This one was a really fun card to research. Virgil had some truly incredible moments in his career. His card has one of my favorite baseball jokes on the back, which might not actually be his. Plus, this card is able to tell a story about how kids used to store baseball cards. Let's get into his career first of all.
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| He's seen some things |
Virgil Trucks (nickname "Fire" which is perfect) came to baseball a little later than most players. He signed in 1938 as an amateur free agent with the Detroit Tigers at the age of 21. It took him three seasons (and probably World War II) for him to make the major leagues. He only pitched 1 game in 1941, but in 1942 he solidified his role as a starting pitcher by going 14-8 with a 2.78 ERA. He had a similar season in 1943 16-10 with a 2.84 ERA. At this point the US Navy called, and Trucks missed the next two seasons.
He was discharged from the Navy just 2 weeks before the 1945 World Series began, and Major League Baseball allowed him to pitch in the Series. He won a game against the Chicago Cubs. At the time of his death, he was the last living pitcher to have played against the Cubs in a World Series.
In 1952, the Tigers were a legendarily bad team. They went 5-104-2. Trucks went an awful 5-19. However, two of those games he won, he threw no-hitters. At the time, he was only the second pitcher to throw two no-hitters in a season.
After the 5-19 season, Trucks was traded to the St. Louis Browns. He went 5-4 with them until he was traded to the Chicago White Sox in June. He then won 15 games with the Sox, making him one of the very few pitchers to be traded during a 20-win season.
Trucks made the All-Star game in 1954, but his career began to taper off from that point. He bounced around to three more organization before finally retiring in 1958 at the age of 41.
For his 17 season career (and keep in mind, 2 of those seasons - he only played in 1 game), Virgil Trucks won 177 games, lost 135, had a career 3.39 ERA and threw124 complete games.
After his career, he became a pitching coach and helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series in 1960. He retired in 1974.
Trucks passed away in 2015 after a short bout of pneumonia. He was 95. He is buried in the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo, Alabama.
I have some more cool facts about his family, but we'll come bck to that after we take a look at the back of the card.
It may be hard to believe to those of us that live in the age of opening cards while wearing Latex gloves, and hermetically sealing cards in plastic slabs... but people use to actually handle their cards. But, where would you store the cards? Well, some people glued them into scrapbooks and photo albums, and that's what we have here. Whoever owned it thankfully filled in the card number so we can make sure it makes it to its proper place in the set.
So, about this story. The funniest incident he had in a game. It's a story about him throwing three pitches to three different hitters, giving up a double, a triple, and a home run. The manager comes out and asks the catcher how Trucks was pitching, and the catcher says "I don't know. I haven't caught one yet!" I remember reading that joke as a kid in a baseball humor book as a kid. The thing is, I remember this story being told by Whitey Ford, and the catcher was Yogi Berra. For whatever it's worth, I could not find a game in 1942 where Virgil Trucks pitched against the Red Sox with Bobby Doerr batting before Ted Williams. Still a great joke.
Music fans might know quite a few members of Virgil Trucks' family. Virgil's nephew Butch was a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band.
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| Butch is front left |
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