A 1955 Bowman Birthday: Red Schoendienst (A New Series)

Boosted by a Christmas gift card boom, I have been adding to my 1955 Bowman set build. Between eBay, COMC, and TCDB, I have added a big chunk of cards in the last couple of months. I'm now at 242 out of the 320 card set. Recent notable additions include:

Nellie Fox

Lou Boudreau

Bobby Thomson

Bobby Shantz

Enos Slaughter

Gil McDougald

Phil Cavarretta

Roy Campanella 

Carl Erskine

Bob Lemon

Carl Furillo

Early Wynn

There were some high number acquisitions along with a few commons, too. But today's featured card is another recent find, card #29 Al "Red" Schoendienst, another Hall of Famer. Why am I featuring this card today? Well, today would have been Red's 100th birthday. I plan to feature all the cards I have of players that would have turned 100 this year. This gets a little tricky, though, because a not insignificant number of cards have the wrong birth year for the player. But some cross-referencing never bothered me. In fact, it will be necessary for this series, as I try to provide some interesting info about the players.

Here's my actual card of Red Schoendienst:

Date of Birth: 

February 2, 1923

First Year in Organized Baseball:

1942 with the Albany (GA) Cardinals and the Union City (TN) Greyhounds, both Class D teams in the St. Louis Cardinals organization. 

Link to a Really Old Baseball Guy:

Schoendienst's manager in his first MLB season (1945) was Hall of Famer Billy Southworth, who was born in 1893 and began his minor league playing career in 1912.

Definitely not a card I own.

Link to a Much Younger Guy:

Managed Ray Lankford on the 1990 Cardinals. 

1990 Upper Deck - Ray Lankford

Interesting Facts: 

• Red was actually inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1989 by the Veterans Committee. Most people still around today would better remember him as a manager. He managed a total of 14 years in MLB, leading the Cardinals to the World Series title in 1967. His managerial success no doubt boosted his Hall of Fame case. 
• 10-time All-Star
• Played or managed in the Cardinals organization in 32 separate seasons.
• Died June 6, 2018 at the age of 95.

There appears to be 11 more 100th birthdays from the 1955 Bowman set to celebrate this year (pending double-checks of their birth years). Quick math tells us these players would have been either 31 or 32 during the 1955 season. As a result, no coach cards or umpire cards will be featured. I'll try to get to those in other posts. 

A Hall of Fame Bunch

For a while now, I've been plugging away at a new project: A Hall of Fame Frankenset. Every card #1 to #799 features a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The set is actually complete in the sense that there is a card in every slot. But there are a couple of "upgrades" I'm now trying to make on the set:

Balancing the representation of players in the set. For example, right now I believe Sandy Koufax has two cards in the set and Carlton Fisk has 11. So, there's some work to do in that area.

Adding some vintage cards to the binder. I am now on the lookout for affordable vintage cards of Hall of Famers. The acquisitions below should arrive in a few weeks from COMC. I was able to get them all for $2.50 or less. Most were less than $2. 

With these additions, I'm closing in on 100 cards in the set that were issued before 1980. Not too shabby I'd say. The oldest card in the set, if you're curious, is a 1951 Bowman Billy Southworth. 

There are a couple of cards featuring multiple players, one of which is card #731. 

My goal is to have no multi-player cards, but I'd have to replace it with this one, which I can't find any cheaper than $6.25 right now, and I can't justify paying that for this card: 

This has arguably been my favorite project I've ever worked on, and I think it will be an ongoing project. I recently snagged some vintage Hall of Famers from Diamond Jesters' Time Travel Trade that should arrive any day now, and I picked up another (Tony Perez) from Nick from Dime Boxes in a giveaway he did for his 11th blogiversary:

I also claimed a replacement from my Minnie Minoso player collection, because that 1977 Topps card went into the Hall of Fame Frankenset. The other gem of the group was my first Grover Alexander Cubs card. And the Billy Williams was a throw in. Thanks Nick!