Digging through some shoe boxes (yes I do keep cards in shoe boxes) I turned up this '55 Bowman of Oriole outfielder Gil Coan. It's seen it's better days but it is certainly within my collectible range. Someone sent this along in a trade or as a break throw-in last year. It's a dupe, I have one in my Oriole base collection but you can never have too many '55 Bowman Orioles now can you?
Coan was a long time Senator and was a regular for about six seasons prior to being traded to the second year Orioles for 1955. He was waived and signed by the White Sox that July and finished his career with the Giants in 1956.
Coan hit .303 in both 1950 and 1951, easily his best seasons. He even got some scattered MVP votes in 1950. He had a career average of .254. The back of the card references his speed and it's shown in the fact that he was second in the AL with 23 steals in 1948.
This is his last major issue baseball card not counting reprints and reissues. The '55 Bowmans are pretty unique of course with the 'TV' motif. I see these and am reminded that while our family was one of the last ones in America to own a color set, my grandfather in Brooklyn had one of the first. And he had a window unit A/C as well. Damn I loved visiting my grandparents!
Speaking of speed this picture turned up in a google image search. It's from The Sporting News archives and shows Coan (on the right) and Cleveland's George Case at the line for a 'race'. It is dated from 1946.
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