Baseball Card of Week: 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes Jimmie Foxx

1983 Donruss HOF Heroes

One of the more underrated baseball card sets of my childhood is perhaps the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes set. It consists of 44 cards and were sold in packs that included puzzle cards that made up a Mickey Mantle photo.  Each card depicts members of the Hall of Fame including a couple Negro League stars in Josh Gibson and James "Cool Papa" Bell.  Also significant about this set is that each player's photo is from the artistry of Dick Perez. Perez created original artworks for Donruss each year for its popular Diamond Kings subsets during the 1980s and 90s.   His complete work can be viewed on his website here: www.dickperez.com

Why I am mentioning this set today and Jimmie Foxx specifically is that today is anniversary of an unique event in MLB history.   On June 11, 1927 Mickey Cochrane entered the game as a pinch runner in ninth inning and when he did this, the Philadelphia Athletics fielded seven different players in the lineup that would eventually become members of the Hall of Fame.  They include: in right field Ty Cobb, centerfielder Al Simmons, leftfielder Zach Wheat, firstbaseman Jimmie Foxx, secondbase Eddie Collins, pitcher Lefty Grove and catcher Mickey Cochrane.
Obviously not all these players were in their prime in 1927.  Cobb, Wheat and Collins were nearing the end of their careers while Foxx and Cochrane were at their beginning.   Philadelphia ended up finishing second in the American League standings to the New York Yankees and their Murderers' Row which included hall of famers Earle Combs, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri.
And also, the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics was managed by Connie Mack, who also is a member of the Hall of Fame.