#367 Cal Neeman

Signing as a catcher in 1949 with the New York Yankees Cal Neeman faced the unenviable task of moving up the minor league ladder with a roadblock named Yogi Berra at the top of it. He spent two seasons in the military but even eight years after first signing Neeman wasn't going to make the Yanks and displace Charlie Silvera or Elston Howard, much less Berra.

The Cubs took him in the minor league draft and he took over in 1957 as the starting catcher on Chicago's North Side. He hit 10 homers to go along with a .258 average and 39 RBI which represented a sizable improvement over the previous Hobie Landrith/Harry Chiti platoon. Ironically Neeman was backed up in 1957 by former Yankee Silvera.

Neeman's time as a starter was short however as the Cubs gave the job to Sammy Taylor in '58 and by '59 Neeman was an afterthought. Early in 1960 he was part of a trade that also sent Tony Taylor to Philadelphia and after that Neeman spent about four seasons banging around through several different organizations getting big league time here and there for the Pirates, Indians and Senators.

He was out of the game after the '63 season and went through several career changes after that including being a railroad switch-man, college student at Illinois Wesleyan University, a teacher and coach, school supply salesman and retail store manager.

He lives in Florida these days and the MLB BlogNetwork caught up with him a year or so ago and Neeman reflected on his career including getting his first big league hit (off Warren Spahn) and first big league homer (off Lew Burdette).

That is a nice big fat tape stain in the middle of the cardback. Not enough of a issue for me to upgrade this one.

#467 Baseball Thrills... Aaron Clubs World Series Homer

Indeed Hank Aaron clubbed a homer in the 1957 World Series. Three of them in fact. But this card doesn't actually depict any of those. If fact this isn't a shot of a homer, or even of the '57 Series.

I've learned that a little detective work can reveal Topps' propensity to, well, if not actually try to deceive anyone, but 'fudge' the details of the pics used in these Baseball Thrills cards to fit the story. And sure enough that's the case here. I googled 'hank aaron 1957 world series' images, 'aaron homer 1957' and a bunch of variations of those. Figured I'd find the original picture that was colorized for this card. No dice.

On a whim, since the Braves and Yanks had met again in the '58 Series, I changed the date to 1958 and bingo, there it was as the first hit. Clicking through revealed the truth. Sure enough this was a picture from Game Five of the 1958 Series. But even Corbis can't get the details exactly straight. Or maybe Baseball Reference is wrong because they list Hank Aaron's at bats in that game as a flyball to center, a flyball to left and two strikeouts. From the pic it's a little hard to say which at bat this really is. Hank seems to be looking towards left while Yogi looks to center. Doesn't matter. I'm happy to have figured it out. Here is the original shot for those reluctant to follow links.

Nice card no matter the origin of the original photo. Also of note if that Topps painted out the Yankee logo that was placed on the Yankee Stadium turf just to the left of home plate.