Sam Crawford Batting

This card files under the variation tag "Sam Crawford Batting," the T206 White Border pose of the Detroit Tigers outfielder shown in batting stance rather than the alternate "throw" pose that runs as a separate card in the same set. The player is Samuel Earl "Wahoo Sam" Crawford (1880–1968), the Nebraska-born left-handed slugger who had jumped from Cincinnati to Detroit in 1903 and was, by the time of this card, the regular right fielder on the Tigers club that won three straight American League pennants from 1907 to 1909. Crawford batted and threw left-handed, stood 6'0", and remains the all-time major-league leader in triples with 309, a record protected mainly by the deadball-era ballparks that no longer exist. He played 19 major-league seasons through 1917, all but four of them in Detroit. Crawford died June 15, 1968 in Hollywood, California, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1957 by the Veterans Committee, late enough to receive the news himself.