“A year without baseball cards? A whole year, as in 365 days? Are you crazy?! How the heck would we survive?”
Take it easy, dear reader. This isn’t some sort of “super Lent” challenge. Hobby News Daily would never ask you to go a year (or even a day!) without baseball cards. We’re Hobby News Daily, after all!
However, a year without baseball cards was just one of the many sacrifices made by the 8, 9, and 10 year olds of 1945. While there were some baseball cards produced that year, I think it’s a fair statement that most kids in most places would not have landed a single one!
Here’s a look at what was out there.
1945 Leister Autographs Card Game
First up is a set that perhaps challenges the notion of “baseball card” for at least some collectors. More properly, it was a card game that included 52 playing cards of various celebrity pairs.
While 50 of the game cards featured subjects such as Bing Crosby, Joe Louis, and FDR, there were two cards dedicated to baseball. One was a Babe Ruth card with Joe DiMaggio cameo, and the other was a Joe DiMaggio baseball card with Babe Ruth cameo. Both cards are numbered as 9A in the set.
Interestingly, the Ruth card provides not only his incorrect birth date but birth year as well while the DiMaggio card lists him as a second baseman, a position he never once played for the Yankees. Also notable is the fact that neither player was active in 1945. (Ruth retired in 1935, and DiMaggio’s first season back from war was 1946.)
Minor League Issues
Apart from the Leister card game, the only other cards available to U.S.-based collectors were of minor leaguers, and even here the pickings were slim.
1945 Centennial Flour Seattle Rainiers
From a card collecting standpoint, there may have been no better place to be in ‘45 than the Pacific Northwest. Rainier climate, yes, but Rainier baseball cards too: the Seattle Rainiers, that is!
This 27-card set lacks the sort of names today’s collector might pursue, but I have to imagine the locals were thrilled to pull a card of Joe Demoran, en route to a 20-win season, or basepath menace Bobby Gorbould!
1945 Grand Studio Milwaukee Brewers
Collectors in the Cream City had cardboard as well, in the form of a 16-card set by Grand Studio. Again, the checklist was devoid of any genuine major league superstars, but how about Lew “Noisy” Flick, who batted .374 and notched 215 hits that year!
1945 Remar Bread Oakland Oaks
For most of its six year run producing Oaks sets, Remar went with a fairly deep checklist and a number of names today’s vintage collector might recognize: Casey Stengel, Artie Wilson, Augie Galan, George Bamberger, Chuck Dressen, and the like. However, in 1945 (and 1948) only a single team card was issued.
Non-U.S. Issues
So am I saying Lew Flick was the top active player kids could hope for in 1945? Not if they were really good swimmers! Only 90 miles from Florida’s Key West, young collectors could find caramel cards of Hall of Famers Ray Dandridge, Minnie Miñoso, Ray Brown, and even el Maestro, Martin Dihigo!
The 100-card 1945-46 Caramelo Deportivo Cuban League set features a tremendous mix of homegrown Cuban talent, American-born Negro Leaguers, and even its share of white players from the States (e.g., Dick Sisler), making it one of the earliest integrated baseball card sets. Plus, these were the only baseball cards in 1945 that came packaged with a treat kids would enjoy!
On the other hand, these cards were likely timed with the start of the 1945-46 Winter League season, meaning yes, from opening day here in the States to the final out of the 1945 World Series, Lew Flick really was the season’s best active player on cardboard!
Fortunately for young collectors, there was always next year!
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