#216 Richie Ashburn

#216 Richie Ashburn 
Progress: 1st of this card
285 of 407 
70% complete!!!
How acquired: $29.26 on eBay 
Condition: Very Good

This has long been one of my favorite cards in this set, at least from a distance.  It took me a long time to finally grit my teeth and fork over the money for one of these.  That said, I don't regret a single penny of it.  The green background just looks great with the red Phillies hat, and the art was obviously given more attention than most of the other cards in this set.  That's not really a surprise given the season Ashburn was coming off of in 1951.

I moved to Cooperstown, New York the summer before I started fifth grade in 1990.  I lived there until I graduated from High School in 1998.  As a result, I tend to have a lot of reverence for the guys that were inducted during that stretch.  Ashburn received the call in 1995.  He stood out to me for a couple of reasons.  For one, he was from a much older era.  Guys like Jim Palmer, Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, and Reggie Jackson, were guys I owned cards of from late in their careers.  Ashburn was a mystery to me as his last season was 1962 (he spent 16 years on the HOF ballot).  He was also one of the first guys I remember hearing a lot of grumbling about being inducted.  I just accepted the grumbles and figured he wasn't really worthy.  I was wrong, and had baseball-reference and the internet existed back then, I would have realized I was wrong much sooner.

Stats: 15 seasons, 5x All-Star,  2,574 hits, .308 avg., 2x NL Batting Champ ('55 .338, '58 .350), NL Hits Leader in '51 (221), '53 (205), and '58 (215), NL Triples Leader '50 (14) and '58 (13), 4x NL Walks Leader, 4x NL OBT Leader, Led NL in Stolen Bases '48
NL Pennant with Philadelphia in 1950

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995