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Willard Raymond Schmidt
St. Louis Cardinals
Pitcher
Born: May 29, 1928, Hays, KS
Signed: Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent before 1949 season
Major League Teams: St. Louis Cardinals 1952-53, 1955-57; Cincinnati Redlegs 1958; Cincinnati Reds 1959
Died: March 22, 2007, Newcastle, OK (age 78)
Willard Schmidt spent parts of seven seasons in the majors, mostly as a Cardinals' reliever. After brief stints with the club in 1952 and 1953, and an entire season back in the minors in 1954, Schmidt was promoted to the Cardinals in July 1955 and he'd soon settle in as the club's fifth starter. The 20 games in which he appeared with the Cardinals in the second half of the 1955 season was to be the best stretch of his career, as he went 7-6 with a 2.78 ERA, making 15 starts and throwing eight complete games, including one shutout. He had another solid season with the Cardinals in 1956, going 6-8 with a 3.84 ERA while throwing a career-high 147 2/3 innings.
On December 5, 1957, Schmidt, Marty Kutyna and Ted Wieand were traded to the Redlegs in exchange for Curt Flood and Joe Taylor. In 1959, his final season in the majors, Schmidt earned the distinction of being hit by a pitch twice in the same inning in a game against the Braves. On April 26, 1959, Schmidt was hit by Lew Burdette (#219) at the start of the bottom of the third, and then by Bob Rush (#214) at the end of the frame. In the top of the fourth, now on the mound, Schmidt was drilled by a line drive off the bat of Johnny Logan (#136) and had to leave the game. He'd spend three more seasons in the minor leagues before retiring in 1962. In 194 games, including 55 starts, Schmidt was 31-29 with a 3.93 ERA in 586 1/3 innings pitched.
Building the SetSummer of 1983 or 1984 in Millville, NJ - Card #43
This Schmidt card was one of the Original 44 and the last time I told the full story of the Original 44 was a year ago with the Walker Cooper (#273) post, so I'll repeat it again here. Seven of the Original 44 came from series one, with 11 coming from series two, and 16 from series three. This is the ninth of ten cards to come from the final series four, and I'll likely copy and paste this entry one last time when I get to the card for Mickey McDermott (#340).
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| June 1983 - Ocean City Baseball Card Show |
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.
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
Schmidt's rookie card can be found in the 1953 Topps set, and this marks his first appearance back in the flagship set after a two-year absence. The back of the card highlights his minor league accomplishments and notes his "strikeout power." In parts of 10 minor league seasons, Schmidt struck out 1,194 batters in 1,615 innings pitched.
1956 Season
Phillies Connection
Schmidt spent part of the 1962 season with the Dallas-Fort Worth Rangers, a shared American Association team of the Phillies and Angels at the time. It was to be his last action in professional baseball. With the Rangers, Schmidt was 5-9 with a 4.55 ERA in 19 games and 14 starts.
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First Mainstream Card: 1953 Topps #168
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (5): 1953, 1956-59
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1991 Topps Archives 1953 #168
17 - Schmidt non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 2/28/25.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database
Previous Card / Next Card
Set Order: #322 Karl Olson - Washington Nationals / #324 "Rocky" Bridges - Cincinnati Redlegs
Order Collected: #313 Gene Stephens - Boston Red Sox / #340 Mickey McDermott - New York Yankees
