Turns out my cousin knows Noren’s grandson out of the West Coast, and he thought it would be a nice little gift for the former Major Leaguer to have a special card he’s never seen before.
I’ll be honest I didn’t even know Noren had a coaching career in the 1970’s, let alone with the powerhouse Oakland teams of the middle of the decade, so it made for a nice surprise even for me.
Noren had a very nice 11-year playing career spanning 1950 to 1960, particularly the first five years playing for the Washington Senators and New York Yankees.
An all-star while with the Yanks in 1954, he was a part of three championship teams in the Bronx before bouncing around a bit the latter half of his career.
He’d finish his career with a very respectable .275 batting average over 1093 games, with 857 hits in 3119 at-bats.