1955 Is In My Head

I love going to the card shop with the anticipation of picking up a super cool card that is waiting for me.  Valley Sports Cards has a weekly bid board with mostly baseball cards for sale.  Other collectors post up a variety of cards from vintage to classy hits and this is where I like to spend some of my collecting dollars.  If I win any cards with my bids, the shop owner will email me my total.  I rarely ask what cards that I have won. I enjoy the mystery.

This last week was different.  I asked what cards were waiting for me.  Their was one card that I bid on that I really wanted.  I put a low ball bid on it, even though it was the card that I wanted most hanging from the wall.  I am stumped as to why I put a low bid on it.

I must have been distracted by Dodgerbobble and was in a hurry to eat some chili dogs.

My idiotic bid just slightly over the asking price worked?!?!  How could I have ended up with a 1959 Topps Clem Labine autograph, certified by JSA and slabbed, while bidding on a baseball card featuring a Dodger, in Los Angeles, in a card shop frequented by fans of Los Doyers while being oddly thrifty?

The baseball gods did me a solid and I will honor them with prayer before I go to bed tonight.

The reason that I really wanted this signature was because of my love for the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.  That team beat the Yankees in a seven game series to be crowned world champs.

Labine was a star relief pitcher for the Dodgers.  He made some spot starts but he mostly threw out of the bullpen.  Labine appeared in a league leading 60 games in 1955 and notched 11 saves.  Of those 60 games, 8 of them were starts.

Labine closed out a Dodger victory in Game 5 of the '55 World Series.  He pitched 3 innings to earn that save and help the Dodgers win 5-3.  Real men pitch multiple innings for saves.

In Game 5, Duke Snider would be the real star of the game.  Snider mashed 2 homers and a double off Yankee starter Bob Grim.  A 36 year old Jackie Robinson batted seventh this game.  A hall of fame infielder batting seventh!

Those were your 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.