1975 TCMA Black Sox

I don't know about you but I keep a notepad by my computer and when I read my daily intake of blogs I scribble down cards and players that other folks have featured that strike my fancy. I've discovered some really fun stuff like that. This may not be an example.

These rather homely cards are from one of the slew of TCMA sets that were put out in the 1970s and 80s. Some younger readers may not know that TCMA was a company put together by Tom Collier and Michael Aronstein. You can read a bit about them and their best product, the SSPC sets right here. This page from the Standard Catalog of Cards gives a checklist of all the TCMA sets that featured major leaguers. The company also did minor league team sets. You can see a variety of their products here.

Anyway, back to my original premise, I read something about this 1919 White Sox set on a blog and made a note of it. I was interested because the Black Sox scandal has held a fascination for me since I read Eight Men Out back when it was published in the 1960s. So I went to eBay and found a small five card lot for a couple of bucks and grabbed it. Here 'tis. 

The cards are pretty crude looking, even for an out-of-the-mainstream set such as this. The backs, a couple of which I have shown below, are not much more than brief 1919 stats in a typewriter font. For some reason they remind me of cards that might be included as part of a cheap baseball dice replay game. But for a couple of bucks I have some unusual cards of players I might not otherwise get a chance to collect.

I don't think I'd want to complete the set. I don't remember if there were complete sets available on eBay but I can't imagine they would be very costly. There are a few graded cards which had a $10 to $15 asking price. I'm surprised anyone would 1) submit one of these for grading or 2) pay for one in a slab. But that's just me.

I'd kind of like to have the Kid Gleason one though.... ungraded of course.