- Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1959 Topps #490.
- Player Name, position, team: Frank Thomas, third baseman-outfielder, Cincinnati Redlegs.
- Major League Debut: August 17, 1951.
- Last Line of Statistics: 1958 stats (Pirates): 149 G, 562 AB, 89 R, 158 H, 26 2B, 4 3B, 35 HR, 109 RBI, .281 AVG.
- Any special information about player: Signed with the Pirates as a Free Agent 07/23/1947. Traded by the Pirates to the Redlegs 01/30/1959. Bats: right. Throws: right.
- Number of regular Topps Cards (includes regular and traded cards only): 10. This is his fourth Topps card.
- Blurb on the back: "The biggest trade of the Spring sent Frank to Cincinnati. Immediately Redleg fans contracted an ailment known as pennant fever. Frank is one of the real distance hitters and if you doubt it ask the Dodgers. He hit 7 homers in his first 8 games at Los Angeles in '58."
- Commentary: It's funny to see the word Redlegs on a baseball card in reference to the team in Cincinnati. But then again, there is some historical significance to it. To avoid being associated to what was then the USSR and the threat of being called Communists, the Reds organization changed their name to "Redlegs" from 1954 through 1959. So before there was a slugger named Frank Thomas, who crushed the ball for a long time as a member of the White Sox (then Athletics, then Blue Jays), there was Frank Joseph Thomas, a three-time All-Star with the Pirates. In his eight seasons with Pittsburgh, Thomas hit for a respectable .275, with 163 homers, 562 rbi's, and OPS of .807 in 925 games. No wonder Redlegs' fans were excited to get him and three other players in a seven-player exchange. In his lone season with Cincinnati, Thomas hit for a .225 average, 12 home runs, and drove in 47 rbi's, not really numbers that fans and the organization were expecting from the 30-year-old Thomas. By the end of the year, would be traded to the Cubs for three players, thus beginning a tour of duty that would include stops with the Milwaukee Braves, Mets, Phillies, Astros, and Atlanta Braves. He would play for 16 seasons, finishing with a .266 average, 286 home runs, 962 rbi's, and percentages of .320/.454/.774.
- Lo-Hi Beckett value: $4.00-$8.00.
- How many cards of this player do I own?: 2.
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: 1996 Topps #114. 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
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