Random Topps Card of the Day: 1959 Topps #248 Boston Red Sox Team Card

It's Retro Sunday!!! Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Sunday, October 27, 2013:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1959 Topps #248.
• Team: 1958 Boston Red Sox.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1970 stats: Manager Pinky Higgins, 79-75, .513 PCT., 13 GB, Third Place American League.
• Commentary: It's rare that the Randomizer picks a team card for these segments. But when it does, it makes for interesting discussion. Should we talk about the team being featured? Or should I discuss the card itself? It would be the fourth year in a row that Topps would include team cards within their sets. And just like the team cards from the year before, the team cards from 1959 provided collectors with checklists of the series that the card was a part of. In this case, the back of the Red Sox team card includes cards from the 1959 Topps Third Series of cards, card #'s 177 Johnny Riggs to 264 Chico Carrasquel. The 1959 Red Sox finished 5th in the American League standings, finishing a dismal 75-79, 38 games behind the AL Pennant winning Chicago White Sox. Manager Higgins was fired after a 31-42 start to the season, and after a one-game loss credited to interim manager Rudy York, Billy Jurges finished the season on a good note, winning 44 of the team's final 80 games. Pete Runnels was the team's leading hitter with a .314 average while Jackie Jensen led the BoSox with 28 home runs and 112 rbi's. Pitchers Tom Brewer (10-12, 3.76, 121 k's, 11 complete games) and Jerry Casale (13-8, 4.31, 93 k's) were the team's starting aces while Mike Fornieles (5-3, 3.07, 54 k's, 11 saves) served as the Sox' closer.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $7.00-$15.00.

In case you're actually wondering, I don't own this card, but was able to get a crystal clean copy of the image from the from the Baseball Card Cyber Museum. So thank you Joe McAnally and the folks at the BCCM.

Well, it's back to normal on Monday. Tomorrow's card will be: 2011 Topps #316. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. Come on back then to see what the Topps Card Randomizer gets us to look at then.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama