What Became of Hub

A few weeks ago, I wrote about a purchase of two T206 cards as a package deal, only needing one of the two cards for my set.  My goal was to trade Hub Perdue for another Southern Leaguer or in the alternative, sell the card for about half the lot price to recoup some of my investment and keep the George Paige, which moved me one card closer to completion. 

Well, I was able to find a match fairly quickly and added the below Charlie Fritz to my set.



The Fritz might be a shade rougher than the Perdue, but perfect matches are few and far between.

As to Charlie Fritz, little is known about him.  He pitched one game in the majors for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1907.  He was a left-handed hurler, who aside from his stint in Philadelphia, spent the remainder of his career pitching across the old South in a variety of leagues.  His pitching record in the minors is limited to wins and losses, where he did not seem very successful, as he rarely cracked .500. 

In my mind, the most interesting fact is no one knows how Charlie Fritz batted.  Growing up, I always loved the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia, but wondered, especially in the earlier years, why there were blank spots where someone batted or threw.  As I learned more about the world, I realized that record keeping was spotty and while the internet leads us to the opposite conclusion, not everything was recorded.  However, according to Fritz's batting record, he batted at least 889 times in the minors and yet there is no record of whether he batted left handed, as he pitched, or right handed, in opposition to his throwing.   I guess it just bothers me that we care enough about his baseball card to still ascribe value to it, but care not for the basic information for the man the card is based upon. 

Piggy Paige's Cup of Coffee

With yesterday's Hub Perdue packed and ready for shipping, the question is why did I buy a card, a Southern Leaguer at that, which I already owned.  Well, intrepid reader, the answer was to get a George Paige of Charleston card. 



If you search eBay for T206 cards, you can usually find most of the set available for purchase at any point in time.  However, some of the short print cards and Southern Leaguers require a combination of patience and persistence to obtain these cards, especially in more affordable (read lower) grades.

When my set was in its infancy, I would often buy small lots, allowing me to add a few cards at a time.  However, as I near the 90% completion mark, I am forced to either buy cards one at a time, or re-home a portion of the lot, preferably as soon as possible.  With commons, it's a bit harder to move the card, but I gambled that I would be able to move the Hub Perdue fairly quickly for cash or trade.

So, needing the Paige for my set, I rolled the dice, fended off another bidder and took the pair of cards down last Friday night.  I did so, because I cannot find any record of my bidding on another T206 Paige in the past.  I know I held one at the National, but thought the price was prohibitive, even as I added seven Southern Leaguers that fine day in Baltimore.

As to Paige himself, I knew nothing of him before buying his card, other than he played for Charleston in the Sally League.  I know a good amount about many of the players in the T206 set, but some of the minor league players stump me, because they had short or non-existent careers in the majors. 

Piggy or Mabel Paige, whose nicknames are distinctly above average for the era, was a pitcher.  In 1911, he pitched in two games for the Cleveland Naps (at the time named after Napoleon Lajoie), comprising his entire big league career, despite tryouts with the Giants and Dodgers at other points in time.   The only otherwise noteworthy point of Paige's career is that he liked to jump teams.  Quite a few times, he would walk out on his contract, only to return either to the team or another team in the circuit a short time later.

And to think, a century later, people still care about Piggy Paige and his cup of coffee, because he had the good fortune to be depicted on a baseball card.