A member of the “All Deadball Era” team, Charlie Hemphill had a rather peculiar career. Playing for six different teams over the course of 11 seasons, Hemphill was known as a decent hitter who had a penchant for drawing walks, but also as a fielder who was tremendously bad at defense and a teammate who battled off field issues like alcoholism.
After a full season with Boston in 1901, where he managed to play every day in the outfield, Hemphill left for the St. Louis Browns in 1902, which jump started his career. In five years, he managed a .273 batting average and a .329 on base percentage, both decent results for the deadball era. His ability to draw walks is likely what kept him in the lineup. After his time in St. Louis, he managed similar numbers at the plate during his four seasons with the Yankees between 1908 and 1911.
Hemphill struggled defensively… to say the least. He committed 130 errors in his career, a truly astonishing number for an outfielder. It’s difficult to imagine how poor a fielder one must be in the outfield to commit that many errors. By comparison, Marcell Ozuna, a notoriously poor defensive player in today’s game, has only 29 errors in 10 seasons playing outfield.
According to most sources, Hemphill was regularly out of shape for the season, often overweight, and rarely in good physical shape to play. He also had several illnesses and struggled with alcoholism. These could be reasonable explanations for his poor defensive play.
Hemphill isn’t going to make any “all-time greats” list anytime soon, and his inclusion on the “All-Deadball Era” for the Browns and Yankees says more about how bad those teams were than how good Hemphill was. But given his presence in the lineup every day for some big teams, it’s no surprise Hemphill was regularly featured in several major tobacco card releases at the time.
Here’s the three most valuable Charlie Hemphill vintage baseball cards:
3. 1911 T205 Gold Border
PSA 3 average value: $90
Perhaps his most attractive looking card, Hemphill’s final card as a player came in the T205 Gold Borders set. Interestingly, the text on the back describes Hemphill in glowing terms, saying his fielding was “good” and that his fielding percentage was among the best in the league. Either the person writing that text was going on bad information or they simply wanted to promote players no matter their actual performance on the field.
The all-time record sale of Charlie Hemphill’s 1911 T205 Gold Border card is a PSA 8 that sold for $2,760 in May 2008.
2. 1909 T206 White Border (common back)
PSA 3 average value: $132
Hemphill is one of many players featured in the iconic T206 set. Oddly enough, the photo shows him doing what he was worst at: fielding balls in the outfield. Here comes an error!
Common backs of Hemphill’s T206 sell for between $40-50 in low grade condition raw, and the all-time record sale is a PSA 8 that sold for $3,360 in September 2018.
1. 1909 Ramly T204
PSA 3 average value: $389
The 1909 Ramly T204 set is not among the most collected vintage baseball cards from this era, but perhaps they should be. Issued by Ramly and T.T.T Tobacco, the set had 127 subjects, including Hall of Famers like Joe Tinker, Walter Johnson, and Mordecai Brown. The decorative border is its most recognizable feature, but the photos themselves are also remarkably clear. Here we get an astonishing visualization of Hemphill’s face which many of his other cards lack.
The all-time record sale of Charlie Hemphill’s 1909 Ramley T204 is a PSA 8 that sold for $2,133 back in April 2014.
To see all of GMC’s Charlie Hemphill cards, click here: https://gregmorriscards.com/auctions/?s=charlie+hemphill
Sources: Society for American Baseball Research, vintagecardprices.com, baseball-reference.com