It's taking a while to get through this 15-card set even though it is one of my favorites. I've been busier than ever since my summer job has begun. I only spent four hours on it this week, but teaching and coaching are quite time consuming now.
George Sisler is card number 05 in the 1972 Kellogg's All-Time Greats set as well as the 1970 Rold Gold set.
Sisler was a first baseman finalist. Not easy to get past Lou Gehrig on this team.
Ballplayers called him the perfect player because he hit for average and power and he could steal bases. Twice he was able to hit over .400.
Let's see what baseball-reference.com says to back that up. A .340 career average is a good start. 75 steals and 102 homers when the home run wasn't as common as it is today. That average is good for 16th all-time.
The second paragraph on the back of the card. I never knew that he sat out an entire season since a sinus problem affected his vision. It is mentioned that he was on a pace to break Ty Cobb's records until he was derailed a bit by this problem. It also cost him 3,000 hits since he ended up with 2,812.
Before his missed season his career average was .361. Cobb is the only one with a higher career average. Cobb is now listed as hitting .366 but I remember from his 1973 Topps card that his career average was .367. It even shows it on the front of the card.
He graduated from the University of Michigan. His 257 hits in a season (154 games) was the record from 1920 until 2004 when Ichiro Suzuki had 262 hits in 2004. Ichiro played in 161 games on his way to the batting title with a .372 average, the highest of his career.
Two of his sons (Dave, Dick) played in the majors. Dave had a 38-44 career record over seven years. Dick had 55 homers over eight seasons. Their careers didn't overlap since Dave is 11 years younger than his brother.
Google just aced my post, but I had no idea Sisler was a college boy. Also, he was mentioned in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea!
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