#62 Joe DeMaestri

Since I only caught the tail end of Joe DeMaestri's career I think of him as a Yankee but he spent far more time with the Athletics through the 1950s.

He was originally a Red Sox signee out of the Bay Area but debuted with the White Sox in 1951 after being claimed in the Rule 5 draft. He played a year in Chicago, was dealt to the Browns and spend a year with them. He was a 'good field-no hit' infielder.

After two trades in the winter of 1952-53 he found himself in Philadelphia and he established himself as the Athletics' starting shortstop and held that spot for seven seasons. He was an All Starin 1957. After being dealt to the Yankees (in the same trade that brought over Roger Maris) he was on the pennant-winning 1960 club that lost to the Pirates. He had a hit in two trips in that Series. He was also on the Series-winning 1961 Yankee team but didn't play in the Series at all. He retired after the 1961 season and, like his pal Maris, went into the beer distribution business.

His biggest day in the majors came in 1955 with the A's when on July 8, at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, he had six singles in six at-bats.

#58 Art Schult

Art Schult is another one of those interesting guys that not many remember. He was a college educated, NYC area athlete who played semi-pro ball in high school as a teen and in college summer leagues while enrolled at Georgetown University.

Drafted by the Yankees, he put together some solid minor league numbers but had his career interrupted by Uncle Sam and he served in a tank outfit in the Korean War.

His army travails (he was 6' 4" and couldn't fit through this tank's escape hatch), issues with the Yankee brass and nomadic career make for an interesting read. This website has the details and an interview with Schult. Highly recommended.

In the end, he played in about one season's worth of games in the majors spread out over 5 years with four clubs. His son and grandson played minor league and college ball with some success. Shult passed away in 2014 at the age of 86.

#54 Norm Siebern

Norm Siebern was a baseball and basketball star in college. He played at Southwest Missouri State Teachers College along with Yankee teammate Jerry Lumpe. He had a military stint and a long minor league stretch before making the Yankees for good in 1958. He won a Gold Glove that season. He went to Kansas City in the trade that brought Roger Maris to New York and later preceeded Boog Powell as the Orioles' first baseman. 

He won two World Series with theYankeess and played in a third while with the '67 Impossible Dream Red Sox.  In his bast season, 1962, Siebern hit 25/117/.305/.412 and garnered enough MVP votes to finish 7th on the list.

The Yanks don't have many yellow cards in this set. their main color is orange. 

#47 Roger Maris

This is Roger Maris' rookie card and it's one of the more costly cards in the set. When I first decided to chase the Topps '58 set I tracked down a copy of this card at a too-good-to-be-true price on eBay. And, as you might have guessed, it was too good to be true. The card I bought was fake. But I learned a valuable lesson...read the whole description. The seller had, in very fine print at the bottom of the description, implied that the card might not be authentic. This copy is legit.

Maris was highly touted and had a minor league career that lived up to the hype. He made the Indians in 1957 and was off to a great start when injuries derailed his season. In 1958 a new regime, led by Frank Lane and Bobby Bragan, took over the Indians and after another injury, Maris' days in Cleveland were numbered.

He was traded to the Athletics in June and played well for KC until the inevitable trade to the Yankees for the 1960 season. Most of the rest is well known...the trials of his '61 homer season, trade to the Cardinals, etc. Here is Baseball Reference's list of Maris' notable achievements:

• 4-time AL All-Star (1959-1962)
• 2-time AL MVP (1960 & 1961)
• AL Gold Glove Winner (1960/RF)
• AL Slugging Percentage Leader (1960)
• AL Runs Scored Leader (1961)
• AL Total Bases Leader (1961)
• AL Home Runs Leader (1961)
• 2-time AL RBI Leader (1960 & 1961)
• 20-Home Run Seasons: 6 (1958 & 1960-1964)
• 30-Home Run Seasons: 3 (1960-1962)
• 40-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1961)
• 50-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1961)
• 60-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1961)
• 100 RBI Seasons: 3 (1960-1962)
• 100 Runs Scored Seasons: 1 (1961)
• Won three World Series with the New York Yankees (1961 & 1962) and the St. Louis Cardinals (1967)

Looking at the reverse side of the cards shows that Maris is one of the very few players whose name is given a non-italic treatment to go along with the comic-style first letters. 

#43 Sal Maglie

Sal 'The Barber' Maglie who had one of the more fascinating baseball career paths you'll ever come across. He broke in with the Giants in 1945 after having pitched in two other organizations' systems for several years.

He then spent time working in a defense plant after having been turned down by his draft board for medical reasons.  He soon jumped on an opportunity to pitch in Mexico in a fledgling 'major league' there and found himself banned from returning to the majors.

He pitched in Canada in an independent league and then, in 1950 returned to the Giants after his ban was lifted. And it was a very successful return indeed. Maglie went 18-4 with a league-leading 2.71 ERA. He followed that up with a 23 win season in '51. He made the NL All-Star squads in '51/'52 and won a ring with the '54 Giants.

He later continued his long, strange trip with the Indians, Dodgers, and Yankees before finishing with the Cardinals. His SABR bio has all the glorious details and I can't begin to summarize it all. One highlight is his 1956 season which saw him begin with Cleveland, make two appearances, and then be dealt (for $100!!!) to the Dodgers in May. He went on to win 13 games for The Bums and finished second on both the Cy Young and MVP balloting. His second World Series ring was a nice bonus in a season that began with him buried in the Indians' bullpen and contemplating retirement.

I always have to stop and look a second time at this card since Maglie never says 'Yankees' to me. He only pitched in 13 games for them from late in the 1957 season through a sale to the Cards in June of 1958.

Here is 'The Barber' in a 1957 appearance on the old What's My Line? show.  The panel includes Phil Rizzuto and panel mainstay, Arlene Francis, wearing what appears to be a large empty soup can. She was a Dodger fan and Sal didn't fool her for a second. A great 5-minute watch.

Haven't had an orange card in awhile which reminds me that it was a long time ago that I posted some info on the colors in this great set. If you are interested you can check these links:

Overall set color breakdown post

Team by team color analysis post

#39 Bob Martyn

Bob Martyn was originally a Yankees' signee in 1952. He spent a year in the military and then rose up thru the ranks in the Yanks' chain. He ended up being one of those guys who rode the NY-KC express as he was dealt back and forth between the Bronx Bombers and their unofficial farm club in Missouri a couple of times.

He served as the A's fourth outfielder from the middle of the 1957 season through 1958. He hit .263 in nearly 400 plate appearances before returning to the minors (Yankees' and Reds' clubs) for '59 and '60 and then retiring.

In college, he had double-majored in mathematics and sociology and he put that education to good use after baseball working for a tech/engineering firm in his native Oregon. He was also active with his college alumni organization.

If I had a buck for every late 50s card I owned with that glue/gum stripe across the back I could easily finish off my open sets!

#20 Gil McDougald

Gil McDougald had three impressive minor league seasons after signing with the New York in 1949. He then went on to have an excellent decade-long career with the Yanks playing short, second and third. He was the 1951 ROY, beating out Minnie Minoso.

He was a five-time AL All-Star and three-time Top 10 MVP vote getter. But, of course, he was overshadowed by his more celebrated teammates. He played in eight World Series' for New York and won five rings. He won titles in his first three seasons in the majors. I'd be interested in checking to see how many other players have been that fortunate.

McDougald retired following the 1960 season rather than continue his career with the expansion Angels and briefly served as a scout for the Mets. He and his wife served as foster parents for many years. He was heavily involved in civic and charitable work and was the head baseball coach at Fordham University.

I love the fact that the card shows his home as Nutley, N.J. That wonderful small town is where spent my elementary school years. I was there in October and it's hardly changed at all. He later lived in Sea Girt, down the central Jersey shore, which is just down the road from where I attended high school.

#9 Hank Bauer

I read a quote at some point that said something along the lines of  "Hank Bauer had a face like a clenched fist."  And it's hard to argue that point. And he had a reputation to go along with it.

EDIT: Pulling up his Wikipedia page and I see that quote there. Unattributed.

And his Wiki page has some great info on this 14-year veteran who was an instrumental part of the Yanks' 50s dynasty. Bauer won seven rings in New York before he played out his on-field days in Kansas City. Check out this excerpt::

Born in East St. Louis, Illinois as the youngest of nine children, Bauer was the son of an Austrian immigrant, a bartender who had earlier lost his leg in an aluminum mill. With little money coming into the home, Bauer was forced to wear clothes made out of old feed sacks, helping shape his hard-nosed approach to life. (It was said that his care-worn face "looked like a clenched fist".)

While playing baseball and basketball at East St. Louis Central Catholic High School, Bauer suffered permanent damage to his nose, which was caused by an errant elbow from an opponent. Upon graduation in 1941, he was repairing furnaces in a beer-bottling plant when his brother Herman, a minor league player in the Chicago White Sox system, was able to get him a tryout that resulted in a contract with Oshkosh of the Class D Wisconsin State League.

Of course, I'm a Bauer fan thanks to his days as the manager of the Orioles and the 1966 Series title he led them to.

There are not a lot of cartoon references to military service among Topps late 50s sets. But there were still plenty of guys active that had served in WWII and especially in Korea. Bauer's days as a Marine were much discussed so it's not a surprise to see them depicted on the back of his card. I like the orange background in the 58s. The Yanks and Senators got the majority of them. The Athletics had a handful as well. It's been quite a while since I did my post tracking the colors used in this set. You can check it by clicking here.

#7 Dale Long

Here's a challenge for someone with time on their hands....make a flowchart depicting lefty first baseman Dale Long's travels through all the baseball organizations he was a part of. Here is his transaction listing from Baseball Reference:

• May 1945: Traded by Middletown (Ohio State) with Kenneth Braden (minors) to the Cincinnati Reds for Dick Oder (minors) and Joseph Turczak (minors).
• June 1947: Released by the Cincinnati Reds.
• June 1947: Signed as a Free Agent with the Boston Red Sox.
• November 24, 1948: Drafted by the Detroit Tigers from the Boston Red Sox in the 1948 minor league draft.
• December 5, 1949: Drafted by the New York Yankees from the Detroit Tigers in the 1949 minor league draft.
• November 16, 1950: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates from the New York Yankees in the 1950 rule 5 draft.
• June 1, 1951: Selected off waivers by the St. Louis Browns from the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• December 5, 1951: Purchased by the Pittsburgh Pirates from the St. Louis Browns.
• May 1, 1957: Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates with Lee Walls to the Chicago Cubs for Gene Baker and Dee Fondy.
• April 5, 1960: Purchased by the San Francisco Giants from the Chicago Cubs.
• August 21, 1960: Purchased by the New York Yankees from the San Francisco Giants.
• December 14, 1960: Drafted by the Washington Senators from the New York Yankees as the 28th pick in the 1960 expansion draft.
• July 11, 1962: Traded by the Washington Senators to the New York Yankees for Don Lock.
• August 2, 1963: Released by the New York Yankees.

Bottom line is that he played ten seasons for six different clubs and for years was known as the guy who homered in eight consecutive games in May 1956. That record has since been matched by Don Mattingly and Ken Griffey Jr. but never exceeded.

I recall as a kid how that dinger streak impressed the hell out of me and my friends and we coveted Dale Long cards as if he was a star. 1956, in addition to being the year he made headlines for that run of homers as a Pirate, was his best season in the majors. He had 27 home runs and 91 RBIs while hitting .263 and making the NL All-Star Game.

He sandwiched better batting average seasons around that '56 campaign and hit 20 homers or more a total of three times. He appeared in two World Series with the Yankees, 1960 and 1962 when he won a title. Interestingly he was a mid-season pickup by the Yankees in both of those seasons. 

#275 Elston Howard

A native of St. Louis, Elston Howard played for three seasons onder Buck O'Neil with the Kansas City Monarchs before he was signed by the Yankees in 1953.

Howard became the first African-American player to join the Yankees in 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson made his Dodgers debut. In 1963, eight years after his rookie season, Howard won the AL MVP award. He was the first African-American to win it.

Howard played in ten World Series, nine with the Yankees and one with the Impossible Dream Red Sox in 1967. He won four rings as a player and a couple more as a Yankees coach and front office member. He was a nine-time All Star and won two Gold Gloves.

He passed away as a result of heart disease in 1980. He was only 51 years old. Wikipedia has this to add, something I'd never heard before:

"Howard is ... credited with being the first to use the extended index and pinky finger (corna) to indicate that there were two out in the inning, this being more visible to teammates in the outfield than the usual "two" gesture of the index and middle fingers."

My 'set copy' of this card was once in the possession of one Ray Tisler. I have a bunch that he stamped with his name. They all came as part of a group I bought from a dealer at a hotel show. My other copy, in my Howard PC is a little rougher.

I really like the back of this one. Topps used the word 'livery' in the blurb which is kind of quaint. Cool cartoons as well.

#277 Virgil Trucks

Virgil Trucks pitched for five different AL clubs in a career that spanned two wars. After three years honing his craft in the minors Trucks made a quick appearance with the Detroit Tigers in 1941. He established himself with a combined 30 wins over the '42 & '43 seasons. Then he spent two years in the service on active duty in the Pacific with the Navy.

In 1944 and '45 Trucks pitched for Navy baseball teams alongside big league stars including Phil Rizzuto, Johnny Mize, Dom DiMaggio, Pee Wee Reese and Johnny Vander Meer. His career win total of 177 would have likely topped 200 had he pitched those two years in the bigs.

He was injured and discharged from the service in the summer of '45 and rejoined the Tigers just in time to appear in the 1945 World Series. He made two starts against the Cubs and won Game Two.

Twice an All Star Trucks, in 1952, became the third pitcher to throw two no-hitters in a season. He won 20 games in 1953 with the Browns and White Sox and 19 the following season in Chicago. 1958 was his last big league season and he was clearly hanging on to the game he enjoyed.

The Yankees traded for him that year in a June deal with the Athletics. After an up and down second half of the season he was left off the World Series roster and reduced to a role as batting practice pitcher. In 1959 he was released during Spring Training by the Yanks, pitched some for the Orioles farm club in Miami and then retired. His final card is in the 1959 set.

Trucks died at the age of 95 in 2013 and was known as a good TTM signer.

#406 Vic Power

Vic Power was born in Puerto Rico as Victor Felipe Pellot. He won seven Gold Gloves, had four AL All Star appearances and eventually sported one of the best baseball names ever. He came up with the Philadelphia A's in 1954 but he had begun his pro career with in Canada's Provincial League in 1949. He was scouted and signed by the Yankees who dealt him to the A's after a couple of strong seasons in their chain. The reason the Yanks got rid of Power isn't certain but his Wikipedia page states this:

[In 1953] Power led the league with a .349 batting average. However, despite his skills he was not invited to spring training in [1952 or 1953].The Yankees' owners at the time, Del Webb and Dan Topping, felt that Power's playing style and personality wasn't suited for the conservative style that they wanted a "black" player to represent as a member of the club. Power dated light-skinned women, leading George Weiss, the general manager of the Yankees, to say that Power was "not the Yankee type".

Take that for what it's worth. Elston Howard eventually broke the color barrier for the Yankees in 1955. This and much of Power's colorful career is discussed in detail on his SABR bio.

Power played 12 years in the majors, nearly all of that time was in the American League with the Indians, Twins and Angels following his time with the A's. He played very briefly back in Philadelphia in 1964 but that was with the Phils. He retired with a .284 average to go along with 126 homers.

He began the 1958 season with the A's but in mid-June was traded along with Woodie Held to the Indians for Roger Maris, Dick Tomanek and Preston Ward. Hitting .302 and riding a 22 game hitting streak at the time of the trade Power raised his average to .312 by season's end. In checking his game logs on Baseball Reference I noticed that Power and the A's played six doubleheaders in just the first half of June that season. They played on on May 30th as well. That's seven 'twin bills' in a little over two weeks. Power played every inning of all of them. He led the league with 10 triples that season as well.

My lasting memory of Vic Power comes from the early 60s. He was playing first base for the Twins or Angels and the Yankees were hitting in the bottom of the ninth. Mickey Mantle grounded out to end the game but as you watched the screen you expected to see Mantle crossing 1st base. But all you saw was Power making the put out and then looking toward home plate. The Mick had pulled a hamstring or a calf muscle and was in a heap halfway to first. Weird the things you recall from your youth. I have no idea why I know it was Vic Power at first after all these years but I'm dead sure of it.

I really like this card, partially for the all-too-rare light blue color but also because Power was such a fun player to watch in my early years as a fan. It's a bit the worse for wear but not so bad that I feel the need to upgrade it.

#329 Bob Cerv

Bob Cerv made three tours of the majors with the Yankees during his 12 year career but his best season (by far) came with the Athletics in the year this card was issued, 1958. Cerv had come up with the Yankees in 1951 after signing out of the University of Nebraska and a brief minor league tuneup. For six seasons he played in a reserve/pinch hitting role and returned to the minors a time or two.

He was traded to KC for the '57 season and got his first shot as a starter. He had a decent season but there was nothing to indicate what was in store for Cerv in 1958. That season, despite playing for months with a jaw wired shut as the result of a home plate collision, Cerv hit 38 homes, drove in 104 runs while hitting .305 with a .592 SLG. He made his only All Star squad that year and batted cleanup for the AL.

He fell off as quickly as he rose and after the '59 season he bounced back to the Yankees and then was drafted by the Angels in the expansion draft of 1961. The Angels traded him back to the Yanks and in 1962 he was sold to the Houston Colt.45s where he played about a month before being released. That was the end of his playing career.

Cerv played in three World Series with the Yanks and won a ring in 1956. There is a funny story concerning Cerv and Casey Stengel that gets retold a lot. It goes like this:

According to sportswriter Robert Creamer, interviewed for the Ken Burns film Baseball, one afternoon, Yankees manager Casey Stengel approached Cerv in the Yankees' dugout, sat down nearby, and commented "There's not many people that know this, but one of us has been traded to Kansas City."

Problem is that Cerv was sold to Kansas City, not traded. And the deal was done a week or so after the 1956 World Series was over. It's pretty unlikely that Cerv and Stengel were on a bench anyplace at that point. But the story does sound like Casey!

Cerv is 91 now and living in Nebraska. There is a nice article about him in an online Saturday Evening Post from 2010. Well worth the read. And the picture of the fateful home plate collision with Tiger catcher Red Wilson is there.

Not many of the light green backgrounds show up in the '58 set. I'm not crazy about them but they are sort of a welcome break from all the yellow ones. Topps used the same color in 1959 and it works better in that set IMHO.

#365 Tom Morgan

For a relatively unknown guy Tom Morgan had a very serviceable career. He pitched for 12 seasons from 1951 through 1962 and finished with a 67-47 record and a 3.61 ERA for five different AL clubs.

He began as a starter in the Yankees system in 1949 and had a very impressive two plus seasons which earned him a call-up to a stacked Yankees staff. Over the next five seasons in the Bronx he pitched very well as he spent a year in the military and was transitioned into a reliever. He pitched in three World Series in pinstripes, winning two rings. He lost his only Series decision in Game Two of the 1956 Classic versus the Dodgers. In a wild 12-6 Dodger win Morgan was knocked around in two innings of middle relief. But also in that game he got a hit (and score a run) in his only career World Series at bat so he will forever hold a 1.000 post-season batting average.

With a drop off in his numbers in '56 the Yanks dealt him to the Athletics for 1957 and he was moved to Detroit as part of a 12 player deal a year later. He went on to pitch for the Senators and Angels until 1963. He was so effective out of the pen for LA in 1961 (8-2 2.36 10 saves) that he earned some MVP votes.

In 1958 Morgan served as a middle reliever for the Tigers. His 2-8 record doesn't reflect his otherwise solid statistics.

I love pink cards and this set has 'em. Morgan is wearing what surely is his Yankee uni with an airbrushed cap.

Below I have a Morgan montage. I've snipped his '52, '58 and '53 Topps cards. I think are all variations of the same original photo. Anyone want to weigh in?

#61 Darrell Johnson

Darrell Johnson was a baseball 'lifer' who spent parts of six seasons as a backup catcher for six different teams from 1952 through 1962. He never got more than 115 at bats (he did that twice) and had a couple of career homers. He spent the 1958 season with the Yankees but only appeared in five games.

That '58 Yankee club won the World Series but Johnson didn't play. He did appear for the Reds in the 1962 Series and collect two hits in four at bats. He coached and managed in the minors after his playing days and then managed the Red Sox, Mariners and Rangers. He won the AL Pennant in 1875 at the helm of the Red Sox and was named Manager of the Year. He continued in the game as a scout for many years. His story is a very interesting one and his lengthy SABR bio is worth a look.

This is a rather flawed card but nothing about it screams 'upgrade'. My original large lot purchase contained only a couple of Yankees. This is one of them.

#224 Bob Grim

Bob Grim spent four years in the Yankees' farm system and a couple in the service before debuting in 1954. He won the A.L. Rookie of the Year award for his 20 win season. Even with that impressive beginning he was transitioned in a relief role and in 1957 he led the A.L. with 19 saves. 

In 1958, coming off that big year which saw him make his only All Star team, he had a terrible start and was traded to the Athletics in June. KC converted him back to a starting role and once he got regular turns he thrived. He went 7-7 for a bad club and dropped his ERA over a run and a half. 

He went back to the bullpen in 1959 with the A's who dealt him to the Indians during Spring Training in 1960. He was traded twice more that same year (to the Reds and Cards) and returned to the A's for a final fling in 1962.

My copy is off-center and has a stained back but isn't bad overall. I bought it as part of a group through COMC and it carried no 'Yankee tax'. 

WikiFact: Grim missed the 1952 and 1953 seasons due to military service during the Korean War. He returned to become the last American League rookie to win 20 games.