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George Daniel Susce
Boston Red Sox
Pitcher
Born: September 13, 1930, Pittsburgh, PA
Signed: Signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent before 1951 season
Major League Teams: Boston Red Sox 1955-1958; Detroit Tigers 1958-1959
Died: May 8, 2010, Matlacha, FL (age 79)
The first thing I learned when reading about George Susce, Jr. was that he wasn't really technically a Jr. at all. His father, also a major leaguer, was George Cyril Methodius Susce, and for sake of ease the younger Susce was occasionally given the suffix of Jr. early in his playing career. In five seasons with the Red Sox and Tigers, Susce went 22-17 with a 4.42 ERA. His best season was his first, as he went 9-7 with the Red Sox in 1955, pitching to a 3.06 ERA.
On July 20, 1955, he threw a complete game, one-hit shutout against the Athletics in Kansas City, in perhaps the best pitching performance of his career. His Dad was there to witness the game as well, serving as the bullpen coach for the Athletics.
December 2, 2000 in Raleigh, NC - Card #208
I was still living in Raleigh in 2000, and I was able to briefly find some happiness at the Sports Card & NASCAR Collectibles Show most likely held at the Raleigh state fairgrounds. My records show I purchased a whopping 15 cards that day, spending a little over $52. I believe the list shown here would have been the checklist I took with me to the show, and I would have called my Dad back in Millville afterwards so that he could update his list as well. It's hard to see, but the date in the footer is 11/7/00.
I mentioned this somewhere before, but we found when looking for 1956 Topps cards at baseball card shows, cards were rarely found in number order. For this reason, I revamped our checklist to place the cards in alphabetical order to make the cards we needed easier to find.
The Card
This is Susce's first Topps card, and his true rookie card can be found in the 1955 Bowman set. He appeared in the Topps flagship sets between 1956 and 1959, and this is the only time Topps added the Jr. to his name.
On the back, Susce's birth year is off by two years as he was actually born in 1930. He was second on the Louisville Colonels in wins in 1954, as Ike Delock (#284) was the ace of that staff, going 17-10. The elder Susce makes a cameo in the final cartoon panel as he was the Red Sox bullpen coach between 1950 and 1954. If you look closely, you can see that Coach Susce is bursting the buttons on his jersey out of pride for his son. Ironically, the elder Susce was fired as the team's bullpen coach shortly after the younger Susce was recalled from Triple-A Louisville. The elder Susce quickly caught on as a coach with the Athletics.
Red Sox Team Set
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| George Susce - 1929 Phillies |
1956 Season
Phillies Connection
Susce's father began his eight-year big league career by playing in 17 games for the 1929 Phillies. He hit .294 (5 for 17) in those few appearances and caught a total of 31 innings for the club. The elder Susce was a long-time coach for the Indians, Red Sox, Athletics, Braves and Senators/Rangers between 1941 and 1972.
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First Mainstream Card: 1955 Bowman #320
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (4): 1956-1959
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1959 Topps #511
7 - Susce non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 2/14/20.
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: #76 Ray Crone - Milwaukee Braves / #108 Laurin Pepper - Pittsburgh Pirates
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