The Hall of Fame Profile posts are not restricted to the Hall in Cooperstown. I also try and hit the various other Halls with a heavy dose of the Philly Sports Hall of Fame. When I originally ran the Hall of Fame Thursday feature I chronicled the entire Philly Sports HoF 2008 class. Today I would like to feature a member of the 09 Class Bobby Shantz.
Shantz played half of his 16 year career with the Athletics - including 6 while the A's were based in Philadelphia. He finished his career pitching a handful of innings for the ill-fated 1964 Phillies. Shantz's Best year was his MVP season of 1952 which is memorably featured in the 1975 Topps MVP subset with a reprint of his card from the seminal 52 set. Shantz also has eight Gold Gloves on his mantle - He appared on the losing side of two World Series matchups as a pitcher for the Yankees.
Bobby Shantz is still kicking at 85 years old. He lives in the Philadelphia area and I see his name pop up frequently for autograph and card shows.
For the Collector
One of the vintage subsets I really like is the 1961 Topps MVP series.
1961 Topps #473 Bobby Shantz
The subset is 16 cards including Mantle, Aaron, Willie Mays, Roy Campanella, Roger Maris, Banks and Yogi among others. It is one of the subsets I have considered building for a while and really needed to checklist - so I have finally decided to stop procrastinating on that.
471. MVP -- Phil Rizzuto
472. MVP -- Yogi Berra
473. MVP -- Bobby Shantz
474. MVP -- Al Rosen
475. MVP -- Mickey Mantle
478. MVP -- Roger Maris
482. MVP -- Willie Mays
483. MVP -- Don Newcombe
484. MVP -- Hank Aaron
485. MVP -- Ernie Banks
486. MVP -- Dick Groat
If you would elect to build this set the Mantle card will likely be about half of the battle. Fortunately, I imagine several of the lower level MVPs can likely be had for under a dollar. I have picked up a few of these cards at shows and in auctions without really building the set and already have 6 of the 16 cards. The biggest one in my collection is this pock marked Willie Mays.
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