#233 Don Zimmer - Washington Senators

Donald William Zimmer
Washington Senators
Third Base

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Left  Height:  5'9"  Weight:  165
Born:  January 17, 1931, Cincinnati, OH
Signed:  Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent before 1949 season
Major League Teams:  Brooklyn Dodgers 1954-1957; Los Angeles Dodgers 1958-1959; Chicago Cubs 1960-1961; New York Mets 1962; Cincinnati Reds 1962; Los Angeles Dodgers 1963; Washington Senators 1963-1965
As a Manager:  San Diego Padres 1972-1973; Boston Red Sox 1976-1980; Texas Rangers 1981-1982; Chicago Cubs 1988-1991
Died:  June 4, 2014, Dunedin, FL (age 83)

1973 Topps #12

Before he was a successful big league manager and coach, Don Zimmer played 12 seasons and was an All-Star with the Cubs in 1961.  He enjoyed his best season with the Dodgers in 1958, attaining career highs in batting average (.262), home runs (17) and RBIs (60) as the team's everyday shortstop.  He won two World Series rings with the Dodgers in 1955 and 1959.  In 1953, he was hit in the head with a pitch thrown by Jim Kirk and was knocked unconscious for two weeks.  The incident led to the introduction of protective batting helmets.  He was briefly an original member of the expansion Mets in 1962 and he played part of a season in Japan in 1966 with the Toei Flyers.

His coaching career saw him spend time with the Expos (1971), Padres (1972), Red Sox (1974-1976, 1992), Yankees (1983, 1986, 1996-2003), Cubs (1984-1986), Giants (1987), Rockies (1993-1995) and Devil Rays/Rays (2004-2014).  As a manager, Zimmer had a lifetime record of 885-858.  His Red Sox teams won over 90 games in 1977, 1978 and 1979 and he led the Cubs to an N.L. East pennant in 1989.  He won the N.L. Manager of Year Award that year.  Zimmer spent 66 years in professional baseball, and the Rays, for whom he was coaching at the time of his death, retired his #66 in 2015 to celebrate that milestone and to pay tribute to their coach.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1956 Topps blog.

Building the Set
July 8, 2020 from Cincinnati, OH - Card #114
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 Zimmer card purchased from Dean's Cards for $6.  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 / Senators Team Set
This is Zimmer's final card in a Topps flagship set as an active player, and he'd next appear in a Topps set wearing the brown and yellow of the Padres on a 1973 Topps manager card.  The back of the card refers to his 1956 beaning, which was the second beaning that nearly ended his career.  The first, described above, had come in 1953.  The 1956 beaning came on June 23rd when a Hal Jeffcoat pitch hit him in the face, breaking his cheekbone.

1965 Season
Zimmer wrapped up his 12-year big league playing career with 95 games for the Senators, in a super utility role.  Of those 95 games, he made 27 starts behind the plate, 5 starts at second base and 24 starts at third base for his manager and former teammate Gil Hodges (#99).  For the balance of his appearances, he was used as a right-handed pinch-hitter.  Zimmer hit .199 with 2 home runs and 17 RBIs in his final season and he was released by the Senators that November.

1955 Topps #92

1958 Topps #77

1962 Topps #478

1989 Topps #134

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #57

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1955 Bowman #65
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (22):  1955-1965, 1973-1974, 1977-1981, 1988-1991
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2014 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-DZ

Zimmer signed 14 copies of his 1965 Topps card for inclusion as an insert in the 2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites AutoProofs set.  And Topps reused the same Senators photo of Zimmer on a 2014 Topps Archives card.  Finally, Zimmer signed reprints of this card for the 2014 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs insert set.

158 - Zimmer non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 7/13/20.

Sources:  
1956 Topps
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database
Wikipedia

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