Merry Christmas to Myself Part One

Before we left for STL for Christmas I bid on what I think was a reasonably priced 1912 T202 Hassan Triple Folder from a seller in the UK, yes the UK. I ended up wining at the opening price. When we arrived home it would be only a few more days till it showed up at the post office. My wonderful wife agreed to pick it up-she asked to open it assuming it was a football AKA soccer card-but alas no. Which one did I win? It is with Ed Konetchy, Arnold Hauser and the Philadelphia A's. I would say it is in Good-Very Good Condition-see pictures from the listing-it actually looks better in person. I mean it is one hundred and fifteen years old, and in England. What is that story?

Who were the Cardinals on the card-can you even call it a card? The lessor known player of the two was Arnold George "Peewee" Hauser who was born 9/25/1888 (same year as my grandfather!) in Chicago and died in nearby Aurora 5/22/1966-as many of you know Aurora was the hometown of Walter Payton. I visited his brewpub there many, many years ago.

Wiki tells us he started with the Cardinals in 1911 and 1912, but had a string of personal tragedies resulted in what we in the mental health field call compound losses-in a short span of time his parents died, two of his children died in a house fire, and his wife died. Not unexpected this seriously impacted his mental health and his career. He would return to the Redbirds in 1915. But he failed to make the club and ended up playing 23 games with the Federal League's Chicago Whales and he ended his career 9/29/1915.

The more well known of the two was Edward "Big Ed" Konetchy, born in La Crosse, WI 9/3/1885 and dying 5/27/1947. He played first base with the Redbirds from 1907 to 1913. He also played with the Pirates, Boston braves, and Phillies of the Major League and the Pittsburgh Rebels of the Federal League. He threw and bated right and hit .300 four times. Wiki tells us that he was known for his consistent speed and his defensive skills and that in 1909 he had 25 stolen bases, hit .302 in 1910, and had 88 RBIs in 1911. He and the Redbirds survived a train crash from Philadelphia to Boston which killed 12 people, thankfully they changed their cars before the trip. I love this quote from him. "I'm the most traded man in baseball without getting anywhere."

For his career he played in 2085 games he had:

• Hit .281 
• Hit 74 home runs 
• Had 992 RBIs. 
• Had 2150 career hits 
• Had 7649 at bats. 
• Had 255 career stolen bases 
• Hit 344 doubles

Below are the rest of the Cardinals in the 1912 T202 Hassan Folders set-given the checklist the one I picked up is the most reasonable as graded copies of others are $300 plus.

• #14 Rebel Oaks and Roger Bresnahan

• #15 Roger Bresnahan and Bob Harmon

• #79 Roger Bresnahan and John McGraw

• #110 Steve Evans and Miller Huggins