Card Shop Haul: Claude Osteen


Claude Osteen got votes for the Hall of Fame, two of them in 1981, according to Baseball-Reference. I featured Osteen's playing days Saturday. It was a long-delayed feature. His coaching days came a year and a half ago.
I realized I hadn't returned to write about the other half of his career when turning to the Osteen cards I recently picked up for Christmas and elsewhere.
I actually referenced his 1960 Topps offering in that feature. The card back has a nice assessment of his time in high school, "one of the greatest high school athletes in Cincinnati history."

The card back includes Osteen's complete stats, majors and minors, back to 1957. The trivia question concerns the 1904 Tigers, how many tie games they played. I said eight. Apparently the answer is 10.

There appears to be no relation, though. Darrell Osteen ended up playing parts of four seasons in the majors, with the Reds and Athletics. Lee May, though, had a considerably longer career, 18 seasons. He played his last game in 1982.

Kennedy actually played parts of 12 seasons in the majors. He was also, it turns out, a teammate of Claude Osteen's for five seasons. He was even involved in the same trade, sent with Osteen to the Dodgers.
Also, in 1962, Topps notes, Kennedy homered in his first big league at bat.

Also, it turns out, I was anticipating writing about Joshua's 10-season major league playing career at some point and I never have. Maybe I'll get to that this weekend.