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Donald Louis Mossi
Cleveland Indians
Pitcher
Born: January 11, 1929, St. Helena, CA
Signed: Signed by the Cleveland Indians as an amateur free agent before the 1949 season
Major League Teams: Cleveland Indians 1954-1958; Detroit Tigers 1958-1963; Chicago White Sox 1964; Kansas City Athletics 1965
For over a decade, Don Mossi was one of the more reliable and recognizable left-handed pitchers in baseball. Spending his entire career in the American League, Mossi compiled a lifetime record of 101-80 with a 3.43 ERA over 460 games. While most of the appearances came in relief, he did start 165 games and was a 17-game winner with the Indians in 1959.
An All-Star in 1957, Mossi was under-appreciated as a defensive player as well. He committed just 3 errors over his career with 311 total chances, and his fielding percentage of .990 was the highest all-time for a pitcher when he retired following the 1965 season.
Building the Set
June 22, 1990 in Ocean City, NJ - Card #93
I paid $13 for this card and the Minnie Minoso (#125) card at the annual baseball card show held within the Ocean City Music Pier. As already mentioned as part of my post on the Warren Spahn (#10) card, the years 1990 and 1991 saw my Dad and I add the fewest 1956 Topps cards to our set. I believe this was due to a combination of me being in high school and the fact that we were more actively collecting Topps sets from the early 1970s. I included this summary in the Spahn post from over three years ago:
All while collecting the 1956 Topps set, Dad I compiled a complete 1975 set, followed by the 1974 and 1976 sets. We then began the 1973 set followed by the 1970 set. We hand collated these four sets during our "golden era" of collecting together between 1987 and 1997. I finished off the 1972 set a few years back and I'm still plodding my way through a 1971 set in order to have a full run of sets from the 1970s. (As of this writing, I need 41 more cards to complete the 1971 Topps set.)
The autograph guests at this show were Andy Seminick (#296) and Gene Mauch, neither of whom we stood in line up on the Music Pier's stage to meet. Looking back, it strikes me as strange now that neither my Dad or I never really spent much time tracking down autographs from the show's signers and I kind of wish we had. I'm sure the cost of an autograph from Seminick or Mauch wasn't that much, and it would have been nice to have those memories and those autographs in our collection.
(Just noticed that Seminick and Mauch were signing at night betwen 6 and 9pm . . . This would help explain why we didn't stick around as we would have been long gone from the show by then.)
The Card
Mossi's action shot features cameos from several early-arriving fans in the lower level bleacher seats. Topps used the wrong birth date for Mossi on his cards throughout his career. He was actually born in 1929, and not 1930 as represented by Topps.
1956 Season
Mossi was one of the Indians' most reliable relievers in 1956, making 48 appearances and earning a 3.59 ERA while leading the team with 11 saves. Mossi and Ray Narleski (#133) formed one of the best lefty/righty bullpen tandems in baseball in the mid 1950s, and the work of both pitchers in 1956 supported 20-win seasons for Early Wynn (#187), Bob Lemon (#255) and Herb Score (#140). Mossi's SABR biography notes he was hampered by an elbow injury for much of the 1956 season, but he still managed to serve as one the Tribe's top relievers.
Mossi and Narleski were packaged together (with Ossie Alvarez) in a trade to the Tigers in November 1958 that sent Al Cicotte and Billy Martin (#181) to the Indians.
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First Mainstream Card: 1955 Bowman #259
First Topps Card: 1955 Topps #85
Last Topps Card (as a player): 1966 Topps #74
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1990 Pacific Legends #95
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (11): 1955-1964, 1966
68 - Mossi non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 2/16/19.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database
In some cases, the first and last cards listed above are subjective and chosen by me if multiple cards were released within the same year. Most recent mainstream card may also be subjective and does not include extremely low serial numbered cards, buybacks or cut autograph cards.
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Order Collected: #150 "Duke" Snider - Brooklyn Dodgers / #125 "Minnie" Minoso - Chicago White Sox
Three errors during his entire career? That's impressive.
ReplyDeleteI was really interested in learning more about Mossi's career, because I had only ever known about him due to his appearance. Turns out (as is always the case) there was so much more to know.
ReplyDelete