1954 Bowman Baseball Cards

For whatever reason, Bowman decided to downsize their 1954 baseball card set to a more manageable 224 cards. They retained their 2-1/2"x3-3/4" size.

The card fronts featured color (possibly tinted) photographs of each player, surrounded by a white border along the card edge; at the bottom to one side was a facsimile of the player's autograph against a solid pastel color block.

Card backs sported a more aesthetically pleasing and compartmentalized design: along the top, the player's name was in a cartoon silhouette of a baseball bat, while to the right of this was the card number in a small baseball shape. These were within a pink box that also held the basic player information. To the lower left was a paragraph of biographical text, with a trivia question at the bottom, while in a block to the right were a handful of player statistics. The answer to the trivia question was given upside-down in a small pink box below this.

This set contains a number of variations; most of these are statistical errors that were corrected in later printings, resulting in the earlier versions being more scarce and generally more expensive as a result.

The big card in this set, however, is #66, Ted Williams. For whatever reason (probably legal), the Williams card was no longer printed after the initial pressing; its number was taken over by Jimmy Piersall, who already had another card in the set. This makes the Williams version ("#66a") fairly scarce and valuable, generally trading just above $2,000.00 in near-mint condition.

The set price does not include prices for the variants, including of course the Williams card.

Prominent players in this set include Williams, Phil Rizzuto, Willie Mays, Roy Campanella, Bob Feller, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Whitey Ford, Pee Wee Reese, and Mickey Mantle.