According to my 1952 Bowman card, Campanella had quite a year in '51
 

I was pretty happy to pick up a nice raw, mid grade Roy Campanella for my 1952 Bowman set. So I was reading the back of card after I received it to see how "Campy" did in 1951. And wow, with all due respect to Hack Wilson, I would think we would hear more about his 1951 season!

Who can spot the inflated number?

(And no, I unfortunately didn't find a new 1952 Bowman error. ALL the cards have that typo. But I didn't know that at first, so I enjoyed "discovering" this error.)

Attachment 336940

I will play along


He had 108 RBIs and not 198

Hack Wilson holds the records for most RBIs in a season ( 191)

You are correct!

I know uncorrected errors aren't rare, but that's a pretty big error.

I wonder....since there was no internet, my guess is that many boys used their baseball cards as the "official stats record" of their favorite players. I wonder how many school yard fights were started by young Campanella fans claiming that he knocked in 198 runs in 1951, much to the dismay of the other more knowledgeable fans around.

What makes it even funnier is that Topps and Bowman only listed the past year's stats (and not a yearly breakdown) on the back of their cards in those days, so in 1953, 1954 and so on, no one on the playground would have been able to 'prove' Campy didn't knock in all of those runs that year. When those kids reached high school in 1957, they finally had the stats on the back to prove the case...but by then they only cared about girls, and not cards, so the point was moot.

'52 long hot summer
 

Ah, I think some of the Bowman press guys that year must have been amusing themselves by messing with kids' heads. Maybe they just wanted to see if anyone actually read those card backs. :rolleyes:

Wow! 142 ribbies on 90 hits. Guessing he 1.000 with runners in scoring position haha.

Uh, Steve....did you photoshop that "142"? I don't see that on any other 1952 Bowman Arft cards with extra "1". I'm confused! :confused:

Oh, and nice card by the way. A NM-MT+ high number is pretty sweet!

It's not an item I own, but an image I found online years ago, so you might be correct.:eek:

Ah, ok. Thanks for confirming. You had me searching eBay yesterday for a new Hank Arft variation. :). I’ll just assume it was a modified image (the “1” does look a little off).

While finding a new variation would have been cool, at least I don’t have to spend any more time trying to track down another version of old “Bow Wow”.