Originally Posted by Tom Hufford
I attended the 1971 Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown, and had the privilege of meeting Rube Marquard and Zach Wheat, from the T205 and T206 sets, as well as Larry Gardner, and Harry Hooper, in addition to Marquard and Wheat, from the T207 set. (I think Max Carey was there, too - I'll have to get out my autographed balls from that trip, to make sure). Casey Stengel was there, also, so I met someone from the T210 set, too!
Larry Gardner and Ernie Shore (not in any T set) came to see their Red Sox teammate Harry Hooper inducted. Wickey McAvoy (1913-19), Al Schacht, and Zach Wheat's brother Mack (1915-21) were there, too, but they came along after the T cards, also.
The highlight of my visit, which I've detailed before in this forum, was when I met Rube Marquard in the hotel lobby, and after a while he said, "How long will you be here? If you're going to be here a while, I'll get something from my room and show you." So, of course I waited while he went upstairs. He returned with a scrapbook from his career, and we sat in the hotel lobby for several hours while he went through the scrapbook page-by-page, telling me stories about each game, and many of the players. How I wish I had had a tape recorder! We then exchanged Christmas cards for a number of years, until his death (even though he was Jewish!). Can you imagine a current HOFer doing that?
|