#78 Herman Wehmeier - Philadelphia Phillies

Herman Ralph Wehmeier
Philadelphia Phillies
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'2"  Weight:  185
Born:  February 18, 1927, Cincinnati, OH
Signed:  Signed by the Cincinnati Reds as an amateur free agent before 1945 season
Major League Teams:  Cincinnati Reds 1945, 1947-1954; Philadelphia Phillies 1954-1956; St. Louis Cardinals 1956-1958; Detroit Tigers 1958
Died:  May 21, 1973, Dallas, TX (age 46)

Despite his occasional wildness, Herm Wehmeier built a solid 13-year big league career, accumulating a record of 92-108 over 361 games.  He led or tied for the league lead in earned runs allowed in 1950, walks allowed in 1949, 1950 and 1952 and wild pitches in 1949 and 1950.  His best season came in 1951 with the Reds when he went 7-10 with a 3.70 ERA over 39 appearances.  Born in Cincinnati, he was a constant target of boos from Reds' fans while pitching for the hometown team as he never quite lived up to the expectations set of him.

He turned his career around somewhat after leaving the Reds.  With the Reds in parts of nine seasons, he was 49-69 with a 5.25 ERA.  With the Phillies, Cardinals and Tigers over parts of the next seven seasons, he was 43-39 with a 4.11 ERA.  As told in his SABR biography, he never regretted signing with his hometown Reds despite the fans' constant booing while he was with the club.

Following his playing days, he moved to Texas and became a manager for a trucking company.  In 1973, Wehmeier was called to testify at a federal court trial against an employee accused of stealing a shipment of pants off a truck.  Wehmeier suffered a heart attack while on the witness stand and passed away at the age of 46.

Building the Set
December 18, 1994 in Winston-Salem, NC - Card #134
Visiting Tommy's Collectibles before heading home for winter break, I paid $10 for this card and the Ron Negray (#7) card.  I was a junior in college and my best guess is I snuck these two cards into my Dad's stocking as cards for "his collection."  Dad was always a good sport when I did this, and the cards would migrate from his collection into our set within a matter of a few short hours.

September 1994

I had no idea at the time, but I was about to enter one of the first tumultuous periods of my life.  My parents had decided to sell our house on 12th Street, a house they had owned since the early 1970s and the house my sister and I had grown up in.  My long-time (and long distance) high school girlfriend was about to break up with me through the method of what the kids these days call "ghosting."  No returned phone calls, no returned letters, just a complete disappearance and not much I could do about it from 500 miles away in college in North Carolina.  I was also trying to decide on a college major, essentially determining the trajectory for the rest of my life.  Looking back, all these events combined don't seem as earth shattering now as they did to the 21-year-old me, but of course it's all relative.  It wasn't a great stretch for me personally and a Herm Wehmeier baseball card wouldn't have meant much to me at the time.

Given the abundance of change coming my way, it's not a huge surprise that collecting our 1956 Topps set got pushed into the background.  We added only one new card in 1995, and only six cards the year after that.  It took me until the summer of 1997 to finally emerge from my post-college haze and even then the next couple of bumps were only a few short years away.

The Card
The same head shot is used on Wehmeier's 1954 and 1955 Topps cards, and the original photo from his 1954 Topps card features a Reds logo on his hat.  The action shot on the front of the card may very well be Wehmeier, although he hadn't worn #45 since the 1949 season with the Reds.  It seems odd that Topps would need to use a seven-year-old picture of Wehmeier, from a time before the company was even producing baseball cards.  He wore #22 during his time with the Phillies.

The artist for the cartoon panels on the back of the card is clearly stretching when it comes to material to use.  Wehmeier's success in youth baseball and the fact he pitched in eight seasons for the Reds take up the first two panels.  It was actually 8 1/2 seasons, as he was sold to the Phillies in June 1954 after spending the first few months with the club.

1979 TCMA '50s #126

1956 Season/Phillies Career
Struggling with the Reds, and with the fanbase consistently deriding him, the Phillies purchased Wehmeier on June 12, 1954 for $10,000.  After a rough first outing against his old Reds teammates on June 20th (1/3 inning, four runs on four hits and four walks), Wehmeier turned his season around and finished 1954 with a 10-8 record for the Phils and a 3.85 ERA.  As part of the Phillies rotation in 1955, Wehmeier benefitted from the slider taught to him by teammate Murry Dickson (#211) as he went 10-12 with a 4.41 ERA.  He was the club's third starter behind Robin Roberts (#180) and Dickson for a Phillies team that finished with a .500 record (77-77) in 1955.

At the start of the 1956 season, Wehmeier went 0-2 for the Phillies with a 4.05 ERA over three starts.  On May 11th, he was traded with Dickson to the Cardinals for Ben Flowers, Harvey Haddix (#77) and Stu Miller (#293).  Wehmeier appeared in 34 games for the Cardinals, starting and relieving, setting a career high in wins with 12 and owning a decent 3.69 ERA.

His Phillies career lasted 59 games and he went 20-22 with a 4.17 ERA.  Wehmeier has Phillies cards in the 1955 and 1956 Topps sets along with oddball Phillies cards in the 1955 Phillies Felin's Franks, 1955 Topps Double Header and 1956 Topps Pins sets.  He's also in the 1979 TCMA '50s set in a Phillies uniform, but the team designation on the back of the card is the Reds.

1948 Bowman #46

1951 Topps Blue Backs #47

1952 Topps #80

1957 Topps #81

1959 Topps #421

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1948 Bowman #46
First Topps Card:  1951 Topps Blue Backs #47
Representative Phillies Card:  1955 Topps #29
Last Topps Card:  1959 Topps #421
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1994 Topps Archives 1954 #162
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (9):  1951-1959

Of interest probably only to me, Topps went with Herman for his 1951 through 1956 cards and switched to Herm for his 1957, 1958 and 1959 cards.

37 - Wehmeier non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/24/19.

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.

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Set Order: #77 Harvey Haddix - St. Louis Cardinals / #79 Sandy Koufax - Brooklyn Dodgers

Order Collected: #7 Ron Negray - Philadelphia Phillies / #101 Roy Campanella - Brooklyn Dodgers