Card Of the Week 07/21/08

The knife has been thankfully pulled from my back, now I have to catch up on all the stuff that's been piling up during my convalescence. Here's a preview of this week's Card of the Week. I'll do a proper write up and scan the back of the card eventually but in the meantime enjoy one of the all time super sweet glasses cards.

1933 Goudey Danny MacFayden

"Deacon Danny" pitched 17 years in the bigs, 13 of those in his home state of Massachusetts. He wasn't a great pitcher, but he could be counted on to chew up 200 or more innings a year as a starter. Danny broke in with the Red Sox in 1926 and didn't have much success with the cellar-dwelling Sox until a 16 win season in 1931. After starting 1-10 for Boston in 1932 he was traded to the Yankees, the team he is listed with on this '33 Goudey card. Danny unfortunately didn't get to pitch in the 1932 World Series and the Yanks missed out on the Series in '33 and '34. He was sold to the Reds in '35, who quickly gave him back to the Yankees. The Yanks cut him and the lowly Braves took a chance on Danny and picked him up off waivers. McFayden had his best years with the Braves (now Bees) including a career year in 1936 where he went 17-13 with a 2.87 ERA. Not bad concidering the Bees won 71 games total that year. After 58 wins in 5 years with the Bees, he was traded to Pittsburgh, pitched a couple of months with the Senators and had one last hurrah back with the Braves in 1943.

Of course none of that matters because the man had fantastic eyeglasses. As you can see from the back of his card, Danny was the Jackie Robinson of four-eyed pitchers in the Junior Circuit. Pitchers wearing glasses is nerve wracking enough on a hitter, but imagine seeing those crazy octagon specs staring back at you in the batters box. Dude looks like a villain from a German Expressionist film or something. Actually, Goudey's anonymous artist may have taken some liberties with the picture as other photos I've seen of Danny show him with round glasses. Goudey was based in Boston, so maybe there was some early Yankee - Sox resentment going on there. This is one of those cards I've been obsessed with getting ever since I first saw it. Danny's myopic blue eyes hypnotized me into tracking down this card. I found it when I bid on another '33 Goudey card for my Braves collection and figured it was destiny. The fact that the good Deacon was later an ace for the Braves Bees is just a bonus.