as a reminder, i have reinstated my sampler sets for the vintage topps flagship sets that i have not completed. more details were provided in this post featuring my 1952 topps and 1953 topps samplers. i am maintaining my topps flagship through the years mini-collection, so the 1954 topps mel parnell card (that replaced another card from the original sampler) remains there and not in this updated sampler.
in 1954, there were 16 teams represented, and like 1953, it's an all-portrait oriented set. the card design features solid color backgrounds (by my count, there are red, white, blue, yellow, green, and orange backgrounds to include in the sampler) with two images of each card subject. the facsimile autographs are back on the front after moving to the back in 1953. the comic sequence on the back, which is tailored to the player on the card, is new for 1954.
there weren't any subsets in the way that we think of them today, but there were some other things to showcase. such as, the st. louis browns moved to baltimore during the offseason, so we get to see the first oriole cards. and, in a sign of the times, the cincinnati reds are now referred to as the cincinnati redlegs, thanks to senator joe mccarthy and others who led and fed the red scare of the 1950's.
enough now. let's see what the 1954 sampler set looks like, starting with an ai generated needlepoint sampler for the set.
i will start with the teams and then subsets, followed by cards to fill out the last binder page. with the browns now known as the baltimore orioles, it should make sense as to why the browns led off the first two samplers - when i started this endeavor, i slotted them in as the baltimore franchise, which is alphabetically first. among teams that existed in 1954, anyway. here's the sampler:
baltimore orioles - bob turley
card #85
turley's comic is actually pretty funny as he signed with his "hometown" team to be close to home but wound up far away once the browns made their move. 1954 was his second year in the majors, and he put up a 14-15 record while leading the american league in strikeouts (and walks). along the way, he became the first all-star in orioles' team history, but did not appear in the 1954 midsummer classic. his card is the first example of the blue background.
boston red sox - milt bolling
card #82
frank, milt's brother, did indeed try out for the tigers and made the squad, appearing in 117 games for them in 1954. as for milt, he was the red sox' primary shortstop again in '54, and he hit .249 with six homers, including two in one game against the a's that was part of a 6 for 9 day for bolling across both games of a doubleheader. obviously, bolling is the first card in the sampler to represent the white background.
chicago white sox - sherm lollar
here's the first card with the red background in the sampler. lollar only appeared in 107 games for the white sox in 1954, but he was named to the all-star team for the second time in his career. yogi berra caught the entire game, however, so lollar didn't make an appearance. it was the same story for lollar in 1955, but in 1956, he was able to replace berra in the midsummer classic and went 1 for 2 in the game.
cleveland indians - wally westlake
card #92
westlake's text and cartoon on the back focus on his movement in the majors, with the cartoon being awkwardly captioned. the move to get him to cleveland turned out well for him as he had a strong 1953 campaign and then, in 1954, played in the only world series of his career. his card is the first green background card to be featured.
detroit tigers - bob miller
card #241
this bob miller is not that bob miller. nor the bob miller that announced la kings games for decades. this bob miller debuted in 1953 at the ripe age of 17. in 1954, he pitched in 32 games, posting an era of 2.45 across 69.2 innings - all career bests. the cartoon refers to former tiger manager george moriarty simply as "moriarty" which had me thinking of sherlock holmes.
new york yankees - frank leja
card #175
finding cheap yankee cards from the 1950s was tough even 20 years ago, and i remember settling on this card even though there is all that writing on the back. now, it's kind of interesting to me, as a former owner of the card entered some stats of their own - they certainly aren't leja's, as he played in only 26 major league games in his career. as for the original features of the card, to be dubbed the next lou gehrig has to be pretty daunting, and the fact that leja's name is not well known tells us that he did not live up to that comparison. he debuted on may 1, 1954 as a late inning replacement and made only eleven more appearances that season, each of which was as a pinch runner, pinch hitter, or late inning replacement. he got his first and only big league hit on september 19 against the a's.
philadelphia athletics - marion fricano
card #124
this is the first orange background card featured, but the real thing to pay attention to here is the comic on the back. fricano seems to have violated what is (to some) an unwritten rule in baseball by bunting to break up a no-hitter. today, that would result in a clearing of the benches for sure. fricano pitched four complete games in 1954, but gave up at least five hits in each of them.
washington senators - pete runnels
pete gets the "pete" treatment on the back of the card, but not the front. "little pete" was a nickname he was given in reference to his father, pete, and it stuck. i wonder why he wasn't just named after his dad in the first place. anyway, runnels hit three times as many home runs as he had hit in 1952 (referencing the comic here) and set a career high in triples with 15 in 1954 while hitting .268. he was still a few years away from joining the red sox and being tutored by ted williams in the art of hitting.
milwaukee braves - ray crone
card #206
after reading the comic, i was surprised to read the bio text. a lack of control and winning records with sub-4.00 era don't usually go hand-in-hand. however, crone did indeed average almost five walks per nine innings in his first year of minor league ball, but also had a winning record and a 2.93 era that year! 1954 saw his first big league action, and he was 1-0 with a 2.02 era in 19 appearances. his yellow background completes the run of colors in the set.
chicago cubs - paul minner
card #28
i'm not sure if, back when i was first putting these sampler sets together, whether or not i purposely targeted former dodgers or if it just seems that way. as the card back says, minner pitched for the dodgers before joining the cubs. in fact, the last pitch that minner threw as a dodger came in game 5 of the 1949 world series. he pitched a scoreless top of the ninth against the yankees, but the dodgers did not rally in the bottom of the inning, and the series ended with the yankees winning four games to one. minner's turn on the mound made him the first pitcher in major league history to pitch in the world series with the lights on. i couldn't find any info on the incident that led to a dodger charging the mound in 1952 that is referenced in the comic panel, unfortnately. in 1954, minner was 11-11 with a 3.96 era for the cubs.
cincinnati reds - bobby adams
card #123
i know that ballplayers used to have offseason jobs to help make ends meet, but i think this is the first time i've seen a player sell tickets for his team as his side gig. in 1954, adams hit .269 in what would be his last full season with the reds (or redlegs, if you prefer). on may 13, he hit a lead off home run against future hall of famer robin roberts.
brooklyn dodgers - junior gilliam
card #35
gilliam holds a special place in my fandom, so i am happy to have this card in the sampler. the card back does a nice job of providing his highlight reel so to speak. he followed up his fantastic 1953 campaign by hitting .282 and again scoring more than 100 runs. he hit a career high 13 homers (two in one game), with two of them being lead-off shots. 1954 is the only year that topps referred to him as "junior" on the card front. i am still hoping to add his 1953 topps rookie card to my collection someday.
philadelphia phillies - ted kazanski
card #78
i know for sure that i picked up kazanski's card back in the early 2000's because his name was similar to that of the unabomber's so it stuck out to me in the bargain bin. kazanski was a defense-first shortstop who didn't hit too much at the big league level. his 1954 season saw him muster a .139 average in limited action. he stayed with the phillies through 1958, moving to second base and improving at the plate.
pittsburgh pirates - vic janowicz
card #16
st. louis cardinals - solly hemus
card #117
though hemus lost his status as the cardinals' primary shortstop to alex grammas in 1954, he still played in 124 games and hit .304. to the point of the cartoon, hemus' obp in '54 was a whopping .453 as he maintained the same hbp/plate appearance ratio that he had in 1953 and also walked 20% of the time he came to the plate.
new york giants - don liddle
card #225
liddle is clearly still wearing a braves' uniform in both photos, as the giants did not have that piping on their jerseys. oddly enough, the comic states that liddle threw a 2-hit shutout for the braves in 1953, but baseball reference shows that game to have been a 4-1 victory for milwaukee. with the giants in 1954, liddle finally did throw a shutout - he actually recorded three of them - en route to a 9-4 record for new york.
that's the end of the team oriented portion of the sampler. with the full color backgrounds, there is no opportunity for me to have a card showing the yankee stadium facade. and, as i mentioned up top, there weren't really any subsets in the 1954 topps set. however, there were some cards that fit what i would consider to be future subsets. so, i decided to be sure to include them in the sampler.
combo card:
ed & john o'brien
card #139
this is the first topps card to feature two players as subjects, and it so happens that they are brothers and teammates which makes sense. future combo cards focus on the teammate or other non-familial themes. between the front and back, we get three different ways to address ed/eddie/edward, and the split stat line is a nice touch as opposed to the year/career format on other cards. for the o'brien's, 1954 saw both of them serving in the army. they would return to the pirates in 1955.
manager:
eddie stanky
card #38
just like the o'brien card, we get ed/eddie/edward for stanky. i've only heard him referred to as eddie, but i wasn't around when he was active as a player and manager. while he served in both roles in 1953, 1954 had stanky managing only. the cardinals fell to sixth place that year after two third place finishes in stanky's first two seasons at the helm. he wouldn't finish a fourth. the comic on the back may be the first instance of a team's "kangaroo court" being referenced.
coach:
tom oliver
card #207
i like that topps noted oliver wasn't on an active roster in 1953. he was 50 years old that year, and his last year in the majors as a player was 1933! he was an excellent fielder in his time in the majors, twice leading the american league in fielding percentage as a center fielder. i have read about tris speaker's preference to play a shallow center field, but wasn't aware of oliver doing the same. i'm not 100% sure what oliver's coaching role was with the orioles, but i am guessing not hitting coach - he had the most at bats of any 20th century player without hitting a home run. according to baseball reference, he was the third base coach.
another theme i look for are what i call "o-pee-chee" type cards. these are cards that feature a player in a uniform different from the team that is designated on the card. these cards are quite prevalent in the mid-60's when updated photos were scarce, but are not necessarily as plentiful or obvious in other sets. in 1954, this card is a clear example, and it's a doozy at that:
johnny lipon
card #19
lipon's card meets the basic criteria for this sort of card - he is identified as a member of the orioles while wearing a red sox hat in his portrait image. i believe the topps artist attempted to draw that full "bird on ball" logo on to lipon's hat in the full body image. regardless, when you turn the card over, lipon is listed as a member of the chicago white sox!
lipon finished the 1953 season with the browns, so the orioles affiliation makes sense and i assume that topps left the boston "b" on his cap because they didn't have a good orioles' logo to use? anyway, he was then traded to the white sox before the start of spring training, so we can assume that card fronts were finalized before card backs as the back has all of this information. lipon only lasted a short time with the white sox, however, as he was traded to the reds in mid-april. he appeared in just one game for the reds before having his contract sold to havana, ending his major league career as a player.
adding those cards to the team cards leaves four spaces on the third sheet. i've filled those four spaces with these cards:
jim rivera
card #34
not sure where jim comes from when you are named manuel joseph, but it turns out to be part of a larger nickname for him - "jungle jim". according to sabr, however, he was given the name "jim" because he hung out with a guy named jim. topps doubled down on rivera's speed in the text on the back of the card, and for good reason as he went on to lead the american league in steals in 1955. in 1954, he had two two-homer games (one of those four homers was an inside the park job) and three two-stolen base games. the last of those games with two steals came with this next player featured as the catcher.
ray murray
card #49
there's something about the image of murray on the front of the card that intrigues me. it sort of gives me ray bolger as the scarecrow in wizard of oz vibes. anyway, murray was sent to the orioles in april of 1954, but that was too late to register with topps for an early series release. pretty ballsy of murray to hand such a card to an ump - i do believe today he would be fined and suspended for such an action. murray was the catcher in that last game in 1954 during rivera swiped two bases. it turned out to be murray's last game in the majors, and he finished his career with a double off of billy pierce.
harry perkowski
card #125
i am glad topps put "murdered" in quotes there in the comic caption! perkowski may have tamed the dodgers in 1952 (the third panel of the comic reads "he did. and harry became the only lefty to beat the dodgers in a 9 inning game all season!"), but in 1954, he pitched against them seven times and the reds lost all seven games. in perkowski's second start of the season, the "brooks" took him deep five times courtesy of duke snider, jim gilliam (twice), dick williams, and pee wee reese. who "murdered" whom?.
bob ross
thanks to the cartoon, this is a boxing card and a baseball card! and, with a name like his, it's not a "happy accident" that he's in my sampler set. this ross apparently didn't paint the corners, as he was not brought up to the majors in 1954. nor in 1955. he did see some action (his last) as a big leaguer in 1956 for the phillies. note that this is the version of this card that has a horizontal white line running through the second "s" in "ross". there is another version that does not have that line. you have to salute the minutiae that comes along with collecting.
so, that's my 1954 topps sampler set, all 24 cards of it. 1955 is next - stay tuned!
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