1936 German Olympic baseball and basketball cards

[Ribbens]

Picked up a lot of German Olympic cards including a baseball card featuring players from an Exhibition game at the '36 Olympics ( attended by 90,000 in Berlin ) and a basketball card from the same Pet Cramer set featuring the USA Gold medal game over Canada 19-8. The baseball team was comprised of players mainly from the USA. Does anyone know if the roster included any Major Leaguers ? Does anyone know the players on this card ?

[brianp-beme]

Found this on Baseball Reference website. Below are the players from both teams, all from the United States, that played in the exhibition. Evidently the exhibition was arranged by the manager and former Major League player Leslie Mann, who also served as an umpire for the game. One of the other coaches, Harry Wolter, spent time in MLB as well as the PCL.

Bill Sayles pitched briefly in 1939 for Boston Red Sox, and 1943 for the Giants and Dodgers. He is the only player that appears to have made it to the majors. Presumably the two catchers featured on the card would be Henry Wagnon and Norman Livermore that are listed below.

Brian


Uniform # Name Position Hometown Club
1 Grover H. Galvin CF Rockford, IA
2 Les McNeece 2B Fort Lauderdale, FL
3 Dow Wilson SS Malden, MA University of Nebraska
4 Paul Amen 1B Lincoln, NE University of Nebraska
4 Fred Heringer P Clarksburg, CA Stanford University
5 Clarence Keegan 3B Robinson, ME
6 Hubert S. "Bill" Shaw 1B Presque Isle, ME Bowdoin College
7 Tom Downey RF Chula Vista, CA
8 Gordon Mallatratt 2B San Francisco, CA Stanford University
9 Charlie Simons P Alban, PA
11 Richard Hanna RF San Francisco, CA Stanford University
12 Ron Hibbard CF Kalamazoo, MI
15 Bill Sayles P Portland, OR University of Oregon
16 Emmett Fore LF Houston, TX
17 Hyman Goldberg LF Brooklyn, NY
18 Rolf Carlsten SS Philadelphia, PA University of Pennsylvania
19 Curtis Myers RF Hartford, CT
20 Ernest Eddowes 3B Philadelphia, PA
22 Carson Thompson P Philadelphia, PA Temple University, Penn AC
26 Henry Wagnon C Bostwick, GA University of Georgia
27 Norman "Ike" Livermore C San Rafael, CA Stanford University

Harry Wolter Coach California Stanford University
Les Mann Manager Nebraska Former MLB player
Dinty Dennis Assistant Manager Miami Herald sports editor

[Cozumeleno]

I've got some of those issues pertaining to the 1936 Olympics and believe I also have those cards as well. That exhibition between the US was interesting. The US was actually supposed to play Japan but the Japanese team backed out, which led to some scrambling and the US essentially playing itself. SABR wrote about it here.

Here are some other 1936 Olympics cards I've got featuring the basketball and hockey team. These are from the similar Reemtsma sets.