#227 Joe Garagiola
Progress: 1st of this card
262 of 407 64.3% complete
How acquired: $7.50 on eBay
Condition: Fair
This card looks about what I would have previously expected a Joe Garagiola card to look like. Garagiola is obviously a name I was very familiar with. I'm not sure if his name still rings out with younger fans, but when I was a kid, he seemed to be everywhere. I was always more of Bob Uecker guy, but they seemed to be cut from the same cloth.
And while Joe looks like I would have expected him to on this card, it occurred to me that I didn't really know anything about him as a player. I can't say I even knew for a certainty that he had been a player. And I certainly didn't know him as a Pirate. For reasons I can't explain, I associated him as a Yankee and Cardinal. The Cardinal association checks out, but I don't know where I pulled the Yankee association came from (probably was confusing him with Yogi Berra when I was really young). In any event, Garagiola's wiki page is an interesting read. The guy kept busy. And while I found some of the details of his off-field exploits a bit off-putting, I'm still somewhat pleased to now have a Garagiola card in my collection.
Stats: 9 seasons, 481 hits, 42 HR, 255 RBI, .257 avg., World Series Ring with Cardinals in 1946
Best Hall of Fame Showing: N/A
Joe grew up with Yogi in St. Louis and was his best bud..that's how you made the connection.
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