I received this card from steelehere of 1207 Consecutive Games prior to Christmas. It's an unfortunate photo of Lee Walls, who had a couple of respectable years in the '50s, but mostly played a utility role during his career. He wrapped things up with the Dodgers in the early 1960s, and played in Japan for a year.Walls seems like a pleasant enough fellow, but if it wasn't for the baseball uniform he is wearing, you would never know he was a ballplayer. Something to do with the glasses, the receding hairline, the serene look.
I know players look different these days. They don't wear glasses. They have contacts or get Lasik surgery. If they're going bald, they shave off the rest of their hair and grow a goatee. And players are in such good shape now that even if they are smiling in their card photo, they don't exactly look nonthreatening.
But even though players looked a bit different back then, I think there were even a few people in 1962 who didn't believe that Walls was a ballplayer after seeing this '62 Topps card.
That's because the following year, Topps put out this card of Walls:
This is what is known as "learning by repetition." By issuing a card with the exact same photo, Topps seemed to be saying, "See? He really IS a ballplayer." Plus Topps threw in that little inset photo where Walls actually has a bat in his hand. You know, just in case collectors still thought that their milkman had ended up in the card set by mistake.But I'm thinking Walls was not very happy with the way he was presented before the world those two years. He probably called up Topps and gave them a piece of his mind. Then he went out and did something about it.
The next year, Walls was pictured as A Legitimate Ballplayer. He's finally wearing a Dodger uniform, he has a bat, but most importantly (*gasp*) HE HAS A BATTING GLOVE.I remember there being a discussion on one of the blogs on when the batting glove first made an appearance on a baseball card. I don't think anyone had an answer, but the thought was the batting glove started popping up on cards in the late '60s, and by the early 1970s the glove was almost as plentiful as the crew cut.
But I don't think I've ever seen the batting glove appear in a photo taken as early as 1963. Ken Harrelson supposedly is the first player to wear a batting glove in a game, during the mid-1960s.
Now, granted, my knowledge and collection of early '60s cards is very small, and I'd appreciate it if people can find earlier examples of a player wearing a batting glove on a card.
But for now, I'm saying the first guy was Walls. Credit Topps' 1962/1963 cards, credit Walls moving to the movie capital of the world, credit Walls finally getting out of a Cubs uniform. Whatever it was, it led to this:
Lee Walls: fashion icon.
The greatest glove moment since Michael Jackson first donned a single glove during the 25th anniversary Motown special in 1983.
Lee Walls and Michael Jackson. Who knew?
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