Duke Carmel St. Louis Cardinals
Career: New York City native Duke Carmel played in 124 big league games between 1959 and 1965 for the Cards, Mets and Yankees. He was also passed through the Dodgers and Indians organizations along the way. He showed lots of power in the minors but hit only four dingers in the bigs. The most interesting thing about Carmel is his transaction log...
June 15, 1960: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals with Jim Donohue to the Los Angeles Dodgers for John Glenn.
September 19, 1960: Purchased by the St. Louis Cardinals from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
May 16, 1961: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Joe Koppe.
Before 1962 Season: Sent from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the St. Louis Cardinals in an unknown transaction.
March, 1962: Purchased by the Cleveland Indians from the St. Louis Cardinals.
Before 1963 Season: Sent from the Cleveland Indians to the St. Louis Cardinals in an unknown transaction.
July 29, 1963: Traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the New York Mets for Jacke Davis and cash.
November 30, 1964: Drafted by the New York Yankees from the New York Mets in the 1964 rule 5 draft.
So he went from the Dodgers to the Cardinals to the Dodgers to the Cardinals to the Indians to the Cardinals to the Mets and to the Yankees. The Cardinals bought him, sold him, traded him (3 times!) and acquired him (twice) in unknown transactions. All righty then.
In 1960: He spent most of the season at the AAA level for St. Louis and LA.
WikiFact: From his Wikimedia page: With his name he might have been a natural for having a candy bar named after himself. But he probably would have had a better chance had he put up numbers in the majors like the .324 batting average, 29 homers and 121 RBIs he had in 1957 when he led the Billings Mustangs to the Pioneer League pennant, or the 35 home runs he hit for Buffalo in 1964.
The Card: I love these orange Rookie Team cards. The back of this one was plenty faded,
I mainly think of Duke Carmel in terms of his 1964 card, which shows him with the Mets (even though he'd be gone by the time the card came out). If a guy from NYC can't stick with an early 1960's Mets team, that unfortunately says a bit about Duke Carmel.
ReplyDeletetopps was pulling mightily for "The Duke" as they not only gave him a card as a Met but included him in their exclusive 120ct coin set of 1964. As a nine year old first time collector that move made me think that he was an all-star or something amazin'!
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