Card of the Day - 2023-07-06

Panini Diamond Kings Gallery of Stars
Topps [trade/commercial : trading cards : O/S : U.S.A.] "Diamond Kings" (2021) card GS-6

Another player from the American League side at the 1933 All Star game, this is the famous Lou Gehrig for the New York Yankees, and he played first base in that game. 

Many people know of him but few know that he was born in New York and called Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig, though he anglicised the two forenames to Henry Louis, and played as Lou. He only played for seventeen seasons, all of them for the New York Yankees, from 1923 until 1939 - however this was over two thousand games. But he did not, as you may be thinking, have his career ended by the Second World War, but by an illness, which was not understood at the time but now is known a bit more about, and is actually called after him, "Lou Gehrig`s disease". He was only thirty six, and he died, from the disease, just two years later. 

You can look him up on wikipedia, but the best website is actually called LouGehrig.com - it has a biography, and a photo gallery, and is excellent reading. 

This set is a modern one, only dating from 2021. The "Diamond Kings" title refers to the fact that the pitch where baseball is played is called a diamond. However it is one of those modern sets with innumerable permutations, including autographs and "relics", these being pieces of clothing worn by the stars etc., so my advice is just to nip along to The Cardboard Connection/PDK and check their excellent listings out.

If you look carefully, you will find Artists Proof versions of these cards -these have a special solid box on the front of each card and they are all signed, but they are scarce as only twenty of each are done, five going to the artist so that he can keep them or give them to people who have done him some service, and fifteen of which are released into the general market.