#231 Hal Naragon

Hal Naragon  Washington Senators

Career: Hal Naragon signed with his home state Indians in 1947 and made it to the majors in 1952. He was unique in that his numbers got better as he climbed up through the Cleveland system. He also had a two-year detour as he served with the US Marines.

Over his ten-year big league career, playing for the Indians and Senators/Twins, he was never a primary catcher. His busiest season was 1959 when he got into 85 games that bracketed a May trade to the Senators for another long-time reserve backstop, Ed Fitz Gerald.

Naragon hit a respectable .266 for his career which included playing for the 111-win '54 AL Champ Indians. He caught three Hall of Fame pitchers for that club (Wynn, Feller, and Lemon) and made a defensive appearance in Game Three of the Series that year.

He spent many years as a coach after his playing days and was on the staff of the 1965 Twins team that won the AL crown and the '68 Tigers where he earned a World Series ring that he wore proudly until his passing at the age of 90 almost exactly one year ago.

In 1960: He struggled for playing time with the Nats and was only in 33 games, the fewest of his career up to that point. His .207 average was below his career norm. Game logs for that season show some fairly big gaps between appearances so injuries may have played a part in all this.

Off The Charts: Naragon's school, Barberton (Ohio) High, recognizes star baseball players with the Hal Naragon Award and the school’s baseball field is named in his honor.

#161 Ray Narleski

Ray Narleski  Detroit Tigers

Career: Ray Narleski, a Jersey native, was signed out o high school by Cleveland and experienced a tough first year as a pro in 1948. When a promised AAA-level raise wasn't forthcoming Narleski sat out a season. He returned in 1950 and had a successful four-year tour of the Indians' system.

He made the team in 1954, was put in the bullpen, and helped the Indians win the AL title. Narleski pitched in '54 Series against the Giants and had two effective outings. He allowed only a single (to Willie Mays in Game Three) over four innings.

With the Indians, he became part of a bullpen tandem with Don Mossi and the pair became friends. Narleski led the AL with 19 saves in 1955. He was eased into getting more starts as his career moved along. He had been a starter in the minors and preferred that role. He made two AL All-Star teams. He was traded (along with his pal, Mossi) to the Tigers following the 1958 season. His year in Detroit was hampered by injuries and turned out to be the end of the line for him.

In 1960: Narleski had back surgery early in the year and spent the season on the DL. He returned to the team in 1961 but left baseball rather than accept a potential minor league assignment.

Off The Charts: According to his SABR bio, Narleski played semipro ball in New Jersey and Delaware. He went to work as a mechanic/truck builder. His father, Bill Narleski, had played two seasons for the Red Sox as a platoon/utility infielder.

#111 Vic Wertz

Vic Wertz  Boston Red Sox

Career: He played 17 seasons in the majors and was a four-time All-Star as well as a four-time Top 10 MVP vote-getter. Yet he is primarily known for one swing of the bat...the drive in the 1954 World Series that Willie Mays nabbed with one of the most memorable catches in baseball history.

He played for five different AL clubs after breaking in as an outfielder with the Tigers in 1947. He had been an outfielder but moved to first base in '54 when he was traded from the Orioles to Cleveland on June 1st of that year. That deal sent him from a terrible first year Orioles club to the eventual AL champions.

In 1960: With his career winding down, Wertz had a very nice last hurrah in Boston. He hit .282 with 19 homers and 103 RBIs in his final season as an everyday player.

Off The Charts: Wertz was 8 for 16 with a dinger in that '54 Series but I bet he'd trade it all for about another foot of height on the shot that Mays caught.

But to his credit he never let it bother him. According to Wikipedia...

After he retired from playing, Wertz kept a photo of “The Catch” in his office at his beer distribution company and explained he had no negative feelings about being remembered for hitting a deep fly out.
"I'm very proud that I'm associated with it," Wertz told UPI in 1979. "I look at it this way: If that ball Willie caught had been a home run or a triple, how many people would've remembered me? Not many. This way, everybody who meets me for the first time always identifies me with Willie's catch, and that makes me feel good."

And to his further credit, he was a big supporter of Special Olympics through his businesses and personal contributions of time and financing.

But because we have to....

Here's a short video of his two-RBI triple in his first World Series at-bat.

#106 Billy Gardner

Billy Gardner  Baltimore Orioles

Career: Gardner played 19 seasons in the bigs, five as a regular and four of those with the Orioles thru the late 1950s. He had a career .237 average and his best season came in 1957 when he led the AL with 36 doubles (as well as in at-bats and plate appearances). He played with two Series-winning clubs, the Giants in 1954 (his rookie year) and the 1961 Yankees. He did not appear in the '54 Series but he made the box score in the '61 Series with one AB. 

He later spent five seasons managing the Twins and a short stint as a replacement for Dick Howser in Kansas City when Howser had to undergo cancer treatment.


In 1960: He was traded to the Senators early in April and hit .257  with a career-high 56 RBIs in what would be his last season as a regular.

Off The Charts: His son, Billy Gardner Jr, has been involved in baseball as well and is, at last look, working as the roving coordinator for the Nationals.

The Card: There's that yellow, orange, black and white pattern again. Looks as good with the Orioles as it does with the Pirates.

#90 Bobby Avila

Bobby Avila  Milwaukee Braves

Career: He played 11 seasons with the Indians and in their pennant-winning year of 1954 he won the AL batting title and finished third in the MVP voting. He struggled at the plate in the series against the Giants with just two hits in 15 at bats. He was a three-time All-Star. He played his final big league season with three clubs, the Orioles, Red Soxm and Braves. He finished with a .281 average for his career.

In 1960: Avila was farmed out in the spring of 1960 and wound up playing one final season, with the Mexico City Tigers. He helped that club with the pennant with a .333 average and he set a record for runs scored. After the season he began the next phase of his life by abecoming the president of Mexico's Vera Cruz League. 

Off The Charts: He's a member of Mexico's baseball Hall of Fame, has had two stadiums named for him, and served in Mexico's Congress and as the mayor of Vera Cruz.

The Card: This is a terrific card. Beautiful Braves classic uni with Connie Mack Stadium as the backdrop.

#82 Ruben Gomez

Ruben Gomez  Philadelphia Phillies

Career: Not enough room to list Gomez' comings and goings through all the many levels and leagues that he was a part of. He was the second Puerto Rican-born pitcher to reach the majors (with the Giants in 1953) and he was the first to pitch in (and win) a World Series game (1954, Game Three). He was also the first major league pitcher to win a game on the West Coast as he led the Giants to an 8-0 win over the Dodgers to open the '58 season. He threw for four major league clubs over ten seasons. He pitched a remarkable 28 seasons in the Puerto Rican Winter League between 1947 and 1977. His NY Times obit is a good place to read about him. It's fuller than his Wikipedia page and shorter than his SABR bio. But whatever you do, check out his career. He was an interesting guy.

In 1960: He opened the season in the Phils' bullpen and was largely ineffective. He was sent to the minors in June and didn't return to the majors until he resurfaced with the Indians and Twins in the second half of the 1962 season. 

Off The Charts: This story is found on Gomez' Wikipedia page, and in his SABR bio. Take it for what it's worth:

One day [while Gomez was pitching in the Mexican League in the late 60s] a young boy begged Gómez to buy a lottery ticket that he was selling to make some badly needed money. The boy insisted that Gómez buy the ticket because his uniform number matched that of the ticket, and Gómez, who did not normally buy such tickets, agreed. To his great surprise, the ticket was a winner of a $35,000 prize. Gómez attempted to share the money with the boy's family and when they refused, he went to a local bank and set up a trust fund for the lad, to be given to him at age 18.
...
In 2001, Gómez was hospitalized after a lengthy fight against cancer and was about to receive surgery. A doctor from Mexico requested permission to attend the operation. When Gómez asked the doctor why he had come, he replied, "I was that little boy, the money that you left in trust was enough to pay for my medical school."

The Card: I'm beginning to think three-color cards should have been standard with this set. The green/yellow/white combo plays well with the red of Gomez' uni and the Connie Mack Stadium backdrop. A nice card for sure.

#80 Johnny Antonelli

Johnny Antonelli  San Francisco Giants

Career: He began and ended his career with the Braves. In between, he made a name for himself in New York as the Giants' ace in their 1954 championship season. In that '54 run, he won 21 games and led the league with a 2.30 ERA and 6 shutouts. He had a complete game win and a save in the Series against the Indians.

In total, he won 126 games and made five NL All-Star squads.  Post-baseball he owned and operated a string of Firestone outlets around his Rochester, New York home region.

In 1960: He was nearing the end of the line and had issues with both his performance and Giants management. He had a strong start to the year but by seasons' end he was out of the rotation and soon was traded away.

Off The Charts: I found this little tidbit in an MLB.com post about him: "Antonelli was selected* by the expansion 1962 New York Mets, which would have brought him back to the Polo Grounds. But he was tired of traveling and had already started a thriving chain of Firestone Tire stores, so he turned down the offer and retired."

*Baseball Reference has him being purchased by the Mets, not as part of the draft itself.

The Card: Not a bad card but I'd have liked a different color than orange for the 'action' picture background. And it's another one where Topps cropped the main photo oddly giving it an off-center look.

#63 George Strickland

George Strickland  Cleveland Indians

Career: He was a good-field, no-hit shortstop for ten seasons with the Pirates and Indians. He did have one nice year with the bat hitting .284 in 1953, his first full season in Cleveland. He appeared in three games in the 1954 Series against the Giants but went hitless in nine at-bats. He led the AL shortstops in fielding in 1955.

In 1960: He was at the end of his career but made the club due to an injury to Woody Held. He was on the bench for most of the summer and was released early in August. He had hit .167 in 32 games as a fill-in at short and third.

Off The Charts: According to SABR.."After his playing career ended, Strickland scouted for one year and coached for ten with the Indians, the Minnesota Twins, and the Kansas City Royals. In 1964 he became the first New Orleans native to manage in the majors when he filled in for an ailing Birdie Tebbetts."

The Card: The blurb mentions that he had been retired for a year before returning to the Indians in 1959. It's a nice combo of colors and it's a three-color combo at that.