1948 Bowman Basketball

I've got yet another pair of cards today that had sort of been forgotten about until the recent cleaning up of all my photo/scan folders.

Fred Lewis is probably best known for his coaching stint (1962-68) at the University of Syracuse, where completely turned around the program, elevating it's status from perennial cellar dweller, to legitimate contender. Even though it's been almost fifty years since he left, the winning culture that he created (and still hasn't gotten the proper credit for) is, even now, still evident.

Prior to coaching he had a stellar college career, which started off at Long Island University, and after being interrupted by the second world war, finished at Eastern Kentucky.

Making his professional debut with the Sheboygan Redskins of the NBL (National Basketball League) in 1946, he would go on to win that season's Rookie Of The Year award. He would spend another two years in the NBL, most of it with the Indianapolis Jets, before joining the BAA (Basketball Association of America) to play a season with the Baltimore Bullets. After the BAA and the NBL merged to form the NBA in 1949, Fred signed on to play with the Philadelphia Warriors during the NBA's 1949-50 inaugural season -- which for reasons unknown to me, would also end up being his final season of professional basketball.

Andy Phillip was a standout at the University of Illinois, who like Fred Lewis (and many others), had his college career interrupted by the war. So what he did do? He became a standout in the Marine Corps as well, ultimately serving as a First Lieutenant at Iwo Jima.

After the war he returned to finish his final year of college, before joining the Chicago Stags of the BAA in 1947, for whom he would be a member of for the next three seasons. He moved on to the NBA in 1950, spending the next eight seasons playing for the Warriors, Pistons, and Celtics -- winning a championship with the latter in 1957. Considered a star in the early days of the league, he played in the first five All-Star games, led the league in assists during the 1950-51 and 1951-52 seasons. Mr. Phillip also was the first player to record 500 assists in a season. He is a member of both the Basketball Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame.

And if all that wasn't enough, he also played baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals farm system during his first couple of years of professional basketball. His best season being with Winston-Salem in 1947, where after 298 at bats, he had accrued 88 hits, and 8 HR's while batting .279 (his RBI total isn't available on the Baseball Reference website.

The '48 Bowman set isn't one that I actively chase, but like a lot of other sets, if I come across them and they're cheap enough, I will buy them. Both cards shown here today were $3.50 or less, which is a price I consider too cheap to pass up, especially when using earned COMC credit to pay for them.


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