The 1948 Leaf baseball card set is certainly one of my favorites of any period.
Moreover being loaded with Corridor of Famers and big-time rookie playing cards, a number of completely different quirks and options make it one of many interest’s most perplexing but stunning units.
For starters, there’s controversy round whether or not 1948 was the precise manufacturing date or not…
Loads of proof helps the case for 1949, however important interest influences like PSA, SGC, and public sale homes proceed referring to it because the 1948 Leaf set.
One other odd factor is the variety of skipped playing cards all through the guidelines.
There are 98 playing cards within the set, however you will discover they’re numbered from 1 to 168, leaving fairly a couple of gaps.
Some speculate that many gamers had been eliminated and signed over for the 1948 Bowman launch.
Some marvel if it was a devious effort to encourage collectors to proceed shopping for and chasing playing cards that by no means had been.
And of the playing cards that did make it into manufacturing, many had been short-printed, making them much more difficult to gather.
No matter these quirks, many collectors take into account it some of the stunning of its period, that includes vivid colours when most units had been black and white and even bland.
And on this information, we’ll check out the 15 most precious.
Let’s leap proper in!
1948 Leaf #8 Satchel Paige Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $40,000
Satchel Paige reached the Main Leagues for the primary time in 1948.
It was lengthy, lengthy overdue.
Already the tallest of tales (with the strikeout arsenal to again it up), Paige lastly obtained his MLB probability in his early forties.
It was one yr after Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier.
The door was now open, and the best pitcher within the historical past of the Negro Leagues was prepared for his close-up.
What a close-up it was.
Paige signed with the Cleveland Indians on July seventh, his twenty fourth birthday.
He mowed down the American League from there, posting a 6-1 document with the second-best ERA within the circuit (2.48).
With simply three months of regular-season ball behind him, Paige was voted fourth for AL Rookie of the 12 months.
His looming presence within the rotation was the ultimate piece of a championship puzzle for Cleveland’s first pennant winner and World Sequence champ since 1920.
Except for being a highly-coveted rookie card by itself, Paige’s card was one of many key brief prints within the set, making it difficult to search out, particularly in excessive grade.
1948 Leaf #79 Jackie Robinson Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $12,500
1948 was the connective tissue between Jackie Robinson’s groundbreaking Rookie of the 12 months marketing campaign and his history-making MVP marketing campaign.
The person who built-in baseball in the end entered his sophomore season on a excessive.
In 1947, Robinson outran and outlasted the racially-charged response to his MLB debut, ending fifth within the AL MVP race whereas taking house ROTY honors.
Brooklyn ended one recreation shy of the franchise’s first World Sequence title, and hope sprang everlasting with Robinson blazing the basepaths.
1948, nevertheless, turned out to be a combined bag.
Brooklyn fell again to 3rd place within the NL at 84-70-1.
It was the membership’s sixth postseason miss in seven years.
Robinson earned down-ballot MVP consideration within the Dodgers’ down yr, slashing .296/.367/.453 with 12 house runs, 38 doubles, eight triples, 22 stolen bases, 108 runs, and 85 RBIs in 147 video games.
It was a advantageous yr.
It was additionally a mere footnote in comparison with what was coming subsequent.
1948 Leaf #3 Babe Ruth
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $6,000
Normally, a card produced outdoors of a participant’s enjoying days does not draw practically as a lot consideration or need as those who do.
Contemplating Ruth’s enjoying days had been over in 1935, and he handed away in 1948, this card is without doubt one of the most obtrusive exceptions to that “rule.”
However that is no strange set.
And Ruth was no strange participant.
The “Sultan of Swat” revolutionized baseball with unparalleled energy and charisma.
Starting as a dominant left-handed pitcher for the Boston Purple Sox, Ruth gained 89 video games and posted a 2.19 ERA, together with three World Sequence titles.
However, most will keep in mind him for his time with the New York Yankees from 1920 to 1934.
Whereas within the Bronx, he let his bat do the speaking.
Not solely may he hit for common, he may hit for energy.
Ruth led the league in house runs ten occasions throughout his fifteen seasons in pinstripes.
In 1927, he set the single-season house run document with 60, a mark that endured for 34 years.
Followers marveled at his towering blasts whereas he singlehandedly helped modernize the sport.
Mixed along with his larger-than-life persona, Ruth’s play on the sector solidified not solely his legacy as certainly one of baseball’s all-time greats, however as a cultural icon and American hero.
1948 Leaf #138 Larry Doby Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $3,750
An image says a lot.
Larry Doby’s embrace of teammate Steve Gromek endures as a testomony to a modified recreation.
Doby, the primary African American to play within the American League, hammered a game-winning solo homer to safe Sport 4 of the 1948 World Sequence for the Cleveland Indians.
Gromek, a 24-game winner and ace of the Cleveland employees, grabbed the W within the contest to provide the crew a 3-1 sequence lead.
Sitting only one recreation away from the franchise’s first World Sequence championship in 28 years, Doby and Gromek embraced with grins of childlike glee.
The photograph is now etched in baseball historical past.
“That was a sense from inside, the human aspect of two folks, one black and one white,” Doby recalled. “That made up for all the things I went by.”
Doby hit .318 within the Sequence, together with two hits within the clinching Sport 6.
1948 Leaf #98 Hal Newhouser Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $2,400
Hal Newhouser was already the intense spot in a colorless season for the 1948 Detroit Tigers.
It made sense that he was the primary Tigers pitcher to take the bump underneath the Briggs Stadium lights.
Tigers proprietor Walter O. Briggs wished no a part of evening baseball for over a decade.
In 1935, Cincinnati’s Crosley Subject introduced lights to the diamond for the primary time.
Since then, all however Chicago’s Wrigley Subject and Briggs Stadium adopted swimsuit.
In 1948, Briggs acquiesced.
The Tigers proprietor noticed how evening video games boosted attendance and curiosity for different groups, and now, he wished his a part of it.
Briggs put in eight large gentle towers with 1,386 complete bulbs.
It was an enormous taking place.
And who higher to chop the tape than the crew’s two-time AL MVP
Newhouser held the visiting A’s to a run and two hits in a 4-1 win.
He’d later name it certainly one of his favourite baseball moments.
1948 Leaf #4 Stan Musial Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $1,900
Stan Musial’s 1948 season has a compelling case for the best ever.
The enduring St. Louis Cardinals outfielder adopted his 1946 MVP efficiency with a down yr, however solely a down yr in Musial phrases.
He wasn’t down for lengthy.
Musial cracked the baseball code in 1948, tying Ty Cobb for probably the most five-hit video games in a season with 5.
He narrowly missed a Triple Crown solely as a result of one homer was rained out and one other was misjudged as a double.
Because it was, Musial completed one bomb brief with 39.
He set profession bests in common (.376) and RBIs (131) and paced the Majors in hits (230), doubles (48), triples (18), slugging proportion (.702), and complete bases (429).
It was the yr that Musial turned “Stan the Man.”
By no means was a nickname so becoming.
The second-place Cardinals completed 6.5 video games again within the pennant race, but it surely may have been a lot worse with out Musial’s unparalleled offensive show.
1948 Leaf #1 Joe DiMaggio
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $1,800
1948 was the ultimate yr that we noticed Joe DiMaggio in true “Yankee Clipper” type.
Accidents began to pile up for the New York Yankees heart fielder because the Nineteen Forties headed to an in depth.
He performed 153 video games in 1948, most hampered by a lingering bone spur in his proper heel.
You by no means noticed a DiMaggio swing with out some form of ache.
Nevertheless, he put that each one apart for yet one more MVP-level efficiency.
DiMaggio posted his finest batting common (.320), on-base proportion (.396), and OPS (.994) since his 1941 MVP yr.
He hit the second-most homers of his Corridor-of-Fame profession (an AL-best 39) and led the Majors in RBIs (155).
The numbers had been epic.
The toll, although, was actual.
After the Yankees closed out their third-place season, DiMaggio limped house along with his heel in unhealthy form.
He’d miss the primary two months of the 1949 marketing campaign with the damage and would by no means once more attain his former heights.
1948 Leaf #76 Ted Williams
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $1,800
Earlier than breaking The Curse in 2004, the Boston Purple Sox had been the kings of heartbreak.
1948 was an important instance of that.
Boston traded blows with the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees all season, with the AL pennant dangling within the stability.
With three video games left, the groups sat neck and neck.
Boston disposed of the Yankees with a two-game season-ending beatdown, establishing a pennant tiebreaker with Cleveland.
A well-known melancholy quickly adopted.
The Indians seized management of the sport with a four-run fourth, cruising to an 8-3 win.
It was the primary of two straight years Boston misplaced the pennant on the season’s last day.
Ted Williams went 1-for-4 on the day, ending one other masterful yr with a maddening loss.
The 29-year-old gained his fourth batting title in 5 tries (.369) and led the AL in a number of classes, together with OPS (1.112), doubles (44), walks (126), and OPS+ (189).
1948 Leaf #93 Bob Feller
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $1,700
It is merciless that certainly one of Bob Feller’s worst performances of the Nineteen Forties got here throughout a long-awaited march to a world championship.
Feller sputtered by the primary half of the 1948 marketing campaign, going 9-10 and giving 4 earned runs or extra in 12 of his 28 begins by July.
When Satchel Paige joined the crew midseason, Feller fell to fourth within the pecking order of high Indians starters.
Issues picked up within the second half, although, and the 29-year-old righty ended the common season because the MLB strikeout champ but once more (164).
All of it turned again round within the World Sequence.
The Indians stormed previous the Boston Braves in a six-game set, driving to their first title in 28 years.
Frustratingly, Feller took the 2 losses, surrendering eight earned runs in 14.1 innings.
It did not matter ultimately, but it surely was nonetheless a needling twist in a bizarre yr for the Corridor-of-Famer.
1948 Leaf #120 George Kell Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $1,100
George Kell obtained the worst of it twice through the 1948 season.
The Detroit Tigers third baseman was coming off a improbable 1947 marketing campaign during which he hit .320 and completed fifth for AL MVP.
That yr, Detroit completed second within the AL and appeared like a great wager to contend once more.
Nothing went as deliberate.
The Tigers ran in place a lot of the yr, falling to fifth within the pennant chase at 78-76.
Normal underperformance and accidents plagued the crew.
Kell suffered two of these accidents.
On Might eighth, the 25-year-old took a Vic Raschi pitch off the wrist, breaking it on the spot.
He sat out for over three weeks.
Three months later, Kell caught a brutal hop on a Joe DiMaggio floor ball that fractured his jaw.
The blow knocked him out and ended his season on the spot.
“From a private standpoint, 1948 turned out to be the worst yr of my profession,” Kell stated.
1948 Leaf #127 Enos Slaughter
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $750
Enos Slaughter’s 1948 season is not possible to dissect with out the context of the earlier yr.
On August twentieth, 1947, the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder slid wildly and spiked first into Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Jackie Robinson.
It appeared extreme, contemplating Slaughter had loads of area to keep away from Robinson when charging down the road.
“All I do know is that I had my foot on the within of the bag,” Robinson stated. “I gave Slaughter loads of room.”
Slaughter’s actions turned a supply of fierce debate.
Was he enjoying the sport with reckless abandon?
Or did he deliberately attempt to injure Robinson?
No matter the place the reality lies, Slaughter’s profession was by no means the identical.
In 1948, he completed seventh within the NL MVP poll with a .321 common and a .409 on-base proportion.
Nevertheless, regardless of his improbable play, Slaughter would proceed to face questions in regards to the fateful spiking of Jackie Robinson.
1948 Leaf #32 Warren Spahn Rookie Card
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $650
Warren Spahn labored by a lot of the 1948 season.
Nobody will keep in mind that.
Everybody will keep in mind how the Boston Braves legend teamed with fellow employees ace Johnny Sain to raise the crew to an NL pennant.
In early September, Spahn and Sain took the ball eleven occasions in a vital sixteen-game stretch.
The duo sealed the Nationwide League with a 9-2 mixed document.
There was even poetry written about it, an notorious ode by Boston Publish editor Gerry Hern which hoped “for rain” between begins from “Spahn and Sain.”
Spahn completed 15-12 on the yr with a 3.71 ERA and 114 strikeouts in 257.0 innings.
He adopted that up with two begins within the Sequence, splitting a Sport 2 loss to Cleveland with a season-extending win in Sport 5.
Boston misplaced the title the subsequent day in a 4-3 nailbiter.
Spahn appeared to shut issues out, surrendering a run within the last two innings of the Braves’ season.
1948 Leaf #75 Dom DiMaggio
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $600
As older brother Joe’s profession slowed, Dom DiMaggio hit his stride.
Two years Dom’s senior, Joe had one other Corridor-of-Fame worthy marketing campaign in 1948.
Nevertheless, a nagging heel damage forged a darkish cloud, finally placing his finest days behind him.
However, Dom was flying excessive for the rival Boston Purple Sox.
He earned down-ballot MVP mentions yearly from 1948 to 1951 and began a four-season stretch of All-Star appearances in 1949.
In 1948, the 31-year-old heart fielder performed all 155 video games for the Sox, together with the 8-3 AL pennant tiebreaker loss to Cleveland.
He led the Majors in plate appearances (756) and at-bats (648), slashing .285/.383/.401 with 9 house runs and 87 RBIs.
DiMaggio additionally drew a career-best 101 walks to go together with 127 runs scored.
He went 4-for-8 within the last two video games of the common season in opposition to the Yankees, ousting his brother from the pennant chase.
1948 Leaf #121 John Pesky
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $450
John Pesky all the time appeared undervalued.
Pesky acquired a 12.5% pay lower in 1947 regardless of main the Majors in hits in his first three Massive League seasons.
“They requested me what number of house runs I hit and what number of runs I had knocked in,” Pesky defined later.
Furthermore, Pesky was unceremoniously shifted from shortstop to 3rd base to make room for brand new acquisition Vern Stephens.
He by no means performed third at any degree and was pressured to study on the fly.
The rising pains had been simple to identify, making Pesky a goal of much more criticism.
It was numerous strain, and his batting common took the brunt.
Pesky dipped beneath .300 for the primary and solely time in his first seven MLB seasons (.281).
He’d adapt to issues quickly after, resuming his barrage of dinks, dunks, and drives into the hole.
Nevertheless, 1948 was a season-long headache, full with one heck of a studying curve.
1948 Leaf #70 Honus Wagner
Estimated PSA 3 VG Worth: $400
After 21 seasons, Honus Wagner retired after the 1917 season, his eighteenth as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Throughout his time in Pittsburgh, Wagner racked up eight batting titles and three,420 hits, solidifying his place in baseball historical past as one of many biggest hitters of all time.
However his skills did not cease there.
Wagner was a five-tool stud who may hit, area, throw and run with the most effective of them.
Nicknamed the “Flying Dutchman” for his unimaginable pace, Wagner tallied 723 stolen bases, placing him in tenth place on the profession leaderboard.
But, as nice as Wagner was, most individuals might keep in mind him for an additional motive: his iconic T206 card.
Due to its shortage and worth, it is arguably probably the most iconic baseball card in interest historical past.
And if you recognize among the background about that card, you will perceive why his 1948 Leaf card is a head-turner.
So few T206 Wagners exist as a result of Wagner demanded that the American Tobacco Card pull his card from manufacturing.
Some say he demanded increased compensation to make use of his likeness.
Nevertheless, the prevailing principle is that he did not need to be related to tobacco merchandise and doubtlessly negatively affect youngsters.
So it is amusing that Wagner is pictured engaged on a hefty quantity of chaw on this card.
1948 Leaf Baseball Playing cards In Overview
As you’ll be able to see, this set is jam-packed with Corridor of Famers, big-time rookie playing cards, and key brief prints.
And the colour schemes give them unimaginable eye attraction.
For these causes, collectors all through the interest proceed to carry 1948 Leaf Baseball within the highest regard.
With so many nice playing cards within the guidelines, it is robust to single out a favourite, however many often defer to the Paige or Robinson rookies.
No shock there.
Is that this set the best baseball card set of all time?
It is shut, however the T206, 1933 Goudey and 1952 Topps units are often on the high of the checklist.
But it surely’s secure to say it might be inside the high 10 and even high 5.
And, given the wonder, historical past, star energy, and completely different quirks packed inside, I do not assume that can change any time quickly.
The 1948 Leaf set will all the time be some of the iconic in interest historical past.
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