Alvin Dark RIP

[powderfinger]

Don Johnson passed away in either December or January. Al Rosen also passed earlier this year. Harry Perkowski hasn't returned mail for approximately 10 months and I don't think Grammas was in the 52 set, though I didn't check before writing this. The list of living players from that iconic set grows shorter all the time. Yogi is still with us, but his mail is being returned with a note that he's no longer able to sign. Willie Mays is virtually blind and only signs on rare occasions for a large fee. Players like Ned Garver and Ed Fitz Gerald still sign for free and others, like Wayne Terwilliger, Charlie Maxwell, Ed Robbinson and others charge $5 or $10 per request. Al Dark was a great signer, though his autograph was very shaky over the past few years. The men still living are very accommodating signers, and with most being in their 80s or 90s the hobby should be thankful they're such good guys.

[egri]

Originally Posted by powderfinger

and others, like Wayne Terwilliger, Charlie Maxwell, Ed Robbinson and others charge $5 or $10 per request. Al Dark was a great signer, though his autograph was very shaky over the past few years. The men still living are very accommodating signers, and with most being in their 80s or 90s the hobby should be thankful they're such good guys.

All postwar collectors should write to Wayne Terwilliger while he's still with us. "Twig" saw action with the Fourth Marine Divison on Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima during World War II. He has some amazing stories to tell, and is well worth the $5 fee. When I wrote to him, I mentioned that my neighbor was a USMC officer during the Vietnam War, and Terwilliger wrote back "Semper Fi to your neighbor, and tell him thanks for his service".

I wrote to Dark about a month and a half before his passing, and he was still signing even then. My SASE was stamped on the back "Unable to sign/Thank you for understanding", but he still signed my card. It must have been one of the last autographs he ever signed. I recall reading somewhere that Dark was stationed in China after the war, and the route they patrolled took them through territory controlled by the Chinese Communists, and they'd always make faces at each other. Then two weeks after Dark's unit was rotated out, the ChiComs massacred the Marines patrolling there.



I don't have a count of living players from the 1952 Topps set, but for my 1953 project, there were about 50 players still living when I started in July 2014, and 44 of them signed TTM for me. Some of those 44 have since died (Dark, Rosen, Pierce, Miller, Minoso...) but overall there are probably 40 or so players alive. That set was about 25% smaller than the 1952 set, and there is a lot of overlap between the two, so I would expect maybe 50-60 players from the 1952 set to still be alive.

[Bob Lemke]

This was posted on my blog on Aug. 1, 2015 . . .

On June 10, this blog featured a necrology of the players (and managers and coaches) who had appeared in the iconic 1952 Topps set.

On that date, there were 50 surviving players. Now there are 49.

Long-time Chicago White Sox left-handed ace Billy Pierce died Friday, July 31, at the age of 88.

Here's the current roster of surviving subjects from 1952 Topps.

1952 Topps old to young.jpg

[Drew]

Thanks Bob