Sunday, April 10, 2016

TTM Success - Irv Noren

I wanted to make sure I was able to complete my Topps Autograph Project before I started it, so I went online and checked to see how many players from the 1951 Topps Blue Back set were still living, and who signed TTM.  From the information I gathered, I saw that 7 of the 52 players represented in the set were still living, and 5 of them were pretty regular TTM signers.  I removed Bobby Doerr from the list, since I had just sent to him, and didn't want to go to the well too many times.  So, I picked a couple of the guys on there that I thought I had a decent chance of getting TTM, and went to Ebay to pick up some of their cards.  I ended up picking up a couple, just in case, and one of them finally came in on April 1.

Irv Noren (b. 1924) played in the majors from 1950 to 1960 for the Senators, Yankees, A's (Kansas City), Cardinals, Cubs and Dodgers.  In his 11-season career, he had 857 hits, 65 home runs and a career average of .275.  He was an All Star for the American League in 1954 and finished as high as 15th in the MVP voting, twice.  Noren played in three World Series with the Yankees, winning two of them (1952 and 1953).

Noren is also the first player among my card TTM successes who responded to the note I put inside my envelope.  His response was a general one regarding the game today and the memories he cherished from his playing days and are as follows:

Players and money different today.  Unions and agents are ruining the game today.  First Maj. Lg. game and 1st W. Series great memories.

I mailed to Noren on March 25 and got the autograph back on April 1 for a 7-day TAT.

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