#282 Birdie Tebbetts

#282 Birdie Tebbetts
Progress: 1st of this card
273 of 407  67% complete
How acquired: $8.99 on eBay
Condition: Fair

This Birdie Tebbetts has the look of an old baseball card.  Obviously, all of these cards are old, but this one just really looks the part.  Not so much because of it's level of wear and tear (which helps), but just the art on the front really fits my idea of a what an old card should look like.  It's clearly not a photo, as the painting is very stylized, and the darker, almost drab colors just give it a nice old fashion look.  "Birdie" helps the cause as well, with the name, which sounds old, and he was at the end of his own MLB road, as he's no spring chicken in this photo at the age of 38.

Chief Wahoo doesn't hurt the old-timey look either.  I just wrote and erased about six long winded paragraphs about the Wahoo logo and other similar names/logos.  Instead I'll sum up my thoughts in a couple of lines here, (1) I love the Chief Wahoo logo and Cleveland should continue to use it.  (2) The names that accompany native american logos are usually far worse than the art in logo and those should be changed, you can keep the logos.  (3) Don't dress up like Chief Wahoo, or tell other's they can't be offended by him, you're only speeding up his ultimate demise.

None of that has much to do with Birdie Tebbetts, who was one of the better catchers of his era, making four All-Star teams in fourteen seasons.  Per his wiki page, he was regarded as the best AL Catcher of the 1940's, but that may have been written by his kids.  After his playing days, he did some front office work, and found time to manage 11 MLB seasons for the Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Braves, and Cleveland Indians.

Stats: 14 seasons, 4x All-Star, 1,000 hits, 38 Home Runs, .270 avg., won AL Pennant with Detroit in 1940

Best Hall of Fame Showing: 3.0% 1958