Cieradkowski: Bill Sisler, have glove, will travel
From SABR member Gary Cieradkowski at The Infinite Baseball Card Set on February 17, 2016:
Ever been to Moline, Muskogee or Martinsburg? How about Clarksburg, Charleroi or Cumberland? Pitcher Bill Sisler not only hung his hat in all of those places but also over 40 more towns across America and Canada in a career that spanned from 1923 through 1953!
This is the first of what should be close to forty posts I will periodically do covering the minor league odyssey of Bill Sisler. This series will be fun for a few different reasons, the foremost being that I love researching and illustrating old uniforms, and Sisler’s appearing for over 40 different teams lets me really show a wide variety. To make this whole series a bit easier is that Sisler kept himself in top physical condition throughout his playing days in order to be ready to play at a moment’s notice. This means he didn’t gain weight or otherwise change his body shape with age. For all my Sisler illustrations I am going to use the same pose, but each uniform graphic will change to represent a new team. Likewise the backgrounds will vary to reflect each town he played in. In addition, as the years tick by, the glove, cap and uniform style will change to reflect the modernization of the equipment. For instance, today’s post shows Bill on his first pro team, the Elmira Red Jackets. Since this is 1923, Sisler is using a Spalding split-finger style glove as was common at the time. The webbing between the thumb and index is a solid piece of leather, not leather lacing as was common later in the decade. His jersey has the “sun collar” which was the standard for baseball uniforms up until the mid-1930’s, and the cap has a shorter brim as was common in 1923.
So, who was Bill Sisler?
Read the full article here: http://www.infinitecardset.blogspot.com/2016/02/214-bill-sisler-have-glove-will-travel.html
Originally published: February 17, 2016. Last Updated: February 17, 2016.