Manatee man’s baseball memorabilia collection a tale of timing, luck

BRADENTON

Chuck Jewett’s baseball memorabilia collection grew in the most serendipitous ways over the past 30 years.

Take the 1957 postcard of McKechnie Field when the Milwaukee Braves trained here.

He found it at Goodwill.

Or the old, vinyl LP album jacket showing euphoric Pittsburgh Pirates Hall-of-Famer Bill Mazeroski after his epic homer won the 1960 World Series over the New York Yankees.

Jewett found it at the Salvation Army.

It gets better.

The 64-year-old bank executive, who rediscovered his boyhood love of baseball cards in 1980, had a friend whose dad was a haberdasher in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the 1950s.

One of the clothier’s patrons was Sal “The Barber” Maglie, whose distinctive nickname was derived from pitching batters high and inside.

Maglie played for the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees during that decade.

Anyway, Maglie would give the haberdasher’s son autographed baseballs, but the lad wasn’t a baseball fan.

So years later when the man met Jewett and learned of his passion, he gave him the baseballs.

They were autographed by the 1951 Giants, 1953 Yankees and 1956 Dodgers.

“I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Jewett said. “I go to card shows and put ads in the paper, but a lot of it is luck.”

Some of the fruit of the local resident’s fortune is on display on both floors at Bradenton’s Central Library, 1301 Barcarrota Blvd. W.

It includes the baseball cards of every player on the Pirates World Series champions from 1960, 1971 and 1979, and four from 1909.

There are also baseballs autographed by every member of the 500-home run club except Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx and Mel Ott.

It does not include baseballs signed by Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

Jewett is old school.

“This is the real deal, not the steroid-tainted era,” he said of the collection, which numbers in the thousands at his home.

“When we got married, we looked for a house that had an extra room,” wife Deborah said. “He’s got a mini-museum.”

The exhibit lasts through March, apropos for spring training.

“I think it’s something a lot of people can connect with,” Jewett said. “It brings us back to our youth.”

His was spent in North Dakota.

Jewett’s hometown?

Cooperstown, N.D.

“I collected cards like any other boy,” he said. “We’d trade them, put them in the spokes of your bikes and made all kinds of noise. Or we’d put them on the clothes line with clothes pins and shoot them with BB guns.”

One card that escaped such a fate was that of fellow North Dakotan Roger Maris from Fargo. It was his 1958 rookie card with the Cleveland Indians.

“Fortunately, I’ve been able to replace that card and a lot of others I had as a boy,” Jewett said.

Seems mom threw them away, a familiar lament to many American men.

“I regretted it,” said Loren Auren, 84, who’s visiting her son. “But we had a minister in town, who said he collected baseball cards, too, and his mother threw them out.

“Then I didn’t feel so bad.”

Vin Mannix, local columnist, can be reached at 745-7055, or write him at Bradenton Herald, P.O. Box 921, Bradenton, FL 34206 or e-mail him at vmannix@bradenton.com. Please include a phone number for verification.