IT IS IN THE CARDS
by Bryce Martin


In southeast Kansas, during snowy, cold winters, baseball cards were a multi-sourced form of entertainment.

Take a particular year and arrange them in numerical order. Or, sort the players by teams, by their last names in alphabetical order, by position -- and at whim as your imagination roamed.

I looked carefully at my duplicates (I called them "doubles" even though I might have a jillion of one player, and was not aware of any card collecting terminology until much later in life) and kept for myself the cards with the clearest reproduction, the ones nearest to perfect. The stack of rejects I ended up with were my trading cards.

A wealth of information was on the backsides of the cards. Some sets had full names of the players ("Theodore Bernard Kluszewski"), some had cartoons with little known information about the player. Others had full minor league and major league stats for each year. Others had major league information, and no minor league details.

With thousands of cards, I always looked at "place of birth," mainly to see if anyone was local. A pitcher named Morrie Martin drew my interest. I was from Galena, Kans., just across the line from Joplin, Mo. He was born in Dixon, Mo. A relative? A quick check indicated he was not. To this day, I know the birth places of star players and the obscure alike.

I noticed everything about the cards. Once, when I was nine-years-old, I opened a pack of 1952 Topps at recess and showed one of the cards to a classmate. He looked at the card of Frank Smith, finally saying, "So?" "He has the same initials as yours," I said. "Oh," my friend said, smiling. His name was Frank Sturgis.

Okay, maybe I noticed too much.

I liked odd names, foreign names, long and impossible names, any names. Since the region was mostly made up of Cardinals fans, Al "Red" Schoendienst was popular. I doubt if I will ever forget that he was born in Germantown, Ill., no matter that it serves no purpose to know. We remember much in life that seems to have little if any use. If I ever drive through or near Payette, Idaho, I will know that is the birth spot of Harmon Killebrew.

I wasn't scared off or perplexed by the names since I was a good speller. Before my tenth birthday, I was familiar with Betelguese and with Chamaltenango. Betelgeuse my teacher pronounced "Batel-gooze," and said it was our brightest star. Chamaltenango was "Che-mal-tenango" and other than it being in Guatemala, I don't know if we discussed its significance.

The Joplin Miners ceased being in 1954 as a St. Louis Cardinals minor league team, ending pro baseball in Joplin forever. The year before they had been associated with the New York Yankees. At one game, I worked my way to the bleachers and the end of the home dugout. I talked to one of the players, a long-armed pitcher away from the mound today. He told me his name, and I found it in the scorebook, Bob Muesenfechter. Of course, I have never forgotten it. Nor the rhythmic name of another Miner, John Zeleznock.

In the mid-80s, I had a book listing everyone who had ever played in the major leagues, even for one pitch as a pitcher or one at-bat as a position player. I lived in Bakersfield, Calif., so I looked through the entire book, small print and all, and found and old man who was born there by the name of W.H. "Buckshot" May. The book was a little old and it did not list a date of death for May. I found him in the phone book and interviewed him the next day for an article I had published. I searched the book in its entirety for anyone from Galena, Kans. I found George Grantham, whom I was familiar with, and Bill Windle, whom I was not. Few people would go to that much effort. Old habits die hard.
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