The next “missing”
1963 Fleer card to get the spotlight here on the blog is none other than
the great Yogi Berra, New York Yankee icon and one of baseball’s
all-time ambassadors:
The “Lost Second
Series” 1963 custom set was release at the tail end of last year, and
expanded on the limited 66-card original set issued by Fleer (with a
cookie instead of gum) before Topps put a stop to
it “mafia-style”.
As for Berra, he was
coming to the end of his playing days by the time this card would have
seen the light of day, limited to only 86 games in 1962, hitting a
career-low .224, with 10 homers and 35 runs batted
in for the World Champs.
Let's see, the man
was a three-time American League Most Valuable Player, a FIFTEEN-TIME
all-star, and received Most Valuable Player votes every single year
between 1947 and 1961. As a matter of fact, between
1950 and 1956 he never finished lower than fourth for the MVP, with
three wins, and two second place finishes!
That's seven top-4 finishes in seven years! Just awesome.
Except for four
scant games in 1965 with the New York Mets, Berra played the rest of his
19-year career with the Bronx Bombers, amassing 358 homers, 1430 runs
batted in and a .285 average.
One other note about his amazing career: the man only struck out 414 times over 8359 at-bats!
YOGI!!! I loved that man!
A true baseball treasure…
