Friday, November 29, 2019

#73 Wayne Terwilliger - New York Giants


Willard Wayne Terwilliger
New York Giants
Second Base

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  165
Born:  June 27, 1925, Clare, MI
Signed:  Signed by the Chicago Cubs as an amateur free agent before 1948 season
Major League Teams:  Chicago Cubs 1949-1951; Brooklyn Dodgers 1951; Washington Senators 1953-1954; New York Giants 1955-1956; Kansas City Athletics 1959-1960

Wayne "Twig" Terwilliger played in parts of nine seasons in the majors before embarking on a 50-year career as a minor and major league coach.  A World War II veteran who saw action in the Pacific Theater at the invasions of Tinian and Iwo Jima, Terwilliger was signed by the Cubs prior to the 1948 season.  A career .240 hitter, Terwilliger primarily served as a back-up second baseman but he did see regular action with the Cubs in 1950 and the Senators in 1953, which was most likely his best season.  He hit .252  with a career high 46 RBIs in 134 games for the Senators that year.

Saints giveaway poster - from a recent eBay auction
He appeared in two games for the 1960 Athletics before retiring as an active player and beginning his
lengthy coaching career.  He first served as the manager of the Greensboro Yankees in 1961 and he joined the Senators organization a year later.  He ultimately served as the third base coach for the Senators between 1969 and 1971 for manager Ted Williams (#5) and was one of the original coaches for the Texas Rangers when the Senators franchise moved west.  After one season in the Astros organization in 1973, he returned to the Rangers as a minor league manager (1975-1980) and then as a coach in the majors again (1981-1985).

He joined the Twins in 1986, earning two World Series rings with them in 1987 and 1991.  Finally, Terwilliger closed out his professional baseball career as a coach for the independent St. Paul Saints (1995-2002) and then as manager or coach for the Ft. Worth Cats (2003-2010).

Building the Set
Summer of 1983 or 1984 in Millville, NJ - Card #5
This was one of the Original 44, and I've told the story of how my Dad and I began collecting the 1956 Topps set a few times - most recently with the Pedro Ramos (#49) post here.  This card has seen some love in its day, as some of the edges and corners are admittedly soft and there's some minor surface wear.

I can still hear the way my Dad would pronounce Terwilliger's name, dragging it out as if he was announcing the name in front of a capacity crowd:  Wayne . . . Ter-WILL-Iger.  It's a reflex of mine now that whenever I come across a Terwilliger card and even while composing this post, I feel the need to say his name out loud.  Wayne . . . Ter-WILL-Iger.

He was a coach for the Twins in 1987 when we began collecting the 1956 Topps set, and I remember my Dad asking me during the World Series if I realized who was coaching first.  "How about that Wayne . . . Ter-WILL-Iger," he responded.  When the Twins returned to the World Series in 1991, I returned the favor reminding my Dad that Wayne . . . Ter-WILL-Iger was still coaching for the team.

In 1997, when first round pick J.D. Drew spurned the Phillies offer and went to play for the independent St. Paul Saints, my Dad asked again if I knew who was one of the coaches for the Saints.  I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear his response.  "How about that Wayne . . . Ter-WILL-Iger."

The Card
Terwilliger was a Topps veteran by the time this card was issued, as he had appeared in every set beginning with the 1951 Topps Red Backs issue.  The portrait photo is the same as was used on his 1955 Topps card, except that Topps replaced his "W" Senators logo with a "NY" Giants logo.  Perhaps the play at the plate is against the Phillies?

Turning to the back of the card, Terwilliger did rank regularly near the top of the league in defensive categories, and he finished in the top 10 in sacrifice bunts in three different seasons.  Topps, as has been the case fairly often in this set, trims a year off Terwilliger's age showing his birth year as 1926 and not the actual year of 1925.

1956 Season
Terwilliger appeared in only 14 games for the Giants in 1956, spending much of the season with the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers playing for manager Eddie Stanky.  With the Millers, he hit .245 over 90 games as the team's regular second baseman.

He returned to the Millers for the 1957 season and was traded to the Tigers on October 15, 1957 for Jack Dittmer.

1950 Bowman #114
1951 Topps Red Backs #14
1952 Topps #7
1953 Topps #159
1960 Topps #26
Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1950 Bowman #114
First Topps Card:  1951 Topps Red Backs #14
Last Topps Card:  1960 Topps #26
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2011 Topps Lineage Autographs #RA-WT
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (8):  1951-1956, 1959-1960

61 - Terwilliger non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/31/19.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database
Wayne Terwilliger.com
Wikipedia

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.

Friday, November 22, 2019

#72 Philadelphia Phillies Team Card


Topps included full team photos in its baseball card set for the first time in 1956, having previously experimented with team cards in a limited edition 1951 stand-alone set.

46th Street in Sea Isle - August 2018
Building the Set
July 12, 1989 in Sea Isle City, NJ - Card #78
My grandparents' beach house was located on 37th Street in Sea Isle City, right behind the giant white concrete monstrosity of the Spinnaker condominiums.  On lazy summer afternoons, after a morning at the beach and equipped with my lawn mowing money, or money given to me from my parents or my Nana, I would either exchange dollar bills for quarters to play Rolling Thunder at the arcade on the Sea Isle Promenade, or I'd walk nine blocks to 46th Street where there was a baseball card store.  I never knew the name of that baseball card store, but on any given day throughout the summer there would be bikes piled up outside by the front door and there'd be two to three baseball card collectors hovering over completely unorganized boxes of cards on any given day.

The store was never empty.  Looking for the building now on Google Maps, what had been a nameless baseball card store in the late 1980s now appears to be a deli.

I built most of our 1973 Topps set at that store, as the proprietor had an 800-count box of cards from the 1970s in relatively decent shape and at extremely affordable prices.  I remember walking away with a stack of 30 to 40 commons from the 1973 set for no more than $5 or $6 a pop.  This Phillies team card from the 1956 Topps set was in the main display case of the store, and I'm fairly certain it was the oldest card for sale.  There would have the usual suspects of the day in that case - a few Ryne Sandberg rookie cards, maybe a Mark McGwire card from the 1985 Topps set and a few Dwight Gooden cards.  But this card always stood out, and I looked at it several times over several visits before finally asking the dealer to see the card.

I paid $14 for it, which was probably too much at the time, and it was definitely the most I had ever paid for a single card with "my" money up to that point.  Consistent with my tracking of purchases at the time, I cut the price tag away from the protective sleeve for safe-keeping.  Is it any wonder I'd go on to choose accounting as my professional career?

The Card
I took a deep dive look at this card over at The Phillies Room back in 2011.  Here are the subjects featured on the card, including a listing of their 1956 Topps card if they had one.  The uncredited batboy sitting in front is long-time Phillies employee Kenny Bush.  Jack Meyer is listed as "Meyers" on the card's front.  The photo had to have been taken before June 15, 1955, as that's the day Earl Torgeson, featured all the way to the right in the back row, was sold to the Tigers.

  • Front Row
  • Granny Hamner (#197)
  • Marv Blaylock
  • Coach Benny Bengough
  • Coach Wally Moses
  • Manager Mayo Smith (#60)
  • Coach Whit Wyatt
  • Richie Ashburn
  • Bob Miller (#334)
  • Bobby Morgan (#337)
  • Peanuts Lowrey
  • Traveling Secretary John Wise
  • 2nd Row
  • Trainer Frank Weichec
  • Ron Mrozinski
  • Jim Owens (#114)
  • Jim Greengrass (#275)
  • Thornton Kipper
  • Jack Meyer (#269)
  • Lynn Lovenguth
  • Gus Niarhos
  • Willie Jones (#127)
  • Herm Wehmeier (#78)
  • Lou Ortiz
  • Tom Qualters
  • Jack Spring
  • Del Ennis (#220)
  • Back Row
  • Murry Dickson (#211)
  • Stan Lopata (#183)
  • Coach Maje McDonnell
  • Mel Clark
  • Roy Smalley
  • Andy Seminick (#296)
  • Dave Cole
  • Curt Simmons (#290)
  • Robin Roberts (#180)
  • Glen Gorbus (#174)
  • Earl Torgeson (#147 with Tigers)
Flipping over to the back of the card, Topps lists Shibe Park as the club's home field even though the ballpark's name had been changed to Connie Mack Stadium for the 1953 season.  Here the other categories that need to be updated:

Most Home Runs - 224 in 2009
Most Double Plays - 179 in 1961 and 1973
Most Games Won - 102 in 2011
Most Consecutive Games Won - 13 in 1977 and 1991
Most Runs Scored in One Game - 26 in 1985
Additional Pennant Winning Teams - 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1993, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
World Championship Teams - 1980, 2008

No Year, Team Name Centered
1955 Variation
The Phillies team card, along with team cards for the Cubs and Indians, is available in three variations.  There's a version with the 1955 date, and then two versions without the year with the team name either centered or to the left.  I have the version with the team name to the left in our set.

1956 Season
With manager Mayo Smith at the helm, the Phillies finished in fifth place in the National League with
a record of 71-83, 22 games behind the pennant winning Brooklyn Dodgers.  The team hit their high water mark only four games into the season when they were 3-1.  They'd quickly drop to under .500 where they stayed the rest of the year.  Their top hitters were Ashburn, Lopata and Jones while Roberts, Harvey Haddix and Simmons were the top three starting pitchers in their rotation.  Lopata and Roberts represented the Phillies at the 1956 All-Star Game but neither appeared in the game.

Phillies Cards That Never Were
There are a few options here for 1956 Topps cards that never were:
  • Marv Blaylock (first base) - The team's starting first baseman in 1956 appeared in the 1955 Bowman and 1957 Topps sets, but he was omitted from this set.
  • Ted Kazanski (second base) - Similarly, Kazanski was the Phillies' starting second baseman in 1956, but Topps omitted him from the set.  He appeared in the 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958 and 1959 Topps sets, so his omission this year is notable.
  • Roy Smalley (shortstop) - Smalley played in a combined 157 games for the Phillies in 1955 and 1956, but he wouldn't receive his first and only Topps Phillies card until 1957.
  • Solly Hemus (second base) - A bench player with Smalley, Hemus was acquired from the Cardinals in May and appeared in 78 games.
  • Ben Flowers (relief pitcher) - Flowers pitched in 32 games for the Phillies - all in relief.  He never appeared on a Phillies baseball card.
  • Maje McDonnell (coach) - McDonnell was a coach for the Phillies in 1956, and he spent time with the club between 1947 and 1960, then again between 1973 and 2009, as a batting practice pitcher, coach, scout, ticket seller, tour guide and overall goodwill ambassador for the franchise.
Haddix, Stu Miller and Elmer Valo would be excellent candidates to receive Phillies cards had their been a 1956 Topps Update set.  Haddix and Miller appear in the 1956 Topps set with the Cardinals while Valo appears with the Kansas City A's.

Sources
Baseball Reference
2019 Philadelphia Phillies Media Guide
The Phillies Room - 1956 Topps Phillies
The Phillies Room - 1956 Topps Phillies Gallery

Previous Card / Next Card
Order Collected: #99 Don Zimmer - Brooklyn Dodgers / #330 Jim Busby - Cleveland Indians

Friday, November 15, 2019

#71 Frank Sullivan - Boston Red Sox


Franklin Leal Sullivan
Boston Red Sox
Pitcher


Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'6"  Weight:  215
Born:  January 23, 1930, Hollywood, CA
Signed:  Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent before 1948 season
Major League Teams:  Boston Red Sox 1953-1960; Philadelphia Phillies 1961-1962; Minnesota Twins 1962-1963
Died:  January 19, 2016, Lihue, HI (age 85)

Frank Sullivan was a two-time All-Star with the Red Sox, and he was at the height of his playing career when this 1956 Topps card was issued.  Sullivan tallied at least 13 wins in five of his eight seasons playing in Boston, with his best season coming in 1955 when he went 18-13 with a 2.91 ERA over 35 starts and a league-leading 260 innings pitched.  In his 11-year big league career, Sullivan went 97-100 and retired following the 1963 season at the age of 33.

After retiring from baseball, Sullivan moved to Hawaii in 1964 with his good friend and former batterymate Sammy White (#168).  Sullivan had never set foot on the islands before making his big move, and he'd go on to eventually become the head golf pro at Kauai Surf Hotel.  He was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2008.

Building the Set
January 8, 2000 in Raleigh, NC - Card #195
Having survived Y2K, this is one of three cards I purchased at the Raleigh Sportscard & Memorabilia Show a week into the new year, along with Alex Grammas (#37) and Dale Long (#37).  My records show I paid $3 for the card.  I would have had to call my Dad to tell him to update his lists, as he was still working in Millville, NJ at the time.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were a very confusing time for me, and those years are all but lost in my memory.  I have little to no recollection as to the apartments or houses in which I was living or the things I was doing on a day to day basis.  Sometimes I feel as if the experiences of those years are something that happened to someone else.

The Card
This is Sullivan's second Topps card, and it uses the same portrait photo as his 1955 Topps rookie card.  It's the third blue-yellow top bar color combination in a row, following Chuck Tanner (#69) and Jim Rivera (#70).  His Baseball Reference height is listed at 6'6", but the back of this Topps card gives him an extra inch and a half.  The back references his service in Korea where he served for two years following the 1950 season, spending 4 1/2 months on the front lines.  He was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in 1952 having been awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge.

1956 Season
Sullivan was one of the Red Sox' two top starting pitchers in 1956 along with Tom Brewer (#34).  He went 14-7 with a 3.42 ERA over 33 starts and was second only to Brewer in complete games pitched with 12 - Brewer had 15.

1962 Topps #352
On an off-day during the 1956 season, Sullivan, along with his teammates White and Jackie Jensen (#115) were told to take a drive to meet with who they were told was a photographer.  The photographer, who was actually famous painter Norman Rockwell, used the photographs he took that day as the basis of his painting, The Rookie, which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in March 1957.  Sullivan, who actually wore #18 at the time, is the player with #8 on his back.  In 2014, the original Rockwell painting sold for $22.5 million.  Sullivan and the model for the arriving rookie player, Sherman Safford, posed with the painting at an exhibition at Fenway Park prior to its sale.

Phillies Career
On December 15, 1960, the Red Sox traded Sullivan to the Phillies for Gene Conley (#17).  Conley had refused to end his basketball career to focus on baseball and the Red Sox were looking to upgrade their pitching staff after Sullivan went 6-16 with a 5.10 ERA in 1960.  Two of the tallest pitchers of the era had just been traded for each other.  Crushed to be leaving the only team he had ever known, his new manager Gene Mauch had to talk him out of retiring.  Sullivan was one of the more reliable pitchers on an awful Phillies pitching staff, but he still went 3-18 with a 4.54 ERA in 68 games with the club.

As the closer for the woeful 1961 Phillies team, Sullivan told his SABR biographer, "I shudder whenever I think of that team."  The 1961 Phillies lost five straight games, won one and then lost another 23 consecutive games from late July through most of August.  That team finished the season with a 47-107 record and was one of the worst teams in franchise history.  Sullivan appeared in 19 games for the Phillies early in the 1962 season before being released on July 14th.  He appears in the 1961 and 1962 Topps sets as a Phillie.

1955 Bowman #15
1955 Topps #106
1959 Topps #323
1963 Topps #389
Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1955 Bowman #15
First Topps Card:  1955 Topps #106
Representative Phillies Card:  1962 Topps #352
Last Topps Card:  1963 Topps #389
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2012 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-FS
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (9):  1955-1963

32 - Sullivan non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/19/19.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Phillies Room
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.

Friday, November 8, 2019

#70 Jim Rivera - Chicago White Sox


Manuel Joseph Rivera
Chicago White Sox
Outfield

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  196
Born:  July 22, 1921, New York, NY
Acquired:  Purchased by the Chicago White Sox from Seattle (PCL).
Major League Teams:  St. Louis Browns 1952; Chicago White Sox 1952-1961; Kansas City Athletics 1961
Died:  November 13, 2017, Fort Wayne, IN (96)

Jim Rivera was a mainstay in the White Sox line-up throughout the 1950s, and all but 161 of his 1,171 career games were played for Chicago.  A speedy outfielder who hit for average, Rivera was the White Sox starting center or right fielder for four consecutive seasons between 1953 and 1956.  As pointed out by his SABR biography, Rivera earned the nickname of "Jungle Jim" for his "daredevil running and sliding, his terrific fielding and . . . his all-out style," which made him one of the more popular White Sox players from that era.

Despite his popularity, I found Rivera to have one of the most troubling histories of anyone I've researched so far within the 1956 Topps set.  He honed his baseball skills while playing for a prison team while serving out a life sentence for the attempted rape of the daughter of an Army officer.  Paroled after only five years, Rivera was scouted and eventually signed by Rogers Hornsby, following the baseball legend when he was named manager of the Browns.  Traded to the White Sox
in late July, he found himself in trouble again on the last day of the 1952 season, once again accused of sexual assault.

In his 10 big league seasons, Rivera hit .256 with 83 home runs and he found himself atop the leaderboard for fielding statistics in most seasons.  In his sole postseason appearance, Rivera went 0 for 11 against the Dodgers in the 1959 World Series.  He stayed loyal to the White Sox after his playing days, modeling the shorts players would wear for one game in 1976 and appearing with his 1959 teammates as Luis Aparicio (#292) threw out the first pitch prior to Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.

Pictured to the right are J.C. Martin, Billy Pierce (#160), Rivera wearing #7, Aparicio, then White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, Jim Landis and Bob Shaw.  Rivera was 84 at the time this picture was taken.

Building the Set
October 3, 1999 in Raleigh, NC - Card #184
We bought this card on October 3rd at the Raleigh Sports Card Show, and it ended up being part of a birthday present to me from my Dad.  I was still living in Raleigh in late 1999, and my parents made the trip south to visit me for my birthday.  We bought 8 cards that day (that I knew about) paying $5 for seven of the cards, including this Rivera card, and $2 for the Grady Hatton (#26) card.  Unbeknownst to me, my Dad also purchased the Sandy Koufax card (#79) but squirreled that one away until Christmas morning 1999.

The Card
What a fantastic action photo!  So far in the set, the majority of the action photos have been posed shots or maybe a scene featuring a baserunner and a fielder.  This action photo for Rivera features him about to make a catch (maybe?) while several spectators look on and what looks to be a security guard ducks out of the way.  The fans, which appear to be all men, are shown with mouths open and necks craning as they wait to see if Rivera will make the catch.  In a sign of the times, most of the fans are wearing sport coats, I see one hat and the guy all the way to the left is wearing a tie and appears to be smoking a cigarette.

The birth year on the back of the card is off by two years, as he was actually born in 1921.  Rivera not only led the A.L. in stolen bases in 1955 with 25, but he also led the league in the caught stealing category with 16.  His teammate Minnie Minoso (#125) was runner-up in leading the league in steals with 19.

1956 Season
Rivera was 33, soon to be 34 at the start of the 1956 season and he shared White Sox starting outfield duties with Minoso and Larry Doby (#250).  He appeared in 139 games, hitting .255 with 12 home runs (third on the team) and 66 RBIs.

1953 Topps #156
1957 Topps #107
1958 Topps #11
1959 Topps #213
1961 Topps #367
Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1953 Topps #156
First Topps Card:  1953 Topps #156
Last Topps Card:  1961 Topps #367
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2010 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-JR
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (9):  1953-1961

39 - Rivera non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/11/19.

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.

Friday, November 1, 2019

#69 Chuck Tanner - Milwaukee Braves


Charles William Tanner
Milwaukee Braves
Outfield

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  185
Born:  July 4, 1928, New Castle, PA
Signed:  Signed by the Boston Braves as an amateur free agent before 1946 season
Major League Teams:  Milwaukee Braves 1955-1957; Chicago Cubs 1957-1958; Cleveland Indians 1959-1960; Los Angeles Angels 1961-1962
As a Manager:  Chicago White Sox 1970-1975; Oakland Athletics 1976; Pittsburgh Pirates 1977-1985; Atlanta Braves 1986-1988
Died:  February 11, 2011, New Castle, PA (82)

Better known as a long-time manager, Chuck Tanner played in parts of eight seasons in the Majors with the Braves, Cubs, Indians and Angels.  Serving mainly as a backup outfielder, Tanner appeared in 396 games, hitting .261 with 21 home runs and 105 RBIs.  In his first big league at-bat in 1955, pinch-hitting for Warren Spahn (#10), Tanner hit a home run off the very first pitch he saw becoming the seventh player in major league history to accomplish that feat.  His best season came in the 1957, spending time with both the Braves and Cubs, and hitting .279 with career highs in home runs (9) and RBIs (48).

As a manager, Tanner broke in with the White Sox at the end of the 1970 season, replacing interim manager Bill Adair who had replaced regular manager Don Gutteridge.  He managed the White Sox to a 401-414 record over six seasons, finishing as high as second place in 1972.  Following one season in Oakland in 1976, the Pirates worked out a deal with A's owner Charlie Finley to acquire the home-town Tanner to be their new manager.  All-Star catcher Manny Sanguillen and $100,000 were sent to the A's in exchange.  Tanner spent nine seasons at the helm for the Pirates, guiding the team to their 1979 World Series title.  He finished his managerial career with the Braves, fired by then general manager Bobby Cox at the start of the 1988 season after getting off to a 12-27 start.  Overall, he managed in parts of 19 seasons and compiled a career record of 1,352-1,381.

Building the Set
April 9, 1988 from Millville, NJ - Card #56
We bought this card for $4 from a local card shop called Brokell's in Millville, NJ back in 1988.  My Dad and I frequented this store, and this was one of four cards for our 1956 set we purchased from Brokell's that year.  April 9th was a Saturday so if I had to guess, we most likely acquired this card before or after enjoying a few burgs from Jim's Lunch.  At the time, I knew Tanner solely as a manager and I had collected his cards in Topps sets throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  Little did we know when we purchased this card he'd be fired by the Braves a little over a month later in May 1988.

As an eighth grader in 1988, I realized the need to start tracking these cards as my Dad and I added them to our set.  I wanted a record of where and when and how much we had paid for each card, and so I created a tracking schedule using our very sophisticated Commodore 64.  This was a complicated process, involving typing out the checklist, printing the checklist, taking those pages to the library and using the photocopier to shrink the size of the pages, and then rubber cementing the pages to another piece of paper.  I have two pages similar to the one below for this tracking exercise, which I seemingly quickly abandoned after we had added the Tanner card to the set.  Eventually, my tracking got even more sophisticated as I graduated to a word processing document on our new Commodore 128.


A few years ago, I featured the Ted Kluszewski (#25) card we had purchased from Brokell's, and I tried to find the building on Google Maps.  The photo above is the building I believe was Brokell's, and it appears to be a Tae Kwon Do studio today.

The Card
This is Tanner's second Topps card, and this uses the same portrait photo as his 1955 Topps rookie card.  On the back, his birth year is a year off from the actual date of 1928.

The minor league notes on the back are accurate, and Tanner did in fact hit over .300 for eight seasons in a row in the minors between 1947 and 1954.  The only year he missed the mark was his first professional season in 1946 when he hit .247 in 25 games (20 for 81) for the Evansville Braves and the Owensboro Oilers.

1956 Season
Tanner couldn't crack into the Braves' starting outfield as it was successfully already manned by Bobby Thomson (#257), Bill Bruton (#185) and Hank Aaron (#31).  In 60 games, mostly coming off the bench, Tanner he hit .238 with a home run and four RBIs.  The Braves finished second in 1956, only a game behind the pennant winning Brooklyn Dodgers.

1955 Topps #161
1960 Topps #279
1971 Topps #661
1982 Donruss #150
1988 Topps #134
Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1955 Topps #161
First Topps Card:  1955 Topps #161
Last Topps Card (as a player):  1960 Topps #279
First Topps Card (as a manager):  1971 Topps #661
Last Topps Card (as a manager):  1988 Topps #134
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2001 Topps Archives #428
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (23):  1955-1960, 1971-1981, 1983-1988

63 - Tanner non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/11/19.

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.