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Vernon Sanders Law
Pittsburgh Pirates
Pitcher
Born: March 12, 1930, Meridian, ID
Signed: Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent before 1948 season
Major League Teams: Pittsburgh Pirates 1950-1951, 1954-1967
Vern Law spent his entire 16-year big league career with the Pirates and his dominating season in 1960 led to a World Series ring and the National League Cy Young Award. Law made his debut in 1950 and pitched for two seasons as a swingman for the Pirates before missing two entire years while serving in the military. He earned a spot back in the Pirates' starting pitching rotation in 1954. Law won at least 10 games in nine different seasons and his 18-9 record in 1959 was a precursor to his career year in 1960. He was 20-9 with a 3.08 ERA and a league leading 18 complete games that season, throwing 271 2/3 innings as the Pirates won the National League pennant for the first time since 1927. Law was the winning pitcher in Games 1 and 4 against the Yankees, and started the decisive Game 7 before being relieved in the sixth inning with the Pirates holding a 4-1 lead. The Yankees would battle back, but Bill Mazeroski (#95) hit his walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the Pirates the Series. Law had also started and won the second All-Star Game in 1960, pitching two scoreless innings.
Building the Set
December 4, 2021 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards, Babylon, NY) - Card #463
You'll be seeing this particular passage on my 1965 Topps blog for quite some time as we added a whopping 97 cards to our set during the December Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show. If I'm ambitious and compose posts for five cards a week, I should be completely caught up by the end of May. If I'm not as ambitious, I might still be going through this stack by the time we hit July. Either way, I'll enjoy the process and I'm looking forward to taking my time. I've posted a complete summary of this fantastic show over at The Phillies Room.
After securing Doug's Jim Thome autograph, I returned to Uncle Dick's and their neon green shirts, pulled up a chair, and settled in. Over the course of 45 minutes or so, I found 79 cards needed for our set, including this Law card which was a little less than $9 after the dealer discount. I was surrounded by six or seven other seated collectors, all who looked similar to me, with a touch of gray, focused on their individual quests. I wiped out Uncle Dick's two 1965 Topps commons binders, paid for my haul and then retreated to a table with Doug to update our checklist.
In the middle of all of this, Doug won one of the day's door prizes, which turned out to be an Eagles Super Bowl canvas print. He was thrilled to win, but slightly disappointed the prize wasn't baseball related as neither of us are big football fans.
The Card / Pirates Team Set
Holy crazy large letters on the back, Batman! The write-up on the back of the card mentions his 12-13 record in 1964 was good enough for second place in the Comeback Player of the Year voting. Given he won the award in 1965, I'd question how someone can earn votes for the award two years in a row.
1965 Season
As mentioned a few times above, Law was the National League Comeback Player of the Year on the strength of his 17-9 record and 2.15 ERA over 29 games, including 28 starts. He threw 13 complete games, and his ERA was third in the league behind Sandy Koufax (#300) and Juan Marichal (#50).
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First Mainstream Card: 1951 Bowman #203
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (15): 1952, 1954, 1956-1967, 1985
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 2020 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autographs #FFA-VL
116 - Law non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 3/1/22.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database
Wikipedia
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