When Men Were Men- Cards of Catchers

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

When was the last time that a team won the World Series without a top-notch catcher. Great teams have great catchers, which is your favorite catcher card.

Mine is 1934 Diamond King Jimmy Foxx. Old double XX came up as a catcher believe it or not.

Peter

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Posted By: Chad

Anyway, I have a W517 Foxx with the tools of ignorance and I dig that card.

--Chad

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Posted By: Rich Klein

With Pat Borders behind the plate; but I did not go year by year to dig into this question

Rich

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Posted By: peter chao

Rich,

Your not suppose to answer the question. By the way there has never been a great team without a great catcher.

Your suppose to tell me your favorite catcher card.

Peter

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Posted By: Jeff Prizner

come on, get with the program Rich!

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Posted By: Rich Klein

To answer your OTHER question

Rich

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Posted By: Bill Stone

I have always liked Adolph Thoss of the Richmond,Kentucky team -T210, Series 6.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Peter

What about the 1927 Yanks? Pat Collins, John Grabowski and Benny Bengough were all journeyman catchers

My favorite catcher card:



Max

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Posted By: peter chao

Guys,

It really depends on your standard, some people considered Elston Howard a journeyman catcher.

Peter

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Posted By: Geno

Here's a personal favorite of Billy Sullivan in the middle photo. His .212 average was MLB's second worst of all-time, with only Bill Bergen (another T202 catcher) having a worse one. Sullivan went 0-21 in the 1906 Series against the Cubs, but the Sox pulled it out. The T202 set has some great catcher poses for those of you who collect them...

Take Care, Geno

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Posted By: Joe Jones

The scrapper!! Boss Schmidt

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Posted By: Max Weder

Peter


I'd be interested in hearing what standard of greatness you or anyone could apply to consider the 1927 Yankees catchers "great".

Rich, I think Peter needs full SABR immersion .

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Posted By: Anonymous

some 30's cards w/modern equipment

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

Here are a few of my favorite catcher pose cards:




Patrick

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Posted By: Rich Klein

for SABRJAY - -aka Jay Behrens; I'm just a geek after all

Rich

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Posted By: Zach Rice

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

You must be kidding! The last time a team won the series with a poor catcher was:

2006 Champs St. Louis Cardinals:

Catcher: Yadier Molina


Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA

2006 23 STL NL 129 417 29 90 26 0 6 49 1 2 26 41 .216






Frank

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Posted By: Steve Murray

but he is Number 1.

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Posted By: peter chao

Frank,

But Yadier Molina was a great throwing and fielding catcher, his skills meshed with the St. Louis Cardinal lineup. He wasn't required to hit much over the mendoza line.

Peter

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Posted By: Jason Carota

The bold backgrounds and Bergen's uniform make these two stand out as my favorite that I own:

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Posted By: dennis

pete said great teams have great catchers. what constitutes a great team,i'd say a world series run of say 3 years.here are catchers for the best teams of all times 1906 cubs kling,1936 yanks dickey, 1950's yankees berra,1970s reds bench,1929 a's cochran,1950s dodgers campanella,1990's yanks posada, 1969 orioles etcheberren, 1909 a's thomas, 1910 giants meyers, 1970s a's tenace,60's yanks howard/berra....the 5 best teams of all time all had great catchers cochran,bench berra,dickey,campanella.so pete is correct! and i'd say all the ones above were close to the best of that era. but to win a world series you need a solid defensive catcher,maybe not a great one.

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Posted By: Ken W.

Actually, I don't know a lot about his career, but I think this card is a hoot!

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Posted By: Dave S

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

When was the last time that a team won the World Series without a top-notch catcher

Peter, you don't make much sense. First you ask a question about WS winners and top notch catchers, then you explain away the Cards' non top-notcher as being a good fit for that team.

You probably should have posed your question as:

When was the last time that a team won the World Series without a catcher?

Here's my contribution:





Frank

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Posted By: AP

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Posted By: RC

Ken,

Ernie (Schnozz) Lombardi was one of the better hitters in the NL through the 30's into the 40's. Led the league in hitting in 1938, .342, with the Reds. Also with Boston, 1942, .330, although I'm not sure if he had enough plate appearances for the official title.
Went into the HOF in '86. So he was a pretty good player.

Not sure if it's fact or not but was told that he once hit a ball off the wall at old Crosley Field and was thrown out at first base. Not exactly a speedster I guess.

RC

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Jimmy Archer...the best deadball era defensive catcher of them all.

http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&pid=325&bid=918

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Posted By: Ken W.

RC, thanks for that info. It's always cool to find out that the year of issue for a card also happens to be the best year of that player's career (1938). Also, nice to hear about ANOTHER catcher from the Reds for a change.

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Posted By: David

One of my favs

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Posted By: AP

Modern -- yes -- but I love this one. I remember the day I opened it in a pack. Cool card! And this guy WAS a man...once caught an entire 20+ inning game.

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Posted By: Mike Snyder

1933 Benny Bengough

I believe that this card captures the spirit of the catcher's game.

Although I do not have this in my collection, I have been looking for a suitable specimen.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Peter,

How about the 1940 Reds? HOFer Ernie Lombardi was out with an injury, his backup Willard Herschberger killed himself and the Reds were forced to play the series with Jimmy Wilson, a 40-something-year-old coach, at catcher. He wasn't a bad catcher in his day, but by then, his day had long passed ... Here's a pair of Reds' catchers from one of my favorite sets, W-711 ...

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Posted By: Mike

Two of them...

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Posted By: peter chao

Frank,

I suppose you can argue whether or not Yadier Molina is a top-notch catcher or not. But look at the career of Ivan Rodriguez, each team he switches to goes deep into the playoffs. Last year Ivan supposedly on the downward side of his career brought the Detroit Tigers all the way to the World Series. This was the first time the Tigers had been in the World Series in a long, long time. Top-notch catchers and World Series teams go hand in hand.

Peter

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Posted By: peter chao

Max,

It's possible that the 1927 Yankees were the exception to the idea that great teams have top notch catchers.

But the '27 Yankees with murderer's row and other great Yankees, probably could have had grandma moses catching and they still would have won the World Series.

Peter

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Posted By: David

Would have been an awesome photo if not for #12.

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Posted By: Brad Green

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Posted By: Kevin Cummings

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Posted By: peter chao

Kevin,

I've never seen a card of Lave Cross, thanks.

Peter

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Posted By: leon

and one of Patrick M's too.....sorry for the extra scan...