Paul D

Was Zoilo Versalles a One-Hit Wonder?
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minneapolis/St. Paul for the 1961 season they brought a team that had finished 7th, 8th, 8th, 8th, and 5th the previous 5 years. After the move the team finished 7th in 1961, then 2nd, 3rd and 6th in the 10 team American League.
The 6th place 1964 team had a starting lineup of Earl Battey-catching, Bob Allison, Bernie Allen, Zoilo Versalles, and Rich Rollins in the infield, and had an outfield of Harmon Killebrew, Jimmy Hall and Tony Oliva. Their most used subs were Don Mincher, Jerry Kindall and Jerry Zimmerman. The starting rotation was Camilo Pascual, Jim Kaat, Dick Stigman, Mudcat Grant and Lee Stange. Coming out of the bullpen was closer Al Worthington, along with Gerry Arrigo, Jim Perry, Bill Pleis and Johnny Klippstein.
The 1965 team didn’t have a lot of turnover from the 1964 team. Don Mincher took over at first base and Jerry Kindall at second, Bob Allison played left field instead of 1st base and the rest of the lineup was the same as 1964. Because of injuries Harmon Killebrew only played in 113 games. 1964 starter, Lee Stange, was traded to the Cleveland Guardians along with George Banks for Mudcat Grant. Besides Grant, the other starters were Jim Perry, who went from a reliever to a starter, Jim Kaat and Camilo Pascual. Dave Boswell, got an occasional start. The bullpen still had Worthington, Klippstein, Pleis, and added Stigman (a converted starter) and Jerry Fosnow, who came to the Twins in an offseason trade with the Cincinnati Reds for Gerry Arrigo. Cesar Tovar would also come over in the trade, but he would spend most of 1965 with the Denver Bears.
While there were not a lot of personnel changes from 1964 to 1965 the team would go from a 79-83-1 record good for 6th place to a 102-60 record that would win the AL pennant.
WAR leaders in 1964 (batters only) according to Baseball Reference were: Oliva 6.8, Allison 6.4, Killebrew 4.7, Hall 4.0 and Rollins 3.0. For the 1965 season the WAR leaders were: Versalles 7.2, Oliva 5.4, Killebrew 4.4, Hall 4.3 and Allison 4.2.
Jimmy Hall would show an increased WAR from 1964 of 0.3, but the major increase would come from Zoilo Versalles, who went from 2.5 in ‘64 to 7.2 in ‘65.
Versalles would go on to win the American League Most Valuable Player award with 19 of the 20 votes. Tony Oliva would receive the other vote.
While Versalles would have a solid baseball career, he never had another year that came close to approaching 1965.
In 1965 he had career highs in plate appearances in (728), runs scored (126), hits (182), doubles (45), 2nd most triples (12), 2nd most home runs (19), most RBI’s (77) and stolen bases (27), 2nd highest Batting Average (.273), best OBP (.319), Slugging Pct. (.462), OPS (.781), OPS+ (115), and Total Bases (308). He led the American League in plate appearances, runs scored, doubles, triples, and total bases. He did make the All-Star team and won a gold glove that year.
Versalles would never come close to repeating his accomplishments of 1965. The Twins would have some success by finishing 2nd in 1966 and 1967 and would again with the pennant in 1969, but Versalles would only have a WAR of 1.6 in 1966, -1.6 in 1967 and would be traded prior to the 1968 season to the Los Angeles Dodgers along with Mudcat Grant, for Bob Miller, Ron Peranoski and John Roseboro.
In Zoilo’s entire 12 seasons in MLB he had a total WAR of 12.6 with only 5.4 of his total over his other 11 seasons.
Sadly, he passed away at age 55 in 1995 while living in Bloomington, MN.
Zoilo would be the 1st of only 2 players in MLB history with the name Zoilo, the other would be Zoilo Almonte who played a total of 47 games (as an outfielder/DH) for the New York Yankees in 2013 and 2014.
While Zoilo had 7 seasons as the Twins primary shortstop, would you consider him a “One Hit Wonder”?

Was Zoilo Versalles a One-Hit Wonder?
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minneapolis/St. Paul for the 1961 season they brought a team that had finished 7th, 8th, 8th, 8th, and 5th the previous 5 years. After the move the team finished 7th in 1961, then 2nd, 3rd and 6th in the 10 team American League.
The 6th place 1964 team had a starting lineup of Earl Battey-catching, Bob Allison, Bernie Allen, Zoilo Versalles, and Rich Rollins in the infield, and had an outfield of Harmon Killebrew, Jimmy Hall and Tony Oliva. Their most used subs were Don Mincher, Jerry Kindall and Jerry Zimmerman. The starting rotation was Camilo Pascual, Jim Kaat, Dick Stigman, Mudcat Grant and Lee Stange. Coming out of the bullpen was closer Al Worthington, along with Gerry Arrigo, Jim Perry, Bill Pleis and Johnny Klippstein.
The 1965 team didn’t have a lot of turnover from the 1964 team. Don Mincher took over at first base and Jerry Kindall at second, Bob Allison played left field instead of 1st base and the rest of the lineup was the same as 1964. Because of injuries Harmon Killebrew only played in 113 games. 1964 starter, Lee Stange, was traded to the Cleveland Guardians along with George Banks for Mudcat Grant. Besides Grant, the other starters were Jim Perry, who went from a reliever to a starter, Jim Kaat and Camilo Pascual. Dave Boswell, got an occasional start. The bullpen still had Worthington, Klippstein, Pleis, and added Stigman (a converted starter) and Jerry Fosnow, who came to the Twins in an offseason trade with the Cincinnati Reds for Gerry Arrigo. Cesar Tovar would also come over in the trade, but he would spend most of 1965 with the Denver Bears.
While there were not a lot of personnel changes from 1964 to 1965 the team would go from a 79-83-1 record good for 6th place to a 102-60 record that would win the AL pennant.
WAR leaders in 1964 (batters only) according to Baseball Reference were: Oliva 6.8, Allison 6.4, Killebrew 4.7, Hall 4.0 and Rollins 3.0. For the 1965 season the WAR leaders were: Versalles 7.2, Oliva 5.4, Killebrew 4.4, Hall 4.3 and Allison 4.2.
Jimmy Hall would show an increased WAR from 1964 of 0.3, but the major increase would come from Zoilo Versalles, who went from 2.5 in ‘64 to 7.2 in ‘65.
Versalles would go on to win the American League Most Valuable Player award with 19 of the 20 votes. Tony Oliva would receive the other vote.
While Versalles would have a solid baseball career, he never had another year that came close to approaching 1965.
In 1965 he had career highs in plate appearances in (728), runs scored (126), hits (182), doubles (45), 2nd most triples (12), 2nd most home runs (19), most RBI’s (77) and stolen bases (27), 2nd highest Batting Average (.273), best OBP (.319), Slugging Pct. (.462), OPS (.781), OPS+ (115), and Total Bases (308). He led the American League in plate appearances, runs scored, doubles, triples, and total bases. He did make the All-Star team and won a gold glove that year.
Versalles would never come close to repeating his accomplishments of 1965. The Twins would have some success by finishing 2nd in 1966 and 1967 and would again with the pennant in 1969, but Versalles would only have a WAR of 1.6 in 1966, -1.6 in 1967 and would be traded prior to the 1968 season to the Los Angeles Dodgers along with Mudcat Grant, for Bob Miller, Ron Peranoski and John Roseboro.
In Zoilo’s entire 12 seasons in MLB he had a total WAR of 12.6 with only 5.4 of his total over his other 11 seasons.
Sadly, he passed away at age 55 in 1995 while living in Bloomington, MN.
Zoilo would be the 1st of only 2 players in MLB history with the name Zoilo, the other would be Zoilo Almonte who played a total of 47 games (as an outfielder/DH) for the New York Yankees in 2013 and 2014.
While Zoilo had 7 seasons as the Twins primary shortstop, would you consider him a “One Hit Wonder”?

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller. 
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss.  Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi.  Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller. 
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss.  Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi.  Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller. 
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss.  Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi.  Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller. 
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss.  Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi.  Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque.
Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbage can and yelled at him, “you dizzy son-of-a-bitch!”. Satchel Paige received his nickname when he had a job of carrying passengers’ bags (satchels) at the train station in Mobile. Lawrence Berra received the nickname “Yogi” from his friend who, after seeing a newsreel about India, said that he resembled a yogi from India whenever he sat around with arms and legs crossed waiting to bat or while looking sad after losing a game.
Here are a few Hall of Famer nicknames: James “Cool Papa” Bell, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Grover Cleveland “Old Pete” Alexander, Adrian “Cap” Anson, Luke “Old Aches and Pain” Appling, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Albert “Happy” Chandler, Ty “The Georgia Peach” Cobb, “Wahoo” Sam Crawford, Joe “The Yankee Clipper” Di Maggio, and Bob “Rapid Robert” Feller. 
I have nicknames of other Hall of Famers listed below: If you are interested in trying to see how accurate your guesses are leave your answers in the comment section:
1) The Human Rain Delay, 2) Sandman, 3) The Wizard, 4) The Man of Steal, 5) Captain Hook, 6) Double X, 7) Hoot, 8) Big Six, 9) Ducky, and 10) Old Hoss.  Try without using the internet.
In addition to researching nicknames on plaques I discovered a few facts that I was completely unaware of. These are the real first names of some of the inductees: George “Ken” “The Kid” “Junior” Griffey, Harry “Doc” “Roy” Halladay, Umpire Harold “Doug” Harvey, Dorrel “Whitey” Herzog, Monford “Monte” Irvin, Larry “Chipper” Jones, Santurino Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, John “Buck” O’Neil, Alan “Bud” Selig, and Lynn “Nolan” Ryan.
Some nicknames had relevance to physical descriptions of the player, such as: Don "Ears" Mossi, Walt “No Neck” Williams, and Ernie “The Schnozz” Lombardi.  Do a search on each of these player's images to quickly see how they "earned" their nicknames.
You can add to that list Robert “Lefty” Grove and Vernon “Lefty” Gomez who were left-handed pitchers and Mordecai “Three Fingers” Brown who lost most of his index finger in a farm accident when he was a kid.
Baseball also has nicknames that are interesting or unique:
Ron Cey – The Penguin
Marc Rzepczynski – Scrabble
Ted Williams – The Splendid Splinter, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper
Frank Thomas – The Big Hurt
Randy Johnson – The Big Unit
Jimmy Wynn – Toy Cannon
Pete Rose – Charlie Hustle
Bill Lee – Spaceman
Mark Fydrich – The Bird
Will Clark – Will the Thrill
Don Mattingly – Donny Baseball
Rusty Staub – Le Grand Orange
Steve Balboni – Bye Bye
Shane Victorino – The Flyin’ Hawaiian
Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
Vince Coleman – Vince Van Go
Hideki Matsui – Godzilla
Phil Rizzuto – Scooter
Carlton Fisk / Ivan Rodriguez - Pudge
Don Zimmer – The Gerbil (given to him by Bill “Spaceman” Lee)
During the discovery part of this article, I started questioning how some nicknames came into existence. Some of these are very interesting.
Willie Mays – Say Hey Kid – He used to greet everyone with “Hey” when he saw them
Jim Hunter – Catfish – Given to him by Charlie Finley because he thought he needed a flashy nickname
Leo Durocher – Leo the Lip – Based on his constant baiting of umpire from his position in the dugout
Harold Traynor – Pie – As a child he would often frequent the grocery store and ask for pie. The store owner would eventually call him Pie Face which was shortened to Pie.
Frankie Frisch – The Fordham Flash – Attended Fordham Prep and Fordham University where he was a track star as well as playing baseball, basketball and football.
Walter Johnson – The Big Train – Given by sportswriter Grantland Rice because of his size and because the express train was the fastest vehicle known at the time.
Denton Young – Cy – Shortened from Cyclone because of the speed of his fastball.
James Gavin – Pud – Writers said he made hitters look like pudding.
Edward Ford – Whitey – named for his light blond hair.
Leo Hartnett – Gabby – named because of his shy, quiet manner.
Richard Marquard – Rube – His sweeping delivery reminded a sportswriter of Rube Waddell.
Walter Maranville – Rabbitt – He said it was because his penchant for bounding and jumping, others said it was because of his protruding ears.
Lewis Wilson – Hack – He was 5’ 6” and weighted 195 lbs. with an 18 inch neck, and feet that fit into a 5 ½ size shoe. A teammate said his build resembled Hack Lewis, an outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Enos Slaughter – Country – Grew up in Roxboro, North Carolina
Joe DiMaggio – Yankee play-by-play announcer compared DiMaggio’s speed and agility to that of the new Pan American airliner “The Yankee Clipper’. Another story equates DiMaggio to the beauty and grace of a clipper ship. He also had the nickname, Joltin’ Joe.
Domenic DiMaggio – “The Little Professor” - He looked like a college professor because of his size (5’9”), wire-rimmed glasses.
John Odom – Blue Moon – As “Blue Moon” explained, he had a classmate in the 5th grade who started calling him “Moon Head”. A few days later he changed it to “Blue Moon”. He hated that nickname, but later really liked it.
Pedro Sandoval – Kung Foo Panda – Given to him by Barry Zito after a play at the plate where Sandoval jumped over the tag of the catcher.
Dennis Boyd – Oil Can – According to Boyd, “growing up in Mississippi there was a woman who supplied the town with moonshine. When I was 7 I started drinking it myself. One day someone caught us in a tin shed drinking Big Momma’s whiskey out of oil cans, so my friend Pap started calling me Oil Can.”
Sal Maglie – The Barber – Named because he pitcher inside to batters, giving them close shaves.
The Society for American Baseball Research penned an article “An Analysis of Baseball Nicknames” . From 1871 to 1968 these were the most popular baseball nicknames: 1) Lefty, 2) Red, 3) Doc, 4) Bud/Buddy, 5) Dutch, 6) Big, 7) Mickey, 8) Whitey, 9) Chick and 10) Kid. There is a lot of interesting information contained in their article.
While nicknames are not as common now as in the past and there is no question they are more PC, but here are a few current players who have nicknames:
Pete Alonso – Polar Bear
Noah Syndergaard – Thor
Shohei Otani – Sho Time
Blake Snell – Snellzilla
Todd Frazier – The Toddfather
Brandon Belt – Baby Giraffe
Jeff McNeil – The Squirrel
Carlos Carrasco – Cookie
Sean Manaea – The Throwin’ Samoan
Finally, a number of Minnesota Twins have had nicknames. Here are players that had nicknames given to them:
Rocco Baldelli – The Woonsocket Rocket
Doug Mientkiewicz – Eye Chart
Josh Donaldson – The Bringer of Rain
Harmon Killebrew – Killer
Kirby Puckett – Puck
Jim Grant – Mudcat
Tom Brunansky – Bruno
Rod Carew – Sir Rodney
Gary Gaetti – The Rat
Kent Hrbek – Herbie
Torii Hunter - Spiderman
Frank Viola – Sweet Music
Willians Astudillo – LaTortuga (The Tortoise)
Nelson Cruz – Broomstick
Luis Arraez – La Ragadera (The Sprinkler)
Chris Paddock – Sheriff
Feel free to comment and include some unique nicknames that I failed to mention.

* a definition of prayer- an earnest hope or wish.
- Blessings & thanks to all TD writers, who continue to give us great articles to discuss even amidst some opposition.
- Blessings to my friends at TD.
- Blessings & thanks to the moderators who keep the baseball forum civil & open
- Wisdom & insight to our FO so they can evaluate our needs & make the right decisions.
- Uplift the lowly & humble the proud.
- Health, soundness of mind & body to all our players so they can achieve their full potential.
- Qualify our coaches to help train our players
- Happy New Year to all & a prosperous season! Go Twins! 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the Senators to Minnesota, giving Washington the expansion team. Even though the Senators had a hard time getting fans to attend, the baseball felt that because of baseball’s anti-trust issues that it was best to have a team in the Nation's capital.
Up until the Senators moved to Minnesota there had only been 5 teams that had pulled up stakes in one city and moved to another. They were: 1) in 1953 when the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee, 2) in 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore, 3) in 1955 when the Philadephia Athletics moved to Kansas City, and 4/5) in 1958 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco, 
There would be other relocations after the Twins: 1) in 1966 the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta, 2) in 1968 the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland, 3) in 1970 the expansion Seattle Pilots moved to Milwaukee, 4) in 1972 the Washington Senators moved to Dallas/Ft. Worth, 5) in 2005 the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C. and 6) in 2024 the Oakland Athletics moved to Las Vegas.
When the Washington Senators relocated to Minnesota in 1961 they brought with them a team that had finished the 1960 season with a 73-81 record, good for 5th place in the 8 team American League. This was their best finish in 6 years -
1946
4th
1947
7th
1948
7th
1949
8th
1950
5th
1951
7th
1952
5th
1953
5th
1954
6th
1955
8th
1956
7th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
5th
Not only were they in the 2nd half of the 8 team division in standings, but here are their attendance standings.
1946
5th
1947
7th
1948
6th
1949
7th
1950
6th
1951
6th
1952
6th
1953
6th
1954
7th
1955
8th
1956
8th
1957
8th
1958
8th
1959
8th
1960
8th
Their attendance for the 1960 season at Griffith Stadium was 743,404 (9,655 per game), which was the lowest in the American League. When they moved they brought with them their Owner and General Manager, Clark Griffith, Farm Director – Sherry Robertson and Manager – Cookie Lavagetto. Cookie would only last 59 games into the season when he was fired with a 23-36 record and was replaced by Sam Mele who would be 47-54-1 for the season. Their overall record was 70-90-1 good for 7th place (out of 10 teams). Both the expansion Senators and the Angels would finish behind the Twins in the standings as well as the Kansas City Athletics. The Twins attendance for the season was 1,256,723 (an average of slightly over 15,000 per game (3rd out of 10 teams).
How much better was it to receive a team as a transfer rather than an expansion team?
If we examine the 8 teams that relocated between 1901 and 1968 you will see that many of them had early success that may not have happened if they had received an expansion team.
Here is where those 8 teams finished in the standings in their first five years in a new city.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1953 Milwaukee Braves
 
2
3
2
2
1
1954 Baltimore Orioles
 
7
7
6
5
6
1955 Kansas City Athletics
 
6
8
7
7
7
1958 Los Angeles Dodgers
 
7
1
4
2
2
1958 San Francisco Giants
 
3
3
5
3
1
1961 Minnesota Twins
 
7
2
3
6
1
1966 Atlanta Braves
 
5
7
5
1
5
1968 Oakland Athletics
 
6
2
2
1
1
It’s really interesting to note that there have been a total of 8 franchise moves listed above and 6 of the teams won a league championship within 5 years of moving.
Here are the first five years of every expansion team.
Team
 
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
1961 Los Angeles Angels (of 10)
 
8
3
9
5
7
1961 Washington Senators (of 10)
 
9
10
10
9
8
1962 New York Mets (of 10)
 
10
10
10
10
9
1962 Houston Colt .45s (of 10)
 
8
9
9
9
8
1969 Kansas City Royals (of 6)
 
4
4
2
4
2
1969 Seattle Pilots (of 6)
 
6
4
6
4
6
1969 San Diego Padres (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1969 Montreal Expos (of 6)
 
6
6
6
6
6
1977 Toronto Blue Jays (of 7)
 
7
7
7
7
7
1977 Seattle Mariners (of 7)
 
6
7
6
7
6
1993 Colorado Rockies (of 7) (of 4)
 
6
3
2
3
3
1993 Florida Marlins (of 7) (of 5)
 
6
5
4
3
2
1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays (of 5)
 
5
5
5
5
5
1998 Arizona Diamondbacks (of 5)
 
5
1
3
1
1
Of the 14 expansion teams listed in the table only the Diamondbacks were able to finish in 1st place in their division (3 times). Only the Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies experienced moderate success.
1960/61 Expansion Draft to stock Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators
In the very first expansion draft an existing team had to make available seven players from their active roster as of August 31, 1960 and eight others from their 40 man roster, with a maximum of seven players that could be taken from each existing club.
The Angels took Eli Grba, Jerry Casale, Duke Maas, Tex Clevenger, and Bob Sprout with their 1st five choises, while the Senators took Bobby Shantz, Dave Sisler, Johhny Klipstein, Pete Burnside and Carl Mathias with their choices. The Senators/Twins would lose Tex Clevinger, Hal Woodeshick, Hector Maestri, Rudy Hernandez, Johnny Schaive, Faye Throneberry, Julio Becquer and Joe McClain.  
1997/98 Expansion Draft to stock the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks
In the most recent expansion draft each existing team could protect 15 players. All players in an organization were eligible to be drafted except with those with no prior major league experience who had less than 3 years of service. A team could lose no more than 1 player per round, with 28 selections in rounds one and two, and 14 selections in round 3. After the first two rounds a team could add three more players to be protected.
The Devil Rays chose Tony Saunders, Quinton McCracken, Bobby Abreau, Miguel Cairo and Rich Bulter with their 1st five choices. The Diamondbacks chose Brian Anderson, Jeff Suppan, Gabe Alvarez, Jorge Fabergas, and Karim Garcia with their choices. The best player taken in the draft would turn out to be Randy Winn taken from the Marlins by the Devil Rays in the 3rd round. The Twins would lose Brent Brede (1B) and Damian Miller (Catcher).
Conclusion
Clark Griffith did the fans of the Twins a great service by moving his franchise to Minnesota in 1961, rather than giving Minnesota an expansion team.

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.
 
 

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty when you returned.
Of course our equipment was different. My glove was a Rawlings John Groth model (outfielder for the Tigers). The glove was small and the web was barely large enough to contain the ball. Only the catcher and first baseman had the "big gloves."
The ball we used was probably coming unstitched and was dark and dirty. If the stitching was too far gone, the ball was covered in electrical tape, normally the shiny kind.
Lastly, we probably only had one or two bats between us and in most cases the bat was probably broken and was held together with either a nail in the bat, or more electrical tape (the non-shiny type acted as a nice grip).  Batting gloves were not thought of at this time, and would have been perceived as unmanly.
We didn’t need adults to organize us, and we didn’t need rides to get to the field.
Most of us played Little League, but usually we were all on different teams. The good players make the “majors” at 10 years old, the lesser at 11 or 12 (12 year olds were not allowed to play in the “minors”).
Our Little League uniforms had been used for a number of years and the knees on our pants probably had a patch or two on them. The shirt and pants were made of flannel, so they lasted for many years, but during the heat of the summer, they were really hot. Our hats and stirrups were made of wool and the stirrups usually needed an elastic at the top of them to stop them from drooping every time you ran.
We had batting helmets, but they were not really helmets, but earmuffs. They were made of leather and came in a couple of sizes.
But baseball was king. There was no organized football for us and very few options for playing basketball. Most football was one or two hand touch and played in the street. Living on a quiet street was a huge plus because you wouldn’t have to keep stopping the game to let cars pass. Basketball rims were at the playground, but many of us hung a basket from our garage and played in our driveway.
Most of us collected and traded baseball cards.
Buying cards was convenient. During the school year, we would walk past two stores near our school that sold baseball cards and penny candy. During the summer our neighborhood was serviced by a traveling store. The vehicle was about the size of a self-contained RV and was like a convenience store on wheels. It came by 3 days a week, and always stopped in our neighborhood, because most of our families were Italian and we had to have Italian bread with our supper.
You could buy cards two ways, for one cent you could buy a pack with one card in it, and for five cents the pack would contain 6 cards.
There was no such strategy of collecting stars. Your goal was to have a complete set, and if you needed to trade a star for one of your missing commons, you’d do it.
Of course we all had a favorite team. Living in Rhode Island there were two options: you rooted for the Red Sox and hated the Yankees, or you rooted for the Yankees and hated the Red Sox. A lot of friends started out as Red Sox fans, but changed their allegiance because the Yankees always won and the Red Sox never did. I would collect and hoard Red Sox players and draw beards and mustaches on Yankee players. I can’t image how many Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra cards I had were ruined because of beards.
Cards were for collecting and making complete sets.
Doubles and triples were used for pitching. Pitching cards was a school yard activity. You would take your extras to school and either at recess or after lunch you’d find an empty area with a wall. Because you were pitching these cards against a wall, there were no cards in mint condition. They all had rounded edges from colliding with a wall, or have creases because you bent the card as you were picking them up off the ground (usually cement or asphalt).
We played three different games and who ever won the previous game would pick the game. The first game was “farzees (pronounced far zees)”. The game was not limited to one player against another, you could put together as large a group as you could find. With farzees you would pitch your card (one toss per player) and the person who’s card stopped closest to the wall would win all the cards. On occasion the card would stand up. A standing card would beat any other card that was tossed.
The second game was “standeez (pronouced stand eez)”. With standeez the person choosing the game would stand a card up against the wall. It would be at about a 30 degree angle. The game would end when someone tossed their card and it knocked the standing card down to the ground. If you knocked the card down, you would win all of the cards that had been tossed up to that point.  Baseball cards were severely damaged in this game. You never wanted to hit the standing card and not knock it down because you didn't toss your card hard enough.
The last game was “topzees (pronouced top zees)”. With topzees the person choosing the game would pitch a card out in the playing area, trying to keep it away from any wall. The winner of the game was the person who would toss their card and it would land on top of any of the cards already on the ground. It didn’t have to cover a lot of the card, just some part of it. The winner would pick up all of the cards that had already been tossed.
Because most of us “pitched” cards, finding cards from the 50’s or early 60’s rarely came in mint or excellent condition. We never anticipated that our cards would ever be worth anything and that the stars would be worth more than the common.  We loved our cards because they were play things, never investments.
Please feel free to leave comments on this article, especially if you are at an age where you may have pitched cards also.
My blog will try to recreate loving the game of baseball and what it was like playing and watching the game in the 50’s and 60’s.