Woody's World - Cats, guitars and sports cards

My Sports Card Collection (Eddie Mathews)

Introduction.

The year was 1958. The New York Yankees and the Milwaukee Braves met in the World Series, a repeat matchup from 1957. The Braves had won in 1957 in a tight seven-game series. My cousin Jerry came to stay with us for a while, and he was a Yankees fan. Naturally, therefore, I had to go with the Braves. From then on I was a Milwaukee Braves fan. And that led me to my favorite player - their third baseman, Eddie Mathews.

Eddie is regarded as one of the top third basemen of all time. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978, and he was selected to the MLB All-Century team in 1999. He finished with a career batting average of .271 and smacked 512 home runs. He and teammate Hank Aaron together hit more home runs than any other pair of teammates.

I had the tremendous pleasure of meeting Eddie at a local card show in 1999 and got his autograph. As my wife said, it's not often you get to meet your heroes in person. This was indeed a thrill for me.

In my Mathews collection I have:

- Approximately 195 unique cards, including:

twenty-two Topps base set vintage cards covering the years 1953-1974,
(missing only (of course) the 1952 rookie card),
the 3 Bowman cards from '53 - '55,
forty-seven auto or memorabilia cards,
and about 123 others.

- An autographed baseball and two autographed 8x10s.
- The Ron Lewis color 8x10 print.
- Fifteen magazines with Eddie on the cover, including the very first issue of Sports Illustrated from August 16, 1954.
- A pamphlet entitled "Winning Baseball by Eddie Mathews".
- The Hall of Fame and "500 home run" plaques.
- Two biographies:

"Eddie Mathews and the National Pastime" by Eddie Mathews and Bob Buege, and
"The Eddie Mathews Story" by Al Hirshberg.

- Numerous unsigned photos and old newspaper clippings.
- A Chesterfield cigarettes full-page Sporting News ad featuring Eddie (how times have changed!).

For sample pictures of this collection click HERE.
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