1931 Zeenut (PCL) Eddie “Doc” Farrell (Los Angeles Angels)

Baseball cards and candy have a long history together.

Like many confectionery companies around the turn of the twentieth century, the Collins-McCarthy Candy Company of San Francisco produced baseball cards to help sell their sweets. From 1911 to 1938, Collins-McCarthy inserted cards in boxes of its Zeenuts, Ruf-Neks and Home Run Kisses candies. (If anyone knows what a Zeenut candy looked like and/or was made of, I’d love to know.)

The Zeenut cards depicted players in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), a competitive minor league featuring teams in California, Oregon and Washington. PCL alums include legends Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams—and to his dismay, Eddie “Doc” Farrell.

The minors are a stepping stone for major league dreamers, but for a six-year veteran like Doc, it wasn’t where he expected to be after a 1930 season in which he hit .292 for the Chicago Cubs in part-time duty. New manager Rogers Hornsby traded Farrell to the Los Angeles Angels of the PCL where he played (almost literally) every day during a 185-game season on the West Coast. In fact, those games were stretched over two consecutive “split-seasons”—a first half and second half—which the PCL was known to play in those days. Despite the workload, Eddie flourished in the sunshine, batting .327 during the stretch. He proved he still had a major league bat, and he would get another shot at the big show with the New York Yankees in 1932.

On his black-and-white 1931 Zeenut card, Farrell swings a bat in his Los Angeles flannels. His cap casts a triangular shadow over his 30-year-old face. It was a sunny day in the City of Angels.

[More about Zeenut cards: All cards were unnumbered and blank backed. Starting with the 1913 set, each card came with a coupon attached to the bottom which could be redeemed at a dealer for a premium. Today, it’s rare to find a card with its coupon intact (example).]