Warren Spahn - Why No Hobby Love?

[bk400]

Originally Posted by Carter08

I grew up watching baseball in the 80s but only more recently got into collecting vintage. Spahn is by far my favorite vintage player. What an awesome guy. His 48/49 leaf probably takes the cake for what I think is the coolest card ever made.

Grumpy side note: I had a type 1 photo he autographed. Bought it for a reasonable amount, and then sold it to someone when I didn’t think it fit well with my collection. That person took it to heritage and it was auctioned off as his earliest known photo in a baseball uniform and went for 7 times as much. Ooops.

I love that card also!

[andypcl]

Wondered about Spahn memorabilia as well. Not sure where I got this but Marasco was a Milwaukee Sentinel cartoonist. I've got a couple of these blank backed postcard sized cards. This one's for his 300th win...

[pclpads]

Like so many of his time, he had the misfortune to have signed with the Braves instead of New Yawk.

[Hankphenom]

Monster talent, his numbers a throwback to an earlier era. I'm on his right here, Kevin Keating on his left. Kevin got very close to Spahnie and would accompany him to Cooperstown every year. He was with Warren at his ranch the night he passed away.

[Carter08]

Great picture. Seemed like a pretty humble guy for being a war hero and an all time great.

[raulus]

Just be glad his stuff can still be had for a relative bargain so that you can load up without breaking the bank.

I used to complain that Mays got no love due to his previous extreme discount to Mantle. Now that the gap has shrunk, it means that I can’t pick up a lot of the stuff that I covet, which is a major buzzkill.

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Carter08

Great picture. Seemed like a pretty humble guy for being a war hero and an all time great.

I've heard that hearing bullets whizzing by your head and artillery shells bursting all around you makes you humble pretty quickly.

[ooo-ribay]

Originally Posted by pclpads

Like so many of his time, he had the misfortune to have signed with the Braves instead of New Yawk.

I think you hit on something there, in regard to collectibility status.

[71buc]

Warren was the Frank Robinson of pitchers.

[obcbeatle]

"Spahn & Sain and pray for rain", or something like that Being a Braves/Giants collector I have quite a few Spahn's. Waddell & Koufax had unhittable stuff. Spahn had great stuff AND endurance. I really need to read the Spahn/Marichal game book, and they both had a huge leg kicks!!

[Topnotchsy]

I think there are many factors that come to play, though I'm not a big believer in the NY factor. There aren't exactly a ton of huge value pitchers from NY either.

Spahn had an extremely impressive career and a more impressive life, but he isn't the profile of a pitcher who becomes highly collected. While he did league the league in K's for 4 of his 21 seasons, he never K'd 200 in a season and his career total is not 2583, which is nice but not crazy. His K/9 for his career is 4.4, which is extremely low.

Additionally, while he was often a very good pitcher, he was only rarely an elite pitcher. His ERA+ was consistently in the 115-125 range, which is solid but not special. He had 2 seasons (1947 and 1953) when he was absolutely elite. He won just 1 Cy Young award (in 1957 which ironically was one of his solid, but not great seasons) and much of his value is in the sheer number of innings he pitcherd. His 162 game avg BWAR is 4.4 which reflects a very solid, but not remarkable pitcher.

Spahn's consistency and longevity resulted in some incredible career numbers, but his 119 ERA+ is the same as Red Faber, Ron Guidry, Bobby Shantz and Bob Lemon, some very good pitchers, but not all-time greats.

The pitchers who get collected are those who put up elite, elite numbers and are 'must watch' baseball. Spahn was boringly very good for a very very long time.

[icollectDCsports]

Originally Posted by 71buc

Warren was the Frank Robinson of pitchers.

GREAT analog.

[Beercan collector]

Originally Posted by 71buc

Warren was the Frank Robinson of pitchers.

Yep and/or his more contemporary Stan Musial