V. Willis St. L Batt.

This card files under the abbreviated tag "V. Willis St. L Batt.," a T206 White Border issue of Vic Willis with the back caption naming the St. Louis Cardinals — the team he was traded to in February 1910 — though our holdings file the player's primary club as the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team he had pitched for the previous four seasons. The player is Victor Gazaway Willis (1876–1947), the right-hander from Cecil County, Maryland, who broke in with the Boston Beaneaters in 1898, won 27 games as a rookie, and went on to win 248 major-league games across thirteen seasons through 1910. Willis batted and threw right-handed and was traded from Boston to Pittsburgh after the 1905 season — a deal that helped break Boston's hold on his arm and gave the Pirates a workhorse for the second half of his career, including the 1909 World Series team. He died August 3, 1947 in Elkton, Maryland, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1995 by the Veterans Committee, a long delay that put him in posthumously.