Did you know they made "Baseball Cards"? The 1951 Bowman Edition

 A little while ago I was on the search for Alex Delvecchio stuff when I came across one I was missing. In that moment, I learned of a seller who just blew my mind. They had pretty much anything that has ever graced cardboard for sale. Included in their items for sale were all sorts of  military, baseball and other things that apparently are available in card form! I always thought that hockey was the only sport in collectables...(ok not really we know that but still, my collection is 99.9999% hockey which makes me appear that ignorant).

In an attempt to save money and find some cool things I bought a couple extras from this seller that normally can't be found in my collection and boy oh boy am I ever glad I did. Here is the first bit of evidence:

1951 Bowman Baseball #45 Art Houtteman

Who you ask? Houtteman I say! He was a Tiger, an Indian and an Oriole. His best years by far were with the Tigers so I bought this partially because it was a Tiger, partially because it was really old and finally just look at the photo. The unibrow, intensity and ears make this one of the coolest baseball cards I have EVER seen.

I knew nothing of 1951 Bowman and still really don't know much about the release, but the cards are bigger than the 51-52 Parkies and roughly around the same size as the 52-53 Parkies but I am not sure if they are exactly the same since I didn't physically compare as of yet. I have a feeling the Bowmans are slightly bigger but please someone let me know either way :)

When you read the back of this card it just makes it that much cooler in terms of what he has done and has gone through. Combine the front and back, if I never buy another baseball card again I am fine because I own what I think is a pretty darn cool one with Art Houtteman who may be the 1697th best pitcher in MLB history. True in the end he lost more games than he won, but come on, that doesn't diminish the coolness of this card to me!