Second Thoughts

 Despite appearances, I'm not intending to turn this into a '67 Topps blog. In fact, I'm wondering if I should really attempt the set at all. That Seaver rookie is reaching astronomical price levels and I'm just not sure I want to drop that much on a card. I'll have to give it some thought. Most likely I'll seek out a low grade copy and try to keep the cost down that way. We'll see.

Meanwhile, here are a couple new-to-me '67s that arrived over the last few days.This Mays card, IMO, is one of his better ones. I like the portrait shot here for sure. This is actually an upgrade over a battered copy I've had for as long as I can remember.

 These next two are both Mets and were purchased as a way to fill out an order on eBay. I bought six or seven cheap modern baseball and football cards from him to fill some fantasy sports binder needs. He offered both a % discount and free shipping with a ten-card order so I filled it with these two and a couple others I found of University of Houston alums. 

 I just recently posted Ed Bressoud's 1960 Topps card over on that blog.  He was with the Cardinals when the '67 set was issued and it was his final season as a big-league player. He only had 75 at-bats. He later became a minor-leagie manager and dod some scouting.

 

 

I liked Cleon Jones...right up to the second he caught Dave Johnson's fly to finish the '69 Series. Now, every time I hear his name that moment returns to me and I'm just a little sadder. Good ballplayer, though. And this '67 is a sweet card, made even better with that Topps Rookie trophy.

Now I'm gonna go cheer myself up by watching some football. My primary fantasy team is a monster!

Say hey!

I was recently digging thru my 'stuff' and came across my stack of 1970 Topps booklets. I'd built the set from junk boxes at card shows and a sweep of COMC a couple of years ago. They are a cheap, fun item.

The problem was, while I had a bunch of dupes, I didn't have the Willie Mays folder in the stack. It's the #24th, and last, in the set which appears to be just a coincidence. Now I wasn't about to spend hours digging through boxes trying to find one folder so I went to SportsLots and tacked it on to my box order. It came last week.

The first panels have tidbits that some fans may not have known, even if Mays was among the most well-known players of the time (and, obviously, all-time). For example...while I knew about his Army service time and that he was on deck for the Thomson homer, I didn't know he was only 15 when he began playing in the Negro Leagues or that his first hit was off Spahn. or that he hit .477 in the minors his second year.

I kind of like that they reference the Wertz catch in the '54 Series with fans conversation rather than showing the catch itself. I don't think the artist made Willie look all that perturbed that the 'Dodgers still ran away with the pennant'! I bet he was pissed.

Wille was indeed 114 shy of The Babe at the end of the 1969 season. He had 28 in 1970 but his incredible five-tool skills were betraying him at 39 and he finished his career with 660. Hank Aaron passed Mays (he was 46 behind him at the time of these comics) and we all know the rest ofthe  story. Mays remains third on the list of untainted homer run hitters in history. YMMV of course.

The checklist contains a player from each of the 24 teams from 1970. They are numbered in alphabetical order according to the city with the AL coming first. That's what puts Willie in the #24 spot. As with all insert sets issued back then that 'covered the majors', it leads to an up-and-down checklist with some superstars and some lesser players. And you have to figure that Topps probably wanted to share the wealth and bypassed some of the games biggest names in favor of some solid support players. Brooks or Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Roberto Clemente make way for Mike Cuellar, Orlando Cepeda, and Bob Moose as their team's rep in the set.


But each of the comics has some informative nuggets and many have some cringe-worthy, cornball comic panels. Here are some examples featuring Walt Williams and Tommy Harper.

The full stack is now sitting on my desk so maybe I should scan a few of my favorites and post them.

Pages of Talent

One of the really fun things about putting together smaller vintage sets like the '57 Topps is the incredible concentration of amazing players that get grouped together on binder pages. If collecting encased, graded cards is your thing, that's fine. But for me there is nothing like flipping through a set and just seeing stars on top of stars.


The first two pages in this wonderful set are perfect examples. Here's the very first one:

Teddy Ballgame, Yogi, Aparicio, all Hall of Famers. Plus some really talented 'other guys'....Sal Maglie, Don Mossi (a blogger favorite!), Dale 'Eight Straight Dinger Games' Long and one of my Dad's favorites, Hector Lopez. BTW... I'm looking to upgrade that Maglie.

And when you turn that page you're faced with this...

Willie Mays, Robin Roberts, Don Drysdale the underrated Dick Groat and three, count 'em, three Orioles!!  Here's something I bet you didn't know...Groat is the color guy on Pitt Panther basketball broadcasts.

I bit deeper into the binder comes this one...

...Bob 😒 Clemente, Gil Hodges, Jim Piersall and Lindy McDaniel. Those bottom three cards are all beauties, yes? And don't overlook George Crowe. He had an interesting and accomplished life. His SABR bio is well worth the time it takes to read it.

OK, so this last page doesn't have the star power of the other three but I'm including it because it holds the cards of three players I love, Warren Spahn, Moe Drabowsky and Ellie Howard. Not to mention a great card of Larry Doby.

As I zero in on the last couple of dozen cards I need to finish off this set it's really becoming a favorite. I didn't appreciate it nearly as much going in as I do now. I'm really glad I took it on.

A Fun Exercise

A few weeks back someone on Net54 started a thread asking folks to name the best player they saw in person.... 1) in the first game they attended and 2) ever (in a game you attended). High school and college games were OK. 'Best player in the first game' meant 'best guy on the field', not necessarily the one who had the best game that day. You were supposed to answer for the Big Four sports but, as is usually the case with internet things, not everyone followed directions. And some replies stated they had never seen a game in a certain sport in person, etc. A few dolts, like me for instance, tossed in an extra sport or two.

I thought it was interesting and it wasn't as easy as it sounded at first.  There were certainly no wrong answers. I was entertained by some of the responses and I also immediately thought it would make a fun blog post if I could find cards of each player I named. Turns out I could. So here it goes.

Best player, first game attended, baseball.

July of 1960 at Yankee Stadium, Yanks vs White Sox. Mickey Mantle

It was a doubleheader and Mantle batted fifth. He whiffed, doubled and singled off Billy Pierce and hit a sac fly in the ninth off Frank Bauman in a 6-3 Sox win. The Yanks were loaded, of course, and the Sox had some big-name stars but Mickey obviously wins as 'best guy to play' in that game. He'd be close to being the best player I saw live, ever. But after some internal debate I have to go with this guy:

Best player, ever seen live, baseball.

Willie Mays

I considered Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, and some others but Willie was Willie. There wasn't anything he couldn't do on a ballfield. I was fortunate enough to have seen him while he was still in his prime in the early 60s. Interestingly one of the responders had these same two guys but in the opposite category. I know there are no 'wrong' answers here but ...whatever.


Best player, first game attended, football.

Circa 1961 Nutley N.J. High School games. Ben Hawkins

My original answer was Keith Lincoln. I was thinking of pro sports exclusively at first and he was likely the best player in the first pro game I saw, an Oilers-Chargers affair in 1967.

Then I remembered that I had seen plenty of football in the Nutley Park Oval growing up. I can't specifically recall seeing him but Ben Hawkins was the star at Nutley High in those days. He went on to glory at Arizona Stae and had some great days in the NFL with the Eagles. He led the NFL in yards in 1967.

Best player, ever seen live, football.

John Unitas

I wouldn't even venture a guess as to how many football games I've witnessed. From high school (even disregarding coaching), University of Houston games since 1970, Giants game with my Dad, Oilers, and Texans as a season ticket holder, etc.. I've seen plenty. I never saw Jim Brown play in person but I have seen about everyone else in the modern game, Brady, Gale Sayers, Manning, Marino, Lawrence Taylor, Earl Campbell and so on. None of them tops Johnny Unitas. I don't care how many rings any of them wear. Unitas is the best I've ever seen at imposing his will on a game. Are there better quarterbacks? Maybe. Better FOOTBALL PLAYERS? Nope.

Best player, first game attended, basketball.

Circa 1965 NBA doubleheader, old Madison Square Garden at 49th and 8th. Wilt Chamberlain

 My uncle, the Secaucus pharmacist, used to get tickets to everything through his connections. But he wasn't a sports fan at all and those tickets got passed to my father and so I saw plenty of games I ordinarily wouldn't have. Lots of Knicks games, for example. They used to have NBA doubleheaders at the Garden in the early/mid-60s. You'd see Pistons-Sixers and then the Knicks and Hawks or someone.

I wouldn't want to guess what year I saw the game but I remember Wilt and his Philadelphia crew playing in that old, dank' dingy Garden.

Best player, ever seen live, basketball.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Here's why: "Abdul-Jabbar was Rookie of the Year, a member of six NBA championship teams, a six-time NBA MVP, a two-time NBA Finals MVP, a 19-time All-Star, a two-time scoring champion and a member of the NBA 35th and 50th Anniversary All-Time Teams."

That's not even considering that he was clearly the best high school player and best college player prior to his pro career. His skyhook was unstoppable. You want Jordan? I'll take Jabbar.

Best player, first game attended, hockey.

1959-60/1960-61 Leafs-Rangers at the old MSG. Dave Keon

I'm not sure which Leafs-Rangers game I attended. I remember the Rangers lost. Davey Keon was a Leafs legend. I looked at the rosters for both teams during those seasons. Keon was no doubt the best player on either team.

Best player, ever seen live, hockey.

Gordie Howe.

Saw him with the Wings and Aeros. He's Mr. Hockey. I could have put Bobby Orr here, he was astounding and changed the game. I never saw Gretzky live. But no matter...it's Gordie.

Best player, first game attended, soccer. 

At Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands w/the Cosmos circa 1975/76. Pele

I can't pin down which game it was I attended with my father and uncle but I remember that it rained a bit and Pele was a huge deal. LOL

Best player, ever seen live, soccer.

Pele.

Like Gordie Howe, he's the all-time face of his sport, at least IMHO. I've seen Lionel Messi play, he's a magician on the pitch and maybe one day I will put him in this spot. But not yet.

That was kind of fun to put together. I dug up some fun memories for myself.

Three Yanks and a Buc

OK, that title is sort of weird. But it describes what I'm lacking in my 1961 Topps chase. The cards I need are:


531 Jim Coates- Yankees
541 Rollie Sheldon- Yankees
554 Pirates Team Card
563 Bob Cerv- Yankees


All are high numbers, obviously. The three players are Yankees and then there is the Pirates team card. The Yankee 'tax' is pretty strong. None of those players are stars. There were no formal 'short prints' in the high number series as far as I can tell. At least nobody describes them as such. But the grading services have population reports that show the number of each card submitted for grading and the Sheldon and Cerv seem scarce. The Pirates team card gets a 'defending champs tax' I guess but I'm not sure it should.

Bottom line...these are proving to be difficult to find (in acceptable condition) without busting my budget.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I've reeled in the last All-Star card I needed, Willie Mays.

It's not a terrible card but that is a scuff on his cap and the corners are softer than my Texans' defensive schemes. But the price was right and it certainly fits into my 'acceptable' range for the set.

And it fills the final full page in the binder with a boatload of talent.

If my math is right the page represents: 102 All-Star selections (and I didn't count the twin ASG game years as two selections), 8 MVP trophies, 34 Gold Gloves, 5 Hall of Fame players, 2 Rookie of the Year selections (and a couple of runners-up), 15 World Series rings, 4 batting titles, an ERA title, a Cy Young Award, 412 pitching wins and 3219 homers.

And to get to this point these high numbers came my way in recent weeks. These were from COMC I think.

Bill Tuttle was rarely photographed without that large hunk of chewing tobacco in his cheek. Later in life, he paid a huge price as mouth and throat cancer took his life. He spent a good bit of his last years as an advocate against the use of chewing tobacco and dip.

There is a thread on Net54 about 'centeredness' (probably many threads) and one comment made was 'off-center cards give me the shakes'. 😏 I, on the other hand, have no problem with this Tuttle. It goes back to my feeling that "if it came out of a pack when I was 9-years-old I wouldn't have even paid any mind" attitude. The only thing that gives me pause is when a card shows some of the one next to it.  There's a Jim Coates on eBay cheap right now that has tempted me but the discount isn't big enough to get me to overlook that flaw.

Bob Hale was at the end of his career. He'd began as a first baseman for the Orioles in 1955 but mostly served as a pinch hitter for the Birds, Indians, and Yankees thru the 1961 season.

I really like this Felipe Alou card. He's in Seals Stadium. He really came into his own in 1961 as he hit .289 with 18 homers. The next year he made his first All-Star squad and helped the Giants make the Series.

This is the first official Twins team card. As noted on the front they were formerly the Senators and you can see that name on their unis if you look close. The new edition of the Senators, the expansion version, as well as their counterparts, the L.A. Angels, didn't get a team card in 1961.

A Graded Willie

Over the past couple of months I've added about eight slabbed and graded cards to my collection. Most of them are Charles Bender T- and E- cards. But three of them are cards I've wanted from the 50s and 60s.

The first one I'm posting is the best conditioned and ironically the only one destined to be broken free of its plastic prison and land in a binder. It's this 1962 Topps Willie Mays. I'm collecting the '62 set at the moment and this Mays, with its scuffed corners and off-center trimming, fits in perfectly. I love the pose and that's one reason I wanted to be sure I had a decent copy for my set. Honestly, I would have probably grabbed this one even if I wasn't collecting the '62 set.

I'm down to needing 133 cards of the 598 count base set. I also have the numerous pose variations and the 'cap logo/no cap logo cards'. I've decided on how to handle the 'green tint' variations. I'm just going to fill one binder page with nine random examples. You can check my needs list over in the right side column.

Most of the stars are already accounted for. I'm lacking the Mantle All-Star and the Bob Gibson card. Outside of those, it'll be the high numbered multiplayer rookie cards that will take some time and careful bidding.

The 1962 Topps set doesn't get much love but I have fond memories of opening packs, flipping dupes and swapping cards in the playground of St. Mary's School in Nutley N.J. It's a challenge to even decide what constitutes a complete set. But like the other sets from that era that I've built, it's a fun ride.

1979 TCMA Stars of the 50s

This 291 (293 with variations) card set is one of two large sets produced by TCMA in the late 70s following the lawsuit by Topps arising from the SSPC set of 1975/76. That action effectively killed TCMA's efforts at using current players and pushed them towards making sets of retired major leaguers and a myriad of minor league sets. 

Actually TCMA produced dozens of sets around that time and later but this one, 'Stars of the Fifties' and it's companion, 'Stars of the Sixties' are by far the biggest. I picked up both of them recently. They are a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to putting them in pages. The quality of the photos varies greatly but you can't help but appreciate the simple beauty of them. 

I've scanned a bunch and will post these few and some random thoughts.

Every card in the set features a posed photo. The Ted Kluszewski card is typical. there are lots of spring training shots sprinkled throughout the set. Big Klu's card is one of the better ones, bright and clear.

I don't recall seeing a card with a pic of a player tying his shoe as Robin Roberts is doing here. You wonder if the photographer just happened to come upon him down on one knee, called his name and took the picture or had him pose like this.

Elston Howard is a fake catching pose somewhere in Florida. Probably Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg. i need to get a dupe of this so I'll have one in my ever expanding Ellie Howard PC.

Some of the cards suffer from photos that seemed to be over-exposed. They are a bit washed out in appearance. Ernie Banks' card is one of those.

Bob Purkey wearing the ultimate spring training attire, a rubber windbreaker style jacket under a jersey.  Sweating off those winter pounds.

Harvey Haddix isn't looking sad because he lost a perfect game in the 13th. He's looking sad because he ALWAYS looked sad. 

Alvin Dark of the Giants. If you're getting the feeling that there are a lot of NY area players in this set you're not alone. I'll have to do a tally once I page this thing. It's a neat card isn't it?

Roberto Clemente....he always looks so damn regal doesn't he? Willie Mays is probably the best all-around player I've ever seen but I could make a pretty good case for Clemente as well.

This Billy Pierce shot has been used on at least a half dozen other oddballs. And usually it's much clearer.

In contrast to the Pierce card Sam Jethroe's card is cardboard art. 

Snider, Hodges, Campy, Furillo grace one of the few group photos. The other one I saw while flipping through the box was one of Dodger pitchers.

The Original Frank Thomas wearing a flocked Pirates helmet. MLB had brought back the matte finish helmets, can the flocked ones be far behind?

Even as a young player Spahnnie had that 'Spahn look'!

Roy Campanella looks like a high school kid here. I had to flip the card over to be sure it was him.

Willie's card is among the top five or so in the set as far as I'm concerned. Nice to see a photo that isn't overused. This reminds me of the pics in the old Sport magazines of the day.

Don Hoak in a classic baseball pose from the 50s. What a great card!

Leo Durocher hitting infield. I wonder how many infield grounders he hit during his lifetime?

Stan Lopata. Yes, he always crouched like that. He didn't always wear the shades but he did for this shot.

Sal Maglie. From 1950 thru 1952 he went 59-18 for the Giants with 46 complete games in 83 starts. He had a WHIP of 1.21 and an ERA of 2.83 That's impressive stuff. He's also one of the few guys who played for the three old school New York teams. He's also the answer to a tough trivia question: "Who was the losing pitcher in Don Larson's perfect game World Series win?"

Jimmy Piersall won two Gold Gloves. That's impressive given the quality of the outfielders during his time. Neat card, too.

Al Kaline, native son of Baltimore, looking about 18 here. That's Yankee Stadium.

Figured I'd throw out a peek at a card back. Vitals, blurb, lifetime stats.

Vic Power. One of the great names in the game during the 50s/60s.

Hal Smith  this is the Hal Smith who began his career with the Orioles and went on to play with the A's, Pirates, Colt 45s and Reds. It was his three run dinger in the bottom of the eighth of the 7th game of the 1960 Series that gave the Pirates a short-lived lead. An inning later Maz broke that tie and Hal Smith got a ring.

Walt Dropo had a rookie year to remember. It was 1950 and he made his only All Star tean, hit a career high 34 homers and drove in a league leading 144 runs. Yup, he was ROY.

Roger Maris. maybe it's just me but I can't remember a bunch of really cool Topps Maris cards. I like the 1961 MVP card for sure. This card of him as an Athletic is pretty sweet.

All in all it's really a fun set even with it's flaws. I received a box with what I hope is the 'Best of the Sixties' version yesterday. Can't wait to get a chance to dig into that one, too.