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1962 Topps Hal Jones (#49) - Card of the Day
If you were a baseball fan living in or passing through the towns that made up the Cleveland Indians farm system in the 1950s, chances are that Hal Jones rattled your bones with some of his summertime bat thunder.
Whether the destination was Keokuk, Batavia, Minot, Reading, or Salt Lake City, you could count on the big right-handed first baseman to deliver long balls on the regular.
In fact, in six mostly full minor league seasons with the Tribe, Jones never hit fewer than 15 home runs and only once did he miss out on 20. In 1959 and 1960, he connected 35 and 34 times, respectively, while playing at the Class-C and Class-A levels.
With those big seasons piling up on top of each other, Jones made it impossible for the Indians to ignore him. And so they didn’t bring the 25-year-old up in April of 1961.
On the 25th of that month, manager Jimmy Dykes brought in the rookie to bat for pitcher Gary Bell in the top of the sixth inning against the Orioles in Baltimore. Jones struck out against Steve Barber and was lifted for reliever Steve Hamilton in the bottom of the frame.
That was all she wrote for Jones until a September call-up that yielded 11 appearances. Most of those were starts at first in relief of Vic Power, who would be traded with Dick Stigman to the Minnesota Twins for Pedro Ramos in the offseason.
In between, Jones put together a .270, 27-HR, 100-RBI summer for the Triple-A Salt Lake City Bees. But with MLB stats that stood at .171 with two homers and four RBI, he headed back to the farm in 1962.
Even as Jones was riding buses in the bushes again, though, collectors were pulling his 1962 Topps rookie cards from wax packs. Part of the first series, this card was no doubt part of — or at least witness to — many school playground trading sessions that spring.
After another powerful season in the minors, Jones was back in Cleveland during September of 1962. He hit .313 in six plate appearances across five games, but all it got him was a trip back to the minors in 1963…and eventually traded to the White Sox that summer.
He’d wrap up with one more season, in the Milwaukee system in 1964, but he’d never make it back to the majors.
There’s more to Jones’ baseball story than his Cleveland years, though, as he first made headlines in 1956 as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs in 1956, representing the fabled Negro Leagues team in that summer’s East-West Game (as “Harold,” his full first name).
That same year, Jones started his minor league climb with the Seminole Oilers, the Class-C team of the Kansas City Athletics.
Today, with enough baseball memories to fill more than one lifetime, Hal Jones turns 88 years old.
A Hobby Heavyweight
One of Jones’ teammates with the 1961 Indians was centerfielder Jimmy Piersall, who had come to Cleveland from the Red Sox in exchange for Gary Geiger and Vic Wertz in December of 1958.
While he was with the Red Sox, Piersall would be involved, though unwittingly, in one of Bowman’s last gaffes — one that led to a legendary Ted Williams baseball card. Read all about it!
By the time Jones’ rookie card was hitting the hobby, Piersall was gone again, traded after the 1961 season to the Senators for Dick Donovan, Gene Green, and Jim Mahoney.
In May of ‘63, Piersall would be flipped one more time, a deal that brought Gil Hodges to the Senators…as a manager. Hodges returned to Flushing later in the decade and helped change baseball history.
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Speaking of history, this edition of the Daily is now officially toast. I hope it tasted good to you, and if not, well — there’s always tomorrow.
And in the meantime, there’s baseball. That oughta improve your disposition (sorry, Mets fans).
Thanks for reading.
—Adam