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E, Daniel...I just got this card back from SGC after swapping its tomb from PSA's see-through model, and thought I'd look a little into the mystery numbers that adorned it. What initially stood out was it had been notated numerically by typewriter, heavy dark pencil or pen (hard to tell on the 4) and in light scrolling pencil - all in a clean, non-interfering manner by a previous owners hand. The differing 'look' to each notation still intrigues me....how do you get a card into an older typewriter anyway without bending or mauling the card? And was it done before or after the trimming?
The issue (V100 Willard's Chocolates) was released in 1923, a better than average year for the NY Yankees Baseball Club. Yankee stadium opened that year with a Ruth home run on opening day, and the team went on to a 98-54 season (going an amazing 52-24 on the road), good for first place. From there the Yankees beat the Giants in the World Series 4 games to 2, the very first of its many WS titles.
Ruth's game wasn't too shabby that year either, with 41 home runs, a .393 BA and the American League MVP. I hope the understated nature in which I've written that screams 'a frickin mazing'!
So to the numbers on the card.
Of course the heavy '4' in the bottom right corner was easy, so I turned my attention to the 75 stenciled by a typewriter, and 215 written lightly along his leg.
I'm sure you all have already gotten there in the time it's taken me to write this...
Homer 215 for George Herman Ruth was belted in the 1923 season - the most likely and obvious reference to fit with the time period, and this is where I stump a little. Does the 75 refer to the 75th game that season which featured the NY Yankees playing the Chicago White Sox in Chicago, and is it in that encounter the Babe hit HR number 215? If so, I find it wondrous to imagine someone going out and buying this box of Willard's chocolates in Canada, on or very close after to the date Wednesday July 11th, 1923 of the game, pulling this superstar card from amongst its contents, and being sufficiently interested in baseball to go home and make permanent note that captured in exact time the Babe's latest exploits. If 215 really does refer to his HR total to that point, the exact date he had reached that number and no higher/lower would date stamp the time at which this card was found or at least marked thus. A true collector of the times if ever I could imagine one!!
For reference, the Babe would start the 1923 season with 197 HRs and end it with 238. I haven't been able to find a way to access stats that show break-down-by-game home run totals and thus calculate it that way, but if anyone else has a better/simpler explanation for the 75 and 215 I would love to hear it!
Daniel
05-29-2008, 03:02 PM
When all the numbers collide....
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