NNO Sam Crawford

This entry catalogs an unnumbered (NNO) Sam Crawford card from the E101 Anonymous Set of 50, one of the small blank-back caramel issues circulated around 1910 without an identifying manufacturer mark. The player is Samuel Earl "Wahoo Sam" Crawford (1880–1968), the Detroit Tigers outfielder who batted and threw left-handed and remains the all-time major-league leader in triples with 309. By the time of this issue Crawford was the regular right fielder on the Tigers club that had just lost the 1909 World Series to Pittsburgh in seven games, batting third in front of Ty Cobb and providing the line-drive power that the deadball-era game otherwise lacked. The E101 set shares its imagery with the E102, E105, and several other anonymous-back caramels, and proper attribution requires inspection of paper, trim, and surviving wrapper provenance. Crawford died June 15, 1968 in Hollywood, California, having outlived nearly all his contemporaries, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1957 by the Veterans Committee.