This is a card from 2003 Topps Retired Signatures and is obviously encased. I am usually not a huge fan of encased cards but I made an exception for this one. I like the design of the set with the dual pictures and the baseball diamond small insert. Plus I like the fact that Spahn signed this card directly, no sticker here. This card was fairly inexpensive which I of course enjoyed but also found a little surprising. He was one of the greats of all time and died in November of 2003 before a huge boom of autograph cards of retired players hit.
Spahn won 363 games in his HOF career at a clip of almost 60%. He won 20 or more games 13 times and lead the league in wins 8 times. He wasn't a huge strike out pitcher never fanning more than 191 during a season in his career but did accumulate over 2500 in his career. He won the Cy Young award in 1957 and finished 2nd in three other seasons. He was also a 14 time All Star - quite the impressive resume.
He was enshrined into Cooperstown in 1973 appearing on 316 out of 380 ballots and entered with Monte Irvin and Roberto Clemente.
Spahn's autograph brings my HOFer Auto collection to 62 different players. I set a goal this year to add 5 new Autos to my collection and this is the first.
Great looking card. BTW how the heck did the sixth winningest pitcher of all-time not get elected to the Hall of Fame until 10 years after he retired? In the 20th century he trails only Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Christy Mathewson.
ReplyDeleteAwesome card. It's amazing that people will spend more money on autographs of unproven rookies than on 363 game winners. Oh well... at least it makes it affordable to obtain an autograph of one of the greatest pitchers of all-time.
ReplyDelete