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Saturday, January 27, 2018

A 14-Time All-Star? 17-Times, 18-Times?

Warren Spahn was supposed to be the answer to the last question about not playing in All-Star Games. 

Here is his card from the 1991 All-Star set.


Normally this card seems to show both images at once as can be seen above.  When I moved it around I got the images shown below.





Most of the cards can be tilted so that just one image shows.  I had a challenge with this card and then I gave up.




Here is what the back of the card mentioned.

He didn't win his first game until age 25.  That's not standard for 300-game winners.  Not many win their last games at age 44 either.  

He had two no-hitters, was named to 14 All-Star teams.

Not on the card - 

He did military service for three seasons - 1943 - 1945.  He was awarded a Purple Heart.

Baseball-reference.com lists him with 17 All-Star team appearances and I thought I got a count of 18 when I checked the Sean Lahman database, which still isn't functioning on my Macbook.

Where does 17 come from?  In three different seasons, Spahn was on the roster for both All-Star Games that were played that year - 1959, 1961 and 1962.  There were also two All-Star Games in 1960.  

Baseball-reference.com places a star next to the year whenever a player has been an all-star.  So, it shows 14 for Spahn.  That's the mistake that Kellogg's must have made here, even though the site didn't exist before the year 2000.      

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