1951 Winston-Salem Cardinals

Yesterday we presented an uncataloged set of player photos of the 1950 Winston-Salem Cardinals. Today, we'll continue poking into the scrapbook in which they were found.

My W-S scrapbook has 15 photos of 1951 W-S Cardinals, plus a sponsored team photo.

They player photos are in a different format from the 1950s. The 1951s are 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" with wide white borders and deckle edges. As with the 1950 (and 1952) player photos, we know they were the work of a local studio, Coppedge, whose ad appears rubber-stamped on the back, but we don't know how they were distributed.

The player names are not on the photos themselves, but each of those in my scrapbook is (presumably) authentically autographed.
 
The 15 players I have are:

Del Childs
George Condrick
Joe Cunningham
Frank DiPrima
J.C. Dunn
Johnny Grodzicki
Don Kohler
Jim Lewey
Red Long
Herbie Mancini
Stu Miller
Harold Olt
Dick Rand
Dennis Reeder
Don Stephens

Cunningham, Grodzicki, Miller and Rand were former or future major leaguers.

Joe Cunningham had a 12-year major league career and was a lifetime .291 hitter. He played with the St. Louis Cardinals (1954, 1956-61), Chicago White Sox (1962-64) and Washington Senators (1964-66).

Johnny Grodzicki's big league career (1941, 1946-47 withthe St. Louis Cardinals) was behind him when he pitched for Winston-Salem in 1951. His major league numbers were a 2-2 record and 4.43 ERA. At 34 years old, he was old timer on the '51 W-S Cards, and probably functioned more as a pitching coach than a player, though he was 2-4 with a 3.44 ERA in 1951.

Stu Miller, who was 13-10 with a 2.88 ERA at W-S in 1951, began his major league career the following season with St. Louis. He pitched for 16 seasons in the bigs, with a 105-103 record and 3.24 ERA. He ptiched for the Cardinals (1952-54, 1956), Phillies (1956), Giants (1957-62), Orioles (1963-67) and Braves (1968).

Dick Rand played a few games with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953 and 1955, and was the Pirates back-up catcher in 1957.


Those on the 1951 Winston-Salem Cardinals roster (10+ games) whose pictures are not in the scrapbook, are:


Hal Atkinson
Lou Dolci
Byron Elser
Ray Jablonski
Jim King
Robert Klein
Warren Moody
Arnold Riesgo

Of those, only Jablonski and Riesgo are included in the team photo, presumably taken at the start of the season. The others probably joined the team during the course of the season.

Tomorrow, we'll conclude with a look at the 1952 Winston-Salem Cardinals team-issued player photos.