In celebration of the 65th anniversary of Topps baseball cards, my collection is going to be the subject of this year-long series.
Shortly after starting my obsession in 1971, the goal was to have at least one Topps card from every year.
Although the 1952 set is considered to be the first released by Topps, the company issued two series that was a part of a game a year earlier.
One of the 1956 cards among all of my boxes of cardboard has a local connection for me.
Back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was a minor league franchise in my hometown of Richmond, Ind.
In the 1940s, the Richmond Roses were part of the Boston Braves organization. Beginning in 1949, the team became the Richmond Tigers and was affiliated with Detroit.
The teams played in a ballpark, which was built in the late 1930s and is still used today. It currently has a wooden bat summer league team, the Richmond Jazz, for college players. Known as McBride Stadium today, it has hosted countless high school and college contests along with a decade long run of independent ball in the Frontier League with the Richmond Roosters.
Back in 1950, Billy Hoeft was an 18-year old pitcher in his first year of professional baseball when he played for Richmond in the Class D Ohio-Indiana League.
Hoeft led Richmond with a 10-1 record that season and posted a 1.71 ERA as the Tigers finished third in the standings behind two teams from Ohio the Marion Red Sox and the Newark Yankees.
After a year in Richmond, Hoeft was 9-14 in Toledo in 1951. With just one season in Triple-A, Hoeft made it to the major leagues in 1952.
Hoeft would pitch for the Tigers from 1952 to 1959. He also played for the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles in 1959. Leaving the Orioles after the 1962 season, the lefthander played four more years with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Braves.
One of the few hurlers to throw an immaculate inning, Hoeft achieved the feat of striking out Jim Rivera, Mike Fornieles and Chico Carrasquel of the Chicago White Sox on nine pitches in one frame on Sept. 7, 1953.
By 1955, Hoeft was an American League All-Star with a 16-7 mark for the Tigers. Hoeft also led the league with seven shutouts as he tossed 17 complete games.
The following season was the best of his 15-year big league career as he posted a 20-14 record with 18 complete games. He was 97-101 in the majors and he also had winning records of 7-4 in the Orioles in 1961 and 4-0 with the Braves in 1964.
Another Big League Pitcher
An interesting side note to Hoeft’s story was that he wasn’t the most famous pitcher from the 1950 Richmond Tigers.
Hoeft had an 18-year old rookie teammate that became a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Jim Bunning was 7-8 for Richmond in 1950 and had three more losing seasons in the minors.
Bunning was called up to the Tigers in 1955 and in 1957 was 20-8.
Over 17 seasons, he was 224-184 and threw no-hitters in both leagues before joining the Hall of Fame in 1996.