Monster Card Monday: 1900 Honus Wagner

As I started my Monster vs. Terribles series last night, I realized again that I never wrote an official Monster Card Monday article for Honus Wagner.  Time to remedy that now.

As old as some of us are, I’m pretty confident that none of us have seen Wagner play baseball.  Yet, many historians lay claim that he may be the best baseball of all time.  He was known as a shortstop for the Pirates but he played over 200 games each at first, second third and the outfield too.  He had speed (723 SB), gap power (led the NL in doubles seven times and triples three times) and of course he could hit for average.  Wagner dominated the NL’s batting races and won eight titles.  Throughout his 21-year career, he had a .328 batting average which means so much more coming from the era he played.

Indeed, his leaderboard section on his Baseball Reference page is quite a sight.

This card is based on his 1900 season with the Pirates when he was 26 years old.  He led the NL with a .381 average, 45 doubles, 22 triples, and a .573 slugging average.

Let’s get this out of the way… Wagner is rated as a SS-10 AND a 3B-5.  If that wasn’t enough, he also gets rated as a 2B-8.  Correct me if I’m wrong but he may be the only player to be rated as such.

The Flyin’ Dutchman’s batting card isn’t too shabby either.  He has five zeros with plenty of twos in the second column, mind you.  Just one 7 for him at 55 but that’s because he has two 11s and a 10.

Other goodies:  Wagner has three 31s.  His third one is at 21.  He also has a 46-22.  APBA gave him four eights which puts his last 9 at 61.  Only one 13 for Honus, too with three 14s.

Fun numbers:  44-0, 61-9, SS-10

No disrespect to 1982 Robin Yount who won the voting but I really thought this Wagner card would be the starter in my series.  I’m sure I’ll get him in a couple of games.