Saturday, January 3, 2009

1991 Swell Baseball Greats, Al Rosen



#78 Al Rosen

I got this card signed through the mail a couple of weeks ago. I happened to find his address on the internet and this was the only card that I had of him. He returned it in less than two weeks.

To be honest, while his name sounded familiar, I knew nothing about him. It turns out that Al won the 1953 AL MVP. He hit .336, had 43 homers and knocked in 145 RBI for the Indians. That is a pretty good year. He missed the triple crown by one batting average point. He put up over 100 RBI from 1950 (his first full season in the Majors) to 1954. 1956 was his last year playing baseball. According to Wikipedia, he retired at the age of 32 because of back problems and leg injuries.

As for this card set, I don't know much about it either. I only have about ten cards from the set. I think that I might have bought a pack of them at a gas station in a small town around 1991. Some of the other cards that I have are Ernie Banks, Earl Weaver, Joe Garagiola and Doug Decinces. The highest numbered card is 94, so it must be a small set. The cards were copyrighted in 1990, but Beckett lists them as a 1991 set. Interestingly, this set is made by Impel, the same company that made the Line Drive minor league set.

According to Baseball Almanac, Rosen's nickname is the Hebrew Hammer.

If you haven't been on here in a couple of days, I have a contest going on. Scroll down a little ways to see what is up for grabs.

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