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Harry David Brecheen
Baltimore Orioles
Coach
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.
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?
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
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.
1956 Season
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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
The Trading Card Database
Previous Card / Next Card
Order Collected: #225 Gil McDougald - New York Yankees / #253 Irv Noren - New York Yankees
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