Friday, January 12, 2024

#273 Walker Cooper - St. Louis Cardinals


William Walker Cooper
St. Louis Cardinals
Catcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'3"  Weight:  210
Born:  January 8, 1915, Atherton, MO
Signed:  Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent before 1935 season
Major League Teams:  St. Louis Cardinals 1940-1945; New York Giants 1946-1949; Cincinnati Reds 1949-1950; Boston Braves 1950-1952; Milwaukee Braves 1953; Pittsburgh Pirates 1954; Chicago Cubs 1954-1955; St. Louis Cardinals 1956-1957
Died:  April 11, 1991, Scottsdale, AZ (age 76)

Until composing this post, I had no idea Walker Cooper was a veteran of 18 major league seasons, an eight-time All-Star and a two-time World Champion with the Cardinals in the early 1940s.  Cooper was behind the plate for the Cardinals' World Series wins in 1942 and 1944, batting .300 overall in 16 World Series games, including the 1943 series in which the Cardinals lost to the Yankees.  In that 1943 season, Cooper batted .318 with 81 RBIs, finishing as runner-up to teammate Stan Musial for National League MVP honors.  He was the starting catcher for the National League All-Stars in six of the nine All-Star Games played in the 1940s.  Cooper missed most of the 1945 season while serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was sold to the Giants in 1946 following a salary dispute.  With the Giants in 1947, he reached career highs in both home runs (35) and RBIs (122).

Cooper would play for six different teams, all in the National League, and would finish his big league career as a back-up catcher and pinch-hitter for the Cardinals in 1956 and 1957.  One of the strongest players in the game, Cooper also earned respect for his defense and ability to call a great game behind the plate.  In 1,473 games played, Cooper batted .285 with 1,341 hits, 173 home runs and 812 RBIs.  At the time of his retirement, he was among the top five all-time National League catchers in average, slugging percentage, home runs and RBIs.  Cooper managed in the minor leagues for three seasons and was a coach for the Kansas City Athletics in 1960.

Building the Set
Summer of 1983 or 1984 in Millville, NJ - Card #37
This Cooper card was one of the Original 44 and the last time I told the full story of the Original 44 was almost a year ago within the Walt Dropo (#238) post, so I'll repeat it again here.

June 1983 - Ocean City Baseball Card Show
Technically speaking, my Dad and I actually began collecting the set in the summer of 1987, but this card (along with the other Original 44) first entered my collection three or four years before that.

I think it was either the summer of 1983 or 1984 when a shoebox of vintage baseball cards, football cards and a few non-sports cards arrived into my world.  The box contained about a hundred cards dating between 1950 and 1956, and for the most part, they were all in excellent shape.  A friend of the family was in the process of cleaning up and moving into her new house when she found the old shoebox and she wondered if the only kid she knew who collected baseball cards (me) would be interested in looking through it – maybe even taking the box off her hands.

She dropped the box off to my parents and asked them to have me look through the box and take what I was interested in. Turns out, I was interested in everything.  Up to that point, the oldest cards in my collection were cards from the early '70s I had obtained through trades or cards that my Dad had picked up for me at yard sales or small baseball card shows.  (My Dad had given me a few dog-earred and rough Topps cards – Juan Pizzaro and Jim Busby – a few years prior, and I completely forget how or why he had purchased these cards for me.)

My parents asked me to pick out a few cards from the box, and then we’d return the rest to the family friend.  Problem was, I wanted them all.  I really wanted them all.  I diligently and meticulously went through one of my price guides and determined the “value” of the treasure chest. I probably used my Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide No. 4, edited by Dr. James Beckett, and I had no way to value the football or non-sports cards.  My memory is fuzzy, and I can't find the original tally, but I think I came up with the box being worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 to $400, which I knew my parents definitely did not have in their discretionary spending budget.  But they could tell how much I wanted those cards, as I lovingly studied each and every one and handled each as if it were some long-lost artifact.

I don’t know the exact details, but I believe my Dad went back to the friend and told her we’d take the whole box, but only if she let him give her some money for it.  I believe she was genuinely shocked that the box of old cardboard pictures had some value, and that someone was willing to give her cash for it.  My Dad shared the list I had created showing the “book value” of the cards and he mentioned how it was going to be close to impossible to get me to pick and choose which ones I wanted.  When all was said and done, the family friend, who had absolutely no intention of making money on this endeavor, walked away with (I think) something in the neighborhood of $100 for the whole lot.

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.  

And so 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 ’56 Topps cards in the Walker Gallery on the main drag in Cooperstown, New York.  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.  Those cards, along with the 44 from the magic shoebox, became the basis for our 1956 Topps set.

The Card / Cardinals Team Set
This marks Cooper's first mainstream baseball card in a few years, as he had last appeared in the 1953 Bowman Black & White set.  It would seem as if the runner is safe in the action shot?  The three cartoon panels on the back cover all the right highlights, including his return to the Cardinals for the 1956 season, his reputation as a slugger and his fantastic 1947 season with the Giants.

1956 Season
In his penultimate season, and at the age of 41, Cooper re-signed with his original team, the Cardinals, to serve as the back-up catchers Bill Sarni (#247) and Hal Smith (#283).  Cooper started only 12 games all season, appearing in 40 games overall, mostly as a pinch-hitter.  He batted .265 with a pair of home runs and 14 RBIs.

1943 M.P. & Co. (R302-1)
1948 Bowman #9
1952 Topps #294
1957 Topps #380
1960 Topps #462

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1943 M.P. & Co. (R302-1)
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (4):  1952, 1956-1957, 1960
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1992 Conlon Collection TSN #633

48 - Cooper non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 12/21/23.

 Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)