When it rains, it pours. Yesterday, there was nothing in the post for me. Today, there were four packages containing seven T206s I needed for my set. I bought most of the cards on different days, but the way the mail works, they all arrive at once. Let's start with a Southern Leaguer, which I might not own by the time I finish writing this post.
Unlike modern sets, where they strive to keep the players from one league or set of leagues in a single issue, the T206 set contains players from a wide multitude of leagues. One commonly known subset are the Southern League cards. As you can see from the back at the top, there are four leagues included in this set: Texas, South Atlantic, Virginia and Southern League. The Southern League subset contains 48 cards and aside from a few short prints and the Big 4 (Wagner, Plank, Doyle NY Natl and Magie), are some of the hardest cards to find.
For the most part, the players included in the set are not particularly famous and most never even played in the Major Leagues. However, to complete the set, you need to hunt down Carlton Molesworth, Cad Coles and Tony Thebo and a whole host of other players. A few of the players in the subset either found success later on, like Hub Perdue or before their stint in these leagues like the Curveless Wonder Al Orth or Ted Breitenstein.
As for The Gallatin Squash Hub Perdue, I spent a good deal of time tracking down his card. One of my favorite teams from the era is the 1914 Miracle Braves, roaring back from last place on July 4th to win the National League pennant and World Series in 4 games, taking advantage of the weakness of the rest of the league due to the rival Federal League raiding most teams in the off-season.
As to Hub, his role in the Miracle Braves is one of loss. Mired in last place, the Braves traded Hub Perdue to the St. Louis Cardinals, where Hub turned his season around, going from awful to mediocre. The next season with the Cardinals was his last, his major league career ending with the Federal League and the resultant loss of 8 teams' worth of Major League jobs. On the whole, his career did not amount to much, but Hub Perdue did end up with a fairly sweet pink background card in one of the most famous card sets of all time.
PS: I still own the card, but have a provisional deal for another Southern Leaguer, pending a scan. Hopefully by tomorrow, the card will be in the mail!
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