twins and angels for same person)

30 - retired by 3 teams

31 - retired by 4 teams (retired by cubs and braves for same person; retired by cubs for two players)

32 - retired by 5 teams

33 - retired by 4 teams

34 - retired by 8 teams (retired by astros and rangers for same person; retired by brewers and a's for same person; retired by a's for two players)

35 - retired by 3 teams

36 - retired by 4 teams

37 - retired by 2 teams (retired by mets and yankees for same person)

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 146

running total of non-hall of famers: 51

spirit of 76

it's independence day today, and if all went well i was at the ballpark watching the twins and tigers. i last went to a fourth of july game in 2013, so it had been awhile since i celebrated our nation's birthday with our nation's pastime.

i will be on the lookout for some topps now cards tomorrow, but of course there are cards to share today, including this 2020 topps hyun-jin ryo independence day parallel

that i found in a bargain bin some time ago.

the design topps used in 2020 was pretty elaborate compared to what they were using when 2022 topps update came along. i found this ryan pepiot independence day parallel

in a pack or team break, and the design really isn't much different from the money grab factory set gold star parallels that topps put out the same year.

the first two cards are numbered to 76, of course, to go along with their designs.

panini doesn't number their independence day parallels, and they are pretty consistent with white stars on blue backgrounds, or blue stars on white backgrounds. i found these next cards in various bargain bins sometime within the last year.

2019 panini donruss manny machado

2021 panini donruss dale murphy

2022 panini donruss manny machado

2023 panini donruss ichiro

the first of those four i chose because it's a dodger card. the other three because i have little will power when it comes to bargain boxes and parallels.

this last card came from the show i went to in houston and set me back a buck

that's an independence day commemorative patch card from 2017 topps, and topps matched the photo to an actual 4th of july game.

whether you are at the ballpark or doing something else today, happy 4th of july!

ranger danger

at the card show in houston i posted about recently, i picked up this 2022 topps heritage high numbers card of corey seager

it's a 1973 topps comic insert, and to be honest, i didn't register the fact that he was a ranger on the card until later. still, i decided to put the card in my dodger collection because in half the panels seager is representing the dodgers, and is shown in his dodger uniform in the fifth panel. that's good enough for me!

it is clearly meant to be a ranger card, and if it were produced today, i don't think there would be anything dodger about it other than maybe a reference to his being a two-time world series mvp. he certainly fulfilled the purpose that topps laid out for him in the second and last panels.

here are some honest to goodness dodger cards featuring seager that have joined my collection in recent months.

that one is a 2019 topps manupatch card that is numbered to 150. i got it for a couple of bucks.

this is a 2017 topps stadium club gold parallel

that helped fill out a sportlots order for two bits, and here is a 2021 topps 70 years of topps insert

i was trying to complete the dodger set of these inserts a couple of months ago, but i didn't quite make it. with archives, seeing current players on older designs is less of a thrill, but i did enjoy the variety of the 70 years of topps inserts. i wonder if they will do the same thing in 2026 as they get to 75 years.

the almost daily dodger - jim gilliam

today i want to share jim gilliam's 1962 topps card

that has been languishing in my scanned folder for a few months. i think i scanned this card back when i was starting my retired number collection. that was before i found the card that i ultimately used to represent gilliam's number 19 that the dodgers retired following his death during the1978 postseason.

gilliam has had a big impact on my fandom, primarily through his work as a coach guiding steve garvey, ron cey, bill russell, and davey lopes in the finer points of infield defense. his "clinics" were nicknamed "gilliam's island" which is a name i've used for a fantasy baseball team a couple of times. the fact that the dodgers wore a memorial patch for him in the 1978 world series also piqued my interest and curiosity about that sort of uniform enhancement which ultimately wound up with me creating a mini-collection focusing on examples of these tributes in baseball and other sports.

most recently, gilliam has become one of many players whose career stats have improved following mlb's inclusion of negro league stats in career totals. thanks to his time with the baltimore elite giants, gilliam is now credited with over 2,000 hits (2,021) and 1,250 runs (1,255). his national league totals in those categories were 1,889 and 1,163 respectively. gilliam now sits with the 150th most runs scored in history, which is around 65 spots higher than where he placed prior to this statistical update. he jumped about the same number of spots on the all-time hits list as well.

finally, i will admit that i was well into my collecting years when i finally figured out that the 1962 topps set design was based on the concept of a peeling photo/poster of the players, as if it had been applied to a fence or a wood pole.

joey votto is in my hall of famer collection

happy canada day! to celebrate, here's joey votto's card that i have in my hall of famer collection:

it's a 2020 topps clearly authentic autograph, numbered 36/50. here's the back:

i bought this a while back and wasn't sure when to post it. i had been waiting for votto to either retire or get called up by the blue jays. neither has happened yet, so i figured canada made sense given votto's canadian heritage.

over the course of votto's career in cincinnati, he put up what i consider to be hall of fame worthy numbers. he recorded over 2,100 hits and 1,300 bases on balls - in fact, he reached base by hit or walk exactly 3,500 times! he also hit over 350 home runs and had an ops of .920. he was the 2010 mvp and had two other seasons in which he finished in the top three of mvp voting.

votto compares favorably to a number of hall of fame first basemen using modern metrics if not counting stats. his war/162 games is the same as frank thomas', and his jaws rating places him between future hall of famer miguel cabrera and should be hall of famer rafael palmeiro (and higher than hall of famers willie mccovey and todd helton, among others). regardless of what happens with future hall of fame voting, he's in my hall of famer collection.

i decided to hold on to some of his 2024 topps cards in case he retired or doesn't return to the majors to put in my final tribute collection. here is his 2024 topps base card

with what would be his complete career stats on the back

and here is the same from 2024 topps big league

with limited seasonal stats on the back

and 2024 topps heritage

with, once again, full career stats on the back

i saw votto play in cincinnati back in 2019. he was 1 for 3 with a double, a hbp, and two runs scored. one of those runs came on matt kemp's only home run as a red. i was happy to be there to see it. if he does return to the big leagues with the blue jays, i hope he's playing at the end of august so i can see him in person again at target field.

as a reminder, you can see votto and the other members of my hall of famer collection here!