4. Connie Marrero Dies at 102
We were saddened to learn of the passing last month of Conrado "Connie" Marrero, who reigned for three years as the oldest living former major league player. He died in Havana, Cuba on April 23, just two days short of his 103 birthday.
Marrero was a 39-year-old "rookie" when he joined the Washington Senators in 1950. He had already achieved status as a Cuban national hero for his role in leading the Cuban national team to three amateur world championships in the late 1930s and 1940s.
In Washington, Marrero quickly became a fan favorite due to his small stature (5 feet, 5 inches), his "junk-ball" pitching, his broken Englilsh and his ever-present cigar. He played for the lackluster Senators from 1950 through 1954 against a line-up of not-so-lackluster batters that included all-time superstars Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle.
In 1951, Marrero was also named to the American League All-Star team and was featured in an extensive article in the June 11 issue of Life magazine.
In addition to his pitching prowess, Marrero's legacy includes representation in mainstream card sets produced in the early 1950s by both Topps and Bowman. Front and back card images from several of these sets are shown in Old Cardboard Issue #25. He is also featured in some much more obscure Cuban issues such as the team composite shown below produced in 1947 as a premium supplement by Fotos magazine.
Conrado "Connie" Marrero is featured top center in this Fotos magazine premium of the 1947 Havana Cubans of the Florida International League. Havana won 105 games and the League title. It was led by Marrero's pitching, who went 25-6 with a 1.66 ERA (click on image to enlarge; partially restored)
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As part of a baseball tour of Cuba in 2011, Lyman had the privilege to visit twice with Marrero to help celebrate his 100th birthday at his home in Havana. Representing Old Cardboard, he was able to record part of the event in a 4-minute video that can now be viewed on YouTube.
In the clip, Marrero, who speaks very little English, is presented with a scored program from a June 26, 1951 game played in Washington between the Senators and the Yankees. In that game, Marrero pitched against Yankee superstar hitters DiMaggio and Mantle. He was the winning pitcher, beating Yankee pitcher Eddie Lopat 7 to 3. Although the game was played sixty years earlier, Marrero remembered it in amazing detail--well beyond the facts recorded in the box score in the program.
As background to the video, the person on the left in the clip is Kit Krieger, the trip organizer and longtime friend of Marrero. On the right is Clem Axel, interpreter and expert on all things Cuban.
See also: "Connie" Marrero: A Cuban Beisbol Legend" in OC eNewsletter #82.
5. News Briefs (A Digest of Recent Hobby Happenings)
N284 Buchner Gold Coin Gallery: One More to Go. Thanks to vintage card dealer and collector Mike Wheat for sending us an image of card #121 (Emmett Seery; hands outstretched) from the 1887 N284 Buchner Gold Coin set. The image has been added to the N284 Gallery on the Old Cardboard website. With this addition, we are now missing only one card image (#134 Ward; hands on knees) from the 143-card gallery.
New Reigning Oldest ML Player. Congrats to Mike Sandlock, the new reigning oldest former Major League player. Ninty-eight years young, Mike was born 17 October 1915 and played in 195 games for the Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and Brooklyn Dodgers. Among other sets, Mike is represented in the 1953 Topps set as a Pittsburgh Pirate and on a 1954 Topps card as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies--a team for which he never played.
Lyman and Brett Hardeman
Old Cardboard, LLC.
Old Cardboard, LLC. was established in December 2003, to help bring information on vintage baseball card collecting to the hobbyist. Produced by collectors for collectors, this comprehensive resource consists of three components: (1) Old Cardboard Magazine, (2) a companion website at www.oldcardboard.com and (3) this eNewsletter. The Old Cardboard website contains more than 500 pages of descriptive reference information for baseball card sets produced fifty years ago or longer. Each of these set summaries has a direct set-specific link to 
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