- Series: Diamond Heads '15
- City: St. Louis
- Team: Browns (AL)
- League: American League
- Hall: National Baseball Hall of Fame
Wesley Branch Rickey (1881-1965) didn’t live to see his 1967 entrance into the Hall of Fame as one of the legends in baseball’s executive ranks, but he did see the legacy of his pioneering efforts to end decades of shameful discrimination in the sport he loved. In the year of his death, one in five MLB players was African American. In his half-century in the front office, Rickey invented the farm system and had one of the keenest eyes for talent.
- In WWI Rickey commanded a chemical warfare unit that included Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson
- Hired Allan Roth as the first team statistician in 1947, thus becoming an early progenitor of sabermetrics
- Jackie Robinson eulogized Rickey as having done more for African Americans than anyone but Abraham Lincoln
- Elected to Hall of Fame: 1967
- Series: Diamond Heads '15
- City: St. Louis
- Team: Browns (AL)
- League: American League
- Hall: National Baseball Hall of Fame
Rhoderick John Wallace (1873-1960) had a Hall of Fame career as one of the top shortstops for 24 years before going on to one of the longest tenures in MLB as coach, manager, scout and even a short stint as an umpire. Playing primarily in St. Louis for the Cardinals and Browns, Wallace set records, including a mournful one: longest career by a player to never make the World Series.
- Too good a fielder to stay on the mound, became the premier defensive SS of his era
- In 1911, Pirates’ owner declared Wallace the one player in the AL he desired above all others
- Elected to Hall of Fame: 1953
- Series: Diamond Heads '15
- City: St. Louis
- Team: Browns (AL)
- League: American League
Derrill Burnham Pratt (1888-1977) played for the Browns, Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers over a 13-year career in the majors. The scion of a cotton-mill dynasty, Pratt studied the family business at the University of Alabama while pursuing his first love, baseball. He excelled with ‘Bama in both football and baseball to the extent he was inducted into the school’s Sports Hall of Fame. Del entered minor-league ball in 1910 and showed himself to be an outstanding hitter. St. Louis signed him and held on against John McGraw’s efforts to lure him to the Giants. He rewarded the Browns with five great years where Pratt was the everyday second-baseman consistently batting near .300. Perhaps befitting one who was to the manor born, Pratt was a fighter. He became a union leader in the tumult of the Federal League era, had some fistfights with rowdy opponents, and generally stood his ground. Branch Rickey admired his feisty infielder but lost his managerial job when the Browns were sold in 1916. Del ran afoul of the new owner and was traded to NY where Miller Huggins would say Pratt “put the ball club on its feet.”
- Long before the vaunted ‘27 club, sportswriters dubbed the infield Pratt joined as “Murderers’ Row,” the “greatest collection of pitcher thumpers in baseball today.”
- During Pratt’s career, from 1912-1924, Pratt was 12th in all of baseball in WAR (between Max Carey and Home Run Baker)
- Series: Pilgrims
- City: St. Louis
- Team: Browns (AL)
- League: American League
- Hall: National Baseball Hall of Fame
Rhoderick John Wallace (1873-1960) had a Hall of Fame career as a premier shortstop for 24 years before going on to one of the longest tenures in MLB as coach, manager, scout & even a short stint as an umpire. Playing primarily in St. Louis for the Cardinals & Browns, Wallace set records, including a mournful one: longest career by a player to never make the World Series.
- Too good a fielder to stay on the mound, became the premier defensive SS of his era
- In 1911, Pirates’ owner declared Wallace the one player in the AL he desired above all others
- Elected to Hall of Fame: 1953
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T201 Mecca Canvas: Bobby Wallace
- Series: Pilgrims
- City: St. Louis
- Team: Browns (AL)
- League: American League
- Hall: National Baseball Hall of Fame
George E. Waddell (1876-1914) was one of the premier pitchers in MLB history and also a man-child who’d leave the dugout and chase a fire truck. His titanic struggles with Cy Young made for the greatest pitching duels of all time. Connie Mack described his curve as the “fastest and deepest I’ve ever seen.”
- Waddell’s perplexing personal and social problems led to a shortened career and life
- Driven to distraction, Mack sold Rube to the Browns for the ’08 season, his last hurrah
- Elected to Hall of Fame: 1946
Auction History
Cartophilia
T201 Mecca Canvas: Lefty Leifield
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