This original 1937 Diamond Match Company U3-2 baseball matchcover features Hall of Fame pitcher Jerome “Dizzy” Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals in the green-border variation. A sepia pitching portrait fills one panel, while the opposite side carries Dean's name, team and a contemporary statistical biography recounting his 1936 season. This example is a stripped, bobtailed matchcover: the original matches, staple and striker portion are no longer present.
The cover belongs to a distinctive 23-subject Diamond issue now cataloged by prewar baseball-card collectors as U3-2. Twenty-one subjects represented the Chicago Cubs; Dean of the Cardinals and Paul Waner of the Pittsburgh Pirates were the two exceptions, and the players were produced with red, blue and green borders. The biography printed directly on this cover recalls Dean's 24-win 1936 campaign, preserving the statistics fans would have known when the piece was issued.
Its timing captures an especially important moment in Dean's career. He had won 30 games and National League MVP honors during the Cardinals' 1934 World Series championship season, followed by 28 wins in 1935 and 24 in 1936. During the 1937 All-Star Game he suffered a toe injury from a line drive and, after returning too quickly, developed the arm trouble that sharply curtailed his effectiveness. Dean was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.
What began as an everyday Diamond matchcover has therefore survived as something unusual: a small piece of commercial ephemera that also became part of the recognized prewar baseball-card hobby, preserving Dizzy Dean at the closing edge of his great Cardinals pitching years.
The Details
- Advertiser / Featured Subject: Jerome “Dizzy” Dean
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Featured Brand / Affiliation: St. Louis Cardinals / Major League Baseball
- Featured Imagery: Sepia pitching portrait with printed career and 1936 season summary
- Date: 1937
- Match Manufacturer: The Diamond Match Company
- Match Manufacturer Location: New York, New York
Carefully packed and shipped by Strange Trading Co.
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