"CLASSIC BASEBALL" CUSTOM WTHBALLS SET: SATCHEL PAIGE

Time to add the one and only Satchel Paige to my long-running WTHBALLS custom "Classic Baseball" set, always a fun player to have in any checklist:

The stories of Paige in his prime are endless, and while most are embellished beyond any scope of reality, the man was an incredible pitcher that many Major League stars who opposed him during his prime went out of their way to say so.

On the Major League level, Paige made his debut in 1948 with Cleveland at the ripe old age of 41, going 6-1 with a 2.48 earned run average over 21 games, seven of which were starts.

The following season he went 4-7 with a 3.04 E.R.A., but ended up missing all of 1950 before coming back to pitch three more years with the St. Louis Browns, going a combined 18-23 with a couple of shutouts and 26 saves over 126 games, 13 of which were starts.

We're talking about a man who was 46 years old at the end of that run!

Move ahead twelve years, in 1965, and Paige took the mound at the age of 58 as a promotional stunt with the Kansas City A's, yet still managed to pitch three innings, giving up a sole hit with no walks, with a strikeout thrown in for good measure! Hilarious!

In those six truncated seasons in the Majors, Paige went a combined 28-31 with a 3.29 earned run average, 288 strikeouts and two shutouts over 179 games and 476 innings.

But it was his legendary status in the Negro Leagues that made him a baseball immortal within the halls of Cooperstown.

 

MINOR LEAGUE DAYS: LEGENDS EDITION- GEORGE SISLER

Today on the blog we have all-time great George Sisler added to my long-running 1971 "Minor League Days: Legends Edition" thread, in this case a baseball legend who put time in the Minors at the end of his career rather than the beginning:

Here we see Sisler during his year with the Rochester Red Wings in 1931, one year removed from his last Major League season.

In that year at Rochester, Sisler just continued doing what he did best, hit, to the tune of a .309 average with 186 hits over 613 at-bats at the age of 38.

The man was a hitting machine, twice topping .400 and finishing up his 15-year career with a .340 average, with 2812 hits in 8267 at-bats.

Somewhat forgotten was that the man also possessed some speed on the base-paths, as evidenced by his 375 career steals, leading the league four times with a high of 51 in 1922, the year he took home league MVP honors when he collected 246 hits and a batting titles, one of two, hitting an incredible .420 while scoring 134 runs and driving in 105.

Incredibly, at the height of his career, he lost an entire season (1923) due to vision problems, something that definitely kept him from reaching 3000 hits.

But he did return in 1924 and kept on hitting, reaching 200+ hits three more times, six such seasons total, and reaching .300+ six of his final seven seasons.

About as easy a Hall of Fame pick as they came, he was selected for the Hall in 1939, one of the all-time greatest hitters the game has ever seen.

 

VINTAGE SPECIAL! "MISSING" 1954 WILSON'S FRANKS SATCHEL PAIGE

Super fun card to create and add to the WTHBALLS stable, a "missing" 1954 Wilson Franks Satchel Paige edition, celebrating the legend during his stint with the St. Louis Browns:

Now THIS would have been an awesome card to exist, though most likely painful for collectors to chase these days in pursuit of perhaps the greatest baseball odd-ball set of the era.

Paige just wrapped up his third and final season with the Browns in 1953, appearing in 57 games at the age of 46, posting a record of 3-9 with a 3.53 earned run average over 117.1 innings, saving 11 games and making his second straight All-Star team.

From his start as a 20-year old playing for the Birmingham Black Barons in 1927 to his final Major League appearance as a 58-year old for the Kansas City Athletics, Paige became an American icon not only for his on-field play but for his infectious personality.
Though his career Negro League record is listed as 100-50 over 18-seasons, he won countless other games along the way, as was the usual for the Negro Leagues as they played exhibition and non-league games during gaps in their schedule.
His stories are legend, enough so that by the time the Baseball Hall of Fame got off their ass and finally began electing Negro League all-time greats to Cooperstown, Paige was the very 1st to be so honored.
A 5x time Negro League all-star, 2x American League all-star, Negro League champ in 1942 with the Homestead Grays, and Major League World Champion with the 1948 Cleveland Indians, Paige left a baseball legacy that few could come close to.

 

TURN BACK THE CLOCK 1953: BOBO TOSSES NO-NO IN MLB DEBUT!

Today we have a 1973 “Turn Back the Clock” 20th Anniversary card for quite possibly one of the most interesting and unexpected no-hitters the game has ever seen: Bobo Hollomon’s no-no against the Philadelphia Athletics on May 6th.
Take a look at the card:

Improbable, historically odd, and “kind of” ugly, the no-hitter was achieved in Hollomon’s very first start in the Major Leagues.
But there’s so much more to this story: in beating the Athletics 6-0, Hollomon also went 2-3 with three runs batted in at the plate. These would be the only hits Hollomon would get in his Major League career.
About this career, it turns out it would last 22 games, all in 1953! Yep, he throws a no-hitter in his first start, gets beat up in his subsequent start, then performs poorly the rest of the way to end up with a 3-7 career record, with a 5.23 earned run average and 25 K’s over 65.1 innings of work.
In that no-hitter, Hollomon walked five batters, struck out only three, and according to accounts of the game, Athletics players made hard contact many times over the course of the game, only to find that there was a St. Louis Browns player right there to snare the ball.
Hollomon is STILL the only modern player to achieve this feat to this day, although there were two pitchers before the mound was moved back to 60’ 6” who also did the same: Bumpus Jones and Ted Breitenstein.
Incredible.