Red Sox Tribute - 1909 T206 Jake Stahl

If I know my audience by now, I know that you guys just loooooove old ugly cards. Well do I have a treat for you! This card is so ugly when talking about it you have to pronounce it OOG-a-lee to get across just how beat it really is. But since it's a T206 card (and I'm not talking 'bout Topps) it is by default in Gem Mint condition. It just has a bit more character than most Gem Mint cards.

Isn't that just gorgeous?!? I have a bunch of old T206s in this condition. There was a memorabilia store called The Paper Chase in Atlanta a while back that sold magazines and posters and movies and all kinds of stuff and also had a few baseball cards on the side. Apparently they acquired a collection of T206s that had been stapled to a scrapbook that was thrown in the sewer. I was about 11 or 12 when there were selling these and I went berserk over them. I had a bunch of reprints from Dover and Baseball Card Hobby Report so I was excited to see real T206s for sale. I bought a few for a buck apiece with all the money I had, saved up about 40 bucks and went back but was denied buying more when I pissed off the guy behind the counter (long story, maybe I'll tell it later) and finally picked up a few more after they had been picked over. I have a couple dozen of these beauties including this fine specimen of Boston Red Sox player-manager Jake Stahl.


Jake led the Red Sox to their best record and a World Series victory as a first baseman and manager in 1912. Jake was a decent catcher and first basemen for the Red Sox, Senators and Yankees (then Highlanders) and was one of the youngest player-managers in the league. Stahl was out of baseball and working for a bank when his father in law bought the Red Sox and installed Jake as manager. That's right, he BOUGHT the team. This kids, is why you work hard and go to college (University of Illinois in Jake's case) and get a degree so you can find a swanky broad with a rich daddy who can buy a ballclub for you to manage. Nepotism aside, Jake lead the formerly underachieving Sox to their 2nd title. Unfortunately for Jake the team president, scared that Stahl would take over his cushy job, forced him out of the manager's job the next season and ultimately out of baseball. No other Red Sox manager has beat the 105 wins Jake lead the team to in 1912.

Red Sox Tribute - 1938 Goudey Ernie Lombardi Dover Reprint

This card was originally part of one of Bert Sugar's Dover reprint books, but I tore it out when I was a kid and eventually trimmed off the borders. I liked this set the best so it got the most abuse. I love the 38 Goudeys and if I could choose just one ared from that set it would be... well it would be the Al Lopez Boston Bees card. I'm still a team collector you know. Other than Al though, I'd love an original card of Ernie. Would I choose Lombardi over the Joe DiMaggio? Sure I would. Even hypothetical benevolent card benefactors would lop your arm off if you started reaching for their Joe D card.

Ernie Lombardi is one of the most underrated catchers in baseball history. Nicknamed Schnozz for obvious reasons, he was a good catcher and fantastic hitter. Lombardi had a lifetime batting average of .306 despite the fact that he was slow as a dump truck with 4 flat tires. Ernie was the last catcher to win a batting title until Joe Mauer did it last year by hitting .330 with the Boston Braves in 1942. He had already won a crown in his MVP season of 1938. Ernie got no cheap hits either since he was such a slow runner. Ernie made the Hall of Fame in 1986 after being screwed by the voters and Veteran's committee for decades.

Long time Boston and Cincinnati fans are probably scratching their head wondering why I am honoring the Sox with someone who probably never set foot in Fenway as a player. If you look on the back of Ernie's card, you'll see Goudey goofed - Ernie was a catcher for the Reds, not the Red Sox. Most of these '38 cards were overprinted with an S and a black baseball to correct the error as you can see here in the Virtual Card Collection. A few of the uncorrected ones are floating around though, and Bert used the uncorrected version in his book. Hey, a Red Sox error is still a Red Sox card.

Red Sox Tribute - 1990 Donruss Carl Yastrzemski Puzzle

Oh my goodness! Carl Yastrzemski has lost his mind! No wait... I lost a puzzle piece.

First up on my tribute to the Sox after their World Series victory is the 1990 Donruss puzzle of the great Yaz. While I would almost never actually peel off a Fleer sticker insert, Donruss puzzles were fair game as far as I was concerned. I've got a few punched out and taped together like this one. I'm not sure why I've got one piece missing in Carl's head... I bought a ton of this stuff in 1990 and I'm sure I've got pieces 13, 14 and 15 somewhere. Heck, I have at least two complete sets of the puzzle in team bags. That piece was just never put in, there's not even any tape around where it should go on the back. Maybe I should keep the puzzle this way in honor of all those mostly finished sets that I've never quite completed.