Thursday, March 30, 2023

Single Card Post: 1953 Topps #187 Jim Fridley

Happy Opening Day everyone! I hope that whatever team(s) you're a fan of do good today and have a fun season!

Let's take a look at Jim Fridley and this 1953 Topps card.


I pulled it out of the top loader it resides in to take these pictures and it felt like it was going to disintegrate in my hands as this card has definitely seen better days. The corners are pretty much non-existent and there's a bunch of creases and what not all over it. However, to me that doesn't mean "poor condition" or anything, that means it was well loved. 

Here Fridley is pictured as a member of the Cleveland Indians against a blue sky. You can see the scoreboard behind him as well. Not sure that's just a generic scoreboard the artist drew in or if it's based on the scoreboard of the Indians home park. I believe they were fully moved out of old League Park by this time so it can't be that scoreboard. Technically this is his "sunset card" as well as he only had this and a card in the 1952 set issued by Topps. Most of the rest of his cards are oddball issues from 1954.

Fridley's career consisted of parts of 14 seasons in the minor leagues at various levels. He spent 7 seasons in AAA ball with Houston, Denver, Richmond (VA) and Indianapolis. He also played with Nashville, where he won the 1958 Southern League batting title, San Antonio and Dallas at the Double-A level and low level affiliates Dayton and Spartanburg. 


It's kind of hard to read the career summary with the autograph on top of it but it covers most of his time in the minors. He only played parts of three seasons in the majors. Debuting with Cleveland in 1952, he appeared in 62 games with a .251 avg, 4 HR and 31 RBI. He was the first rookie in major league history to have a 6-for-6 game. Just before the 1953 season, he was selected off waivers by the Browns but never appeared in a game for them. When the Browns moved to Baltimore following that season, Fridley was in the organization and made it into 85 games for the newly christened Orioles with a .246/.311/.371 slash line.

In December 1954, Fridley was part of a package of PTBNLs that Baltimore sent to the Yankees to complete a massive trade prior to Thanksgiving. He never appeared for the Yankees. He bounced around from organization to organization, never appearing in a major league game between 1955-1957 before finishing up his major league career in a 5-game stint with the Reds in 1958.

Enjoy Opening Day everyone!

2 comments:

  1. That's the second 1953 single I've seen on the blogs tonight. Great research!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder how many other rookies have had a 6-6 game since?

    ReplyDelete