T205 Set-Why no Plank and Wagner

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Posted By: Paul

Not to be disagreeable, but I think most of those missing stars are easily explained:

Mack - I believe T205 has a pretty limited selection of managers.

Alexander - A rookie. A very good rookie, but that wasn't known until the set was in production.

Donlin - Retired for the 1909 and 1910 seasons. He played a partial season in 1911 when T205 was issued. My guess is that he was not on any active roster when the set was put together.

Plank and Wagner - I agree with the theory that whatever caused their removal from T205 kept them out of T206. The American Tobacco Company didn't want to play with fire twice.

Donovan - A good player, but at the tail end of his career, so it's not a great surprise that he's missing.

Wood - His breakout year was 1912, after T205 was issued. He was a regular for Boston in 1910 and 1911, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to think he would be in the set. But it's also not a shock that he's missing. He's also not in the T206 set.

Hooper - He was far from a star when the 1911 season began. He had just one full season behind him and batted only .267.

Jackson - When the 1911 season began, he had played only 30 games his whole career.

Coombs, Lajoie, and Crawford -- These seem to me to be the only difficult to explain missing stars. I don't know why they're missing, but there are a lot of sets with a few missing stars.

I still think that if a second series was planned, then a few players from among Cobb, Mathewson, Collins, Speaker, Cy Young, Brown, etc. would have been held back.