Third baseman Cliff Cook had a pretty short major league career, making it onto just three cards, with the Reds in '61 and '62, and the Mets in '63. On both his Reds cards, under his jersey, he is wearing a with a prominent Reds logo. It really stands out, and I haven't seen such a jacket on other Reds of the era. (Looking at TCDB, it appears Bill Henry on his '62 high number has a similar one.)
As you can see on the '61 card, Cook's jersey number was 19. And yet, on both cards you can see on the sleeve of the jacket the number 42. Jim Brosnan wore #42 for the Reds during all of Cook's tenure there. Were Cook and Brosnan buddies? Did Brosnan not need the jacket and give it away? I would assume that Topps took both photos at the same time, on a day where Cook just happened to be wearing Brosnan's jacket, and then used photos from the same day two years in a row. I could not find any photos of Brosnan wearing the jacket, nor could I find any indication that the two were close friends. Still, it's an interesting little oddity, especially given the significance of that particular jersey number in baseball history.
Hope there's a Reds historian who ends up leaving a comment that solves this mystery.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of a big league player borrowing another guys jacket for anything before.
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