Clearing The Bases - Issue 031
January 24, 2025
Hello and welcome to Issue 031 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.
The latest episode of the podcast with MICHAEL ARONSTEIN went live on Wednesday, January 8, so if you haven’t had a chance to listen to that yet, make sure you do. Michael is a baseball card hobby pioneer who was the co-founder of TCMA, the founder of Photo File, and the recipient of SABR’s 2020 Jefferson Burdick Award, which honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the baseball card hobby.
During our discussion, we talked extensively about the T206 Honus Wagner card, its importance to the hobby, and Michael’s years-long pursuit of the card which eventually landed him two different copies over the course of his collecting career. If you’re reading this newsletter right now, you have a chance to enter a giveaway contest that no one else can enter.
Prior to the holiday season in 1981, Michael’s company TCMA released a 21-ounce beer stein which featured a color image of the T206 Wagner which was in Michael’s personal collection at the time. Only 2,500 steins were made, and each one is individually numbered right on the stein itself. The front of the card appears on one side of the stein, and the back of the card is on the other, allowing the viewer to hold one of the hobby’s most expensive cards in a very unique way. I have one of these beer steins, and I’m giving it away to one lucky newsletter subscriber.
If you send me a proof that you are currently a member of the Baseball Heritage Museum, which operates out of the ticket office at Cleveland’s historic League Park, you’ll be entered into a contest to win the TCMA T206 Wagner stein. If you’re not already a member of the Baseball Heritage Museum, go to THIS PAGE where you can become one for as little as $30. There are several tiers of membership levels, but all yearly memberships give you unlimited museum admission, a 20% discount on all items in the Museum Shop, priority notification on programs, and discounts on tickets to fundraising events. Once you are a member, just send me a screenshot to shoelesspodcast@gmail.com and you’ll be entered to win the contest for the stein. If you haven’t listened to the episode with Michael yet, you can do that HERE.
In a previous issue of the newsletter, I briefly mentioned one of my own favorite holiday traditions which I’ve been enjoying for the past three years with my friend Jacob Pomrenke, who was our guest for Episode 1 of Season 3 of My Baseball History. Each Christmas Day since 2022, Jacob and I (and sometimes his wife, Tracy) have gone on a mostly-baseball-related walking and driving tour of a different city. In 2022, we explored the Bay Area, where Jacob and Tracy were living at the time. In 2023, the three of us explored some lesser-known baseball sites in Chicago. And on Christmas Day of 2024, Jacob and I explored some baseball-related sites in Milwaukee.
Jacob is the Director of Editorial Content at the Society For American Baseball Research, and the chairman of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee, so each year, at least one of the sites we have visited has been somehow Black Sox related. While touring Milwaukee, we visited the grave of Happy Felsch, as well as a few different places where Happy lived throughout his life, before, during, and after his playing career. We also went to Cathedral Square, which is the site of the old Milwaukee County Courthouse, where Shoeless Joe Jackson’s civil trial was held in January of 1924.
We went to the Lloyd Street Grounds, which was the home of the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers in 1901, and the minor-league Brewers from 1895-1900. We went to the site of Borchert Field, which was most notably the home of the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers from 1902 to 1952, but it began life as Athletic Park in 1888. That site also hosted the major-league Brewers during the 1891 American Association season, the 1923 Milwaukee Bears of Negro National League, and the AAGPBL champion Milwaukee Chicks in 1944.
We went to the site of the old Republican House hotel where the American League was founded on March 5, 1900, during a secret meeting in room 185 between Ban Johnson, Charles Comiskey, Connie Mack, and the Killilea brothers. We stopped to warm up inside the Pfister Hotel, which is the grandest hotel in Milwaukee and where MLB teams have stayed for decades when they’ve been in town.
We saw all of the markers and plaques of the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame outside the UW-Milwaukee Panthers basketball arena, which included a vast array of athletes and contributors across a number of sports over the past 150 years. Not just people who played for teams based in Wisconsin, but people who were born in Wisconsin, too. It was a very enlightening visit.
And we also went to American Family Field (formerly known as Miller Park) where we saw plaques and markers celebrating dozens of former Milwaukee players from throughout history. At the playground ballfield in the west parking lots of the stadium sits the home plate marker from the old Milwaukee County Stadium, as well as a statue of Henry Aaron, who played for the Milwaukee Braves from 1954 through 1965, after which the team moved to Atlanta. Aaron won a World Series in Milwaukee with the Braves in 1957, and finished his career back at Milwaukee County Stadium in 1975 and 1976 as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers, so it’s definitely fitting for there to be a statue of him there.
Outside the stadium, there were a handful of other statues, as well. There was one dedicated to the workers who passed away in an accident during the construction of the stadium. Robin Yount and Bud Selig each had statues, as well. A Paul Molitor statue was conspicuously missing, but there was one more statue: Bob Uecker. Uecker passed away on January 16, just ten days shy of his 91st birthday. One of the great personalities in baseball history, he was Milwaukee’s play-by-play announcer for 54 seasons, following a six-year career as a catcher in the Major Leagues. We’re lucky to have had him as long as we did, but he will be missed.
This past week, the Hall of Fame announced its new Class of 2025. Ichiro Suzuki fell one vote short of being a unanimous selection on his first ballot, and will be joined by CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Dick Allen, and Dave Parker when they are enshrined during the Hall of Fame Induction on July 27 in Cooperstown. I spent a good amount of time in Cooperstown in 2024, visiting three separate times, and to say that the town and the Hall of Fame are excited for Induction Weekend in 2025 would be a massive understatement. Some predictions are expecting in the neighborhood of 100,000 visitors from all over the world to witness Ichiro’s big moment.
Ichiro visited the Hall of Fame more times during his playing career than any active player ever had, and is clearly someone who loves, understands, and appreciates baseball history. Being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame is incredibly meaningful for anyone, but something tells me it means a little bit more to Ichiro.
If you’re local to Cleveland, the Baseball Heritage Museum at historic League Park has special Hot Stove discussions planned for each Saturday during the month of February. These events will each be informal chances to warm up by the "hot stove" and get ready for spring baseball. Talks will be on a wide range of topics, and each week there will be a Special Guest scheduled to join us. From former Indianapolis Clowns player Jay Valentine, to Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the Cleveland Guardians Bob DiBiasio, to official team historian Jeremy Feador, and more. Each event will start at 11 am, and will be free for museum members, but open to the public for the price of admission to the museum, so if you’re in the area, come on in and let’s talk!
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Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.
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