Calling All Brooklyn Dodgers Collectors!--Show Your Brooklyn stuff

[dougscats]

I'm revising this thread to make it a a celebration of the history of Brooklyn baseball,
and to invite all fans to show their Brooklyn stuff.

This thread was originally aimed for me to contact, communicate and trade with fellow Brooklyn Dodgers collectors, with the ultimate idea, possibly, of divesting my collection on N54. And the first few replies below reflect that.
I'm in good health by the way, so please don't get the wrong idea, thanks; I'm not selling now.

But now I want this thread to be more, not about me, but to be about Brooklyn baseball.
So I'll start to do that by showing some of the highlights of my collection [1865-1957], not the best, but a labor of love.

Still, there's a ton of stuff that I don't have and that I'd love to see,
so I'd ask the rest of you out there who would like to, to share your Brooklyn stuff. Show, and Tell if you'd like. I know some of the history, but I'd surely like to see and hear more.

I'm going to cut out the trading part of the original post, so I'm deleting most of the scans I first posted.
But I'll leave up a couple of Brooklyn legends to start it off, two of Uncle Robbie's "Daffiness Boys": Babe Herman and Dazzy Vance.
Herman in particular is one of baseball's all-time characters, and I'd invite fans to show cards of him and perhaps share a vignette or two.

Here's one as I remember it:
A reporter interviewing Babe, whose fielding was notorious, asks him if it's true that he had been hit in the head by a fly ball. Babe vehemently denies it. The reporter then asks, Well, how about the shoulders? To which Babe replies, Oh no! No, no. The shoulders don't count.

He hit .393 one year.

I guess he was a DH ahead of his time.

Scroll down to see more:
The Brooklyn Bridegrooms of 1890, and
The Brooklyn Atlantics of 1865!--Thanks to Doug Goodman who was good enough to provide a scan.
And there will be more!--Show us your Brooklyn Dodgers!

[doug.goodman]

Hi Doug

I'm potentially interested in scored programs and larger items like m113s & m114s, Police Gazette pages, supplement type stuff, etc. And "weird" stuff maybe.

Have fun,
Doug

[dougscats]

I know that you like 19th c., Doug, so I managed to post a shot of the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the 1890's. I might trade this item for cards, but it is not for sale at this time.

I struck out after three tries at posting a Harper's woodcut of the champion Brooklyn Atlantics of 1865. [I couldn't get a scan under 2 MB.]
That's the last year of the Civil War!
This is, I think, the same Brooklyn club that were winners at both ends of the famed 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings 57 game winning streak.

I do have a scorecard in the 1955 World Series Program, scored by my brother who was there, which has a lot of newspaper clippings of the game taped to some of the ads. I wouldn't be trading this or the ticket stub at this point, but I'll post scans when I dig it up.

More scans to come.

[gregndodgers]

Count me in!!!

Is that team shot a pencil drawing or some type of lithograph?

Cool stuff!!

[ALBB]

Wow, some classic stuff there

I guess we all gonna reach this point at some time

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by dougscats

I know that you like 19th c., Doug, so I managed to post a shot of the Brooklyn Bridegrooms of the 1890's.

I struck out after three tries at posting a Harper's woodcut of the champion Brooklyn Atlantics of 1865. [I couldn't get a scan under 2 MB.]
That's the last year of the Civil War!

That Bridegrooms shot is nice, here is the Atlantics that you reference

[Vintagedeputy]

A few Dodgers items…

[doug.goodman]

The last two no hitters thrown at Ebbets Field (both in 1956).

Erskine beats the Giants on May 12

Maglie beats the Phillies on Sept 25

[inceptus]

I'll add a pair of CJ Ruckers...

[DeanH3]

First Jackie magazine cover.

[Rhotchkiss]

A famous Brooklyn game and a very old baseball card

[Jobu]

Since you broadened this to all Brooklyn baseball, here is a RPPC of the 1920 Brooklyn Robins featuring Zack Wheat, Wilbert Robinson and his awesome bulldog with a pipe, Moe Berg, the mascot, a couple of guys pounding their gloves, one guy spitting in his, another playing with a baseball... it has it all. This belonged to the guy on the far right, Gene Bailey.

[GeoPoto]

I didn't think I had any pre-war items that connect with Brooklyn, but I found one with a (tenuous) connection. This card comes from the 1923-24 Cuban season, following which Brown (at age 32) went north to play the outfield for the Brooklyn Robins in 1924 and 1925. In those two seasons for Brooklyn, Brown hit .307 with 177 RBIs in 1,155 plate appearances. He led the National League in hits (201) the next year for Boston. While Brown could hit (Career: .303 in 3,127 MLB plate appearances), he was notorious for a weak throwing arm. His nickname was "Glass Arm Eddie".

[Brent G.]

I learned about this card on Net54 about a year ago and had to have it — there was just something about one of the greatest all-around athletes in U.S. history selling cigs that reeled me in. I’m not a Brooklyn collector, but this is my favorite card.

Research conducted by Net54 members indicates that while this (and the other Old Gold Jackie) was released after the Bond Bread portrait, it did come out in the fall of 1947, making it a rookie year issue as well.

Getting the TPGs to recognize that ... well we know how they feel about correcting their mistakes.

[dougscats]

Wow!
I'm seeing stuff that I've never seen before!

1860!
That's before the Civil war!
Thanks Rhotchkiss. I'll revise the parameters, 1860-1957, nearly one hundred years.
I wonder if there is anything earlier.

Greg asked if the 1890 Bridegrooms was a pencil drawing or some kind of a lithograph.
I looked at it more closely, and I really don't know.
I had assumed it was a woodcut. But it's not like the woodcuts from Harpers that I have. It almost looks like a photograph; I think not, though maybe an art-enhanced one? It does look like it could be a pencil drawing, maybe a tracing of a photograph? Lithography? I just don't know enough about lithography to say.
Perhaps someone with more knowledge can chime in.

I showed a postcard of Ebbets Field in the opening thread.
"Baseball is in its infancy," Charlie Ebbets famously said around the time it was built, 1913-14?, and he was laughed at for saying it.
But he proved prophetic and built a gem of a ballpark, though it was derided as a band-box, in the middle of busy Brooklyn.

I was there once.

It must have been 1957 and I would have been nine.
Borden's Dairy gave out free tickets to some games if you redeemed coupons from their products.
I ate fudgicle bars [sort of like frozen yoo-hoos], and it took ten wrappers to get a ticket.
My father said he'd take me if I got four tickets for the family.
I can remember scouring the gutters of 84th Street to get 40.

I remember nothing of the game but a vague impression of climbing stairs to the seats, the railings, and the big crowd,
And batting practice, when a Pittsburgh? player was talking to the crowd in left field and a throw out of nowhere hit him in the head, and he was carried off on a stretcher.

Thanks for those Cracker Jacks of Nap Rucker, inceptus; he was an early favorite of mine, and I'm posting a couple more.

Nap was Ty Cobb's roommate when they played in the Southern? League. There is an apocryphal tale of an incident between them, prototypical of Cobb if true.
But this post has gone on too long, so I'll leave off with these classics of Nap:

[dougscats]

I'd say I'd guess, but there is really no doubt about it:
Jackie Robinson is the finest hour in Brooklyn baseball history.

With all due respect to those who came before, Jackie's breaking the color-line in baseball was vital to the core of America, which it helped shape post World War II,
and which incidentally began the age of modern baseball.

What a man.
Can you imagine what it took to carry that weight?
Proud, competitive, intense as he was, to keep that inside, the rage within?
He makes me gulp, and more, in awe; truly a great man, beyond baseball.

I was going to respond to some of the fabulous, older stuff that has been posted first,
but, as DeanH3 has brought him up with that stunning Time magazine cover, followed by Brent G's rookie, and Rhett's ticket stub of Jackie's first game,
Jackie has to go to the front of the line.

And as a fan, you have to love the way he went out.
Dodgers management [the much vilified Walter O'Malley] traded him to the hated-rival NY Giants after the 1956 season.
Jackie retired rather than to accept the trade.
And that's where I'll leave this post, with his Topps card from his final year, and that year's edition of the fabled boys of summer:

[dougscats]

Uncle Robbie he was called, the beloved manager of the beloved bums,
later in his career called the Daffiness Boys.

They named the team after him--the Robins--for awhile.

He was Brooklyn's answer to McGraw of the Giants,
who'd both been teammates in the 1890's on the legendary Baltimore team.
Hitherto good friends, Robinson and McGraw had had a falling out when Robinson was coaching for him, and I'm sure this added to the rivalry between the teams.

Uncle Robbie's underdogs won the NL pennant in 1916 and 1920, and I think they made a serious run again in 1924. So he was no joke as a manager, but he was comical;
Rotund, with a good sense of humor, I think one writer called him Falstaffian, and I'll go with that.

I believe it was Casey Stengel who orchestrated the following in spring training one year:
Someone was in the news about catching a baseball dropped from an airplane at 500'.
Uncle Robbie, former h-o-f catcher, said that he could do that, and soon enough a bet was made and a contest set up.
There was a real possibility of Uncle Robbie getting hurt in this stunt.
Casey Stengel got the airplane pilot to substitute a ripe grapefruit for the baseball.
The "ball" came down from 500', fluttering all the way, as you may imagine. But the old catcher managed to get under it.
When it hit his glove, of course it splattered all over Uncle Robbie's head.
I'm dead! I'm dead!" he screamed
While the team, the Press and the fans in attendance all rolled with laughter.

Thanks to Jobu for that incredible RPPC of the 1920 Brooklyn Robins, featuring Uncle Robbie's dog with the pipe in his mouth!
I don't remember ever seeing that before, and I think his dog captures who Uncle Robbie was.

[MVSNYC]

Cool thread...here's mine...

[dougscats]

You might ask how I can remember stuff that happened before I was born.

My love for baseball and its lore goes back to 1959-62, first with cards, then books, which my father [who enjoyed browsing in a used bookstore] would bring me.
So when I say that I remember anecdotes before my birth, it comes mainly from my memory of the books read then [some of which somehow I still have]:

The Brooklyn Dodgers, an Informal History by Frank Graham [Putnam and Sons, NY, 1945].
The Dodgers, An illustrated story of those unpredictable bums, by John Durant [Hastings House, NY, 1948].
Jackie Robinson, the MVP Series of 1949, by Bill Roeder [Barnes, NY, 1950].
Dodger Daze and Knights by Tommy Holmes [McKay, NY, 1953].

There were dozens more books by many great sportswriters from days of yore,
and I've read some of the best since that time, including the more modern classic, The Boys of Summer by Roger Angell.

Just so you know where I'm getting this stuff.

I left Exhibit cards off the Uncle Robbie post, most personally for me, Ivan Olson.
They called him Red-Neck Olson, my father once told me.
Why?
Because he made a lot of errors at third, and when the fans got on him his neck turned bright red.

I was going to show some pics from the books but decided not to, great as some of them are; this forum is for cards and memorabilia, and I don’t want to broaden it beyond that.
Frank Graham’s book is the best of those early ones, by the way, if I remember correctly.

[inceptus]

A couple of my favorite T206 portraits...

[dougscats]

Thanks for the T206 Rucker, inceptus. Nap was an early favorite of mine.

That card was the first in what developed into my Brooklyn Dodgers collection.
I bought it for $8 at one of the local card shows that we, my son and his best friend, used to go to, around 1994.
And I still have it in my T206 collection.

I collected T205's for awhile. In the end, I sold them, but kept the Brooklyn Superbas. Here they are [one Short Print short of Dahlen]:

[philliesfan]

Not really a Brooklyn Dodgers collector but I have pin.

1950 s Brooklyn Dodgers Pin With Glove Pic 1.jpg

[dougscats]

Thanks Jim for those shots of Erskine with a few more of the Boys of Summer, and also the Double-Play with Dolph Camilli, who helped lead to Brooklyn's emergence from the cellar in the 1940's.

Thanks again Doug Goodman for the scorecard and the ticket stub.
I have two ticket stubs: one from the third game of the 1941 WS [not the infamous game where catcher Mickey Owen "dropped" the third strike which would've ended the game,
which instead was then won by the Yankees],
And a second ticket stub from the second game of the 1955 WS--the one and only Brooklyn Dodgers World Championship!--

The 1943 game I guess was attended by my father; the 1955 game, my brother, so these are personal relics, and I'm going to add the '55 scored WS program when I dig it up.

I see from the back of the 1956 card that the Dodgers won nine NL pennants.
Here are the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers, the Topps edition:

PS. I have included the backs of these cards; I hope it's not too much. But these backs are neat, and we are baseball card enthusiasts after all.

[dougscats]

Not to overlook that Dodgers key chain; thanks Philliesfan.
And I'll add that the Phillies and the Dodgers had a kinship and were rivals of a sort during the decade of the Great Depression:
They battled it out for the cellar most years, and were two of baseball's all-time worst teams.

I'm a Met fan now, since 1962, and I know about all-time worst teams.

I'd love to see someone post a Casey Stengel from when he managed the Bums. I have some book photos, but no card;
I once saw one on ebay, labeled, "Casey Stengel, wrinkled".
That was both a perfect description of the card and the shot of Casey.

Also, thanks GeoPoto for that interesting Cuban card of Glass-Arm Eddie Brown.
I didn't remember him, so I checked him out. Seems like he was a very good ballplayer and a strong hitter for a few years.

Since no one has changed the theme, I'm going to post my personal favorite modern baseball cards:
the Bowman sets from 1952, and 1951, which are identical except for the names [typeset as opposed to autographed].
Note: My scans of 1951, page 2, were over 2 MG, too big. My apologies to those Dodgers, but many of them appear in 1952 set, so I'll leave them out for now.

[MK]

A few pins.

[mybuddyinc]

.............. 2 Dodgers ..... ............... and 2 Tip-Tops ............

brkdd.jpg

Fun, fun, Scott

[gonefishin]

I thought Doug and others might appreciate this beauty of a scorecard. Jackie Robinson's first home run against the Giants on April 18, 1947 against the Giants.

[gonefishin]

Also a couple of photos from the World Series picture packs.

[inceptus]

Back in 1942 my then 11-year-old father wrote a letter to his beloved Dodgers. He received in return a book autographed by the author and 10 or so players/coaches (which I lost track of at some point during my teen years) and the below letter.

My dad passed away when I was just 12, and I've held onto the letter ever since. I sent it to PSA last month to have the Larry MacPhail autograph authenticated, but it turned out to be a secretarial signature...

[bleeckerstreetcards]

just picked up this 55 WS team signed ball last night

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by inceptus

I sent it to PSA last month to have the Larry MacPhail autograph authenticated, but it turned out to be a secretarial signature...

Who cares what they think?

Even if they're right Larry's "spirit" is in that letter, just like your dad's is.

[Topnotchsy]

Lineup cards from Sal Maglie's no-hitter

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

I thought Doug and others might appreciate this beauty of a scorecard. Jackie Robinson's first home run against the Giants on April 18, 1947 against the Giants.

Anybody reading this thread better appreciate it.

[egri]

Some of the Dodgers highlights from my signed 1953 Topps set. The only Dodger I stll need is Jim Gilliam. I've seen him on plenty of other Topps issues, but the 1953 is elusive. It must have somthing to do with him being a high number.





Campanella came from another member here.







Received TTM in August 2014.



Recieved TTM in November 2014.





And Clem Labine giving several of the neighborhood boys a pitching lesson. He has his arm around my uncle Michael, which would date this picture to around 1960 or so.

[dougscats]

This is very gratifying, seeing all these treasures, many of which I've never seen before,
And many more in better condition than my own, which I won't need to post.
As you've seen, condition is not much of a priority for me in this collection.

But first to address:

Originally Posted by inceptus ...
I sent it to PSA last month to have the Larry MacPhail autograph authenticated, but it turned out to be a secretarial signature...

[Doug Goodman's reply:] Who cares what they think?

Even if they're right Larry's "spirit" is in that letter, just like your dad's is.

Thanks Doug Goodman for eloquently expressing my feelings as well.

And to inceptus, enough to say I can relate.
Much of my love for the Brooklyn Dodgers stems from my father.
And that bond with fathers and baseball is probably a common denominator, happily, for many of us. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks--
Gonefishin, for that Jackie rookie, homerun scorecard; I doubt that there are many of them around. And for the '55 Series photo of hometown boy, rookie Sandy Koufax.
That's some set of Dodger pins and such, MK, some unique stuff there.
And a great autograph collection, egri. Good luck getting Gilliam, who turned out to have a great career.
I could pick out Clem Labine by his signature bushy haircut!
Beautiful autographed ball of the champs, bleeckerstreetcards; I also like that out of the mainstream 1955 Double-Header of Gilliam.
And for that lineup card of the Sal [the Barber] Maglie no-hitter, Topnotchsy. I just checked out Sal's record. He won 117 games in all, mostly for the Giants, and played for all three NY teams.

Also, Thanks Scott for those scans of the short-lived Brooklyn Federales as well as the Coupons with Zach Wheat.

I'm posting a miscellany of Zach and his early teammates on some T202's and E cards. I forgot to scan the back of the T202, captioned, Zach Wheat Strikes Out. Looks like a big swing by a powerful lefty, like he'd fit well into today's game.

[Yoda]

I grew up in a suburb of NYC in the 1950's. It has been referred to as the quiet decade with nothing really happening, except if you want to count The Korean War, Ike's heart attack and the closure of the Suez Canal. Tame compared to today.
Our neighborhood was middle class and white. We kids and pets roamed freely, doors were left unlocked and new neighbors were sincerely welcomed. In retrospect, it was a great time to grow up.
Baseball was certainly the 'National Pastime' back then. Of course, in those days, NYC was blessed with 3 ML teams, the Dodgers, Giants and the Yankees. It was inevitable that the neighborhood was divided into rival camps of team supporters. I immediately took to the Dodgers and it has been a lifetime thing for me. I still remember vividly watching the 1951 NL playoff game between the Dodgers and the Giants. Time stood still when Thompson hit his blast, Branca slumped on the mound and Russ Hodges keep screaming, "The Giants have won the Pennant, etc." The asshole. Afterword, I sobbed uncontrollably all the way home. My mother thought I had broken my leg.
Fortunately for both of us, my Dad also loved 'Dem Bums' so we made several memorable trips to Ebbetts Field. I loved that little box of a stadium. It felt loved. Three plays I saw on these visits are forever etched in my memory bank; Jackie Robinson stealing home, Billy Cox fielding well-executed bunt one handed and throwing from a near horizontal position a perfect strike to nail the runner, and perhaps my favorite, Duke Snider, the Duke of Flatbush, clobbering a Sal Magle fast ball into outer space, soaring over the old Schaffer Beer (awful stuff) sign in right field.
Probably the Crown Jewel of my Dodger stuff is a mounted display with a great photo of Jackie and Gil Hodges and a teletype clip about some great play they made together above the photo. Below are cancelled checks from both of them. Jackie's is interesting since it shows the payee on the check to be Ida Campanella. The mind wanders.
This is a great thread. Dodger Blue forever.

[Kawika]

Spent the first decade of my life, which commenced in 1950, in NYC and its environs. I appointed myself a Giants fan for reasons I can't remember and love 'em more than ever now that I'm familiar with their illustrious history. They left town a couple of years after I was cognizant of the National Pastime. Saw them play a couple of times at the Polo Grounds and that was it. Never once went to a game at Ebbets. The best I could manage was a drive-by look on a trip to Brooklyn with my Mom who grew up there. (Yoda, I read your post and turned green with envy). Saw a lot of Yankee games which wasn't so bad except I "hated" the Yankees, and the Dodgers too, according to the unwritten rule of NY baseball. Lived in LA later in my youth, grew to respect the Dodger organization and to sorta like them. Am meh on the Yanks, like rooting for the Roman Empire.

Here's a few Dodgers-related items in my hoard collection.

Zach Wheat, age 17 in 1905


A Dodgers quartet in 1938


A sequence of photos by the Harry M Stevens Co used as advertising inventory in 1939.





A nice SI cover of Don Newcombe


From the Cold Dead Hands department . .

[GeoPoto]

Dodgers at the Harlem Y.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[REG1976]

Go DODGERS

[Kutcher55]

[dougscats]

Hi Yoda.
We share similar backgrounds, though you predate me with that 1951 memory of "the shot heard round the world."
I never heard Russ Hodges described like that before!

I grew up in Bay Ridge Brooklyn in the 1950's.
Probably the first game I vaguely remember hearing was on the radio, on a drive home from a wonderful weekend outing at Peach Lake.
The announcers were discussing some controversy over Duke Snider and something he said about his salary.
I didn't quite understand, but then it dawned on me,
You mean he gets paid to play? I asked my father.

Doug Goodman,
How faulty is my memory. I have a 1956, not 1955 WS program/scorecard [I note that my older, then 13 year old brother did not know how to score, though he was neat].

Still, they were the defending World Champions, up two games to none after a 13-8 thrashing that this scorecard attests to.
What happened?

The Yankees.

Wait'll next year.

Which of course was to be the last.

Nice stuff, Kawika. Love that shot of the Babe crooning with the Dodgers.
And the Ebbets Field fences in 1939.

I couldn't fit [get under 2 MB] the front page of the 1956 WS Program. It's a bit oversized and I'm a dinosaur on the computer. But I was able to get half the scorecard.

My all-time favorite is Gil Hodges.
He would have played without getting paid, I just knew.

Finally in the Hall of Fame, this WWII Marine Sergeant veteran was a born leader of men, first as a player on the field, and then as a manager.
No one can know what Jackie went through, but it must have helped him a little to know Gil Hodges had his back.
I saw him once in the 1960's in Leemark Lanes; he had the big hands.

PS. Thanks Kutcher55 for all those nice-looking cards of the Boys of Summer.
I was going to show all those teams with Gil--but it was way too many--Now I can delete most of them, though I'm going to have to reshoot my scans.
I'll do that now, but first post this: