3/25/2023 0 Comments Baseball sports on stamps![]() ![]() A year later, other Cooperstown immortals, including Josh Gibson, Walter Johnson, Satchel Paige and Ty Cobb were featured in that legends set. That drought ended with the Robinson and Ruth stamps in 1999. Clemente and Gehrig also were commemorated in that 2000 set.Īfter Gehrig had been memorialized with his first stamp, there was a 10-year stretch before another Hall of Famer was honored. Jackie and the Babe were included in a 1999 set celebrating each decade of the 20th century and a 2000 set honoring 20 baseball legends. Interestingly, both Robinson and Ruth would wind up being depicted on three different stamps through the years. Although the stamp advisory board had received numerous requests to honor the milestone with Ruth and other popular players, the committee opted for a generic player instead. In 1969, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Cincinnati Redstockings’ fielding of the first all-professional team, the Postal Service issued a six-cent stamp showing a silhouette of a batter preparing to swing at a ball. It would be 30 years before another baseball stamp was issued. Gehrig’s mark still stands 24 years later. Although Ruth overshadowed Gehrig during their playing days, the slugging first baseman wound up surpassing the Babe’s print-run record, 262 million to 184 million, according to figures published in the 2013 edition of Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers. Five years later, Lou Gehrig received his stamp of approval on the 50th anniversary of the Iron Horse’s famous “Luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech. In 1983, a Babe Ruth stamp was unveiled to commemorate the Sultan of Swat’s game-winning home run in the first All-Star Game 50 years earlier, and in 1984, late Pittsburgh Pirates great Roberto Clemente was similarly honored by the Postal Service. (Previous honorees included Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman.) And it wound up being a huge hit with both baseball fans and stamp collectors, as the Postal Service printed more than 164 million copies.įittingly, the Robinson stamp opened the door for other Baseball Hall of Famers to be commemorated with stamps. The stamp was the fifth issued in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. fighting for his team as well as his people.” “For his determination, his enthusiasm for life and his stature. “I want people to remember him as he was in that picture,’’ she said pointing toward the easel. “But he will also be remembered for his great patience and dignity while the most vicious slurs were being hurled against him – simply because of the color of his skin.”Īfter Bolger finished, Rachel Robinson stepped to the podium. ![]() “He will always be remembered for the remarkable records he established in a Dodger uniform, and for his fierce competitiveness on the field of play,’’ Postmaster General William F. Jackie Robinson had captivated the fans again. Cooper Park sounded like Ebbets Field during the late 1940s, early ‘50s. When Jackie’s widow, Rachel Robinson, and former Dodger teammate and friend, Roy Campanella, unveiled the artist’s rendering on an easel on the steps of the National Baseball Library, the crowd roared its approval. It featured a large head-and-shoulders shot of Robinson in his Brooklyn Dodgers cap with a smaller action shot of him sliding into home plate in the foreground. The 20-cent stamp was designed by artist Jerry Pinkney to look like a vintage baseball card from the early 1950s. That hot, summer’s day, in front of several hundred people at Cooperstown’s Cooper Park, the man who helped integrate baseball and lay the foundation for the American Civil Rights movement became the first member of the Baseball Hall of Fame to be honored with a stamp by the United States Postal Service. On Aug– more than a quarter of a century after his last game and 10 years after his death – Jackie Robinson blazed another trail. ![]()
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