When Charlie and Hustle Crossed Paths

They caught each other coming and going...in style

1964 Topps Charlie Neal (#436) - Card of the Day

One of the really fun things about this hobby is that there’s always something new to learn, and there are even “new” players to discover…even decades after they last suited up in the major leagues.

That’s even true for some star-level players, depending on when you came into the game and where your fandom lies. Take the case of Charlie Neal, for example.

I first encountered Neal in the mid-1980s when I happened upon a stack of rough 1960 Topps baseball cards at an auction. I ended up with a pretty nifty looking Neal card, among a few others:

I bumped into that card several times over the intervening years, but aside from the bits and pieces available on the card back, I never really knew much about the player. Sure, I probably read his stat line in old volumes of the Baseball Encyclopedia, and I had to have seen his name on National League All-Star rosters from 1959 and 1960 while perusing Baseball Reference, but mostly, he was a forgotten hero.

That changed this month when I was scanning through the lists of baseball birthdays (on BR, of course) and saw Neal’s name. He stood out specifically because he has the third most WAR among men born on January 30, behind the ancient Tom Mullane and Davey Johnson, a personal favorite.

But it was a deeper look at Neal’s big league record that really made my eyes pop — he finished his career with the 1963 Cincinnati Reds! If that team sounds familiar, it just might be as the home to that year’s National League Rookie of the Year, one Pete Rose.

As for how Neal ended up in Cincy, well, here is a quick timeline of his career:

• Signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1950 at age 19

• Spent six years seasons climbing the minor league ladder

• Debuted as the Dodgers’ second baseman on Opening Day 1956

• Led National League second basemen with 121 double plays in 1958

• Repeated his DP title with 110 DPs in 1959, also winning a Gold Glove and making his first All-Star cut

• Made it to both All-Star Games in 1960

• Traded with Willard Hunter to the expansion Mets in exchange for Lee Walls in December 1961

• Traded with Sammy Taylor to the Reds for Jesse Gonder in July 1963

And in case you were thinking someone else manned second for the Dodgers those years…Jackie Robinson had already moved to third by 1956, and Jim Gilliam would slide to the outfield in 1958. In between, Neal also helped move Pee Wee Reese out of shortstop and over to third.

With the Reds in 1963, Neal made 34 appearances and hit .156 with almost no power (no homers, one double) across 70 plate appearances down the stretch as Pete Rose put the finishing touches on his Rookie of the Year season. Cincy released Neal (but not Rose!) on April 7, 1964, less than a week before Opening Day and way too late for Topps to pull him from their new set.

And so, all these years later, we get to see a former Dodgers All-Star and lineup-shaker-upper wearing one of the great Reds uniforms of all time. And, since Neal never made it back to the majors, that 1964 Topps card is a career-capper.

For this old Reds fan who still harbors grudges against the Dodgers, it’s a perfect “birthday card” to celebrate the man who would have turned 94 years old today (Neal passed away in 1996).

Red(s) Ties Run Deep

Speaking of Johnson, he followed in Neal’s footsteps along the Mets-to-Reds path, though separated by a few decades. Before all that, he was a slugger and infielder of some renown in his own right. Topps captured him in full action on a shadowy 1973 card — read all about it right here!