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A Pair of Shoes by David Fleitz
I started collecting cards when I was about five years old, and the first ones I remember were the ones you cut off the backs of Post Cereal boxes in 1961. I've often wondered if the text on baseball cards was accurate or not. I mean, how would a 5-year-old know if a claim made on a baseball card was the truth? They could be like movie magazines and just make things up, for all we know. The Hector Lopez card in the 1961 Post set says that Lopez hit five home runs in a game in 1958 (he actually hit three that day), while Bill Mazeroski's 1962 Post card says he won the 1959 Series with a home run. It was the 1960 Series, of course. Anyway, at the age of 51, I found an opportunity to verify one of the strangest claims made on one of the 1961 Post cards. Roy Sievers, who played in the major leagues from 1949 to 1966, was a guest at the 2007 SABR convention in St. Louis. I brought the card shown below for him to sign.
Since Sievers was one of the top high school players in the nation, I found it difficult to believe that the now-defunct Browns, when they signed him in 1947, gave him a pair of baseball shoes as a bonus. No money, just a pair of shoes. So, I went right to the source. "Mr. Sievers," I said, "this card says that your signing bonus with the Browns was a pair of shoes. Is that true?" He smiled. "It sure was," he replied. "A pair of shoes. That's all they gave me."
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