February Pick Ups

[Dewey]

Getting into this whole photo and card thing.

1944 Vander Meer official Navy photo used for his 1947 Exhibits.


1952 Ted Wilks shot used for 1953 Topps. Two-time World Series champ and had a near no-no. Not quite the back-to-back no-nos like the man above.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Dewey

Getting into this whole photo and card thing.

1944 Vander Meer official Navy photo used for his 1947 Exhibits.

You need to sell that Vandy to Scott...

[Dewey]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

You need to sell that Vandy to Scott...

I assume he got one that recently showed up at auction. If not, I'd be happy to send it home.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Dewey

I assume he got one that recently showed up at auction. If not, I'd be happy to send it home.

Hi Doug & Dewey,
I actually do own a copy of this photo as well.
That being said, I appreciate both of you guys for thinking of me!

[Topnotchsy]

Picked up these 2 WWII programs. Bummed that I lost the other 2 (which were larger size). If the winner of those is here, I'd love to see if there's a deal to be made.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

Picked up these 2 WWII programs. Bummed that I lost the other 2 (which were larger size). If the winner of those is here, I'd love to see if there's a deal to be made.

Congrats Jeff, I had my eye on those scorebooks as well. I'm very happy that you won those. All of these 1944 Central Championship scorebooks are exceedingly tough to find. To be able to score two is a HR IMHO.

[Scott Garner]

I'm sorry Jeff, I suppose I am guilty as charged...

I was happy to finally be able to add a nice scorebook from game 4 of the 1944 Central Pacific Area Baseball Championship in Hawaii.
Originally the brainchild of Admiral Chester Nimitz, this WWII baseball championship pitted the Navy All-Stars vs. the Army All-Stars. Due to many MLB stars entering WWII to support the war effort, Nimitz realized that creating this Championship Series would be an excellent idea to entertain the troops and boost morale.

Game 4 was essentially the Series clincher for the Navy which ran the table mostly on the back of great pitching from two MLB pitchers that would hurl two no-hitters in a single season: Johnny "Double No-Hit" Vander Meer in 1938 and Virgil "Fire" Trucks in 1952. This game was attended by 10,000 enthusiastic servicemen that were fortunate enough to witness the game played on September 26th, 1944.
Here is a recap of the clinching 4th game of the series:

HONOLULU – Winning the first four games, the navy captured the mythical championship of the armed forces from the Army in the Pacific World’s Series, chiefly through superior pitching. Although the Bluejackets won the title by the sweep, the three other contests in the series were played for the benefit of men in other sections of this area.
A home run by Ken Sears in the first half of the twelfth inning at Fort Schofield, Oahu, clinched the third contest, 4 to 3, for the Navy, and the Bluejackets made it four straight at Naval Air Station, Kaneohe Bay on September 26th, 10 to 5.