1957 Cubs Scorecard...With An Ernie Banks Oddity

I have several holes in my Cubs scorecard collection from the 1950s. Last week I was able to fill the 1957 hole with this beauty..

Interesting that the player is not the focus, but the fans are. That was the Cubs advertising strategy in the 50's....come spend an afternoon in the sun at beautiful Wrigley Field. And by the way, there's a baseball game to see too.

I guess you can't blame them since the teams were pretty bad.

The scorecards was scored, and you might be able to make out the final score--the Cubs beat the Phillies 9-0 in the first game of a doubleheader on June 19.

The only bright spot on the teams of the late '50s was Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. By 1957 he had established himself as one of the premier players in the league. The Cubs actually had a player that other teams feared.

Ernie was a man among boys at shortstop, blasting home runs like no other shortstop before him.

Yet, for two months in 1957, Ernie wasn't the best shortstop in the league. But he was probably the best third baseman.

Yep, he spent May and June playing third base for the Cubs. I looked through a bunch of Tribune articles from that time but couldn't find any reason for the switch. Ernie was in the midst of a big slump, so maybe it was just a way to shake things up.

Now look again at the lineup as written in the scorecard...Banks 3b.

The card is from one of the 58 games he played at third base that season. There can't be too many scorecards around that have him playing third base. I had no idea the card was from one of those games---just a happy turn of events.