Broder Family Tree

Who's this shadowy-faced fella?  This crow-marked, wily veteran is clearly a San Diego Padre, but that's all you can tell from the front side of this oddball baseball card.  So, since this card is lacking in information, please allow me to pick up the slack.

Bud Hardin had a lengthy 13-year career in minor league baseball, including a long run as a starting infielder in the old, open classification Pacific Coast League in the early 50's.  This circuit almost rivaled the Majors in terms of popularity on the west coast and William Edgar Hardin starred for the Los Angeles Angels throughout the early 50's.  Beyond that, he also appeared up and down the baseball chain for the Giants, Cardinals, Cubs, and Indians organizations in various remote locales from 1942-57.  Of course, there was a nice, lengthy absence from the professional ranks from 1943-45 due to serving his country during a skirmish most of the world was involved with.  From what I understand, a few ballplayers careers were put on pause at this time.

 

To close out his time in organized baseball, Bud started the 1957 season with the original San Diego Padres, returning to the PCL in a stint which is commemorated by the pasteboard which kicks off this post.  However, old glory was not recaptured, as he only got into 17 games before his contract was transferred to the Mobile Bears of the Southern Association.  Both clubs were affiliated with the Indians franchise at the time.  After 21 more contests, Hardin hung up his cleats for good, closing the books on a long and prosperous MiLB career.

Hardin during his brief trial with the '52 Cubs.  Image courtesy of Baseball Birthdays.

In contrast to his time in the bushes, Mr. Hardin had a rather brief career in the Majors, appearing in just three games with the 1952 Chicago Cubs, after he was selected in the Rule 5 Draft out of the Cardinals organization.  In those three contests, Hardin made seven plate appearances - rapping out a single hit (appropriately, a single) - and played a combined, error-less fourteen innings at shortstop and second base.  Shortly after the calendar turned to May, he was sent back down to the minors (the Cubs-affiliated Angels) and that was all she wrote for his MLB career.

While Bud Hardin's Major League career was brief and his stat-line revealed nothing particularly notable, his inclusion is still required for my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection.  Like many cameo Cubs of this era and earlier, this was problematic due to a lack of cardboard representation.  After all, the bulk of his playing career dated before the emergence of Topps and, as we've already established, his MLB stats would not have made him a likely subject anyway.  Thankfully, in this department, obscure oddball and regional minor league issues often rescue my most treasured collection and it was no different in this situation.  Although, it should be noted that this particular oddity comes with a bit of notoriety and significance within our hobby.

The 2"x 3", black and white oddity is printed on super thin cardstock, barely a notch above index card quality. Also, it's not hard to tell in this scan that it was printed as part of a sheet, seeing as remnants of the cards on either side were left behind when Bud was sliced out.  Overall, the simplistic card is extremely basic, letting the picture do all of the heavy lifting. The backside continues this minimalist theme:

No stats, no write-up, all we get is Bud's name, team affiliation, and the set information, all of which is  type-written and surrounded in a vast white space.  Based on the info presented, one can thus be forgiven for thinking that this oddball hails from 1957 and being distributed with bags of popcorn. After all, cards of this very size and "design" were handed out in that very manner by teams across the Pacific Coast League in the mid-50's. This is not one of those food premiums though, as it hails from a couple of decades later.  Although, it clearly draws *ahem* inspiration from those popcorn pasteboards.  However, this sit has it's own interesting lineage.

As it turns out, this card comes from a set produced by Ed Broder of the infamous Broder family.  If you were alive and collecting during the junk wax boom, the name Broder should ring all sorts of alarm bells, as Rob Broder became famous for his - shall we say - semi-legitimate outsider baseball card projects.  These off-brand curiosities were originally meant to pump up his sport photography business, but the cards ended up taking on a life of their own. They ended up spreading everywhere - you've definitely seen these cards kicking around the dime boxes and discount bins at card shows.  Nowadays, with everyone and their mother having access to photo editing software and a printer, "customs" and ACEO's have carved out their own niche; but, in the 80's and 90's the Broder works were looked down upon as fakes and phonies.  

Here's a pair of Broders from my collection that I am particularly fond of. Two of my favorite all-time players.

The notoriety rose to such heights during this time of cardboard investment that the family's last name became the catch-all term for counterfeit and collector-issued cards.  While Rob was the guy who accelerated the Broder boom, Rob's father Ed is the one who got the family business off the ground with passion projects such as the 1974 PCL Popcorn set.  Ed seemed to be particularly fond of the PCL, as he separated the wheat from the chaff with set of the league's All-Stars a year later, and Japanese baseball, the subject of several sets on his resume.  All of these products were similar in that they were decidedly not fancy - all picture with small splashes of text.  As evidenced by the cheap cardstock, the wishy-washy cutting, and the minimalistic design, these cards were probably produced with little more than some old programs/magazines, a typewriter, and a facsimile machine.

In the end, cards is cards to me.  Broders, customs, ACEOs, art cards, and anything put out by the major, "legitimate" manufacturers are all equally qualified for a home in my baseball binders.  I have Ars Longa cards displayed next to Topps pasteboards and Monarch Coronas pouched side by side with Upper Decks - a card is a card to me.  After all, where is the line between "legit" and "fake" when it comes to simple cardboard rectangles with pictures meant for children to play with anyway?  With that in mind, this is actually the third Border popcorn piece to find a spot in my CATRC.

Here we have Frank Ernaga and Ed Winceniak - another pair of ballplayers who, like Hardin, had brief runs with the Cubbies but much longer careers in the minor leagues.  Obviously, they also played in the PCL at some point, or they wouldn't appear in a set dedicated to the fan-favorite circuit.  For all three of these men, these ancestral Broders are pretty much the only baseball cards that I can find with their mugs on them.  Without such enterprising baseball fanatics, I wouldn't have been able to add this trio of players to my Cubs All-Time Roster Collection - so, thanks a bunch, Ed!

How do you feel about Broders and other such collector-driven releases?  Now, we aren't talking about actual, straight-up counterfeits meant to deceive the naïve, even though the term Broder eventually came to include such nefarious copycats.  Eff that crap.  I'm asking if you have any of Ed of Robs work in your collections?  Perhaps, if we expand the parameters, you might have a Carl Aldana, Helmar, One Star, Gypsy Oak or any one of hundreds of expertly-crafted blogger customs in your binders or boxes?  After all, this stuff is all either descended from or on the same family tree as the work of the Broder clan.  Personally, I feel like these outsider cardboard options add color, variety, and a desperately needed alternative perspective in the baseball card hobby.  These works often cover players, eras, and events that the boys at Topps, Panini, and the like would never bother with.  But, that's just me - what do you think?

In the meantime, I suppose I'll make myself some popcorn and wait for the conversation to get poppin'!