Card of the Moment #76
August 11th, 2011 by slangon
Todays Card of the Moment is brought to us by Circles. And bubble gum.
1959 Topps #194 Jim Brosnan
Jim Brosnan spent parts of 9 season in the Majors, playing for the Cubs, the Cardinals, the White Sox and as some kid who lacked the patience for the 1960 Topps set to come out has already pointed out, the Reds. He had an admirable career, winning 55 games while losing 47, posting a 3.54 ERA and fanning 507 men. He also saved 67 games during an era when saves wasn’t even an official stat.
He played his first year in the Majors for the Cubs in 1954, the same year that saw the emergence of another Cubs rookie by the name of Ernie Banks, who happened to be the first African-American to suit up for the North Siders.
As the cartoon on the back of his card tells us, Jim was a voracious reader. He also happened to be published author. A decade before Jim Bouton had his notorious Ball Four published, this Jim wrote 2 books chronicling his experience as a ball player.
The first book, The Long Season, was published in 1960 and is essentially a diary about Jim’s 1959 season which was split between the Cardinals and the Reds. The second book, Pennant Race, was published 2 years later and chronicled the Reds N.L. Pennant winning 1961 season. The ultimately lost the World Series in 5 games to the Yankees.
Although neither book was as revealing as Boutons Ball Four, at the time of their publication, Brosnan received a lot of guff for violating the unwritten rule of baseball that what happens in the clubhouse, stays in the clubhouse. Another ballplayer turned author, Joe Garagiola, supposedly called him a “kooky beatnik”. Somehow, though, looking at the guy on this card, I can’t imagine there’s anything in his books about somebody sticking their ass in a birthday cake.
Did someone really write in his new team with pen?! Too funny.
The glasses look kind of stylish for 1959, not that much different than the ones I have now.
“Cred Legs” is a term used to describe a good base runner. Makes sense to me.