How a baseball card, with Marion typed on the back, helped spark a long career in minor league baseball
Marion Mets Newsletter – Issue 27
Imagine your first impressions of Marion, Virginia, came from reading a newspaper article. But not just any newspaper, the New York Times.
And, the second time you read “Marion,” it was the small print on the back of a major leaguer’s baseball card.
That’s how Dave Chase, the longtime minor league baseball executive, first learned about the small Southwest Virginia town, which at the time of his youth, was the home of a rookie league affiliate of Chase’s favorite major league team, the New York Mets.
Chase was in his early teens when he picked up a New York Times in the summer of 1966, and read the headline “Players for Marion Mets are a Long Dream from Shea Stadium.”
Underneath that bold header were black and white photos of Marion Stadium, where a few thousand people had gathered to take in a game on a late July night. There was another photo of a player, decked out in Mets pinstripes, climbing stairs that looked to ascend from the field to the clouds above, but instead lead to Marion Senior High School, where the team dressed.
Those photos were tied to a long feature story written by Times writer Robert Lipsyte following his nearly week-long stay in Marion.
Growing up in Poughquag, New York, Chase was just gaining interest in baseball when he read Lipsyte’s article.
“I read all about it [baseball], “Chase said in a phone conversation in 2023. “And, I started to get an appreciation for what minor league baseball was all about. It also helped that the New York Times in those days ran the standings every day of the Mets’ minor league teams and leagues.”
Chase examined each day’s standings, pouring over the records of New York Mets-affiliated teams competing in the International League, Eastern League and the Appalachian League, he recalled. Until he learned about Marion, Chase “had little idea,” he said, “about the world of baseball beyond New York. Going to the stadium meant going to Shea [Stadium] or, on occasion, to Yankee Stadium.”
The Times article opened his young eyes to a world of baseball beyond the city, and particularly to a small town 600 miles away.
A couple of years later, perhaps in the summer of ‘69 – Chase couldn’t recall the exact year – he ran across Marion again, this time analyzing the stats and information on backs of baseball cards. “I don’t know who it was, it was a Mets player and it had Marion written on the back of the card,” he said.
Let’s pause for a moment and think about this. What card of a former Marion Mets player could Chase have been holding?
Given the time frame in which Chase said he saw the card with Marion listed on the back, there are three good possibilities.
Of course, we’re hoping it was Nolan Ryan’s rookie card, right? But Ryan, who pitched for the Marion Mets 1965, does not have Marion listed on his 1968 Topps first-year card. However, his ‘69 Topps card, No. 533, does place Marion first among the teams the then young and rising star pitched for Marion’s Mets.
Another good possibility is Jim McAndrew, whose 1969 Topps card lists the pitching stats line for his brief time in Marion during the team’s inaugural 1965 season: 2 games, 13 innings pitched, 17 strikeouts and a 2.77 ERA.
One more card to consider is Don Shaw’s ‘69 Topps rookie card. The pitcher made his major league debut with New York in 1967, two years after recording a 3-2 record, 50 strikeouts and a 3.66 ERA in Marion.
There are a few other cards we could consider – Billy Wynne and Tim Foli, for example but those cards – again, the ones with Marion printed on the backs – fall a little outside the time when Chase recalls noticing the Marion card in his collection.
We’ll never know, of course, which cardboard collectable the young Dave Chase had in his hands, but it’s fun to speculate about which “Marion” card helped drive his interest in minor league baseball, which he later used to ignite a long, successful and influential career in the sport, 41 years to be exact.
Chase started that career in 1978 by serving as an assistant general manager of the Savannah Braves and subsequently worked in numerous front-office capacities, including president, general manager or assistant GM, with various minor league teams.
For 14 years, he was president of Baseball Concessions and later commissioner of a collegiate summer league. For another 17 years, Chase served as president and publisher of Baseball America. “So much of my work there was serving the game,” he said about his time with the publication popular among baseball fans and professionals working in the sport.
During Chase’s tenure as president and general manager of the Memphis Redbirds, he put into action his idea for the southwest Tennessee city to host an annual game to honor the Civil Rights Movement and its role in baseball.
“Again, we were serving the game,” Chase said, recalling the efforts to get the Civil Rights game off his desk and onto the field. “That has always been paramount in my career.”
Chase said he has always thought of minor league baseball as being about more than runs, hits and errors. ”It’s about the actual town. It’s about the individuals, the fans, the players and anyone associated with the game. It’s a very personal thing and very important to how a community feels about itself.”
He believes those words rang true for Marion during its brief time hosting the Baby Mets from 1965 to 1976.
Chase never saw the Marion Mets play, and only visited the town on a brief excursion off Interstate 81 while traveling with his son years ago. However, “Marion is always in the back of my mind for some reason,” he said. “Maybe it's because of those great New York Mets teams, especially the 1969 team. Some of those players played in Marion. So, with my interest in the Mets, the Marion Mets always popped up in my mind.”
And occasionally on the backs of our baseball cards.