Something Different

At the beginning of the year I made a post all about the different goals that I was going to achieve collecting baseball cards this year.  One of my goals this year was to put together four or five different sets.  It has not really happened.  I am feeling done with sets at this point.  I am almost sure I have finished Topps Series 1.  I thought about working on a Bowman set until it actually came out, and prospectors started throwing around crazy amounts of money.  

The Stadium Club cards look nice, so maybe that will be a set I put together, but I am still not sure.  These are nice.....

So, single cards.  I have decided to give myself a little focus, and do something a little different with finding my single cards the rest of the year.  Sure, there will be plenty of the usual modern cards with autographs, Cardinals cards, and Durham Bulls cards on here.  Just going to spend a little bit of time finding some older cards.  That means different things with my Cardinals and Durham Bulls collections.  

Let's do the Durham Bulls for this post.  

I want some old Durham Bulls cards.  The team has been around since 1902 and there have been plenty of notable players who have appeared in Durham prior to some of the more modern cards that I post in this space.  I have posted a few cards from the 1950s and 60s, but not much from before that time.  

I want to do more with older Durham Bulls cards, but more outside of the single card posts I do about a former player.  I recently found two older Bulls cards last week.  Pretty nice cards from the 1940 Play Ball set. 

First up is former Bulls pitcher Mace Brown.  I have not written about him before, so he definitely deserves a post at some point.  He played for the Bulls in 1931 after graduating from the University of Iowa, and eventually ended up playing for the Pirates and Red Sox.  Brown was one of the first full time relief pitchers, and also spent time working for the Red Sox after he retired as a player.  More on Brown on a different day.  Love this card.  

Next up a little bit more consequential player.  

"Buck" McCormick is actually Frank McCormick who was the National League MVP in 1940 with the Cincinnati Reds.  He had played for the Bulls while he was in the Minors, and went on to become one of the better hitters in baseball during the late 1930s and early 1940s.  

I like the little pennant up in the top left corner of the card.  The Reds went to the World Series in both 1939 and 1940 with McCormick as their main offensive cog.  The 1939 team lost to the Yankees, but the 1940 defeated the Tigers.  Great card that will look nicely in my small collection of Frank McCormick cards.