Man, I always feel oddly worn out whenever I finish running a contest. I don’t know why. I mean, it’s not like it’s any more involved than writing any other post. Weird. Anyway, congrats to Travis of Punk Rock Paint fame on winning a complete set of the recently finished 2010 SlangKo Heroes of the Diamond set.

But I digress.

Where were we before we were rudely interrupted by that silly contest? Ah, yes. I was bragging about some cool cards that have been piling up on my desk recently that came to me via eBay. I was actually making pretty good headway with posting them, and now I’m actually down to just 4 cards that came from 2 different sellers. Since I don’t have a whole lot on my plate as far as blogging material, and a man can only write so many “Man, I Hate the Mets. Why Do I Still Bother?” rants per season, and because these last 4 cards are particularly awesome, I’m just going to do one post per card.

How to pick which one to start with? Well, they’re all vintage cards, so I think I’ll just start with the youngest and work my way back. Sound good? Good. Let’s go.

1949 Bowman #22 Harry “Peanuts” Lowrey

Eh. What’s that you say? I must’ve made a mistake? I said I was going to start with the youngest card but I’m starting with a card from 1949? Oh, there’s no mistake. This 61 year old hunk of pressed wood pulp with various shades of ink on it is indeed the newest kid on the block. I have to admit that it’s a pretty awesome feeling to know that you just spent about $10 on some cards and the most recent one is from the 40’s. And that’s with shipping.

The ’49 Bowman set was the second post-war baseball set released by Bowman Gum. Knowing what some of the Bowman cards after this looked like, I have to say that it’s not a terribly good looking set. Don’t get me wrong, I think this card looks really awesome, but the artwork seems to be a little lacking when compared to something like this.

Like I said though, I still like it. There’s something about the — shall we say lackluster hand coloring that I find charming. My 18 month old son can’t really hold a crayon the right way yet, but I wouldn’t put it past him to do a better job of coloring within the lines. I mean, just look at that hat.

More than it being a ’49 Bowman, what I really like about this card is that it’s of Harry Lowrey. He’s a prime example of what I love about this hobby. Of course I love getting cool cards of star players and all, but I really love it when I get an old card of someone I never heard of and through researching that player I find out all sorts of interesting facts.

A few months ago I was blissfully unaware of Harry’s existence. Then I had the opportunity to get his card from the 1953 Topps set. That time, that purchase had more to do with me really wanting a ’53 Topps card. His card was cheap at the time, and I liked that his nickname was “Peanuts”. Once I started to do a little poking around, I found that he’s a really interesting guy.

He was born in Culver City, California in 1918. Apparently, back then, Culver City was the heart of the emerging movie industry. His grandfather owned a ranch in town that was used as a location for a lot of the early Our Gang / Little Rascals films. Thanks to that connection, Peanuts appeared as an extra in a handful of those films. I was really hoping to find out exactly which Our Gang episodes that he ended up in, but I get the impression that he appeared uncredited, probably as someone in the background or something.

He also appeared in a few movies later in life, including Pride of the Yankees and The Winning Team with Ronald Reagan.

I tracked down an old issue of Baseball Digest online that had a story about Peanuts and his acting career. It mostly focused on Lowreys role in The Winning Team, I suppose because at the time the article appeared, Reagan was trying to enter the Presidential Race as a fringe candidate. Here’s what he had to say about being in the pictures:

“It was fun and you made nice pocket money. I guess Pride of the Yankees was the best one I had a part in. It was on a big budget. You see, they have a budget for them films, and you get a little extra if you have to slide or dive or say something. A slide might be worth a hunnert bucks. You might get three hunnert for saying a line.
I remember in The Winning Team they wanted a guy to make a diving catch in the outfield and roll over, and I volunteered for it, to get the extra money, see. But they let a stunt man try it, and he broke his shoulder.”

Just reading that, I could imagine him telling that story, giant wad of chaw in his cheek. I bet he had a pretty good laugh at the end thinking about that fancy pants Hollywood stunt man trying to make a diving catch and busting his wing. Ha! I find it pretty funny that he seemed way more interested in getting that extra “hunnert bucks” than being star struck at being in a big-time movie.

When he wasn’t busy playing a ball player in films, Peanuts was actually a pretty good ball player in real life. He was a particularly key component to the 1945 Cubs, who were the last of the North Side teams to make it to the World Series. Thanks to the Billy Goat, they lost that Series 4-3 to the Tigers. Lowrey hit .283 that year while driving in 89 in 143 games. During the World Series, he batted .310 in the losing effort.

After his stint in Chicago, Peanuts also went on to play for Cincinnati, St. Louis and Philadelphia. Later in his career he was much more of a bench player but known as one of the top pinch hitters in the league. In 1952, while playing for the Cardinals, he set a Major League record by getting 7 consecutive pinch hits (which has since been broken by Dave Philly, who hit 8 consecutive in 1958 and Le Grand Orange in 1983 as a Met). The next year he had 21 pinch hits, including five doubles, a triple, two home runs and 15 RBIs. Those 21 pinch hits were 1 shy of the then record. His overall average that year was .269, while his average as a pinch hitter was .356.

By the way, I love that on the back of this card Bowman lists his nickname as “P-Nuts” rather than “Peanuts”. Very gangsta. (I honestly never thought I would ever use the term “gangsta” on this blog. Just goes to show, you never know what’s going to happen.)

Peanuts hung up his spikes after the 1955 season when he played for the Fightin’ Phillies. He briefly managed in the minors after which he bounced around the league as a coach, making stops in Philly (Phillies), San Francisco, Montreal, Chicago (Cubs), and California (Angels). After reading the quote by him above, I can easily picture him explaining the nuances of the game to some rookie, with that same wad of chaw in his cheek and laughing at something dumb that rookie did.

Tags: 1949 Bowman, Harry "Peanuts" Lowrey
Filed Under: It Came from the 'Bay by slangon
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