Card of the Week 06/01/09

Ok. Time for Card of the Week. Gotta do this quick so I can have a beer and get to bed for an early meeting. Remember I promised to show of the centerpiece of my trade with A Cardboard Problem in its own special post? Well here it is:

Taa Daaa!

1934 Goudey Baxter Jordan of the Boston Braves. Baxter (Better known as Buck) had a healthy 10 year career in the bigs as a first baseman. Most of his production was with the Braves, but he also played for the Reds, Giants, Senators and Phillies. There isn't much to say about Buck, he was a good defender with not much of a bat. While he had virtually no power, he could definitely hit for average. He was an amazing contact hitter and only had 109 strikeouts in 3216 at bats. His stats sort of reminded me of Ken Oberkfell on first glance.

Here's the back of the card. It's a pretty sharp looking card overall, no real creases and only a slight glue or wax stain underneath the team name. It's definitely one of the best looking Goudeys in my collection. Check out the text on the back though. First you'll notice that everything is in quotes as if Lou Gehrig actually said any of that drivel. "He is a native of North Carolina, 27 years old." Thrilling commentary there. Also note the multiple use of "altho". The "ugh" just got cut right out of "although". It's not like they were tight for space, there's plenty of room on that back for 6 more characters. Lou Gehrig was a lazy speller. Or was he?? You'll note that these bios are "By arrangement of Christy Walsh". Who is Christy Walsh? Let's check Baseball Library.com:

Walsh was a pioneer of sports licensing. His most frequent device was getting sports stars to put their names on ghostwritten articles in newspapers and magazines.

Baseball cards too, apparently. He sure didn't waste a whole lot of that licensing money on the ghostwriter either. How else can you explain this gem:

"[Buck] is now considered one of the most dependables of the Boston Braves"

Oy. How can you put words like that into a Legend's mouth. I guess Gehrig wasn't officially a Legend with a capital L yet in 1934, but still. I wouldn't even put words like "Altho he is the most dependables" in A-Rods mouth without a serious crisis of conscience.


Marie pulled this card out of a blaster of Goudey and now I wish I had bought a lot more blasters of Goudey. I still would never in a million years pulled a buyback of a card I actually needed for my team set though. I now have four out of seven from the 1934 Braves team set which is pretty dang cool. I also have this nifty Goudey Buyback card. It reminds me of the Title card from a non-sports set and it a nice addition to my Goudey set.

The odd thing is that the buyback comes with the card but there's really no proof that the particular Baxter Jordan I have actually was a buyback unless you pulled it from the pack yourself. It doesn't really matter in the least since I just wanted the card for my team set, but I guess if an unscrupulous person could just put this card with any other Goudey they wanted to and pawn it off as a buyback. I don't know why anyone would want to do that, but it's technically possible. On the other hand, I'm very glad that Upper Deck didn't foil stamp the card or emboss it or number it or put a matching holo sticker on the back of the vintage card to prove that it was in fact an official buyback. I'm very happy with a vintage Goudey and a nifty buyback card. Thanks Upper Deck for keeping this one simple. And thanks again to Marie, I hope you're enjoying those Yankee Stadium Legends cards. I think this is one of those trades where both parties are amazed and somewhat ashamed that they were able to pawn off some junk they didn't want for something truly awesome. That's the best kind of trade, is it not?