#209 Max Surkont - Pittsburgh Pirates

Matthew Constantine Surkont
Pittsburgh Pirates
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'1"  Weight:  195
Born:  June 16, 1922, Central Falls, RI
Signed:  Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent before 1938 season
Major League Teams:  Chicago White Sox 1949; Boston Braves 1950-1952; Milwaukee Braves 1953; Pittsburgh Pirates 1954-1956; St. Louis Cardinals 1956; New York Giants 1956-1957

Died:  October 8, 1986, Largo, FL (age 64)

Signed by the Cardinals prior to the 1938 season, Max Surkont pitched for five seasons in the minors, missed three years while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and pitched three more seasons in the minors before finally getting the call to the major leagues in April 1949.  He appeared in 44 games for the White Sox that season as one of their most frequently used relievers and he recorded a team high four saves.  Surkont joined the Braves in 1950, where he earned a spot in their starting pitching rotation for three seasons between 1951 and 1953, winning at least 11 games each year.  Surkont's best season came in 1952 when he went 12-13 with a 3.77 ERA over 215 innings pitched, striking out 125.  On May 25, 1953, he entered the record books by striking out eight consecutive Reds batters, and his record stood until broken by Tom Seaver in 1970 who struck out ten in a row.  

He had a few lackluster seasons with the Pirates in 1954 and 1956, then bounced around over the final year and a half of his big league career.  Surkont last pitched int he majors in 1957 with the Giants, but he continued to pitch professionally in the minor league systems of the Giants, Reds, Phillies and Mets through the 1963 season.  In parts of nine seasons in the majors, Surkont was 61-76 with a 4.38 ERA in 149 games pitched.  He recorded 571 career strikeouts to go along with 53 complete games, seven shutouts and eight saves.

Building the Set
Sometime in 1991, no record of purchase - Card #98
So this is a little embarrassing, and as diligent as I was in my record-keeping skills between 1987 and 2005, I have absolutely no record of how or when this card came into our collection.  There are four such cards we added to our set without me writing down the date of purchase, and the worst thing is one of those four cards is a fairly high profile card.  I'll get to it soon enough, but at some point in 1987, when we had decided to start collecting this set in earnest, the Robin Roberts (#180) card was purchased and I have no idea when we added it or how much we paid for it.

Based on my review of checklists we had kept at the time, this Surkont card, along with the card for Joe Astroth (#106) entered our set at some point in 1991.  Our checklists from 1990 have us needing the Astroth and Surkont cards, and then our checklists from 1992 have those cards crossed off.  It's a mystery.

My only excuse here is I would have been a junior in high school in the first part of 1991, and then a senior in the fall/winter.  I had college, girls, friends and general high school stuff on my mind and I'll forgive my younger stuff for not recording the purchase of two 1956 Topps cards.

The Card / Pirates Team Set
If we assume this photo was taken in 1955, Surkont is 33 years old here which seems impossible.  This is Surkont's first Topps card since 1952, as he appeared exclusively in Bowman sets in the intervening years.  The first cartoon panel on the back highlights his record-setting eight consecutive strikeouts.  Also highlighted is his variety of pitches and he'd add a knuckleball later in his professional career, prolonging his minor league service time.

1956 Season

This was a busy year for Surkont as he began the season in the Pirates bullpen, appearing in one game in relief and pitching a pair of innings on May 6th.  He was traded following that game to the Cardinals for pitcher Luis Arroyo (#64).  Surkont appeared in five games for the Cardinals, all in relief, and was touched for six runs on ten hits in 5 2/3 innings of work for a 9.53 ERA.  Having seen enough, the Cardinals sold him to the Red Sox on June 4th and Surkont would report to their top farm team in the Pacific Coast League.  With the San Francisco Seals, he appeared in 16 games, making 13 starts, and was 4-6 with a 2.38 ERA.  He wasn't good enough to get a promotion to the Red Sox, but was good enough to be sold again, this time to the Giants on August 20th.  Surkont would appear in eight games for the Giants, starting four, and earning a 2-2 record with a 4.78 ERA.  For the season, and including three big league stops, Surkont was 2-2 with a 5.45 ERA in 39 2/3 innings pitched.

Phillies Connection

As a 37-year-old, Surkont joined the Buffalo Bisons in 1959, then the top farm team of the Phillies.  He was a mainstay in the Bisons' bullpen for four seasons, appearing in 24 games in 1959, 58 games in 1960, and 52 games in both 1961 and 1962.  He produced a decent ERA of 3.93 in 337 innings pitched, but never got a promotion to a second division Phillies club during those years.  He stayed behind in Buffalo in 1963 as the team's pitching coach when the Bisons switched its affiliation to the Mets.

1952 Topps #302

1953 Bowman Color #156

1954 Bowman #75

1955 Bowman #83

1957 Topps #310

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1952 Bowman #12
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (3):  1952, 1956-1957
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1983 Topps 1952 Reprint Series #302

19 - Surkont non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 6/19/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

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Set Order: #208 Elston Howard - New York Yankees / #210 Mike Garcia - Cleveland Indians

Order Collected: #106 Joe Astroth - Kansas City Athletics / #3 Elmer Valo - Kansas City Athletics