Ruel/Simmons/Kamm/Cochrane - 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 #25
1935 Goudey 4-in-1 #25 — Muddy Ruel / Al Simmons / Willie Kamm / Mickey Cochrane
Three teams on one card — Ruel and Simmons (White Sox), Kamm (Indians), Cochrane (Tigers). All four of its back combos are short prints.
The backs of 1935 Goudey cards are puzzle pieces, not player bios: each is marked "PICTURE N — CARD X" and builds one of the set's nine puzzles. This front was printed with 4 different backs (1J, 3A, 5A, 6A), so it counts 4 entries toward the 114-combination master set.
Every back combination of this front comes from the scarcer of the two printings of its puzzles — all 4 combos are short prints (per Beckett's tags and the Dec 1995 VCBC press-panel analysis).
A multi-team card — Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers share this front, one of six cards in the set mixing clubs.
The card & its puzzle backs
About Muddy Ruel
Herold “Muddy” Ruel — nicknamed, by most accounts, for coming home from the St. Louis sandlots caked in mud — was signed by Branch Rickey and debuted with his hometown Browns in 1915 at 19. Across 19 American League seasons (1915–34) with the Browns, Yankees, Red Sox, Senators, Tigers, and White Sox, the 5-foot-9 catcher batted .275 with 1,242 hits and ranked among the era’s elite defenders as Walter Johnson’s personal catcher in Washington. He caught every game of the 1924 and 1925 World Series; in Game 7 of 1924, reprieved when Hank Gowdy tripped over his own mask on Ruel’s foul pop, he doubled and scored the Series-winning run on Earl McNeely’s twelfth-inning bad-hop grounder — the Senators’ only championship. A lawyer credited with dubbing catcher’s gear “the tools of ignorance,” he managed the 1947 Browns and served as Detroit’s general manager. This panel, printed simply “Ruel” in White Sox colors, arrived just after his final game of August 1934, as he became Chicago’s pitching coach. He shares the front with Al Simmons, Willie Kamm, and Mickey Cochrane — three teams on one card — and all four back combinations are short prints.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR
About Al Simmons
Milwaukee-born Aloysius Szymanski, son of Polish immigrants, took “Simmons” from a hardware ad; Connie Mack purchased him from the hometown Brewers after 1923. In left field for the Athletics (1924–32) he topped 100 RBI in each of his first eleven seasons, led the AL with 157 RBI in 1929, and won back-to-back batting titles (.381, .390) as Philadelphia claimed three straight pennants and the 1929–30 World Series. His leadoff homer ignited the ten-run seventh that erased the Cubs’ 8–0 lead in Game 4 of the 1929 Series. The front foot he strode toward third base — “in the bucket” — earned the nickname “Bucketfoot Al,” which he resented. Sold to the White Sox, he hit .331 and .344 and made all three All-Star teams in Chicago, but this Goudey catches the finale: after slipping to .267 in 1935 — his first sub-.300 year — he was sold to the pennant-winning Tigers, joining A’s teammate and #25 panel-mate Mickey Cochrane, for $75,000. All four back combinations of the card are short prints. He retired in 1944 at .334 with 2,927 hits — 73 shy of his 3,000 goal — and entered Cooperstown in 1953. Mack’s verdict: “If I could only have nine players named Al Simmons.”
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR
About Willie Kamm
Willie Kamm was baseball's first $100,000 minor leaguer: in 1922 Charles Comiskey paid the San Francisco Seals that record sum, plus players, to fill the third-base hole left when Buck Weaver was banned with the Black Sox. Kamm repaid it as the American League's premier gloveman at the hot corner, leading AL third basemen in fielding percentage eight times across thirteen seasons with the White Sox (1923–31) and Indians (1931–35), setting a .984 single-season mark in 1933 that stood until 1947, and capping a 1929 triple play with his signature hidden-ball trick. A .281 lifetime hitter, he remains the only player to twice drive in 60-plus runs in a homerless season. Goudey's 1935 4-in-1s caught his final weeks: that May, manager Walter Johnson banished him from the Indians in a feud Commissioner Landis judged blameless. One of only six players on two fronts in the 36-card set, Kamm anchors card #16 with Cleveland teammates Averill, Trosky, and Hildebrand and #25's three-team panel, all four of whose back combinations are short prints.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR
About Mickey Cochrane
Gordon Stanley Cochrane got “Mickey” in 1923 when Portland signed him out of Boston University and took the Scottish kid for an Irish “mick”; his fiery temperament added the darker “Black Mike.” One minor-league season later he was Connie Mack’s catcher — a .331 rookie in 1925, the 1928 AL MVP, and anchor of three straight pennant winners from 1929–31, world champions the first two. Sold to Detroit in Mack’s Depression-era selloff, the new player-manager won a second MVP driving the 1934 Tigers to 101 wins and a first pennant in 25 years, then delivered Detroit’s first world championship in 1935, scoring the Series-winning run himself on Goose Goslin’s ninth-inning single in Game 6. His .320 career average remains the best ever by a catcher. One of just six players with two fronts in this 36-card set, he shares card #4 with Gehringer, Rogell, and Game 6 hero Tommy Bridges, and #25’s three-team panel with old A’s mate Al Simmons — all four #25 back combos short prints. A near-fatal Bump Hadley beaning ended his career in May 1937; in 1947 he became the first catcher the baseball writers elected to the Hall of Fame. Mickey Mantle was named for him.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 153 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 20 | 24 | 99 | 1 |
| SGC | 55 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 49 | 1 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Snapshot 2026-08-06. Half-grades fold down (8.5→8). Totals are summed across this front's graded back combinations.
PSA by back: 1J (SP) 18 · 3A (SP) 21 · 5A (SP) 50 · 6A (SP) 64
SGC by back: 1J (SP) 4 · 3A (SP) 4 · 5A (SP) 30 · 6A (SP) 17
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Related cards
Willie Kamm also appears on: #16 Willie Kamm / Oral Hildebrand / Earl Averill / Hal Trosky
Mickey Cochrane also appears on: #4 Mickey Cochrane / Charlie Gehringer / Tommy Bridges / Billy Rogell
More Chicago White Sox cards:
- #8 George Earnshaw / Jimmy Dykes / Luke Sewell / Luke Appling
- #12 Jackie Hayes / Ted Lyons / Mule Haas / Zeke Bonura
- #31 Pie Traynor / Red Lucas / Tommy Thevenow / Glenn Wright
More Cleveland Indians cards:
- #14 Willis Hudlin / Glenn Myatt / Adam Comorosky / Jim Bottomley
- #16 Willie Kamm / Oral Hildebrand / Earl Averill / Hal Trosky
- #32 Joe Vosmik / Bill Knickerbocker / Mel Harder / Lefty Stewart
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #4 Mickey Cochrane / Charlie Gehringer / Tommy Bridges / Billy Rogell
- #9 Pete Fox / Hank Greenberg / Gee Walker / Schoolboy Rowe
- #28 Heinie Schuble / Firpo Marberry / Goose Goslin / Alvin Crowder
Other fronts in the same puzzle pictures:
- #4 Mickey Cochrane / Charlie Gehringer / Tommy Bridges / Billy Rogell
- #6 Joe Cronin / Carl Reynolds / Max Bishop / Bill Cissell
- #8 George Earnshaw / Jimmy Dykes / Luke Sewell / Luke Appling
- #10 Frankie Frisch / Dizzy Dean / Ernie Orsatti / Tex Carleton
- #11 Burleigh Grimes / Chuck Klein / Kiki Cuyler / Woody English
- #14 Willis Hudlin / Glenn Myatt / Adam Comorosky / Jim Bottomley
- #16 Willie Kamm / Oral Hildebrand / Earl Averill / Hal Trosky
- #19 Sam Leslie / Lonny Frey / Joe Stripp / Watty Clark
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 Ruel/Simmons/Kamm/Cochrane card?
It is one of the 36 unnumbered fronts of the 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 set (R321), picturing Muddy Ruel / Al Simmons / Willie Kamm / Mickey Cochrane. The 2-3/8 by 2-7/8 inch card carries four color portraits on the front and a puzzle piece on the back. Checklists that number the set (Old Cardboard / the Burdick Collection convention, alphabetical by the upper-left player) list it as #25 of 36.
How many backs does this card have?
4: 1J, 3A, 5A, 6A. Every 1935 Goudey front was printed with two to four different puzzle-piece backs, and collectors chasing the 114-combination master set track each front/back pairing separately. The 1J, 3A, 5A, 6A printings are short prints per Beckett and the VCBC press-panel analysis.
How many cards are in the 1935 Goudey 4-in-1 set?
36 fronts, each with four players (144 panels picturing 138 different men). Counting the two-to-four puzzle backs each front was printed with, the master set runs to 114 front/back combinations, 42 of them short prints. A complete set of all nine puzzles requires 72 different backs.
Sources: Trading Card Database, Old Cardboard, the Burdick Collection catalog (Metropolitan Museum of Art), SABR Baseball Cards research, Baseball-Reference, PSA & SGC population reports, and the Dec 1995 VCBC press-panel analysis. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-08-14.