NNO Nap Lajoie

Napoleon Lajoie (1874–1959) was the American League's signature second baseman, a right-handed hitter and thrower whose 1901 Triple Crown season — capped by a .426 batting average — gave the new circuit instant credibility against the established National League. So thoroughly did he define his Cleveland franchise that the team was renamed the "Naps" during his tenure, an honor that has been bestowed on no other player before or since. This card belongs to the E101 Anonymous Set of 50, the unmarked caramel issue whose imagery circulated across multiple confectioners during the 1909–1911 window. Lajoie appears in his Cleveland uniform. Across twenty-one big-league seasons he collected more than 3,200 hits, won four batting titles, and managed Cleveland for parts of five years while still playing the field daily. He died February 7, 1959 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1937, second-class Cooperstown.