The new blog is called 240 Baseball Stars and you can find it here.

We may be witnessing Nerd Baseball history here. Could Danny MacFayden, pictured here on his 1933 Goudey baseball card, be the very first nerdy baseball player? There’s no way to know for sure, but the biographical information on the back of the card gives us a little insight: “First pitcher in the American League to wear spectacles.” MacFayden’s glasses definitely mark him as a Nerd Baseball trailblazer, as does his professor-like appearance. His nickname was “Deacon Danny.”

A question remains: The description of MacFayden as the first American League pitcher to wear glasses implies that a National League pitcher or non-pitcher from either league wore glasses before MacFayden did. If so, who was it and was he as nerdy as MacFayden?

MacFayden had a long and decent career, pitching for 17 seasons (1926-43) with a career 101 ERA+ and a 132-159 record. Among other teams, he pitched for both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees and was a member of the Yankees’ 1932 World Series championship team, although he didn’t pitch in the postseason. His best season came in 1936 with the Boston Bees, when he went 17-13 with a 2.87 ERA (134 ERA+) and finished 9th in the MVP voting.

According to the back of the card, MacFayden was a pitcher for Somerville High School in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he went undefeated. In a high school game that went 12 innings, MacFayden struck out 33 batters and allowed only 4 hits.

From the back of the card: “He used to be the ball maker for his baseball team as a boy, but used to lose most of the balls by hitting home runs.”

Known as “The Kentucky Colonel,” Earle Combs (Goudey incorrectly spells his first name “Earl” – such errors were common in old-timey baseball cards and are not considered error cards) is the first Hall of Famer card that I have acquired from the 1933 Goudey set. He really shouldn’t be in the HOF, though. But that’s not a knock on Combs, who was an excellent player over 12 seasons with the New York Yankees.

As the Yankees center fielder from 1924-1935, Combs compiled a career line of .325/.397/.462, which equates to a career OPS+ of 126. These are great numbers, but not really HOF-worthy, in my opinion, especially when compiled over less than 150o career games. He was elected to the HOF in 1970 by the Veteran’s Committee, which is notorious for having elected many very good, but not great, players from the pre-war era.

Over his career, Combs played in four World Series, of which the Yankees won three; Combs hit .350/.444/.450 in 16 career World Series games.

At age 28, Combs batted leadoff and played center field for the famous “Murderer’s Row” 1927 Yankees team that went 110-44 and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. That season, he batted .356, led the league with 231 hits and scored 137 runs. That tends to happen when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are batting behind you.

He retired at age 36 after suffering a near-death injury crashing into the outfield wall in 1934, in which he fractured his skull. His 1935 attempted comeback season was cut short by another injury and he retired, paving the way for Joe DiMaggio, who would take over center field duties in 1936. He remained a coach in the major leagues for the next 18 years.

From the back of the card: “Eddie is a registered dentist, besides being a high grade major league baseball player.”

I’ll give Goudey a pass on the “high grade” player thing because it is pretty impressive that Doc Farrell was a dentist. One of the fascinating things about reading about old-timey players is how many of them had professions other than baseball. I’ve read about two that were lawyers (including Moe Berg, who was a lawyer and spy for the U.S. during World War II).

Farrell probably should have stuck with dentistry, though. Over nine seasons in the major leagues, he got into just under 600 games and posted a career OPS+ of 66 as an infielder for the New York Giants, Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox. In 1927, he placed 18th in the MVP voting by hitting .316 and driving in 92 runs, though he only slugged .389 that season.

Following the 1934 season, Farrell was traded by the Yankees, along with 4 other players, to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League for Joe DiMaggio and players to be named later. Farrell refused to report to his new team and was eventually traded back to the Yankees as one of the players to be named later.

From the back of the card: “Although he doesn’t hit .300 very often, he gets a lot of hits.”

Actually, Hughie Critz only hit .300 or better once, in his 1924 rookie season with the Cincinnati Reds, when he hit .322 in 102 games. That was also the only season in which he posted an OPS+ over 100. It was all downhill from there. Critz appeared in almost 1500 games in a 12 year career, as a second basemen for the Reds and New York Giants, posting a career OPS+ of 73. Somehow, he placed in the top 5 in MVP voting twice (2nd in 1926 and 4th in 1928).

In 1933, the year in which this card was issued, Critz was a member of the World Series champion Giants, who beat the Washington Senators in 5 games. That 1933 Giants team featured future Hall of Famers Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Travis Jackson, and Carl Hubbell, as well as some guy named Jo-Jo Moore.

From the back of the card: “Is elongated young man, towering 6 feet, 1 1/2 inches and weighing 170 pounds.”

Brother of Slick Coffman, who had a short career in the late 1930s as a pitcher, Dick Coffman played for 15 seasons for the Washington Senators (twice), the St. Louis Browns (twice), the New York Giants, the Boston Bees, and the Philadelphia Phillies. He was thoroughly mediocre, posting a career 72-95 record with a 96 ERA+ over 1460 innings. He pitched for the 1936 and 1937 New York Giants teams that lost to the New York Yankees in consecutive World Series. Coffman didn’t help his team much in those efforts, posting a 12.00 ERA in 6 World Series innings.

Incredibly, he was traded twice for the same player – within six months! On June 9, 1932, Coffman was traded by the Browns to the Senators for pitcher Carl Fischer. On December 13, 1932, the Senators traded him back to the Browns for Carl Fischer.

From the back of the card: “When they want somebody to come through with a hit in the pinch they call on Dave Harris.”

The back of the card states that most of Harris’s work came as a pinch hitter, but his career stats suggest that he was more of a part-time player/pinch hitter, and a pretty good one at that. Over seven seasons with the Boston Braves, Washington Senators, and Chicago White Sox, Harris posted a career .812 OPS (111 OPS+) with a respectable .368 OBP, primarily as an outfielder. In 1932 (.938 OPS), he placed 19th in the MVP voting, which seems completely insane, considering he only appeared in 81 games, with only 177 plate appearances.

Harris’s nickname was “The Sheriff.” According to the back of the card, Harris was “a sheriff in his home town of Greensboro, N.C.”

From the back of the card: “Fast ball pitcher.”

Last week, I posted that I was beginning a collection of 1933 Goudey baseball cards, with the intention of completing the entire 239 card set within half a decade or so. Here’s the first card.

Baseball-Reference lists Mahaffey as “Lee Roy” rather than “Leroy,” and I’m inclined to go with them over a gum company. Mahaffey, who was nicknamed “Popeye,” was a below average pitcher who began his big league career at age 22 in 1926 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but threw only 14 innings for the Pirates over the 1926 and 1927 seasons. According to the back of the card, Mahaffey “had a tryout with Pittsburgh…but failed to make the grade.” (Modern baseball cards really lack that kind of frankness about a player’s performance.)

From 1930-1935, Mahaffey was with the Philadelphia Athletics, primarily as a starter. During that time, he started 118 games and posted a 64-43 record with a 4.82 ERA (adjusted ERA+ of 93). The A’s won the World Series during Mahaffey’s first season with the team. He finished his career with a forgettable season for the St. Louis Browns in 1936.

Mahaffey’s best season came when he went 15-4 with a 4.21 ERA for Connie Mack’s 1931 A’s team that went 107-45 in the regular season, but lost the World Series in 7 games to the St. Louis Cardinals. On that team, Mahaffey was part of a rotation that included future Hall of Famers Lefty Grove (who went 31-4 with a 219 ERA+) and Waite Hoyt. The team also included future HOFers Mickey Cochrane at catcher, Jimmie Foxx at first base, and Al Simmons in the outfield, who batted .390 in 1931. What a team.

Despite being thoroughly mediocre, Mahaffey does have one feather in his cap: He faced the New York Yankees 14 times, both as a starter and reliever, and did not surrender a home run to Babe Ruth. He wasn’t as lucky with Lou Gehrig, though. Gehrig took him deep 7 times.

There are so many awesome old baseball cards out there, so, to focus, I have decided to channel my interest in old-timey cards in a specific direction: I am going to try to assemble an entire set of 1933 Goudey cards. Goudey was an old chewing gum company and was a real innovator in the development of the kind of baseball cards that would later be popularized by Bowman and Topps in the 1950s. The 1933 set, a 240 card set, was Goudey’s first and is generally considered one of the three greatest baseball card sets of all time, along with the 1909-1911 T-206 set (which has the famous Honus Wagner card) and the 1952 Topps set (which has the famous Mickey Mantle card).

The 1933 Goudey set features awesome artwork of players with awesome names (Heinie Manush, Burleigh Grimes, Eppa Rixey, Phil Collins, to name a few). To keep costs down, I’m going to try to complete the set at PSA 3 level, as the prices of cards in this set skyrocket as the condition improves. Between eBay, baseball card shows, auctions, etc., I am shooting to complete the set over a period of 5 years or so, although I may have to wait until I hit the lottery to pick up the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig cards, since they are bank breakers, even in poor condition.

As I get each new card, I will post a scan on this site and write a blurb on the player. It should be fun to learn about these players, as I have never heard of many of them, and I will be focusing on the “commons” at first, in order to keep a modest price tag on this hobby. I made my first purchase on eBay a few days ago, so expect to see the first card in a week or so.