Folks, I believe I found the ultimate in Monster Cards passed on by Pastor Rich. This is Leon Day of the 1946 Newark Eagles from APBA’s Negro League set. As is typical with some Negro League cards, it’s quite uncommon as APBA cards go.
As always, it’s hard to find good stats on the Negro Leagues. I did find an excellent article on SABR’s website written by Tom Kern. Here’s a short excerpt regarding Leon Day’s 1946 season:
“Day returned to the US in 1946 in time to rejoin his Newark Eagles teammates for the season. His first game back was the stuff of legends—a May 5 Opening Day no-hitter against the Philadelphia Stars. However, Leon said that owing to the combination of a decade of pitching and two years missed because of military service, he was past his prime as a pitcher. He knew his arm didn’t feel right. “It wasn’t the same no more.” And, in fact, he hurt his arm more in that May 5 game on a fielding play, but nonetheless finished the no-hitter to the acclaim of the hometown crowd. Remarkably, despite Day’s arm troubles, he compiled a 13-4 record, led the league in wins, strikeouts, innings pitched, and complete games that year (all of this and a batting average of .469), and led Newark to the Negro National League pennant.”
Amazing!
While there is nary a 1 on his card and he has just three 0s for power numbers, Day’s card is extremely satisfying. First his hit numbers… they are 0-0-0-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-8-8-8-9-9. That’s a total of eight 7s and puts his last 7 at 35 and his last 9 at 13.
As if his hitting wasn’t good enough, Day is also a Grade AX pitcher. On days that Day doesn’t pitch, he can also play second (2B-6) and outfield (OF-2).
Other good points about Leon Day’s card are worth mentioning. He has four 14s. One is on 45 but because of his extraordinary amount of hit numbers, APBA found other places to put them such as 21, 26 and 56. As a bonus, Day is rated fast and has no 24s with a 13 at 41. APBA had to find places to put some strikeouts so Day’s 1946 cards does get a rare 32-13 result.
It’s worth noting that with this card, there is not an automatic out anywhere with a red two showing. Also, if a red six comes up, there is no negative result with the hit and run is called.
Great find, Rich!
As always, you are very welcome.
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Negro League Baseball by James A. Reilly — I consider possibly the most reliable historic references & stats for the history of Negro League Baseball. I enjoy renting this from the library, and can’t believe I haven’t bought it yet.
Obviously a reissue of a card that was made prior to the tremendous strides made in Negro League Research since the MacMillan efforts of 1988 or so.
The Negro Leagues research group at SABR and several other organizations have put together a darned good picture of the players and their stats, much helped by the landmark HoF commissioned study realeased in 2006.
Even the 1989 stats available wouldn’t have made THAT Leon Day card for 1946
Baseball-Reference stays on top of the various organizations making input to the NGL database and has a good bibliography with links leading to all efforts.
It appears that Day hit about .361 with a double and a homer (only two “0” necessary, but some “1” PRNs in the 2nd column” He’d probably get five 14’s today. Still a nice card but more like 00 88899 7777 8
So far as pitching, his ERA seems a bit high for an A (in the context of the league) but there’s no doubt he was still pitching well, even in his final year in “the bigs”.
Be fun if they recalculated that entire set, the stats are there now, and tho they change a little here and there with the research, I’ve been tracking them since about 1990 and since about 2006, they don’t change a whole bunch. Even when brought into reality, there are some obviously great players. Interestingly enough, the NGL Batting Average (overall) is within a point of the MLB average for the same years, so the “real stats” are quite comparable with MLB players for many years.
Bill
Hi Bill,
Was wondering if you would chime in here. To be honest, I’m glad you did. :)