Throughout my five-year tenure as host of SABR’s podcast, my company included numerous authors, and at the very least three of their books had been promoted with pocket-sized cardboard objects that look loads like baseball playing cards.
The books:
Intentional Balk (Dan Levitt & Mark Armour)
The Captain and Me (Ron Blomberg and Dan Epstein)
Split Season: 1981 … (Jeff Katz)
I like all three books, together with (in fact) their authors.
In all three instances, the entrance of the “card” duplicates the ebook cowl, whereas the again comprises promotional info fairly than baseball info (the again of Jeff’s card does have some conventional back-of-the-card design parts).
One other SABRCast visitor, Eric Nusbaum, created a complete (and wonderful) set of six playing cards along with his Seymour Medal-winning ebook, Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between. 4 of the playing cards depict “civilians” who battled the destruction of the (largely) Mexican-American communities that used to exist on (and close to) the positioning of Dodger Stadium, with one other card that includes Walter O’Malley. However the sixth is likely to be described as a Duke Snider card that, when you’re a completist, you may really want. Like Jeff’s Cut up Season card, Eric’s Stealing Residence playing cards do have some acquainted design parts on the backs, though the one express baseballness is an overhead, monotone view of Dodger Stadium.
It’s clear that a number of love went into these playing cards, which profit drastically from illustrator Adam Villacin’s portraits.
Going again a couple of years, Jonah Keri may have been the primary to situation a card to advertise his ebook that reproduced the book cover however was not player-centric (though sure, Andre Dawson does make an look).
Are all these baseball playing cards, although? Are any of them?
Let’s return to first rules, i.e. this query: What’s a baseball card?
Critical query. As a result of I don’t know. I figured somebody has written about this query, although, and possibly even answered it.
I used to be proper! 4 years in the past, Nick Vossbrink wrote about it!
Now, Nick was not eager about defining “baseball card”; fairly, he was eager about working by a taxonomy of cardness. Which was, is, and shall endlessly be a worthy train.
As a result of I got here right here to do one thing else, although, let me run by just some associated, subsidiary questions…
Is a postcard a baseball card?
As all my buddies know, I adore postcards and relish any likelihood to jot down about them (and even higher, on them). However, you understand, a postcard isn’t a baseball card. It’s not a baseball card if it’s a postcard designed for mailing; it’s additionally not a baseball card if it’s the measurement of a postcard with promotional info – blurbs in regards to the ebook, publication date, that type of factor – on the again. That’s a postcard-sized flier. For me.
What a few bookmark?
Similar reply.
Is {a photograph} a baseball card?
This one’s slightly trickier, as a result of (as you understand) there have been many units of images – a few of them completely beautiful – which have been marketed identical to conventional playing cards: as units, and thus virtually inherently collectible. That doesn’t make them baseball playing cards. For me. For me they’re simply baseball footage, good for framing or tacking to your bulletin board.
Okay, however what in regards to the (undoubtedly) gorgeous T3 Turkey Reds?
I’d say no! These had been artwork prints, presumably supposed for hanging in your wall.
Skipping forward, there are (for me) three major parts that make a baseball card:
One, a picture of (often) uniformed personnel.
Two, some design ingredient that claims this isn’t simply a picture.
And three, info on the again (reverse). It doesn’t should be voluminous info. However I believe the again of the cardboard ought to be one other manner, nonetheless minor, to get pleasure from or at the very least recognize the cardboard, and it ought to be immediately associated to the picture on the entrance.
I do know you.
I do know your head’s already selecting holes on this easy definition…
Do we actually want all three parts? And even two?
I don’t know. One in every of my favourite units is Topps’s glossy 1984 All-Star Set – and I don’t know why I’m saying ‘84, since these had been primarily the identical from 1983 by ‘86 – which is virtually design-free (hey, much less is extra buddy!) and embody primarily zero info on the again.
However these are clearly baseball playing cards. You’re not going to slap a stamp on one, the picture isn’t simply a picture, it’s precisely the identical measurement as modern (pocket-sized) playing cards, and you could possibly purchase your very personal All-Star playing cards by sending in redemption playing cards that got here in packs of … baseball playing cards!
So these All-Star playing cards are baseball playing cards, simply because the 1953 Bowmans are baseball playing cards. They’re simply not as baseball-cardy because the ‘53 Bowmans, as a result of the backs of the playing cards don’t make us any smarter.
Is one thing a baseball card (or not) as a result of another person says so?
No. You get to resolve. Similar to I needed to resolve … what qualifies as a baseball card used to promote a baseball ebook.
Sure, buddies, we lastly have returned to the precise topic of this text.
I used to “gather” baseball books, however lastly stopped as a result of I ran out of house. Now I’d prefer to discover a blissful house for many of them, however that’s an issue for an additional day (and possibly for my spouse, once I’m lifeless).
I used to gather baseball playing cards, too, however (largely) stopped for a similar types of causes. One factor I can’t resist, although? Books with baseball playing cards. Partially as a result of they make for such excellent bookmarks! (and sure, these postcard-sized fliers are nice bookmarks, too; so are precise baseball playing cards, in fact, which is why there’s an Ernie Whitt card in my Ernie Whitt ebook)
With a couple of such cardboard rectangles already in hand – these above, and a few under – I went trying to find extra, with an ambition to jot down an article one thing just like the one you’re now studying, on the historical past of such ephemera…
The earliest candidate I discovered goes again greater than a century, per this description of an item from Heritage Auctions (circa 2015):
Uncommon 1923 John McGraw “My Life In Baseball” Actual Photograph Promo. As each a participant and supervisor, the profession of John McGraw lasted over forty years from 1891 by 1932… In 1923 McGraw wrote about his profession in his ebook “My Thirty Years In Baseball” by Boni and Liveright of New York. Supplied is a uncommon actual photograph promo card asserting the publication of the ebook. The three-7/8″ x 6″ promo photograph is on fragile single weight paper. A number of creases have accomplished little or no to decrease the visible attraction of the waist-high portrait of “Mugsy” in his New York Giants pinstripes. Paper is adhered to the reverse together with some sort of sticker, pencil notations recommend this merchandise was used for a newspaper advert. Truthful situation with robust photograph high quality.
With out seeing a distinct model, we must always permit for the chance that these had been produced, not as promotional playing cards for consumers of the ebook, however fairly for newspapers and magazines, possibly booksellers, when constructing print advertisements for the ebook.
Additionally, I believe this one qualifies as a {photograph} fairly than a baseball card. For apparent causes, together with the “fragile single weight paper” and the dearth of any content material in any respect on the reverse of the picture. It could have been nice to get this along with your ebook in 1923. However I don’t assume it will then have been, or ought to be now, thought-about as a baseball card (or buying and selling card, or no matter actual playing cards had been referred to as again then).
Quick-forward 27 years to 1950, once I consider Connie Mack’s memoir My 66 Years within the Huge Leagues was the primary baseball ebook accompanied by buying and selling playing cards. Or to be extra exact, with actual playing cards immediately related.
Printed throughout Mack’s final season as A’s supervisor, the title My 66 Years suggests an autobiography, however it’s unlikely that Mack was really concerned a lot with the ebook, as big swaths of Mack’s profession had been ignored, whereas there’s loads of room for complete chapters with thrilling titles like To the Girls! and Excessive Faculties and Nationwide Protection (no, actually).
In Norman Macht’s magisterial three-volume biography of Mack, we discover only one paragraph about My 66 Years, which incorporates this: “The ebook comprises a glancing historical past of the sport, anecdotes, a smattering of biography, and many footage. The quilt value was $2.50; half of Mack’s royalties went to the Junior Baseball Federation of Philadelphia to purchase tools for sandlot groups.”
(That very same summer time, there was a fair slip-shoddier Mack-branded effort: Connie Mack’s Baseball E book, an tutorial ebook for youths. In accordance with commercials, every ebook ordered by mail could be personally signed by the octogenarian himself. You gotta marvel about that, and most or all the eBay sellers who point out or depict the signature describe it as “facsimile”).
Looking back, probably the most attention-grabbing factor about Mack’s memoir? There have been … baseball playing cards!
It’s simply not clear who obtained them, or how.
We all know there was a fairly important advertising and marketing push for the ebook itself. Take, for instance, this commercial within the April 19 (1950) situation of The Sporting Information, the place beneath the heading of SEND NO MONEY, we learn, “This ebook isn’t just successful–it’s a HOMER! You’ll thrill to each web page. Simply mail coupon (with out cash). Deposit with postman its value of $2.50 (plus few cents postage). If not delighted with the ebook, return it in 7 days and your $2.50 will likely be refunded.”
With out cash! Deposit with postman! Are you able to think about?
The advert doesn’t point out any playing cards. It does point out:
25 Huge Chapters!
272 Pages!
75 Images, Together with Many Unique Ones!
However no playing cards. So it does not appear they had been routinely included with the ebook.
There most actually had been playing cards, although. 4 of them, to be exact: Babe Ruth, Rube Waddell, Christy Mathewson, and Mack himself, in an historical picture from his nineteenth century enjoying days.
Sure, my buddies, these are baseball playing cards. Sturdy, iconic photos on the entrance of the cardboard, with the again itemizing the participant’s groups by 12 months, adopted by a brief profession abstract from (supposedly) Mack’s perspective (apart from the Mack card, which is written within the third particular person). Additionally on the backs of three playing cards: a promise that Mack will share extra recollections of the participant in his ebook.
Now, what that promise strongly suggests is that the playing cards didn’t come with the ebook, however as an inducement to get the ebook. And in reality, in accordance with a 2020 SCD story, “The playing cards had been packaged collectively in a folder seemingly despatched to reviewers and others in hopes of garnering publicity.”
In 2024, Submit Conflict Playing cards revealed a short article about these cards, with nice photos of not solely the Ruth card (back and front), but additionally the unique folder that contained the 4 playing cards (because the copy within the folder says immediately). Whereas the SCD story says it was “seemingly despatched to reviewers and others in hopes of garnering publicity,” it was clearly meant to do greater than that, as a result of the folder contains an order kind. One can think about an extended record of “others” however I’ll guess it was despatched to distinguished booksellers, who might order copies for $2.50 apiece after which possibly mark up the value for purchasers?
Or possibly not! My copy of My 66 Years has $2.50 printed on the inside flyleaf of the dustjacket, and I don’t know if a bookseller might have offered it for extra. It simply doesn’t appear seemingly that reviewers could be given the prospect to purchase copies of the ebook. A minimum of not as a advertising and marketing technique. Then once more there have been at the very least three distinct editions of the ebook, together with a “journal” model, so who is aware of what number of distribution and gross sales schemes had been tried.
What we will guess is that not many playing cards had been distributed, given how uncommon they appear to be now. A current examine of eBay revealed just some playing cards from the set, all of them fairly high-priced.
(Associated information: Talking of high-priced, in My 66 Years, Mack named his All-Time All-Star Workforce, most of which was immortalized the subsequent 12 months with a ravishing – and now fairly dear! – set of 11 cards. Nevertheless, someway (ebook) All-Timers Ty Cobb, Cy Younger, and Lefty Grove didn’t get playing cards within the set, whereas Grover Alexander did. So it wasn’t precisely Mack’s “ebook group”, and there’s no point out of the ebook on the cardboard backs.)
As finest I can inform, it will be one other 35 years till respectable baseball playing cards had been used to market one other ebook. This picture, I believe, speaks completely properly for itself:
A lot cardness: a traditional picture on the entrance, and on the again (not pictured right here), Mickey’s profession document, 12 months by 12 months. The designer did waste a chance, as there’s room beneath the statistics for biographical info, or a fast abstract of Mantle’s profession. As an alternative there’s simply white house.
Besides on some playing cards, most likely most playing cards really, that house was occupied by nationwide bookstore chain names, together with B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, and Crown Books (there might need been others, however these are the three I’ve seen). My guess is that the white house playing cards went to everybody else, however that vacancy wasn’t the designer’s fault.
We all know this card was used to advertise the mass-market paperback version of The Mick (Jove, 1986). Says it proper there on the entrance. I’ve no concept how the cardboard was distributed, although. You may assume that once you purchased the ebook, an worker forked over one in every of these playing cards, too. But when that was the plan, why embody the promotional info under the picture of Mantle? In case you’ve simply paid for the ebook, you don’t must understand it’s out there in April.
I might need purchased the ebook myself, however I’ve no reminiscence of it. My hope is that somebody studying this can bear in mind getting the cardboard almost 40 years in the past, and the way they obtained it.
Subsequent up? Orel Hershiser.
Hershiser’s first ebook, Out of the Blue, was initially revealed in 1989 by Wolgemuth & Hyatt, a small agency that specialised in faith-based books. The ebook apparently did fairly properly, and Constitution revealed the ebook in paperback the subsequent spring. I can not discover any connection between Jove and Constitution, however when you examine these two playing cards, fronts and backs, it’s apparent that whoever designed the Hershiser card both designed, or was well-acquainted with, the Mantle card from 4 years earlier.
This is likely to be my single favourite card within the style, as a result of the picture just isn’t one we’d have anticipated. In fact Hershiser hadn’t been an Albuquerque Duke in a while, so I think the writer couldn’t get permission from the Dodgers to publish a photograph (or didn’t wish to pay regardless of the Dodgers wished for such permission).
Anyway, all the things labored out and plainly many hundreds of those playing cards had been printed and distributed. Once more, simply guessing right here … however I think that bookstores – or whoever was promoting piles of mass-market paperbacks 35 years in the past – had been despatched containers of the playing cards, and handed them out to anybody who appeared . Bear in mind, this was nonetheless the Junk Wax Period; playing cards had been scorching. Or lukewarm, anyway. And once more, I’d love to listen to from anybody who really remembers how these had been distributed (or has a greater guess than mine).
Like all junk wax, you could find piles of Out of the Blue Hershiser playing cards. I discovered a literal pile of them on eBay: 67 playing cards without delay. It’s a great card, although! I’m not saying it’s one of the best Hershiser card (that will be this one). But it surely’s hardly the worst, particularly when you’re a fan of New Mexico’s sacred crimson solar image.
I don’t assume I acquired both the Mantle or Hershiser card on the time. I do vaguely recollect having this Joe Morgan card, although, which positively got here with his 1993 memoir, Joe Morgan: A Life.
Plainly most copies did include a card, with the cardboard affixed to an inside cowl and a golden sticker on the entrance: INCLUDES SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION BASEBALL CARD. A fast-and-dirty examine of eBay revealed 32 copies of the ebook with the sticker, and 17 with out.
Loads of cardness right here. Whereas the picture is sorta promotional – it’s really simply the again of the ebook’s dustjacket – it’s a fairly image and the again, with out sufficient house for his lengthy, lengthy profession ledger, has one line for his profession stats however year-by-year postseason stats, together with an extended biographical notice. Among the many three modern playing cards right here, this again seems to be probably the most “actual”.
So, why didn’t card collectors simply head to their nearest B. Dalton, strip all of the Joe Morgan playing cards from the books and stroll proper out?
Effectively, I don’t know for certain.
I did join with the ebook’s editor, who advised me the books with cowl stickers and playing cards had been restricted to the primary version. Additionally, she wrote me, “I don’t have a agency recollection at this level, however I consider the books had been shrink-wrapped, which made grabbing the cardboard troublesome.”
So, thriller solved. (Perhaps. I can’t discover even one shrink-wrapped copy on eBay, however clearly the good majority of consumers would have ripped that proper off upon buying.)
I’ll now, precisely or not (caveats will come later), fast-forward to the current previous: 2019, when David Cone’s (and Jack Curry’s) ebook Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher was revealed by Grand Central.
Some months earlier than publication, I got here throughout an attractive provide: Order the ebook and obtain a baseball card signed by David Cone. I’m sorry to say I didn’t save the supply for this provide, and my efforts to succeed in somebody at Grand Central have been largely fruitless.
I do bear in mind this, although: I did get the ebook, learn and loved it a fantastic deal … after which after some months, had fully forgotten in regards to the card. When it lastly arrived within the mail late that summer time, or possibly within the fall, I imagined that Cone had merely taken his time signing the tons of (hundreds?) of playing cards his writer had promised. And I imagined that some pestering had been concerned. Frankly, that assumption carries one other assumption: that Cone is definitely the one who signed the playing cards.1
Both manner, it’s a fantastic card. I’m no fan of the massive borders on the entrance, however the again has a pleasant headshot and there’s loads of info, too.
One factor you may discover: on the entrance of the cardboard, there’s a 1 within the bottom-right nook. What may that imply? It’d imply that is simply Card #1 in a set, and I might swear that once I was engaged on this text a 12 months or two in the past, I discovered another playing cards with completely different photos (and numbers). However now, for the lifetime of me I can’t discover a single different instance by way of eBay or Google Pictures. And a) the TCDB lists only one 2019 promo card, plus b) Jack Curry, Cone’s co-author, remembers simply the one card. Perhaps it was a fever dream…
Most just lately, along with his glorious ebook Season of Shattered Dreams, Eric Vickrey created a positive set of six actual, undoubtable baseball playing cards: participant pictures on the fronts, with biographical info, 1946 statistics, and prolonged biographical slugs. Oh, and a black-and-white picture of the ebook’s cowl. However as this stuff go, the playing cards lean closely on custom fairly than promotion. Which makes their qualification a simple name.
So is that each one of them?
Effectively! That relies on the way you outline “baseball card.” For my cash, there have been solely 14 playing cards with sufficient baseball cardness to depend: Mantle, Hershiser, Morgan, Cone, the 4 Mack playing cards, and the six ’46 Spokane Indians. The remainder of them – those listed atop this survey, plus all those I haven’t seen – don’t fairly qualify … with the potential exception of Nusbaum and Villacin’s Duke Snider card.
That’s all I’ve obtained as we speak. Right here’s the aforementioned caveat, although: I’m beneath zero illusions that I’ve discovered each instance of this style, or at the very least each candidate for this style. I imply, is it seemingly that a lot of the books with playing cards within the final 30 years occur to have been written by SABRCast company? Particularly given how simply anybody can create and print their very own playing cards, actually in just some minutes?
So in case you have something so as to add to the record, please drop them within the feedback.
Replace: STOP THE PRESSES! Proving my caveat, Jason Schwartz gracefully let me learn about a beautiful set of nine cards that Nick Vossbrink designed for SABR member Matthew Prigge’s 2023 ebook, Opening Day in Milwaukee. And eight of them are blessed with nice cardness!
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