How do you spend eBay bucks? That once a quarter, one percent rebate on the hundreds of dollars you could otherwise spend in a three month period. Personally I didn’t even know about eBay bucks until Q4 last year. But anyway. As I alluded to in my 2021 Hobby goals, I am at a point where I want to be a little more selective with my buying choices instead of going after any easy dollar insert I can find almost anywhere.

Enter the 1953 Bowman Black and White card of Philadelphia A’s pitcher Morris “Morrie” Martin. The ‘53 Bowman set first came onto my radar late last year when I was looking in a Beckett Vintage Price Guide. I noticed there are only 64 cards in this set, and none of them are really that expensive. In fact, if you believe the prices on TCDB, there is no card in this set valued at over $100.00. The vast majority can be had for less than $15.00. That’s my kind of vintage set! So I decided that I want to build this set, one card at a time for as long as it takes me to build it. I settled on this one, since the card is relatively well centered and the corners look pretty decent. I don’t much care about corners, but centering is and I liked the way this card looked. I applied my eBay bucks to the purchase and am loving the result now that it’s here.

1953 Bowman Morris Martin Black and White

So what do we know about Mr. Martin here? According to his Baseball-reference page: (Morrie Martin), he had a 10 year MLB career with seven different clubs, starting with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949. Working mostly in relief, Martin was able to achieve a lifetime 38-34 record with a 4.29 ERA over 604.2 IP.

Thanks to my Twitter friend Nick Diunte (@ExamineBaseball), and his wonderful blog Examine Baseball, I have also learned that Morrie fought in Europe in World War II. At one time, he and two of his buddies had to dig their way out of a basement they had been in when the house collapsed after being bombed. Pretty impressive to remain calm and get yourself out of that kind of situation. If you have the time, check out Nick’s blog.

Because of Mr. Martin’s service, he was 26 year old when he made his debut with the Dodgers. This of course was the case with a lot of players in the late 1940s and early 50s. His service during the War makes me extremely grateful that his 1953 Bowman Black and White was the first card from this set to be added to my collection. I chose wisely. And now I’m looking forward to adding more with my next round of eBay bucks!

That’s it for now, more later. Stay safe!

JDM