The most recent Beckett Vintage Collector arrived in my mailbox on Monday and therefore my last article for the magazine.
It is the 20th article that I wrote for the magazine, because I have been six years since I first participated in the writing schedule there. But it is also a year since I published a story, especially because of 1) much less time to devote magazines, thanks to my “real job” and 2) simply running ideas.
But I’m glad I had enough to get to 20. I am fairly happy with the subject of this article. It is certainly something I can deal with to consider my profession. It is about the many examples of name errors on sports cards.
I know the fight well – we publish sports names almost every day at work. But it was still surprising how many name errors I came across during the investigation into this story (and how much more emerged when I announced that my story had published).
I soon realized that I couldn’t record them all, so I focused on specific examples, many of them are known. And topps’ recent failed failed “Yastrzemski” was the inspiration and introduction to this article.
I probably worked on this as hard as I have on another magazine article, bodies and quotes where I could. Research on the internet is not so smooth because Google has submitted to the roads of AI. Most search requests become junk and you have to take about 10 steps every time to find what you are looking for if you find it at all.
So I am proud of what I have discovered and I am also happy that I have used tools such as the library of my newspaper and my old collection of baseball card magazines from the 1980s to improve this article. Not every little information came from the internet.
The magazine edition (which with shoe -free Joe on the cover) will probably be available on kiosks in the coming weeks or if you have a subscription, you may already have it. And yes, I realize that magazine issues cost more than you think they should. If more people read magazines, that would not be the case. See also: newspapers.
If I have a magazine article, I would like to come up with a kind of spin-off on the article for the blog. A kind of treat for my readers. Call it an exclusive, although you do not subscribe to this thing.
This time I wanted to take a small part of my A story to write about because I am surprised about it. It is about the Lew/Lou Burdette error (s), when they are mistakes.
This card is considered a non -corrected error because it spelled the first name of Burdette as “Lou”.
This card is also considered a UER because of the spelling “Lou”. There are even two errors because the right -handed Burdette is famous as a left -handed pitcher.
All these are also considered not -corrected errors, because his name is mentioned as “lou” and not “lew” (but, but, you say, He drew his name “Lou” on the map of 1967 – about that in a minute more).
In the meantime, these two cards, in which the name of Burdette is spelled “Lew”, are considered correct.
All this is according to the Database of the Trade Map, but also the price guides of Beckett who go back for years and years.
And it is true that the full name of Burdette Selva Lewis Burdette is. He went with his middle name (Burdette died in 2007). I also found a TV report that spent an interview with Burdette’s daughter. She said that then Topps pinned his name “Lou” on the Topps card of 1958, the pitcher did not correct Topps and took it out and said, “As long as they pronounce it properly.” I have included that in the magazine article.
So this clearly means that his family knew his name as “Lew”. However … his Sabr -Biography said that Burdette spelled his name “Lou” throughout his life! That explains the signature on the TOPPS card of 1967. And try to find a signed card from Burdette spelled “Lew”. All that I saw are signed “Lou”.
Later, when Burdette was a coach, Topps went back to spell his name as “Lew”. And most retro cards that end long after his career ended are spelled “Lew”. But it is clear that Burdette himself preferred “Lou” or simply made no distinction between the two different spelling.
It is probably the reason why TOPPS switched to “Lou”. It may have noticed that his signature “Lou” was spelled and went with it. Bowman was spelling – I think that “spelling error” – his name as “lou” by much of the 1950s.
It is interesting that although technically his name is “Lewis”, someone somewhere decided to counteract how Burdette repeatedly spelled his name and labeled an error message. They say that Burdette did not know how to spell his name. (Burdette was known for his good humor, so maybe he just had fun with everyone when signing his name).
Other price guides and sites such as Comc do not add error lists to the Burdette cards, they simply mention them as “Lew” or “Lou” according to the card. That is probably the better way. It is just that I have heard about the Burdette spelling error for decades and it was interesting that it is not as clear as your typical card error.
Anyway, it is still cool that I am still writing magazine articles. Who knows how long, but I will try to maintain it.
#Lou