Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Vintage Card Of The Month: T206 Mike "Doc" Powers


With the baseball season ending in a Red Sox World Series title I figured I might as well post up one last baseball Vintage Card of the Month.
 
This month’s card is from the 1909-11 T206 release. Mike Powers, also known as Doc Powers because he was a licensed doctor, was a catcher who played for four different teams between 1898 and 1909 and had a rather mundane career. He will go down in MLB history though not for his play, in a turn of bad luck he was the first player to die due to results from an in-game injury.
 
On April 12, 1909 the Philadelphia A's were playing the Boston Red Sox in Philadelphia,  Powers was playing catcher for the A's and ended up crashing in to a wall while reaching for a foul ball. By the 7th inning he was in intense pain but continued playing, he was brought to the hospital when he collapsed after the game. The next day he had surgery to repair his injured intestines, by April 25th he had two more surgeries and doctors were at a loss. He died on April 26, 1909 due to post-surgery infections.
 
The card itself is in bad shape, it shows its age. The edges are dinged and rough, the corners are all rounded and there are creases running from side to side and the card is cut off-center. The Sweet Caporal back is in surprisingly decent shape.

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