Writing on equipment doesn't seem to have been very common in the 1950s. It was only in 1954 that players were banned from leaving their gloves on the field when their team was batting, and nobody seemed to worry about what would happen to their equipment. I did find a couple of interesting bits on equipment in my oldest cards.
There is a lot of writing on this card, but the writing on the glove is from the actual photo. This is the earliest card I have where a player's name is written on his glove.
Most bat knobs did not have a number on them in the 1950s cards I looked at. There were a small number that did, and the bat belonged to the player on the card. The first exception that I found was Chicago's #17, Earl Torgeson. The bat knob is black, with a white #1. Did the bat belong to #1 Jim Landis? Or was there another reason for the strange bat knob?
My suspicions that the bat did not really belong to #1 deepened with the 1960 Topps card. Both Rocky and Tito have bats that appear to say #1, one of them a white-on-black variety. Did these both belong to Billy Martin, #1 on the '59 Indians? Or do the markings mean something else? (Seems hard to believe anyone would just go stealing Billy Martin's bats, though I suppose these two big guys could handle him in a fight.)
Players used to leave their gloves on the field while the other team batted? That's crazy. Gotta imagine that made the game a little more interesting with these obstacles littering the field :D
ReplyDeleteI see you have the rare "traded" version of the Ken Lehman card.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that it would've been much more fun to watch games with gloves laying on the field.
ReplyDelete