Archive for Shortstop

Card of the Day: 1955 Topps Don Zimmer Rookie

Posted in Card of the Day with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on July 6, 2008 by Cardboard Icons

OK, you know you have too many cards when you go to sort a stack of papers on your desk and you uncover one of these: 1955 Topps Don Zimmer rookie. I totally forgot I had this card. During one of my eBay searched last summer I found this Zimmer, which I needed for my rookie card project (see RAM Project). Zimmer is an interest baseball character to me. As a Red Sox fan I recall him managing the Sox, and then in ’03 I watched Pedro Martinez pretty much body slam him during a bench-clearing brawl. But what’s even more intriguing to me is that this guy played shortstop! (Note, he split time at second and third as well) The back of this card indicates that Zimmer was 5’9 and a trim 165 pounds when this was produced. Zimmer has to be pushing 350 these days. Anyhow, Zimmer had a fairly uneventful playing career. He was an All-Star (1961) and managed to hang in there for a dozen seasons. During his playing time he collected 773 hits (pretty much the same number Ichiro had by the end of his third season) and “belted” 91 homers. After playing, Zimmer managed in the league for 13 seasons. He was named National League Manager of the Year in 1989, the same year his Cubs lost to the Giants in the NLCS.

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