Toporcer is widely considered as the first major league baseball position player to wear eyeglasses on the playing field.

The experience was further reinforced by his two older brothers who, being diehard Giants fans, idolized the players, speaking of little else but the performance of their favorite team.

Although the one cent allowance provided by his father, a shoe and boot seller, was not enough to get him a ticket, he found a spot on Coogan's Bluff that he could take advantage of an open space in the roof of the Polo Grounds.

When he was thirteen Toporczer got a job at a local saloon as a scorekeeper, writing down the scores of the baseball games in exchange for fifty cents and free meals.

Between working at the store and picking up odd jobs on the side, Toporczer was making more than enough to buy tickets and would regularly go to the Polo Grounds.

[3] Born and reared in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, he never played high school or college ball and went directly from the sandlots to major league competition in 1921.

Toporcer got the required surgery and the doctor proscribed a thirty-day bed rest, forbidden from moving his head so as not the dislodge the retina while it healed.

Once the thirty days were over, the doctor removed the bandages to find the surgery had been unsuccessful; Toporcer had lost sight in his left eye.

[3] The Cardinals and Red Sox held benefits to defray the expenses of Toporcer's eye surgeries, but because years of playing baseball had toughened his fingertips,[4] he was not able to master Braille.

"[4] In 1944, Toporcer wrote an autobiography, Baseball – From Backlots to Big Leagues, still considered one of the best manuals of instruction for coaches and young players.