Baseball Trading Cards of Negro League Players in Major Leagues (c. 1950’s-1960’s)

The most popular souvenir in baseball today is the baseball card. Baseball cards have been around since before the turn of the century. White baseball teams have had thousands of different issues of baseball cards produced for a variety of marketing and advertising purposes. One of the most interesting facts in the history of baseball cards in the United States is that there has never been a documented issue of baseball cards for Negro League players in the year that they were actually playing. The only baseball cards of Negro League players you will find are commemorative issues that were produced long after the players retired or baseball cards when the Negro League players signed with the Major League teams. The picture in our Souvenir Gallery is a small collection of Topps and Bowman bubble gum baseball trading cards from the 1950’s and early 1960’s that shows the former Negro League players when they were playing in the Major Leagues. The collection presented here represents the following players:

Satchel Paige         St. Louis Browns       (1953)

Jim Pendleton        Milwaukee Braves    (1953)

Luke Easter        Cleveland Indians      (1954)

Dave Pope    Cleveland Indians         (1955)

Dave Hoskins      Cleveland Indians      (1955)

Bob Trice            Kansas City Athletics     (1955)

Gene Baker       Chicago Cubs     (1956)

Curt Roberts       Pittsburgh Pirates     (1956)

Sandy Amoros       Brooklyn Dodgers       (1957)

Harry Simpson       Kansas City Athletics     (1957)

Hank Thompson     New York Giants      (1957)

Pancho Herrera      Philadelphia Phillies     (1958)

Connie Johnson      Baltimore Orioles      (1958)

Larry Raines    Cleveland Indians      (1958)

George Altman         Chicago Cubs     (1960)

Bob Boyd          Baltimore Orioles      (1960)

George Crowe            St. Louis Cardinals          (1960)

Henry Mason        Philadelphia Phillies      (1960) 

Jim Proctor      Detroit Tigers     (1960) 

Billy Harrell         Boston Red Sox      (1961) 

Al Smith   Chicago White Sox      (1961)

The only baseball cards of Negro League players to be produced when they were actually playing came from Latin America. In Cuba baseball cards were produced for many years of all four teams in the Cuban Winter League. Excellent cards of many of the Negro League stars can be found in Cuban baseball cards from the 1930’s through 1950’s. Baseball cards were produced on a much more limited basis of the PuertoRican Winter League in the 1930’s and 1940’s.

An interesting footnote to baseball cards and the Negro Leagues is that in 1976 the R.G. Fleer Company produced a 42 card set of the Indianapolis Clowns. The Clowns were still barnstorming around the country during 1976, but the Negro Leagues had come to an end many years before.