Bowman’s 1955 Umpire Baseball Cards

Many baseball fans of a certain age remember with some nostalgia the 1955 Bowman “TV set” of baseball cards, which featured a number of umpires. Television was new for many Americans at that time; it was maybe three years earlier that my family got the first set in the neighborhood I grew up in and neighbors came over to watch. In 1953 ABC had started televising The Game of the Week with Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner. In 1955 CBS took over the broadcast. Bowman was undoubtedly hoping to capitalize on the growing TV market by issuing the TV cards. Of course, the images were in black and white, unlike the Bowman cards.

Looking it up in an old book of baseball-card sets from the very end of the twentieth century, I found the set and the list of the umpires who had been featured.

 

The overall set numbered 320 different cards. Most of them were players, of course. That’s what kids collected. But 30 of them featured umpires. Whose idea that was is something we probably can’t reconstruct at this point.

Dean’s Cards, a leading online baseball-card website, explains that all the player pictures were taken at Shibe Park, many of them featuring its “characteristic green wall.” That’s where Bowman was based, in Philadelphia. Using the television frame was a novelty at the time, one not repeated. Indeed, the 1955 set was Bowman’s last set. Topps bought out Bowman at the end of the year.

The Dean’s site says, “As for the umpire cards, they were, understandably, unpopular with kids, the primary purchasers of baseball cards. Part of what makes the umpire cards so difficult to find is that they were the first to be thrown away by kids looking for their baseball heroes. Curiously, the Bowman Company put the umpires in the last series, which historically competed with the football cards sets that were being released at the same time. Kids had already bought the previous two series full of players and had no interest in the coach- and umpire-heavy last series.

 

Augie Donatelli, Bowman card. (front & back)

 

“The umpire cards themselves were similar to the other 1955 Bowman cards, but had a few key differences. As previously mentioned, the players’ photographs were taken with Shibe Park as a background, while many of the umpires had head shots with a solid color background. On many of the players’ cards, Bowman had the interesting idea to ask them to write about their biggest thrill in baseball, made famous by Eddie Waitkus’ story that was the basis for The Natural, the most exciting game in which they had ever played, or the best pitcher or hitter they had faced. However, the umpire cards feature short biographies written by the Bowman Gum Company. The Bowman writers included facts such as the national heritage of the umpires as well as personal hobbies, family, and professional sports or umpiring experience.” It’s not surprising that young collectors favored, say, #1 Hoyt Wilhelm or #2 Al Dark, #10 Phil Rizzuto, #23 Al Kaline, #134 Bob Feller, #184 Willie Mays, or #202 Mickey Mantle, over — say — #284 William A. Jackowski or #297 Dusty Boggess. Kids who got a William Engeln card (#301) in their pack may have simply chucked it (no disrespect intended.) These umpire cards are rarer than many, though still not highly sought after.

Copies of these cards can still be purchased individually on eBay and similar sites. What follows is a listing of the umpire cards in the set.

 

Card #          Umpire

226                  W F MCKINLEY

235                  J A PAPARELLA

239                  EDWIN A ROMMEL

250                  LARRY NAPP

258                  JOHN W STEVENS

260                  EDWIN H HURLEY

265                  AL BARLICK

267                  GEORGE HONOCHICK

272                  JOHN FLAHERTY

275                  WILLIAM T GRIEVE

277                  ED RUNGE

279                  HANK SOAR

281                  CHARLES BERRY

283                  NESTOR CHYLAK

284                  WILLIAM A JACKOWSKI

286                  FRANK SECORY

289                  ART GORE

291                  FRANK DASCOLI

293                  THOMAS D GORMAN

295                  LEE BALLANFANT

297                  DUSTY BOGGESS

299                  LONNIE WARNEKE

301                  WILLIAM ENGELN

303                  JOCKO CONLAN

305                  FRANK UMONT

307                  BABE PINELLI

309                  HAL DIXON

311                  LARRY GOETZ

313                  AUGIE DONATELLI

315                  CAL HUBBARD

317                  BILL SUMMERS

 

 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Michael Curtin for the idea. He added, “As a high-school umpire for 15 years, I very much enjoy the artistic imagery of umpires over time.” Thanks to Larry Gerlach as well.