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Leonard Gary Gabrielson
Chicago Cubs
Outfield-First Base
Born: February 14, 1940, Oakland, CA
Signed: Signed by the Milwaukee Braves as an amateur free agent, July 19, 1959
Major League Teams: Milwaukee Braves 1960, 1963-1964; Chicago Cubs 1964-1965; San Francisco Giants 1965-1966; California Angels 1967; Los Angeles Dodgers 1967-1970
Len Gabrielson was a corner outfielder who bounced around a bit before settling in with the Dodgers in the late 1960s. Acquired by the Cubs in June 1964, the club was confident enough in his potential to trade away Lou Brock (#540) to the Cardinals, inserting Gabrielson in Brock's place as their regular right fielder. Less than a year later, he was on the move again, traded to the Giants. Gabrielson found some success with the Dodgers after a short stint with the Angels, and he appeared in 324 games for the team over four seasons as a regular left fielder or later as a left-handed bat off the bench. Gabrielson hit a career high 10 home runs in 1968, leading the Dodgers.
In parts of nine seasons, Gabrielson played in 708 games, hitting .253 with 37 home runs and 176 RBIs.
July 8, 2020 from Cincinnati, OH - Card #115
In need of some cardboard therapy as we approached the four month anniversary of the start of our social distancing, I went on a mini eBay binge the first week of July. We had a vacation planned for the last week of June, first week of July, and that vacation had been unceremoniously cancelled at some point in April. Major League Baseball was showing signs of coming back, the Black Lives Matter movement was finally gaining momentum, the pandemic showed no signs of going away any time soon and a complete lack of intelligent national leadership wasn't helping anything or anybody. I needed some old baseball cards.
17 cards arrived on July 8th, including this Gabrielson card purchased from Dean's Cards for $2.75. I browsed the Dean's Cards eBay store, setting a reasonable budget and determined to click Buy It Now on 10 cards. Another group of 7 cards were won in eBay auctions from Greg Morris Cards on the same day. The 17 cards added put us just over the 20% completion point for our 1965 Topps set.
The Card / Cubs Team Set
Gabrielson's first and last Cubs baseball card would have already been outdated when most kids were finding this card in packs of 1965 Topps, series one. Topps draws attention to his base path speed on the back of the card, although for his 10 steals in 1964, he was caught four times. And the blurb on the back is incorrect as Gabrielson had one steal with the Braves and then nine with the Cubs. Billy Cowan (#186) with 12 led the team, followed by three players with 10 steals each - Billy Williams (#220), Jimmy Stewart (#298) and Brock.
1965 Season
Gabrielson played in 28 games for the Cubs to start the season, hitting .250 with three home runs. He made eight starts in right field. On May 29th, he was traded with Dick Bertell (#27) to the Giants for Ed Bailey (#559), Bob Hendley (#444) and Harvey Kuenn (#103). He appeared in 88 games with the Giants, getting 66 starts in left field and 7 starts in right field. Center field of course was primarily occupied by Willie Mays (#250). Gabrielson hit .301 with the Giants with four home runs and 26 RBIs as the team finished in second place in the National League.
Phillies Connection
Gabrielson's father, also Len Gabrielson, appeared in five games for the 1939 Phillies as a first baseman. He hit .222 (4 for 18) with one RBI. He had been acquired from the Yankees on April 8th for Pete Sivess and cash and 1939 was to be his only season with the franchise. He played a total of eight seasons in the minor leagues between 1934 and 1946, primarily within the Yankees' system.
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First Mainstream Card: 1963 Topps #253
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (8): 1963-1970
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 1970 Topps #204
27 - Gabrielson non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 7/14/20.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database
Wikipedia
Previous Card: #13 Pedro Ramos - New York Yankees
Next Card: #15 Robin Roberts - Baltimore Orioles
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