Cards from the Mall: '33 Goudey and Others


I'm glad we did get there early, because there was a table out selling baseball cards, and vintage at that. They also had a dollar bin.
I got to stand and look for a few minutes, while my patient wife went off to look at some other stuff. Then the movie time came. I didn't get anything then, but I did go back the next day.
And I got a bunch of good cards, including that card right there, a genuine 1933 Goudey Tom Bridges. The Goudey wasn't in the dollar bin, but I picked it up for a good (or Goudey?) price of $5.
I'd never heard of Bridges before but, according to the back, he came within one out of a no-hitter the previous season. Sheriff Harris singled to break up the bid.
The Goudey would have been my oldest card, but for my 1911 T205 find a week earlier in Vermont.

There were also the CMC-related players. Players that have some connection to those in the set, either through interviews or are relatives.
Then there were the cards that I thought were interesting or might be CMC set members. A couple of them that I thought might be in the set turned out not to be. I'll get those out of the way here.
That 1974 Gary Matthews up top falls into the interesting category. There's three people there, all identifiable. There's Matthews sliding into third. There's Giants third base coach and future big-league manager John McNamara cheering Matthews on. Then there's No. 11. That's Wayne Garrett of the Mets.
It's a cool scene, especially for the mid-70s. I picked it up thinking it would be easy to figure out the game. And I'm sure it's been figured out somewhere before. But, figuring by the uniforms that the game was at Shea, I had it narrowed down to two games where Matthews made it to third base: June 12 and Aug. 25.
A Google News Archives search showed the Aug. 25 game was during the day, while the June 12 was at night. I believe the card shows Matthews sliding into third at Shea Stadium on a single to left by Tito Fuentes in the top of the fifth. He did not score.


The card back called Burdette as "one of the best pitchers in baseball." It also noted that he beat the Yankees three times in the 1957 World Series.
Then there's the '74 Rick Monday, the '79 Bob Stanley and the 1975 Rookie Infielders with Phil Garner and Keith Hernandez, all up top.
Also on the '75 card are Bob Sheldon and Tom Veryzer. Sheldon played just three seasons in the majors, all with the Brewers. Veryzer, though, played 12, getting into just under 1,000 big league games through 1984.

The first is this 1959 Don Drysdale. I found that in the dollar bin. Sure it's beat up, and missing a corner, but that's why it was in the dollar bin. Always makes me wonder how these cards get that way, why it's missing a corner and all.


The back of the card indicates Moon has the distinction of hitting a home run in his first major league at bat in 1954. It also turns out Moon his his own Web site (not mentioned on the card back) and a newly published book: "Moon Shots: Reflections on a Baseball Life."