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What's In A Name?
By Andy Broome, Beckett Grading

Baseball history is filled with colorful nicknames. From the most well known, like Babe Ruth and Shoeless Joe Jackson, to the just plain strange, like Oil Can Boyd and George Piano Legs Gore.

One unique name that stands out belongs to Norman Elberfeld. Norman was best known as Kid. While there were countless other players known as Kid, Norman's Kid was short for The Tabasco Kid, and was so named for his hot temper. Elberfeld was apparently such a hot head that during a nose-to-nose argument with an umpire during a minor league game, he threw a lump of dirt into the screaming ump's open mouth!

Depending on who you asked, Elberfeld was born in either Pomeroy, OH or Mason City, WV in 1875. Many accounts state that he was born in 1876, but his grave marker says 1875. As an adult, Kid stood 5'-5" or 5"-7" depending on the source and tipped the scales at 150lbs but his temper made up the difference.

The Tabasco Kid's baseball skills were so impressive in the beginning that a scout selected him to be Philadelphia's next shortstop over another young kid, Honus Wagner. He was in Philadelphia in 1898 and in Cincinnati in 1899. Elberfeld spent less than one season with Cincinnati before being sent to Detroit in 1900. In 1903, Kid joined the New York Highlanders (later the New York Yankees) and stayed in New York until 1909. Elberfeld played in Washington until 1911.

In 1914 at the age of 39, Kid spent one final season in the majors with Brooklyn. The Elberfled-Cobb battle was one of the most notable rivalries of early 20th century baseball. Elberfeld would stop Ty Cobb's headfirst slides into second base. According to an interview conducted shortly before his death in a 1944 edition of the Washington Post, Kid was quoted as saying "Ty found out my feet were harder than his head. Then he started coming in spikes first. I had to protect myself."

According to Clark Griffith, the Kid's idea of protecting himself was swinging first. "He couldn't lick Cobb, he weighed only 150 pounds, but he never stopped trying."

"When Cobb came into the bag and Elberfeld was covering, we'd just stand around with our arms folded for the next few minutes and watch the goings-on, until one or both of 'em were thrown out of the game." Griffith said, "They didn't call him Tabasco Kid because he was shy."

It is rumored that Kid would pour whiskey into his spike wounds on his legs, and carried many scars left from high flying spikes.

Starting in 1915, Kid managed the Southern Association Chattanooga team, then an Arkansas team and eventually ran a baseball camp in Atlanta before retiring to his apple orchard near Chattanooga.

Kid fielded his own family team with five girls and one boy. His five girls formed a basketball team known as the Elberfeld Girls touring the South.

The Tabasco Kid died in 1944. He was laid to rest with his wife, son and two daughters in Chattanooga. His head stone simply says: "Norman "Kid" Elberfeld 1875-1944".

Kid has the distinction of having 3 different cards in the T206 set, one shy of Cobb's T206 card total. Kid was popular enough for a team change to be made, creating the scarce Washington Portrait variation.

Kid's rookie card would be the rare 1903-04 Breisch-Williams E107. My personal favorite card is his 1909 T204 Ramly. The Ramly cards feature a black and white player image set inside an oval frame. The borders and oval frame are embossed gold. The gold flakes away similar to the T205 gold borders and are subject to being touched up with ink or paint.

It's not too often that new products are invented in the sports card hobby, but recently a company called Card Quality created a "Card Loading System" that may be of interest to our readers. The "E.C. Quick Loader" is a metal device intended to aid collectors in inserting cards into plastic sleeves or 9-pocket sheets safely, by separating the sides of the sleeve.

There is certainly validity to the claim that cards are chipped or dinged too readily when inserting them in holders. We see victims of this all the time as cards are received for grading with obvious damage caused by the lip of a penny sleeve catching a corner or edge. So the need is there, but how does the E.C. Quick Loader perform?

Used freehand, the device is quite awkward to use. One must hold the steel tray, then line up the penny sleeve, and try to hold both of these with one hand while carefully inserting the card with the other hand. It’s a juggling act that is probably not worth the extra time and effort. However, the device also comes with an attachment that can be attached to a camera tripod, then tilted to a more accessible angle. Used this way, it is much more user-friendly. A better tactic would be to design a way to mount the device to a tabletop, possibly via a clamp. This would provide a sturdier base.

Ease of use depends upon the holders used. Penny sleeves actually vary considerably in size, and the E.C. Quick Loader performs much better with a wide penny sleeve. The device may also be used with 9-pocket sheets and other holders. We were unable to use it with a top loader, and while it worked with a semi-rigid, the scratching a card takes from inserting it in a semi-rigid without penny-sleeving it first is not a proportionate trade-off (and there is not enough width in the device to slide a penny-sleeved card into a semi-rigid holder).

Is it worth the $49.99 retail price tag? That is probably a question best left to each reader. If you are adept at splitting penny sleeves with your finger and getting cards in without harming your cards, then the device would likely just slow you down more than you'd like. But if you commonly have problems getting cards into penny sleeves without damaging a fair number of them, the E.C. Quick Loader might be a worthwhile investment. More information can be found at the company's website.

Q: My son loves BGS and wants me to send some cards in to be graded as a Christmas present. I have no idea what to do since he is always the one who sends the cards in. Do you have a gift certificate I could purchase so that he can send the cards he wants graded in?

A: Yes, Beckett Grading Services does offer grading certificates for situations just like this. The vouchers come in in denominations of $10 and can be purchased online here - order as many certificates as you would like.

Once your son is ready to place a grading order, he can simply deduct the value of the vouchers from the total on the submission form. It's as easy as that.

BGS gift certificates are available year round and are a great gift for any occasion. And, although they can not be used for grading submissions, Beckett.com gift certificates make great gifts for collectors too.

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