Ed Stevens & The Case of The 1947 Tip Top Bread

[STL1944]

Growing up, I remember listening to Paul Harvey and “The Rest of the Story…” on the radio (doesn’t that sound quant now?). Anyway, I had a “The Rest of the Story…” moment recently.

I was putting some autographed cards I had bought a couple of years ago into top loaders. I don’t usually buy autographed cards but I had bought a group on impulse. As I was loading the cards, I noticed the card pictured below: an autographed 1947 Tip Top Bread (reprint) card of Ed Stevens. As I was putting the card in the top loader, I notice Ed’s signature: extremely shaky. For some reason I found this interesting; was this a real signature?

A quick search on Google revealed others of Ed’s signatures have the same shaky handwriting. I am guessing something later in life caused Ed's hand to shake. This made me appreciate the autograph more as it meant Ed had to exert some effort into signing the card and fight through the shaking hands.

This piqued my curiosity. So, who was Ed Stevens? (The baseball player not the fictional character from the TV show ED)

Ed was a decent, but not outstanding ballplayer who was in the major leagues for 6 years and spanned 375 games. He had a lifetime batting average of .252 and hit 28 homeruns in his career.

So, why is Ed Interesting? Where is the “Rest of the Story?”

On the card below, Ed Stevens was listed as the first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers. Ed had been the primary first baseman for the Dodgers in 1946 and had bested a handful of hopefuls during spring training in 1947 to secure the starting job. Only to have Branch Rickey to make a last-minute decision to replace him with…


Jackie Robinson.


Instead of getting the starting role, Ed became a replacement player and only got to play in 5 games that season. The good news for Ed is that he did get a chance to play the following season for Pittsburg where he replaced a retiring…


Hank Greenburg.


So, here is the story… I have a card signed by a player who was replaced by Jackie Robinson, ended up replacing Hank Greenburg and who had to put forth significant effort to actually sign the card. While the card is probably not worth a lot, it has now become one of my favorites!


Of course, this does raise some questions for me:

- Why was Ed Stevens listed as the first baseman of the Dodgers on the 1947 Tip Top card? Was the artwork for the cards completed before the start of the season?

- How much more popular would the 1947 Tip Top Bread set be today had it contained the first Jackie Robinson card?