#232 "Toby" Atwell - Pittsburgh Pirates

Maurice Dailey Atwell
Pittsburgh Pirates
Catcher

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'9"  Weight:  185
Born:  March 8, 1924, Leesburg, VA
Signed:  Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent before 1946 season
Major League Teams:  Chicago Cubs 1952-1953; Pittsburgh Pirates 1953-1956; Milwaukee Braves 1956

Died:  January 25, 2003, Purcellville, VA (age 78)

Toby Atwell spent six seasons climbing the ladder through the Dodgers' minor league system, finding success at each level and batting as high as .342 during the 1948 season.  But with Roy Campanella (#101)  starting for the Dodgers and Bruce Edwards serving as an effective back-up for the future Hall of Famer, there was no room for Atwell in Brooklyn.  In December 1951 he was traded to the Cubs, and he'd enjoy his best season in the majors during his rookie year of 1952.  Making his debut on opening day 1952 and settling in as the Cubs' regular catcher, Atwell was batting .324 by the All-Star break and he was named to the National League All-Star squad.  He'd not get into the game as it was shortened to five innings due to rain, and with Campanella again blocking his playing time.  In 107 games during the 1952 season, Atwell batted .290 with 16 doubles and 31 RBIs.

Atwell never repeated the success he found in 1952, but he did play in parts of four more big league seasons with the Cubs, Pirates and Braves.  He spent the most time in Pittsburgh, sharing catching duties with Mike Sandlock or Jack Shepard for the second division club.  Atwell had come to Pittsburgh in June 1953 in a blockbuster 10-player trade that saw Ralph Kiner leave the Pirates for the Cubs.  He played professionally through the 1958 season, retiring after a brief stint in the Orioles organization.  In 378 big league games, Atwell batted .260 with nine home runs and 110 RBIs.

Building the Set
December 25, 2003 from San Diego, CA (Kit Young Cards) - Card #245
My Dad/Santa brought me nine cards for our set for Christmas in 2003, with all but one of the cards coming from his dealer of choice, Kit Young Cards in San Diego.  The Brooklyn Dodgers team card (#166) was the lone non-Kit Young Cards addition, as that card came from TemDee in Turnersville, New Jersey.  It was a strange mix of commons from Kit Young Cards, with no semi-star or star card to balance out the lot.  We were admittedly in a lull collecting the set, with only 18 cards added during all of 2003 and only six cards added, as Christmas presents, in 2004.

Pictures from the Christmas of 2003 show us opening gifts at my Mom's house on December 26th, which has since become a tradition for us.  So while the official set records indicate these nine cards were added on December 25th, it was most likely a day later I opened the cards while in Millville.

The Card / Pirates Team Set
Atwell appeared exclusively in Bowman sets in 1954 and 1955, and this is his first Topps card since 1953.  I'm assuming he's safe at home in the action shot, given the catcher and the home plate umpire are no where to be seen.  On the back, his .289 average from the 1954 season is highlighted as is the massive trade with the Cubs that brought him to Pittsburgh, presumably via a pirate ship.

1956 Season

Atwell began the season with the Pirates as one of three catchers on the team's roster along with Danny Kravitz and Shepard.  He'd appear in just 12 games for the Pirates, batting .111 (2 for 18), before a May trade sent him to the Cardinals' organization.  He'd be with the Cardinals until July 3rd, when St. Louis traded him to the Phillies for third baseman Jim Command.  Atwell was property of the Phillies for two weeks before he was on the move again, this time sold to the Braves.

He'd appear in 15 games for the Braves, batting .167 (5 for 30) with a pair of home runs and seeing his final big league action on September 28th.

Phillies Connection

As mentioned above, Atwell spent two weeks of the 1956 season in the Phillies' system.  Baseball Reference shows he played in four games for the Miami Marlins, then the International League affiliate of the Phillies.  There's no record of him catching in any of those games, so there's no telling if he caught Satchel Paige, who appeared in 37 games for the Marlins in 1956.

1952 Topps #356

1953 Bowman Color #112

1953 Topps #23

1954 Bowman #123

1955 Bowman #164

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1952 Topps #356
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (3):  1952-1953, 1956
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1991 Topps Archives 1953 #23

12 - Atwell non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/30/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card / Next Card

Set Order: #231 Bob Hale - Baltimore Orioles / #233 Carl Erskine - Brooklyn Dodgers

Order Collected: #166 Brooklyn Dodgers Team Card / #266 Don Ferrarese - Baltimore Orioles

#231 Bob Hale - Baltimore Orioles

Robert Houston Hale
Baltimore Orioles
First Base

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'10"  Weight:  195
Born:  November 7, 1933, Sarasota, FL
Signed:  Signed by the St. Louis Browns as an amateur free agent before 1952 season
Major League Teams:  Baltimore Orioles 1955-1959; Cleveland Indians 1960-1961; New York Yankees 1961

Died:  September 8, 2012, Park Ridge, IL (age 78)

Most of Bob Hale's seven seasons in the majors were spent as a pinch-hitter, with 278 pinch-hitting appearances over 376 career games.  Hale's best seasons came in the minor leagues, and he drove in at least 100 runs in 1953 and 1954 while playing for the Browns' and then Orioles' top farm teams.  He earned a promotion to the Orioles in 1955 after hitting .355 in half of a season with the York White Roses of the Piedmont League.  Hale batted .357 over the second half of the 1955 season following his July debut with Baltimore, driving in a career-high 29 runs.  He'd return to Baltimore in 1956, making 41 starts at first base and pinch-hitting in 44 games.  Between 1957 and 1961, Hale would make only nine starts total in the field, and in 1960 he was used exclusively as a pinch-hitter in 70 games by the Indians.

His last big league action came in 1961 with the pennant winning Yankees, and while he was on the team's World Series roster, he didn't appear in any games.  He was on the bench as the Yankees defeated the Reds in five games.  Hale's final game in the majors had come on October 1, 1961, the game in which Roger Maris hit his 61st home run of the season.  Hale batted .273 with 171 hits, a pair of home runs and 89 RBIs.  As a pinch-hitter, he was a career .247 (62 for 251) batter.

Building the Set

Summer of 1983 or 1984 in Millville, NJ - Card #28
This was one of the Original 44, and I re-told the story of how my Dad and I started collecting this set with the Early Wynn (#187) post, back in January.  Seven of the Original 44 came from series one, with 11 coming from series two, and this Hale card is the tenth of 16 from series three.

The Card / Orioles Team Set
This is Hale's rookie card, and he'd appear in four more Topps flagship sets up until 1961.  The cartoons on the back highlight his joining the Orioles and his success in the minor leagues in 1954.  The final panel notes his ability to also play the outfield, but in his entire big league career he either played first base or pinch hit, with nary an outfield appearance.

1956 Season

Hale appeared in 85 games for the sixth place Orioles, batting .237 overall and making 41 starts at first base.  He was third on the team's depth chart at the position behind Bob Boyd and regular catcher Gus Triandos (#80).  Somehow he found himself appearing in 23 games for the Montreal Royals, then the top International League affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  With the Royals, Hale batted .304 with 11 RBIs.

1957 Topps #406

1959 Topps #507

1960 Topps #309

1961 Topps #532

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1956 Topps #231
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (5):  1956-1957, 1959-1961
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2010 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-BHA

21 - Hale non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/27/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card / Next Card

Set Order: #230 "Chico" Carrasquel - Cleveland Indians / #232 "Toby" Atwell - Pittsburgh Pirates

Order Collected: #222 Dave Philley - Baltimore Orioles / #238 Walt Dropo - Chicago White Sox

#230 "Chico" Carrasquel - Cleveland Indians

Alfonso Carrasquel
Cleveland Indians
Shortstop

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  170
Born:  January 23, 1926, Caracas, Venezuela
Signed:  Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent before 1949 season
Major League Teams:  Chicago White Sox 1950-1955; Cleveland Indians 1956-1958; Kansas City Athletics 1958; Baltimore Orioles 1959

Died:  May 26, 2005, Caracas, Venezuela (age 79)

Chico Carrasquel was the first of a long line of successful Venezuelan-born shortstops in the major leagues, paving the way for Luis Aparicio (#292), Davey Concepcion and Omar Vizquel, among many others.  He batted a career high .282 in his rookie season of 1950, finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting.  Carrasquel was a four-time All-Star with the White Sox in the early 1950s, and in 1951 he was the first Latin American player to start an All-Star Game, beating out reigning MVP Phil Rizzuto in fan voting to earn the starting spot at shortstop.  His best year came in 1954 when he set career highs for home runs (12), RBIs (62), hits (158) and runs (106) while leading all shortstops in fielding percentage for the third time.  With Aparicio waiting in the wings for the White Sox, Carrasquel, along with Jim Busby (#330), was traded to the Indians on October 25, 1955 for Larry Doby (#250).

After four more seasons with the Indians, Athletics and Orioles, Carrasquel retired as a player, at least in the major leagues, following the 1959 season.  He had accumulated 1,199 hits while batting .258, and his career games at shortstop, double plays turned, assists and putouts all currently rank within the top 100 all-time.  Carrasquel returned to Venezuela where he continued to play through the 1967 season.  He'd later manage the Leones del Caracas to the 1982 Caribbean Series title.  Carrasquel would also spend time as a scout for the Royals and Mets, and providing Spanish language color commentary for White Sox broadcasts.  In 2003, he was inducted with the inaugural class of the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Building the Set
December 4, 1999 in Raleigh, NC - Card #191
This is one of four cards I acquired at the "Holiday Sports Classic" baseball card show held in Raleigh in late 1999.  I paid $10 for the Cubs team card (#11) and another $5 for three commons - this Carrasquel card, Norm Zauchin (#89) and Alvin Dark (#148).  Given the timing of this show right before the holidays, I would have attended by myself but I most likely called my Dad back in Millville, New Jersey to update him on my purchases later that day.

From the notes I took on the flyer shown here, I didn't have much of a budget for this show as I spent $15 for the four cards for our 1956 Topps set and a whopping $6.30 for five cards for my 1972 Topps set.  It's also interesting to look back at this flyer and remember how bonkers the Beanie Baby craze was in the late 1990s.

The Card / Indians Team Set
Topps swapped out a White Sox logo for an Indians logo on Carrasquel's hat, and he wore #17 with both teams.  He was absent from Topps sets between 1953 and 1955, making his return here after appearing exclusively on Bowman cards.  The cartoon panels on the back rightfully highlight his excellent defensive skills, and his quick ascent to the majors.

1956 Season

In his first season with the Indians, Carrasquel was the team's opening day shortstop and started 135 games overall at the position.  On April 26th, he had a career-high seven RBIs against the Athletics and on August 27th he had a two home run outing, his only multi-home run game in the majors.  The Indians double play combination of Carrasquel and Bobby Avila (#132) were solid in the field, but light-hitting at the plate with Carrasquel batting .243 and Avila batting .224.  But Carrasquel's .967 fielding percentage was second in the league behind Harvey Kuenn (#155).

1951 Bowman #60

1952 Topps #251

1953 Bowman Color #54

1957 Topps #67

1959 Topps #264

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1951 Bowman #60
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (6):  1951-1952, 1956-1959
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1994 Topps Legends #L5

65 - Carrasquel non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/27/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card / Next Card

Set Order: #229 Harry Brecheen CO - Baltimore Orioles / #231 Bob Hale - Baltimore Orioles

Order Collected: #148 Alvin Dark - New York Giants / #79 Sandy Koufax - Brooklyn Dodgers

#229 Harry Brecheen CO - Baltimore Orioles

Harry David Brecheen
Baltimore Orioles
Coach

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'10"  Weight:  160
Born:  October 14, 1914, Broken Bow, OK
Acquired:  Sent from the Galveston Buccaneers (Texas League) to the Chicago Cubs in an unknown transaction, before 1937 season
Major League Teams:  St. Louis Cardinals 1940, 1943-1952; St. Louis Browns 1953

Died:  January 17, 2004, Bethany, OK (age 89)

Harry Brecheen was a pitching star for the Cardinals in the 1940s, helping the club win National League pennants in 1943, 1944 and 1946.  Brecheen relied on a nearly unhittable screwball during his pitching career, winning at least 15 games each season between 1944 and 1948.  He pitched a complete game win over the Browns in the 1944 World Series, with his Cardinals club winning in six games.  In the 1946 series, Brecheen started and won both Game 2 and 6 over the Red Sox, allowing a run over 18 innings.  He was the winning pitcher in the decisive Game 7, pitching two innings of scoreless relief, with his Cardinals again winning the Championship.  An All-Star in both 1947 and 1948, Brecheen's career year came in 1949 when he led the league with a 2.24 ERA, seven shutouts and 149 strikeouts while compiling a 20-7 record.  An arm injury cut short his career, and he'd last pitch in 1953, joining the Browns in the American League after 11 seasons with the Cardinals.  

Brecheen was 133-92 lifetime, with a 2.92 ERA and 901 strikeouts over 1,902 2/3 innings pitched.  He held the Cardinals' franchise mark for strikeouts by a left-hander until Steve Carlton passed him in 1971.  Brecheen also held the lowest World Series ERA (0.83) for any pitchers with at least 25 innings pitched, until Jack Billingham bettered him in 1976 with a 0.36 ERA.  Brecheen moved with the Browns to Baltimore, where he was the Orioles' pitching coach between 1954 and 1967.  With the Orioles, he helped steer or revitalize the pitching careers of Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Hoyt Wilhelm (#307) and Robin Roberts (#180).  Brecheen was posthumously inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2018.

Building the Set
August 16, 1987 from Cooperstown, NY - Card #46
This was one of the first four cards we purchased in the summer of 1987, officially marking the beginning of us collecting the 1956 Topps set.  As told now frequently in our set's origin story, and most recently with the post for the Early Wynn (#187) card, I was essentially gifted with a shoebox of vintage Topps baseball cards in the summer of 1983 or 1984.  Within the spoils were 44 cards from the 1956 Topps set – by far the most cards from any one set.  I studied them, I sorted them, and I pretty much memorized every detail of those 44 cards.

A few years later, in the summer of 1987 while on a family vacation, I was giddy with excitement when we came across a few 1956 Topps cards in the Walker Gallery on the main drag in Cooperstown, New York.  It was our first trip to Cooperstown, and details from that family vacation still make up several of my most important core memories from my childhood.  My Dad and I studied the cards for sale and he casually asked me the question, “Why don’t we try to put together the whole set?” We bought four cards that day for $9.25, including this Brecheen card which was all of $1.50.  Those cards, along with the 44 from the magic shoebox, became the basis for our 1956 Topps set.

That small but incredibly meaningful purchase meant so much to me that I tacked a Walker Gallery business card to my bulletin board in my bedroom on 12th Street, where it hung for years.  I also felt compelled to clip the price tags from the rigid plastic sleeves in which each of these cards were originally purchased.  I knew then I wanted to remember everything about the purchase, and these are included at the back of our 1956 Topps binder, along with other ephemera from baseball card shows, stores and special occasions when cards were added to our set.

The Card / Orioles Team Set
Having recently collected the early Donruss sets and loving the addition of coaches to those sets, I remember being pleasantly surprised to find this Brecheen card included in the 1956 set.  At the time, I thought coaches must be sprinkled throughout the set featuring former players who had moved on to the next stage of their careers.  I was wrong at that assumption, and this is the one and only coach card in the set.  Topps must have needed the filler, and the former All-Star was readily available?  They re-used a head shot found on Brecheen's 1954 and 1955 Topps cards and found a recent "action" photo of him providing guidance to a pitcher from the mound.  Given it's a left-handed pitcher whose uniform number starts with a "3," that could be Don Ferrarese (#266) who wore #39 in 1956.  Or . . . Is that Brecheen pitching?  He did wear #31 throughout his entire playing career, so perhaps that's him on the mound and a Cardinals' (or Browns') pitching coach from the early 1950s?

The cartoon panels on the back remind collectors Brecheen was an All-Star pitcher for the Cardinals and he was the team's MVP in the 1946 World Series.

1956 Season

Working under manager Paul Richards, Brecheen's starting pitching staff consisted of Ray Moore (#43), who led the team with 12 wins, Connie Johnson (#326), Bill Wight (#286), Hal Brown, Erv Palica (#206) and Ferrarese.  George Zuverink (#276) was the club's closer and he recorded 16 saves.  The Orioles finished in sixth place with a 69-85 record, and they'd not return to the World Series until 1966.

1949 Bowman #158

1951 Bowman #86

1952 Topps #263

1954 Topps #203

1960 Topps #455

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1949 Bowman #158
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (6):  1951-1952, 1954-1956, 1960
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2018 Panini Diamond Kings #44

69 - Brecheen non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/26/22. 

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card / Next Card

Set Order: #228 "Mickey" Vernon - Boston Red Sox / #230 "Chico" Carrasquel - Cleveland Indians

Order Collected: #225 Gil McDougald - New York Yankees / #253 Irv Noren - New York Yankees

#228 "Mickey" Vernon - Boston Red Sox

James Barton Vernon
Boston Red Sox
First Base

Bats:  Left  Throws:  Left  Height:  6'2"  Weight:  170
Born:  April 22, 1918, Marcus Hook, PA

Signed:  Signed by the Washington Senators as an amateur free agent before 1937 season
Major League Teams:  Washington Senators 1939-1943, 1946-1948; Cleveland Indians 1949-1950; Washington Senators 1950-1955; Boston Red Sox 1956-1957; Cleveland Indians 1958; Milwaukee Braves 1959; Pittsburgh Pirates 1960

As a Manager:  Washington Senators 1961-1963

Died:  September 24, 2008, Media, PA (age 90)

The universally popular Mickey Vernon played in parts of 20 seasons in the majors, with his career interrupted for two years in its prime as he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.  He'd enjoy a career year in 1946 upon his return from the war, leading the league with 51 doubles and winning his first of two career batting titles with a .353 mark.  Vernon batted over .290 in nine seasons, leading the league in doubles three times and earning a second batting title in 1953 when he batted .337.  He was a seven-time All-Star, but in spending his entire career with second division teams, he never reached the World Series.  (Vernon would win a ring as the first base coach for the World Champion Pirates in 1960.)  A above average fielder at first base, Vernon is the all-time leader in double plays turned at the position with 2,044.  He led the league in fielding percentage four times, putouts three times, and he currently ranks seventh all-time with 19,819 putouts and fourth all-time with 2,237 games at first base.

Vernon collected 2,495 hits, batting .286 with 490 doubles, 172 home runs and 1,311 RBIs.  His Senators, where he played for 14 seasons, moved to Minnesota in 1961, and he's still in the top ten of most major offensive categories on the Senators/Twins all-time leaderboard.  Vernon managed the expansion Senators (now the Rangers) between 1961 and 1963, accumulating a 135-227-1 record.  He served as a coach for the Pirates (1960, 1964), Cardinals (1965), Expos (1977-1978) and Yankees (1982), and later as a roving batting instructor for the Dodgers, Royals and Yankees.

September 20, 2003 - Harry Kalas with Mickey Vernon

Building the Set
September 25, 2005 in Ft. Washington, PA - Card #266
This was a late edition to our set and one of 11 cards we purchased at the 92nd Philadelphia Sports Card Show held at the convention center in Ft. Washington.  My records show we paid only $5 for this card. With the Ocean City baseball card shows long gone by now, our only options for local baseball card shows were the "Philly Shows" held in Ft. Washington at the time or the occasional mall baseball card show.

My Dad didn't like the drive to Ft. Washington, and this would have been one of only a few shows we attended together in this location.  Our next show together was a few months later in December, also in Ft. Washington.  Looking at my records of when and where we purchased our cards, a full year would go by before we'd add any more cards to the set after that December show.

The year-long hiatus in collecting the set came at a time my wife and I were expecting our first son and as we moved into our first real house, so we had a pretty good excuse not to be purchasing baseball cards at the time.

The Card / Red Sox Team Set
Like a lot of the players in the set's third series, this is Vernon's return to Topps after a three-year exclusive run with Bowman.  For the main photo, Topps used a photo of Vernon in a Senators uniform, replacing the W on his hat with a Boston B.  That could be Vernon in the action photo on the left, standing and having presumably just tagged the runner out.  Or that could be him as the runner, looking up and barely visible between the umpire's legs.  The cartoon panels on the back highlight his two batting titles, his recent move to Boston, and his fine fielding at first base.

1956 Season

On November 8, 1955, the Senators traded Vernon, Bob Porterfield (#248), Johnny Schmitz (#298) and Tom Umphlett to the Red Sox for Al Curtis, Dick Brodowski (#157), Neil Chrisley, Tex Clevenger and Karl Olson (#322).  Vernon, right fielder Jackie Jensen (#115) and left fielder Ted Williams (#5) all hit over .300 for the Red Sox in 1956, with Williams finishing second in the league to Mickey Mantle (#135) for the batting title.  Vernon, now 38, appeared in 119 games for the Red Sox, batting .310 overall with 15 home runs and 84 RBIs.  He was the starting first baseman for the American League All-Stars, going 0 for 2 in his former home ballpark, Griffith Stadium.

Phillies Connection
As a lifelong Phillies fan, I knew of Vernon long before adding this card to my collection, even though he never played a game for the Phillies.  As relayed in Vernon's SABR biography: 

When Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, then a 10-year-old boy, attended his first big-league game at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, he got a special tour that boyhood dreams are made on. Vernon saw him sitting in the stands before the game began. “He reached over and picked me up and took me into the dugout,” the Hall of Fame broadcaster recalled. “He gave me a ball and introduced me to some of the players. I was just in heaven. That started my love of the game of baseball.”

I distinctly remember Kalas telling that story during at least a few broadcasts, and I seem to remember hearing the tale one last time during the Phillies playoff push in late September 2008 after Vernon's passing.

1949 Bowman #94

1952 Topps #106

1953 Bowman Color #159

1959 Topps #115

1963 Topps #402

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1949 Bowman #94
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (10):  1951-1952, 1956-1963
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic #196

115 - Vernon non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 11/26/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database

SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card / Next Card

Set Order: #227 Russ Meyer - Chicago Cubs / #229 Harry Brecheen CO - Baltimore Orioles

Order Collected: #221 Bob Friend - Pittsburgh Pirates / #239 Harry Simpson - Kansas City Athletics