1952 Winston-Salem Cardinals

The scrapbook of Winston-Salem Cardinals photos that I bought circa 2005 (see the entries yesterday and the day before) has nine autographed player portrait photos. Like the 1950 and 1951 pix, they are the work of a local studio, Coppedge, though we don't know how they were distributed.


The roster of '52 W-S Cardinals playing in 10+ games looks like it had 24 players, so this group represents only a third or so of the team. The number of player photos issued in this series is currently unknown.

The '52s, like the '51 photos, are in 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" format, with deckle edges. The difference between the two years' issues is that the 1952 photos have a narrower white border all around.

Eight of my nine 1952 photos have genuine player autographs. They are:


Dom Barczewski
Bill Bernier
J.C. Dunn
Benny Fasano
Wally Fessler
Jim Michalec
Bill Oberschmidt
Bob Rooney

The ninth photo is unidentified. It is shown at bottom-left in the accompanying picture.

There were only two former or future major leaguers on the 1952 Winston-Salem roster. Johnny Grodzicki, who probably was the team's pitching coach at age 35, had two wins for the W-S club. Paul Owens, for whom playing at Class B Winston-Salem represented the pinnacle of his playing career, never played in the major leagues, but managed the Philadelphia Phillies in 1972, 1983-84. In 1983 he won the National League pennant.