AA, or American Association, was a minor league that operated from 1902 to 1962. While a relatively short-lived circuit compared to some of baseball’s other historic minor leagues, AA played an important role in the development of the sport and produced some memorable teams and players over its six decades of existence. The league also left its mark on the hobby of baseball card collecting, with several different sets produced over the years featuring stars who got their start in the AA before moving on to bigger things in the major leagues.
One of the earliest AA card issues was the 1909-11 Allen & Ginter set, which included cards for players in the American Association at that time such as Dave Danforth of the Minneapolis Millers and Claude Hendrix of the Indianapolis Indians. These cards featured the players in their major league uniforms after leaving the AA rather than depicting them as members of their minor league teams. Allen & Ginter was one of the top tobacco card manufacturers of the early 20th century and their inclusion of recent AA graduates in their high-quality card issues helped raise the profile of the minor league.
In the 1930s, several regional sets came out highlighting teams and players from the American Association of that era. The 1933 Goudey Kansas City Blues set included 60 cards showing members of that AA franchise such as Heinie Sand. A similar 1936 Kansas City Blues set from M.F. Stahl had 50 cards focusing on that same team. The 1937 Des Moines Demons set from Best’s Cigarettes featured 50 cards spotlighting players on the AA’s Des Moines franchise like Bobo Newsom. These sets provided fans in those Midwestern cities souvenirs of the hometown minor league squads they could follow.
The largest and most complete AA card set remains the 1948 Bowman set, which featured cards for over 250 players spanning all 12 teams that made up the American Association in that season. The colorful and graphic design of the Bowman cards from that era captured both the individual players and team uniforms to a high degree of detail. Future major league stars like Nellie Fox, Early Wynn, and Jim Piersall had their early minor league careers immortalized in the 1948 Bowman set before they went on to the big leagues. For collectors of mid-20th century cards, finding a complete 1948 Bowman AA set in high grade remains a prized accomplishment.
In the early 1950s, the American Association was still chugging along but faced new threats as major league teams began to place franchises in some of its largest markets like Kansas City. Two smaller regional sets highlighted the league in its later years – the 1951 Topps Kansas City Blues issue had 30 cards focused on that one team, while the 1952 Bowman Omaha Cardinals set featured 60 future major leaguers in the St. Louis farm system playing for their Omaha affiliate. These were among the last baseball card releases to prominently feature the American Association before it ultimately folded in 1962.
By the time the AA shut down, it had seen over 100 franchises come and go within its ranks over six decades. The league developed numerous future all-stars during its run like Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Harmon Killebrew. While short-lived compared to leagues like the International League and Pacific Coast League, the American Association left its mark on both the sport of minor league baseball and the hobby of baseball card collecting. For historians of either, studying the teams, players, and card issues associated with this “AA” circuit provides a window into an important period of development for the national pastime in the first half of the 20th century.
