1974 Topps Set

I'm Still Here

2011-11-20T15:46:00.000-08:00

It has been a year of seldom posting here at 1974 Topps Set. Fellow card blogger Devon at My First Cards (1982 Topps) sent me a note checking up on me. Thanks, Devon! I'm still here. Life has been difficult for a while as we're trying to get back on our feet after the economic crisis struck home. I had to retrain for a new career and last semester's work in vocational school combined with a new job at a startup operation for a startup company working wacky shifts and wildly varying amounts of overtime has made, *gulp*, blogging at 1974 Topps Set a somewhat lower priority.

If I manage to get more time here in the near future, I'll definitely post more. Stay tuned and thanks very much for your interest!

#59T - Ross Grimsley "Traded" (BAL)

2011-10-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

This is not your typical airbrush job. Oh, it's an airbrush job, alright, but the oriole cartoon logo on Grimsley's hat seems to be cut and pasted from another photo onto this picture. The detail of the bird is too fine and the artists don't have the capability of producing such artwork. So, this hat is almost in a category by itself. Anybody else with any input on this hat? Could airbrushers have done this in your opinion?

Grimsley was traded from one 70's powerhouse team to another, the main other player in the trade being Merv Rettenmund. He was traded from a team that played the A's in the World Series to a team that played them in the ALCS just two years later. This card really stuck in my memory from my childhood and now it's stuck on my blog.

Ballpark Background: As far as I can tell, this is Riverfront Stadium. Grimsley is wearing the Reds home uni in this pic, and it looks like Riverfront. So why not?

#59 - Ross Grimsley (CIN)

2011-07-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

Ross Grimsley was a respectable pitcher, and more than a bit player in Cincinnati's 1972 season. I remember him from my childhood both as a player and from his baseball card. Ross had a career that spanned 12 years and he won 124 games. I also remember him with the Baltimore Orioles. More than coincidental, he was traded to the O's during the winter meetings in 1973, and never played a '74 game in the Reds threads. This fact shows in the next card which is a card of Grimsley in the Trades set.

On the back of the card is something interesting that I came across at work last week. Grimsley is called "Ross Albert Grimsley II." This means that he was Ross Albert Grimsley, Jr. until he named a son after him and his father.

Cartoon: Boy, his eyes really do look crazy! No wonder they gave him the nickname of Crazy Eyes.

Ballpark background: Here we have the first appearance of Grimsley's home yard, Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. I can tell by the bland green fence with green concrete behind it, along with Grimsley wearing a home uni. The elements in this photo remind me of a very ironic story some years future from this photo. At the end of his career, the Reds offered Rollie Fingers a contract to play on one condition - that he shave his trademark handlebar mustache off since the Reds had a no facial hair policy. Fingers would play only if he got to keep his waxed stache. Team owner Marge Schott - known for her bizarre public comments - made it known that the Reds were a traditional team and believed in tradition enough to not sign a reluctant Fingers. Now, let's see. A team that wore double-knit polyester pullover pajama uniforms with an elastic wasteband and played in a circular, multi-purpose facility that was shared by a football team, with perfectly symmetrical dimensions, artificial turf and who was owned by a woman is traditional? I dunno. There seemed to be quite a few players on the old traditional tobacco pack baseball cards that wore a mustache.

#58 - Charlie Spikes (CLE)

2011-05-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

You hit 23 homers for the Indians in the 70's and you look good. You have a ballcard. I think those sideburns are far out. If Charlie's hobby had been acting, his sideburns should have made an appearance on Streets of San Francisco. "Check out those chops, buddy-boy." I could just hear Carl Malden.

Charlie only had two seasons as a really regular player, and 1974 was definitely his best. His .271/22/80 would be respectable, like I said above regarding an Indians player. Charlie broke in with the Yanks in '72, playing 14 games, and wearing uniform #42, Mariano Rivera's future number. Not to mention, Jackie Robinson's future retired number. I'm sure Rivera will have his retired. Although I don't really remember Spikes as a player, I sure remember this card as a kid. He deserves to be in the sideburns Hall of Fame.

Cartoon: Well, it's obvious that Charlie isn't making a living at his hobby. Or is he? The baseball card world may never know...

Ballpark background: Yankee Stadium, no doubt.

#57 - Darold Knowles (OAK)

2011-05-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

Another of my childhood A's memory players who played for the World Champs. I didn't know there was a league named after Ban Johnson, as one of the "stars" shows. Babe Ruth, yes. Cal Ripken, yes. But Ban Johnson? He's the founder of the American League in 1901. Darold has some interesting post-season numbers. He has no stats at all for either the 1972 or 1974 post-seasons despite being with the A's then, and no stats for the 1973 ALCS. He did, however, pitch in all seven games of the 1973 World Series against the Mets. Just days after the 1974 World Series victory, Knowles was traded to the Cubs for Billy Williams. The 1974 season, with the DH being only one year old by then, was the only season of Knowles career that he didn't have a single plate appearance.

Cartoon: Darold pitched a no-hitter before his career even began? Was this in the minors? Little League? Playing Strat-O-Matic with his kid brother? And he lost the no-no. But back in the 80's or 90's sometime, MLB revised their rules for deciding what a no-hitter was. They concluded that a no-no must be a nine inning game for the pitching team. So if Darold lost a no-no, he could have pitched only 8 innings as the visiting pitcher because the home team didn't need to come to bat in the bottom of the ninth. I remember a number of no-hitters were erased by the rule change, including losing no-no's and rain-shortened ones that completed 5 innings. So, sorry Darold. Your cartoon might even be obsolete today.

Ballpark background: Texas Ranger gray uni's combined with California gold tops and wedding gown white bottoms combined with the outfield fence in Oakland means that this was played in Oakland. At the Coliseum.

Situation ID: I believe I've identified exactly when this picture was taken. I checked games in 1973, and determined that it was taken on July 28, 1973. Card blogger "wobs" at 1974 Topps - Pennant Fever (who is now far ahead of me in blogging this same '74 set - click here for his post) suggested some Ranger names for the runner on second base. What's interesting about this "action" shot is that the runner is standing on top of the base with his hands on his hips. That's because, as a relief pitcher, this photo was taken during Knowles' warmups. Checking all the 1973 home games vs. the Rangers when Knowles relieved while a runner was on second revealed only one possibility. The runner is Jim Mason and Knowles is relieving John "Blue Moon" Odom after Mason's single knocked in Billings from second base and Mason took second on the throw back in, knocking Odom out of the game. So, this was taken in the top of the 5th inning on 07/28/73. Here's the link with the box score and play-by-play account.

no# - New York Mets Checklist

2011-04-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

This team checklist on the back of the Mets has 25 players, if I counted correctly. I wonder if that was the projected Opening Day roster as Topps saw it when the cards went to print. If I have it right, not all teams have 25 cards in this set. And yet again, there are only 12 autographs on the front. I wonder why, and will continue to wonder why.

Checking out the list of names, I'm struck by the various visions of baseball I get. Yogi Berra...well, many images come to mind, and they are stretched out over a great length of baseball history. I never realized that Daniel Joseph had the nickname of "Rusty." Or maybe that would be vice versa. Tug McGraw threw his glove up in the air in celebration of the Phillies 1980 Series victory. Felix Milan is a trivia answer as the player who went 4-for-4 with four singles just prior to Joe Torre's all-time MLB record for grounding into four double plays in a single game. Ray Sadecki was the bust trade for Orlando Cepeda. Tom Seaver, Hall of Famer with several teams. I just love how baseball is a huge mosaic with tiles placed all over. Names, places and times change, while some stay the same.

This Mets team was good enough to win the pennant the previous fall, and nearly pulled off another "Miracle Mets" victory. Or maybe they were just good enough to win a weak NL East, surprise the Big Red Machine, and nearly topple the dynastified A's. Is "dynastified" a word? Also notice that I did not check any of the boxes on this checklist. I don't know why, but maybe I received it late in my collecting game.

#56 - New York Mets (NYM)

2011-04-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

These guys are the 1973 pennant winning Mets. The ones that played the A's in the World Series and almost won. They had the worst record of any team to finish in first place in a long time. I think the Padres matched their 82 wins here a few years back. I think. The East was bad in '73, but maybe it's because of the rise of the Dodgers and Big Red Machine, clobbering the Eastern teams.

Looking at the records on the back of the card is a bit funny, too, because the Mets are a fairly new team even in this year. They had a lousy first seven years, so not many good records came from that period. If your all time homer record is 34, then it shows that you're an expansion team. No player had ever knocked in a hundred runs, either.

One big note for me here is that Willie Mays appears in this photo. He's located the second from the left in the second row, just 45 degrees up and left from the trainer who is wearing white. Willie retired after the 1973 World Series, and completed a great career. The Giants trading him back to New York where he started his great career is not uncommon with the all-time greats. Babe Ruth returned to Boston, and Hank Aaron returned to Milwaukee.

Cartoon: None

Ballpark background: I am unable to determine right now where this photo was taken. There looks like some object between the shoulders of the fourth and fifth player from the left in the back row. Maybe it's some kind of light or other pole type thing that existed at Shea Stadium, but I don't have the energy to start looking right now. If one of my readers can identify this object (even if it's flying) then great. Otherwise, the ballpark is undetermined.

#55 - Frank Robinson (CAL)

2011-03-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

Uh, what do I say? Well, let's start out with a total bummer. Frank's first ten years in the major leagues was as a Hall-of-Fame outfielder in the National League, but with the complete misfortune of having three other outfielders named Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente in their glory years outshadow him at nearly every turn. I mean, what more can you do than start out with the all-time rookie HR record and never look back? Short of being Babe Ruth, not much. And if his NL days weren't enough, his first year in the AL with the Orioles, he won the bleeping triple crown. I'm not talking about just any triple crown, I'm talking about .316/49/122 in the pitching dominated late 60's.

But to give Frank the credit he deserves, one could talk for years. I don't have time to do that here. But I will say I enjoyed seeing him up close as skipper of my Giants in the early 80's. Frank gave the umps quite a bit of his mind, and other things, when necessary. Frank didn't have the best managing career, but he had some bad teams. But 16 years of that after a HOF career as a player is really quite a combination and fairly unheard of. Frank was hired as the first black manager in baseball back in the mid-70's with Cleveland. That it took nearly 30 years from Jackie Robinson to Frank Robinson is still a head-scratcher. Frank was traded in Sept of the 1974 season, and although late, I'm still including Frank's card in the "Traded with no Traded Card" category.

One of the things I really like about cards like this is all the small print on the back. It means "full major league career." Frank certainly had that.

Cartoon: Well, nobody else does, because Frank watches movies standing up. He is blocking everybody else's view. You can tell by the look on his shadow's face that he's enjoying this Western. Of course if Frank played today, he'd have an in-home theater room where he could watch without bothering anybody else.

Ballpark background: Not a clue. It appears as if Frank is wearing a home uni, but the Angels had a very light colored gray road uni that might look white in the sun.

#54 - Elias Sosa (SF)

2011-03-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

I don't remember Sosa pitching for the Giants very well, but I do remember his card. The 1974 season would be his last with the Giants, and would go on to play for 8 teams in his 12 years. He would make one World Series with the dreaded Dodgers in 1977, for which I am glad they lost. He also, along with almost every other player in the late 70's it seems, played a short stint for Charlie Finley's A's in 1978.

Cartoon: I'm guessing that Elias' idol is Marichal because they both came from the Dominican Republic. Marichal was known as the "Dominican Dandy." I wonder if Sosa was ever known as Baby Dandy. Who knows. But, the cartoon figure has a high leg kick proving without any doubt whatsoever that the Topps cartoonist knew what he (or she) was doing.

Ballpark background: Candlestick Park. There's no doubt. A Giant in his home uni on AstroTurf with a chain link fence w/ the orange "375" sign and football bleachers tucked under the upper deck. Yup, that's the 'Stick all right.

New Label: Situation ID

2011-03-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

I've decided to add a new label where it may occur: the Situation ID label. This label will apply to card photos where I can identify the situation in which the photo was taken, down to the game, date and play or at bat. This will usually occur on action shots. Several I've seen so far have been identified, and one is coming up in the next ten cards. I've looked through the previous posts to see if any fit under this label. I found that George Scott's card contained enough information that I could pinpoint. On Jim Wynn's card, however, there wasn't enough info, as I could narrow it down to several possibilities. I will also add Situation ID to the text of a post just below Ballpark background and tell the detective story.

#53 - Fred Kendall (SD/WASH)

2011-03-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here's another San Diego Padres card that was also initially released under a potential Washington, DC team at the beginning of the Topps printing schedule before the Pads announced they'd stay in San Diego. I think I had the Washington card since I was ten, and later acquired the San Diego card. Notice how great a condition the back of the card is in. It is clearly legible with sharp edges, and there are no wax stains or ten year old kid dings.

I always liked Fred Kendall as a player. He was the typical weak hitting catcher, yet valued for his experience and ability to handle a pitching staff. I got to see Fred play as well as his son, Jason, also a catcher. I've also seen Fred as a bullpen or pitching coach and even heckled him a time or two in the 'pen while observing his pitchers warm up. Fred spent ten of his twelve seasons with the Friars, with brief lunch engagements in Cleveland and Boston near the end before returning to SD.

Cartoon: It's a good thing Fred didn't play Bob Uecker ball.

Ballpark background: I had a tough time with the location of this photo. It's clearly a wide open space, wider than many spaces. The Padres used to play spring training in Yuma, AZ in the old days. I don't know if they did in '73 when this picture was likely taken. This was their home yellows in '73. (Notice the yellow tongue flap on his spikes! Brian Wilson eat your heart out!) There's something above Fred's helmet at the top of the picture that goes from his helmet to the right of the card. It looks like the top rail of the chain link fence in the background. At first, I thought that looked like the bridge that goes from San Diego to Corona island, and that the photo might have been taken in San Diego. I'm not even sure that bridge would have been built in 1973. But there's just not enough other things in the background for it to be San Diego. Plus the bridge really does appear to be the top rail of a fence after all. So, I'm going to guess Yuma at spring training.

#52 - Al Oliver (PIT)

2011-03-11T23:41:00.000-08:00

Al Oliver. A name that brings back some terrible memories. Some are terrible because he was a good player for another team that beat you. Some are terrible because he was signed by your team and was terrible. He played 18 years in the majors, a bit over half of them with the Pirates. I always viewed him as a good player, but not the caliber of a Clemente or Stargell. Then when my Giants signed him in 1984 after a number of All-Star seasons, a few 100 RBI years and 8 consecutive tours over .300, things looked promising. But he was a bust. Even though he batted over .300 for most of his stint with the G-Men, he had so few RBI. He knocked in only 34 in 360 at bats, and became an automatic boo for the fans. They offed him to the Phils in August to ease the pain. It was the beginning of the end of his career.

But that doesn't really taint his career overall. He won a ring with the great 1971 Pirates team, and was a strong visual impression in the black and gold. He finished his career with an impressive .303. I remember Al shipping off to Texas and taking his last initial as his uniform number - 0. He played like anything other than a zero. I know this paved the way for Odibe McDowell doing it with the Rangers later on in the 80's. Or at least I think so.

Cartoon: Al is showing off his new Rawlings first baseman's mitt. Al made numerous pitches to Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell to adopt the same piece of leather, but to no avail.

Ballpark background: Candlestick Park.

Blogspot's Missing Blogroll Thumbnails

2011-03-06T13:01:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a growing trend in the ballcard blogging world. Many of us have blogrolls in our margins that are updated each time another one of us makes a new post. If we include a jpeg of the card in our post, this card shot appears as a thumbnail in the blogroll. Well, those thumbnails are slowly disappearing from our blogrolls.

I can't see my '74 set thumbnails in anybody else's blogroll. And the thumbnails for the 1975 Topps (it's far out, man!), the Project Baseball 1976, the '59: one f/g card at a time, the 1964 Topps Blog, A Giant Blog, and My First Cards sites are not showing up on mine or others' sites either. Anybody else notice this? Any idea what's going on? Blogger?

#51T - Bobby Heise "Traded" (STL)

2011-02-26T18:53:00.000-08:00

This is a bad airbrush job, but then, what's a good one? Certainly there are worse. I think the "StL" logo is one of the most difficult to airbrush because of its complexity. It's probably a Brewers uniform he's wearing with the neck trim airbrushed, but one thing for sure is that he's wearing a pullover jersey. I wonder what kind of airbrush job these Topps artists could do if they even had Photoshop at their disposal. Probably not too bad a job.

According to the back of the card, Heise can fill in ably for Mike Tyson. Wow, I didn't know that! Heise is a lot older, too. Maybe he picked the wrong sport. In any case, Mike's trade record is a long one, as I noted in his regular card post. He would be traded twice more in '74. It's funny, but the A's team slogan - after winning two consecutive World Series - was "once more in '74." Or was it, "one more in '74?" I don't remember, but I'll have to look that one up before I post the A's team photo.

Ballpark background: I can't quite put my finger on the ballpark in the background. It might be the Astrodome, but I can't quite be sure. If anybody knows what ballpark this is, I might offer to take you out to lunch.

#51 - Bobby Heise (MIL)

2011-02-20T00:17:00.000-08:00

Bobby spent 11 years in the bigs, had 8 uniform numbers, played with 7 teams, played 6 different positions, was traded 5 times and switched leagues 3 times. I couldn't find anything he did four times, otherwise I could have tossed something in there about a partridge in a pear tree. He is tied with Duane Kuiper on the all-time home run list with one. Despite all this, he had only 1100 some odd at bats in his career. To stay around that long says something about a player. Many guys are gone in a few years. I really don't remember Bobby playing, but I remember his card.

Bobby never played for the Brew Crew in '74. He was traded to the Cardinals in December of '73, at the winter meetings, I'm guessing. He's the next card in this blog set in the form of a Traded card. What's funny is that he would be traded twice more in '74. Once in July from the Cards to the Angels (July 31 for those trade deadline buffs) and once more from the Halos to the BoSox in December. I'm sure Bobby is still getting around on frequent flier miles. Pssssst, don't tell anybody, but Bobby's pine tar extends WAY higher than anything George Brett ever sported. Bobby, you be out with that bat!

Cartoon: Bobby played basketball in high school. That would be in Vacaville, CA, just a half hour up the interstate from me, home of several million new outlet malls all strung together. I'm sure I can get some great deals on basketball shoes there at the Nike outlet store. From what little I know of Spanish, I think "Vacaville" means "cow town" in English. They should have just called it Cow Town to begin with. Lots of cows used to live there.

Ballpark background: I'm going to take a wild guess and say Yankee Stadium. I don't know why.

Scanning Delays

2011-02-11T01:49:00.000-08:00

It's been too long for me to not post regularly. I've hit a scanning management backlog. The technique I've used to scan my 1974 Topps cards is to place nine cards at a time on my 8 1/2" x 11" all-in-one printer glass plate and scan it in as a "sheet." I then use a simple photo editor program to crop each of the nine cards out into their own jpeg for future posting. I've found that this takes much less time than to scan all 660+ cards in one at a time.

Okay, I'm ahead of the game on scanning those "sheets," but way behind on cropping them into individual cards. I've been really busy lately for various and sundry reasons, and will be back to normal, I hope, when cropping resumes. I only need to crop a front sheet and a back sheet or so to allow blogging for a couple of weeks. I'll attempt to do that soon. So, until then, read my posts again and again and again, and you'll become a '74 Topps expert!

By the way, my green and gold header and my black and gold body/background of the last few weeks was meant to portray the Superbowl teams. I know this is about baseball, but sometimes I get strange inspirations for my color layouts. Orange and black necessarily mean Giants, and green and gold might mean A's.

#50 - Rod Carew (MIN)

2011-02-06T02:52:00.000-08:00

Rod was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991 for his great career with the Twinks and Halos. He had some huge glasses on at his induction. You know, those 80's deals that were way too big? Those made him look mighty preppy. Carew played 2nd base for the first half of his career, and 1st base generally the rest. This '74 season would be his last as a full-time second bagger. In '75, he played mostly 2nd base, but had about 15 games at first. In '76 he was a full-time first baseman.

I remember the image of Carew most in a Twins uniform, but saw him play mostly as an Angel. As I recall, he had a sweet swing. Either case, this guy could hit. He collected his 3000th hit in his last year with the Angels. His '73 season was his first of four 200 hit seasons. I wonder if anybody back then in '74 had somebody like Carew pegged as a future 3000 hit Hall of Famer? I probably didn't. But heck, I was ten.

Cartoon: If Rod were truly one of baseball's finest bunters, then he would be holding the bat without his fingers wrapped around the bat exposing them to the 98 mph heater coming at him. Additionally, Rod bats left, but bunts right? The player in the cartoon also seems to be a white guy. I think I recalled that the cartoonist must have been left handed. I just reviewed the cartoon on Manny Sanguillen's card, and danged if he ain't a left handed catcher. Even though, this cartoon shows a good bunt laid down.

Ballpark background: The small stands behind the plate indicate that this photo was from spring training.

#49 - Steve Renko (MON)

2011-01-26T03:51:00.000-08:00

A veteran with numerous ball clubs (Expos, Cubs, White Sox, A's, Red Sox, Angels, Royals), Steve wore many different uniforms. He finished his career 12 games under .500 with an ERA of about 4.00. He's also the first above 200 pounds card seen in a while. I always loved these cards with the player wearing the wind breaker under his uni. Was it a fad back then? I see this all the time in the 70's cards. Steve was traded in the middle of a year to an expansion team in its first year - for Donn Clendenon. This would figure in Steve's ring total - Zero! What a bummer, to be traded away from a team just before they win a Wolrld Series, and to never win one yourself.

Cartoon: I wonder if Steve also enjoys horseback riding. Are they the same, riding horses and horseback riding? The only thing missing is a polo mallet.

Ballpark background: This is a recurring theme in Expos ball cards, it seems. The spring training site. You can see the palm trees over Steve's right shoulder. What I like, though, is the transformer on the telephone pole. Didn't Candlestick have one of those? I forget.

From the Bleachers - My Baseball Blog Has Moved

2011-01-18T12:45:00.000-08:00

Check out my baseball blog - called "From the Bleachers" - at its new address. I write about baseball from a number of different angles, but always from a fan's point of view. There are quite a few stories from both the bleachers and box seats. Enjoy! http://fromthebleachers.blogspot.com/

#48 - Dick Sharon (DET)

2011-01-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

I don't remember Dick Sharon when I was a kid. I vaguely remember this card, but the thing that stands out most is the way he's holding the bat. His uniform number appears on his left wrist band, #27. Sharon was traded five times in a three year career. He was drafted by the Pirates in 1968, and traded to the Tigers prior to his major league appearance in 1973. This 1974 card would be his first of his career; he would have only two total. After the '74 season, he would be traded again, this time to the Padres for what would be his final year. After the '75 season he would be traded three more times, from the Padres to the Cardinals, then to the Angels, then finally to the Red Sox. He never ended up playing in the majors for the Sox, so in effect he was traded three times after his final appearance in the majors.

Cartoon: It's no wonder Dick only played three years in the bigs. Jumping on the ball is sure to get you noticed for all the wrong reasons.

Ballpark background: Dick is giving the photographer his money's worth during batting practice at Comiskey Park. The Tigers have their road uni's on, and that astroturf infield appears again. I also notice the signature arches through the back wall of the lower deck. It's Comiskey fer sure.

#47 - Dick Ruthven (PHI)

2011-01-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

I would care to guess that this is Mr. Ruthven's first Topps card of his 14 year career. I Googled 1973 Topps Dick Ruthven and came up with nothing. So unless Mr. Stufflestreet at 1973 Topps Photography knows something I don't, I'm going with this card being his first. In any case, his 1973 season was his rookie year. His ML debut was in April of that year, so I think he was with the club through spring training '73 and this photo was taken there [see update below]. The pitcher's followthrough pose is one of my favorite poses in baseball card tradition. His powder blue uni was the Phils' road outfit back then. I must say I never liked the "swoopie P" Philly threads, and I hated the powder blues. I much prefer today's modern/retro get-ups with the little blue stars as "i" dots.

Ruthven pitched for the Phillies twice in his career, and saw post-season action with most of those powerful teams of the late 70's and early 80's. He received a ring in '80, after getting a no-decision in game 3 vs. the Royals. Dick pitched nine innings and left with a tie game. The Royals won in the 10th for one of their two victories. He also pitched for the 1984 Cubs team, but apparently didn't make an appearance in the playoffs against the Padres.

Cartoon: Dick lists electronics among his hobbies, but the cartoonist is showing electricity. Tharn't much 'lectronics that go into a regular light bulb. A soldering iron fixing a transistor radio with the Phillies game on (Harry Kalas I'm guessing was the announcer in 1974) might be a better cartoon. I'm launching my career on this blog of cartoon critic. Gary Larson beware.

Ballpark background: This doesn't appear to be like any major league park I remember seeing, so I'm guessing that the Phils are playing at another team's spring training site. [Update: A reader named Shawn sent me a photo of a early/mid-70's era Shea Stadium showing this section of fence as being in front of the left field bullpen. Shawn pointed out part of the "3" in the 358 sign right behind Ruthven's right behind. His body is blocking the rest of the number. Thanks Shawn!]

#46 - Pat Kelly (CWS)

2011-01-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

Here, Harold Kelly is known as Pat. I think he was known as Pat everywhere else, too. Pat wasn't a power hitter, popping only 76 homers over 15 years, and his pose here while choking up on the bat shows that he knew the best way to hold the bat for himself. It looks like a loose grip on the bat, as if he were going to spray hit, going wherever the ball is pitched. Even though this is a ballcard pose, he has a determined look on his face. His batting glove is in his back pocket. But judging from his career stolen base numbers, that might very well be his sliding glove, which might possibly explain why he isn't wearing it while holding the bat. He swiped 250 over all.

Kelly played for the Kansas City Royals in 1969, being picked in the expansion draft. The Twins looked like they didn't have a place for him, and an expansion team was perfect to step into an everyday player role. He snatched 40 bags in '69, a career high. Kelly got one chance at a ring, playing with the '79 O's in their seven game loss to the Bucs.

Cartoon: So it was Pat's incredible athletic ability that cracked the bell. Maybe it was from the shotput, and recorded for an AC/DC song.

Ballpark background: Pat is posing at Yankee Stadium on what looks like a cloudy day.

The Favorite Team

2011-01-12T23:23:00.000-08:00

Recently I have received several comments and emails from readers expressing their die-hard allegiance to their teams. Although that wasn't the point of their notes to me, it is nonetheless part of most all of us. Who is your favorite team? Having a favorite team can really make a certain set of cards special to us. It has for me. Well, I'll use that to talk about mine.

I grew up, and have lived my whole life, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I live about 30 miles east of SF and 20 miles east of Oakland. The City and the Peninsula are Giants territory. The East Bay (proper) is A's country. But a fascinating thing about the Bay Area and the rest of Northern California is that living outside of these two areas allows one to be a fan of either - or BOTH! - teams. It is unlike any other metro area of the country that has two teams. You simply AREN'T a fan of both the Yankees and Mets, the Cubs and Sox, the Dodgers and Angels. So, I grew up a militant fanatic of both teams. When asked how I could cheer for both teams (prior to 1989, that is), I would always answer that it was easy because it wasn't like they would ever play each other when it counts. It was only in 1995 when the Oakland Coliseum built Mt. Davis to woo the Raiders back to Oakland from LA - and subsequently destroy my bleacher seats - that my allegiance shifted a good bit to the Giants.

But a very special thing happened in 1974, the year of this set, and also in 1973, the year that contained most of the photography in this set, as well as the year of highlights covered by special cards in this set. The special thing was that the Oakland A's won the World Series. I was the ages of 8, 9 and 10 when these three victories took place, '72, '73 and '74. And '74 was my biggest collecting year, so the A's naturally had a big effect on me through this set. It was that really special time as a kid when things were grand with your own team. You didn't have to worry about house payments, getting a job, or girls yet. You were free to be a kid. And when your team wins, you do a lot of jumping up and down. And reviewing their cards with fondness when you grow up.

#45 - Dave Johnson (ATL)

2011-01-08T23:47:00.000-08:00

Dave Johnson, who would later(?) be known as Davey, had a career of 13 seasons in the bigs, a majority of them with the Orioles. This card is the first card in the set showing a full time second sacker. It's also the first card in the set, to my knowledge, where the player had at least one World Series ring each as both a player and manager. Davey got rings with the O's in '66 and '70 and as manager of the famous Mets team of '86. His 1974 season would be his last full season in the bigs. He had a blowout year in '73, smacking 43 homers (breaking Rogers Hornsby's all time 2B HR record) and batting in 99. His numbers were way off in '74 (.251/15/62), and after only one at bat in the 1975 season - a run scoring double - Davey was released by the Braves early in April. He missed the rest of the '75 season as well as the entire '76 season. Does anybody know why? He was signed as a free agent by the Phillies in '77, seeing limited action in '77 and in '78 as well, when he was traded to the Cubs in August. He played his last eight weeks of big league ball on the North Side before being cut after the season ended.

This photo is a bit strange for an action shot. The ball is seen behind Davey's behind. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that he swung and missed. But... He hit right handed, so this was snapped on his follow through swing. It looks like he either fouled the ball at the plate and it bounced up behind him or maybe it hit off the catcher or umpire and ricocheted back.

Cartoon: Davey is a licensed pilot. Speaking of pilot, here he is shown in a TV cartoon series pilot flying by the Umpire State Building, cutting in front of Bugs Bunny who is waiting on top of the tower to catch that ball. The show never debuted. This blog post used two past tense conjugations of verbs that ended in silent T's, just so you know. Ricocheted and debuted.
Ballpark background: I can see Mets uniforms in the dugout beyond Johnson, and this looks like the Shea Stadium dugout shown in other card shots over the years. So, I'm going with Shea Stadium. Final answer.

#44 - Mel Stottlemyre (NYY)

2011-01-02T01:13:00.000-08:00

This is not only one of my favorite cards in the 1974 Topps set, it's one of my favorite cards of all time. It's Mel's pose, simply classic for a pitcher, and that cartoonish smile on his face. Mel's body type and his long, slender nose just make this card perfect. Mel is so form-fit for this pose that a majority of his cards have this stance in the pic. I love them all. A few have slight variations of this pose or a wind-up pose. One action card of Mel exists as a specialty card in the 1965 set showing game 2 of the 1964 World Series. This '74 card was Mel's last card of his career, as 1974 was his last season. His '74 offensive stats show him "appearing" in 3 games, with no at bats and 1 run scored. I'm guessing he was a pinch runner at least once, and may have pitched in a game where the manager made a move that caused a loss of DH privileges, but where Mel never came to bat.

Mel had a pretty decent career in pinstripes when you figure in the Yanks performance over that 11 year span. Mel was unfortunate enough to play his 11 year career smack in the middle of the Yankees 15 year World Championship drought between 1962 and 1977. He did, however, play in the 1964 Series his rookie year in a losing effort to the Cardinals. Mel had two sons that played in the majors, Mel, Jr., who had a brief stint in 1990, and Todd, who pitched longer than his father, for 14 seasons spanning the late 80's to the early 00's. Todd ran up some post-season appearance totals, and although his dad played his entire career with the Yankees, Todd racked up two WS championships with the Blue Jays in '92 and '93. I also love how Mel crosses all three T's in his autograph with one stroke of the pen. This wasn't the first shot in the photographer's set, as Mel's grass stain on his left knee indicate a variety of poses in total.

Cartoon: Thanks to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Mel's home movies are now available on YouTube.

Ballpark background: Mel is wearing the classic Yankee road uniform. I much prefer the plain gray threads with no trim and the plain letters (no trim either) to their current duds with the piping and letter outlines. Much more classy. Well, that's beside the point. The only ML park I can think of that would match this photo is Shea Stadium with it's two-pole light tower and open view with trees in the background, but I don't think the Yanks played there in '73. So, I'm going to give an educated guess that this pic was snapped at somebody else's spring training yard.

#43T - Jim Wynn "Traded" (LA)

2010-12-28T23:57:00.000-08:00

Just to reiterate, Jim Wynn was traded for the player just previous to him in this set, Claude Osteen, shown on card #42. What I've noticed about cards in the Trades set is that many of the trades take place in December of the previous year, while trades made after the New Year don't make it into the set. I'll need to follow the dates listed on these cards to figure out a cutoff point for Topps publishing. Hmmm, now a good way to do that? Excell spreadsheet? Back of a used envelope?... Okay, nevermind. I just looked at the back of all my Trades cards. Most of the trades were between December 3 and 7, 1973, with a few as late as Dec. 11, and one in November. It seems that these deals were probably made at the winter meetings and heavily promoted by Topps in their upcoming set. The latest trade included in this set was Dec. 11.

I'm also using the "Airbrush" label on this card. While there are no grotesque attempts at logo, hat or uniform revisions, there is the small matter of the Dodger blue wool at the tip of the bill on Wynn's cap. A fairly easy change, maybe fit for an up and coming rookie airbrush artist at Topps. All in all, I would say this is not a very flattering picture of the Toy Cannon. It says, "Hey, man, if you mess with me, I'll rearrange your face before I go back to bed."

Ballpark background: If this is in a ballpark, it has a rather un-major league-like roof held up by spindly columns. Likely, this was taken at spring training. So, I cannot determine where it was shot. Maybe, if Wynn got together with Osteen for whom he was traded at that golf course I think Osteen's shot was taken, then I can imagine that the roof beyond is covering the driving range.

#43 - Jim Wynn (HOU)

2010-12-26T02:08:00.000-08:00

Jim Wynn was also known as the Toy Cannon. This was a rather colorful nickname, and I never knew if he received this because he had a great arm or not. Maybe he had a bad temper, but his nickname might have more appropriately been the Loose Cannon. I wonder who gave him that nickname. Wynn played most of his career with the Astros including his first few when they were known as the Colt .45's. Jim was traded during the off season to the Dodgers and appeared in their '74 World Series loss to the A's. This was as close as he would ever come to a ring. He played for the '77 Yankees, but was realeased during the season. He was traded for the card previous in this set, #42 Claude Osteen. Wynn's Trades card will appear next in this blog.

Wynn had some pop in his bat, hitting 291 homers in his career, but batted for a fairly poor average, only a .250 clip. Each game I did research for to try to pin this photo down had Jim as the 'Stros leadoff hitter. He hit only .220 in 1973.
Cartoon: Look at those musical notes just floating by. That's a sure indication of jazz. Snapping one's fingers is Jazz, too. Hey, this guy's also wearing a long sleeve undershirt, just like Wynn in the photo. Typical Candlestick day game in June or July. Frigid winds and players wearing sleeves.

Ballpark background: Here, Jim hits the ball up in the air at Candlestick Park. I did some research on the '73 game logs between the Astros and Giants to see if I could place this photo to a specific plate appearance, and I couldn't pin anything down on Wynn. He popped up a couple of times, and flied out to left, and flied out to center a number of times. There were also some nondescript accounts such as "Wynn made an out to second" where it doesn't say if he lined out, popped out or grounded out. For all I know, this shot could have been taken on a foul pop that made the stands during an at bat that had a completely different outcome than a pop up. Judging by the angle of the sun, it's a day game rather than a night game that starts in the summer still in daylight. There's a Giants player in the background, and by the look of the angle it's probably the first baseman. Willie McCovey spent some time on the bench against the Astros in '73, and from the logs it looks like this player might be Dave Kingman, as this player is right handed.

#42T - Claude Osteen "Traded" (HOU)

2010-12-24T18:46:00.000-08:00

As airbrush jobs go, this isn't one of the bad ones. This trade has an interesting twist in the 1974 set. Osteen was traded for the very next card in the set, #43 Jim Wynn. How often does that happen? Something that sticks out is that Claude's nickname, "Gomer," which was shown in the #42 card's cartoon, is in the headline here.

Ballpark background: This photo may have been taken somewhere other than a ballpark. Osteen's uniform really doesn't look like a uniform. I'm guessing that his hat that was airbrushed was NOT a Dodger hat, but rather a golf hat, and those trees in the background are on a fairway somewhere. Just over his right shoulder next to that tree looks like a sand trap.

#42 - Claude Osteen (LA)

2010-12-23T22:46:00.000-08:00

Claude Osteen pitched for a long time, an 18 year career, most impressively with the Dodgers. Although he pitched for a successful team in the Dodgers, with a WS victory ('65) and a pennant ('74) the season after his trade, the bookends of Osteen's blue tenure, he finished his career just one game over .500, just shy of both 200 wins and 200 losses. He was a permanent fixture in the Dodger rotation, albeit not the most successful one.

Claude was traded in the off season to the Astros, so his '74 picture never had its fulfillment. In fact, he was traded yet again late in the '74 season from the Astros to the Cardinals. He finished his ML career the following year with the White Sox. With Osteen's card, every baseball team has now been represented in this 1974 set.

Cartoon: Well, somebody needs to have a nickname of Goober. Wonder who it might be? The cartoonist got the TV series reference right with the combat boots, the helmet and grenade. I wonder if he ever threw that pitch. Now that's what would be known as an exploding fastball. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Ballpark background: It really looks to me like there's ivy on the centerfield fence behind him. I know of only one place that could have happened in a 1973 photo shoot. Wrigley Field. I'm a bit troubled by the lighter green above what appears to be the top of the ivy, but from an angle such as this, the wire "fan guard" as it were might look like this. I know there are some bleacher seats left empty for a batter backdrop, and they are painted green. I sat there once in the mid 80's. The "400" distance marker would be a clincher, but maybe Osteen is blocking it due to the camera angle? I don't know. If this is Wrigley, it would be the first appearance in the set.

#41 - Bobby Floyd (KC)

2010-12-22T23:29:00.000-08:00

Who? I remember this card from my youth, but never really thought much of it. I simply don't have a place in my memory for Floyd. Bobby finished his career just one homer shy of Duane Kuiper. This was his last card, as he played his last game in June of '74. Notice his three different names. His full name is Robert, his card goes by Bobby, but he signs Bob. There is a discrepancy between the stats on this card and Baseball Reference. His '73 season shows him going 25 for 78 with a .321 average. BR gives him an additional hit, 26, for a .333 clip. Who has the typo? Was there even a typo? Could a scoring decision have been reversed after his career was over, giving him an additional hit? Bobby was traded from the Orioles in mid-June in the 1970 campaign, depriving him of a World Series ring. He didn't play much at all for the O's that year, having only 2 at bats. He picked it up in KC at the old Municipal Stadium, hitting .326 in a limited role the rest of the way.

This is the first card in this set of a second baseman. Forty-one cards in. And it's not a full 2B card, as Bobby is a utility player who splits time at another IF position. I have a dummy post that I placed earlier in the set to act as a temporary place holder for labels that haven't been used yet. So right after I post this, I need to go in and wipe it out from that dummy post. If you click on the Dodgers team label or the DH position label in the lower right margin, this dummy post will show up. I think I'm correct that there is still one team yet to appear, the Dodgers. I know there hasn't been a DH position yet in this set, so after those are done, my dummy post will have served its usefulness.

Cartoon: Evidently, Bobby never used his hobby against opposing pitchers. Otherwise he might have broken Hank Aaron's record.

Ballpark background: Oakland Coliseum. Where else? It leads the ballpark backgrounds so far in this set, according to my label list that is keeping count. Which park will win it all in '74?

#40 - Jim Palmer (BAL)

2010-12-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

Nineteen seasons in the big leagues, six World Series appearances, three rings. I'd say Palmer belongs in the Hall of Fame, for sure. He was the center of a great Baltimore pitching staff of the late 60's and 70's. He also did underwear commercials, and the chicks dug him. Or is that digged him? My spell checker is placing a squiggly red line under the word digged, so maybe the chicks dug him. I remember great matchups between the A's and O's in my childhood: Blue, Odom, Hunter and Palmer, Dobson, McNally, Cuellar. Never were it an easy task to beat the Orioles. The A's took them down twice in the '73 and '74 ALCS, and the O's won in '71. I remember this card when I was a kid, but somehow the image isn't what I remember about Jim Palmer. Maybe it's the shadow from his hat that crosses his eyes. I don't know. Either way, it wouldn't have been easy to get a hit off him.

Cartoon: What happened in game 11? How lucky were his socks then? Did this have anything to do with underwear? Socks are classified as underwear, right?

Ballpark background: Palmer is wearing home whites, and the batter's rump is in road gray. The blueish fence in the background is consistent with other Oriole players in this set whose card photos were obviously taken at Memorial Stadium. So, that's what I'm guessing.

#39 - Ken Suarez (TEX)

2010-12-18T00:34:00.000-08:00

I don't remember this card from my youth, although I'm sure I had it then. Ken's career seems to be filled with micro facts. He played very few games, and his '73 campaign with the Rangers was his high point with 90 games played. He was almost totally at catcher, except in 1968 he played one inning of left field for Cleveland, one inning of "outfield," one out at second base and two outs at third. I wonder if those non-catcher appearances were in the same game, as if they did this to get somebody else to play all nine positions.

I found out some strange things about Suarez whilst doing some research. Although he has a 1974 card, he never played in the majors in '74. His last game was in Sept. of '73. He was traded to the Indians just before the start of spring training in '74, and was one of the pieces in the Indians late '74 trade with the Angels for Frank Robinson. I'm wondering if Ken was in the minors for the '74 season (and beyond?) and was involved in two trades as a minor leaguer, and this is the reason why he has no further major league stats. He has no card in the Trades set.

Cartoon: Ken is a deputy sheriff, but it doesn't say where. I'm sure it's not Mayberry. Well, I wonder. When did the Andy Griffith show go off the air? Could Ken have replaced deputy Fife? He probably would have been good at catching criminals with a baseball bat. Louisville Slugger?

Ballpark background: Ken is posing here at the big ballpark in the Bronx. Yankee Stadium as it is also known.

#38 - Don Kessinger (CHC)

2010-12-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

Don Kessinger was the traditional weak-hitting shortstop that could field well. Back in those days, if a shortstop could field, he was given a pass on his bat. No Ripken, A-Rod, Jeter or Tejada of today. Nope. And Don was that somewhat tall, skinny kid that naturally ended up at shortstop. He came along several years after All-Star shortstop Ernie Banks was moved to first base, and after only a few years in the bigs, he became the All-Star shortstop. The Cubs had a lot of All-Star shortstop action in the 50's to the 70's. He played 16 seasons in the majors, yet hit only 14 home runs. He never played in the post-season, either. One of his All-Star appearances appears on the back of this card under the star - where else? Two for two isn't bad in the Summer Classic.

I remember seeing Kessinger play short on TV when I was a kid. I watched him on radio, too, when they played the Giants. He was the fixture SS for the Cubbies. This 1974 season would be his last All-Star team.

Cartoon: Don gained 25 pounds eating the spread in the dressing room prior to the game, and promptly got six hits in six at bats that day. Oh what a day for Oscar Meyer. I guess all that MSG made him see stars. Hey, Doc Ellis pitched a no-hitter on LSD, so why can't Kessinger go 6-for-6 on MSG?

Ballpark background: Here's a shot of Kessinger with an amazing amount of real estate behind him. Or, third base side at Candlestick Park. This Astro-turf layout was certainly bigger than the Brady Bunch back yard. Candlestick and the Oakland Coliseum were the two parks with the most foul territory until the Giants built a new park. The A's now rule foul ground.

#37 - Dave Sells (CAL)

2010-12-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

Something I just noticed here. This card is of an American League pitcher, and the back of the card says he bats right. What does that matter? He doesn't bat at all. The DH was in effect starting in '73, there was no interleague play, and the DH wouldn't be used in the World Series until 1976. I guess this info is put here just in case the manager loses his mind and does something stupid enough to lose the use of the DH rule for that game and his pitcher had to bat. I'm applying this recent revelation retroactively to all other AL pitcher cards I've done so far. [Update: Dave's batting stats on BR show one game played in 1973, as opposed to 51 pitching appearances in his pitching stats. I guess the manager did make some move that put Dave in the lineup, but he never got his turn at bat.]

Anyway, on to Dave Sells. He was strictly a relief pitcher in his four seasons in the majors. He was called up in August of 1972, then took a major role in the Angels bullpen in '73. He made 51 appearances, finishing 37 games. This translates into ten of what we now call "saves." He spent all of his career in LaLa Land, between the Angels and Dodgers. In '74 his presence was cut in less than half, and by '75 he was a minor bit player, being traded in a "player to be named later" deal with the Bums, only to make two appearances with them.

Dave was a much better hitter, batting 1.000 for his career, greatly eclipsing Ty Cobb for lifetime average, and out-slugged Henry Aaron and Babe Ruth with a 1.000 slugging percentage and a 2.000 OPS. He knocked in a run every single plate appearance ever, which is as good as my five year old on Wii Baseball. Okay, he had one at bat with the Dodgers in '75. But still. I wonder if he got to keep the ball.

Cartoon: This looks like the box office at a movie theater. Dave is shaking his finger at this poor young woman. No, I think he may just be a loner and is ordering one ticket. Ever go to the movies alone on a road trip? Looks to me from this cartoon that it isn't Dave Sells, it's Dave Buys.

Ballpark background: Dave is standing on a piece of grass that Babe Ruth spit tobacco on forty five years earlier. I'd say that description is close enough to figure out that Dave is standing in Yankee Stadium.

no# - St Louis Cardinals Checklist

2010-12-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

Several things strike me as I look at the front of this card. One, check out the names in the autographs: Robert Gibson, Louis Brock, Joseph Torre and Kenneth Reitz. Are these autographs or signatures? Two, the penmanship back in the 70's was quite different than today. Reggie Smith, Lou Brock, Ted Sizemore and Tommy Agee are good examples of 3rd grade cursive being put to good use with pride. Like we see with Reggie Smith's Hancock, there are both readability and flair. Most of today's autographs, although not really examples of bad ability, are attempts to give a signature way of signing without legibility. How it looks is what matters. Autographs of a generation earlier than these 70's have even more flair and craftsmanship, the pen being a sculpturing tool as well. What's in a name anyway? I like Jose Cruz's accent on the "e" and McCarver's underlining of the "c." Three, there are only 12 autographs. I think there were only 12 for the Orioles card I posted earlier in this set. I wonder why so few?

I wrote in yesterday's Cardinals team photo that this team didn't click with me as a kid. In reviewing the names on the back of this checklist, they're all very well known to me. They just have the least "teamy" feel. Must have been the astro-turf and average record for a decade.

Cartoon: None, and maybe that's a good thing.

Ballpark background: None

#36 - St Louis Cardinals (STL)

2010-12-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

One of the things that immediately stood out to me as I read the back of this card was that the great, all-time Hall of Fame name of not only one of the Cardinal greats of all-time, but one of the all-time greats, Stan Musial, is completely missing. Huh? What!!!??? Yeah. There's Hornsby, Brock, Medwick, and Mize on the offensive side, and Dizzy Dean and Bob Gibson on the pitching side. Stan the Man? Yoohoo, where are you? Wow. Have all of his great feats been surpassed by one player or another over the years? This is hard to believe.

For some reason, the Cardinals of the 70's don't register too well with me. I looked at and played with those cards just as much as I did the other teams, but those teams just didn't click with my inner kid. I recognize all the players just like any other team, but the teams didn't make as much of an impression.

Cartoon: None.

Ballpark background: This photo looks like spring training with the big palm tree in the background. There are scores of onlookers behind the team, and it wouldn't surprise me at a Grapefruit League event. Team photos taken during the season in a team's home park usually occur with empty stands in the background.

Labels Update

2010-12-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

I have updated the Labels page at the top of the blog. New labels have been added over time to keep track of various things. I've added a Traded with no Trades card, because there have been players traded before the season and not make it into the Trades set. I'm also keeping track of players and managers who have won World Series some time in their careers. I'm also adding an airbrush label to keep track of those wonderful paint jobs. Horizontal layout cards, too. Each card I post has the "Cards" label because there are cards from the 660 set, the Trades set and from the team checklists that are not numbered. Also, I'm adding a "players" label to all cards that show a player, to keep track of the number of player cards total. I'm sure there will be more added before I'm done, but these are the latest.

I'm open to suggestion from readers as well.

#35 - Gaylord Perry (CLE)

2010-12-05T23:26:00.000-08:00

Gaylord Perry is a Hall of Famer with a 22 year career, his longest stint being the first 10 years of his career with the Giants. He played for seven more teams in the remaining 12 years of his career. I once saw him in an old-timer's game with all 8 teams across his jersey front. He played with a great Giants team over his 10 years, with fellow Hall of Famers Juan Marichal, Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey all on the same team. Of course, the year he was traded to the Indians, he had his career best in wins, ERA, strikeouts and won the AL Cy Young award. Typical of Giants in those days. The year after Cepeda was traded, he won the MVP and a World Series with the Cards. Mays won a pennant with the Mets after he was traded.

In a strange set of events, Gaylord pitched a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals and Bob Gibson on September 17, 1968, winning 1-0. The very next day, the Cards returned the favor as Ray Washburn no-hit the Giants in a 2-0 victory. Back to back no-no's at the 'Stick. What a series to have tickets for. Only 14,000 fans saw either game, and I can only wonder how few saw both. Only 4700 saw that second game. In a legendary story, a previous manager of Perry's allegedly said that because of his weak hitting he thought a man would be put on the moon before Perry hit a major league home run. One hour after Apollo 11 landed, Perry hit his first home run. But, according to snopes.com, this story could very well be an urban legend made up only after Perry hit the round tripper. Either way, it's a good story, and either way, the Indians had dumb looking hats.
Cartoon: If Gaylord heads an insurance company, how come he's doing door-to-door selling? "Hi, I'm a future hall of famer. You might die at any moment, are you covered? Also, somebody might get electrocuted by your doorbell button." I know that line anywhere. I must admit, I've never sold insurance door-to-door in a baseball hat. Raffle tickets for Little League, maybe, but never insurance.

Ballpark background: This is unmistakably the Oakland Coliseum. Behind Perry is the third base dugout. Or is it the first base dugout? You know, I'm thinking the tarps were on the outfield sides of the dugouts, so this is probably the first base dugout. That would make sense because the first base dugout at the Coliseum has always been the visitor's dugout.

#34 - Andy Kosco (CIN)

2010-12-03T01:09:00.000-08:00

Andy Kosco. Member of the Big Red Machine. Really? I simply don't remember him when I was a kid. I glanced at the 1974 Reds roster - 35 players are listed for the entire season - and Andy is one of only four players I don't readily recognize. Man, with a 25 man roster, I easily recognize 31? It's amazing what baseball cards, radio and TV can do to a kid's mind. That stuff in ingrained in the brain.

Here, Kosco looks like a daunting figure, maybe a Ted Kluszewski Lite. He just looks like a big man. As I'm keeping track of in the labels, not many ballplayers in '74 were over 200 lbs. Andy played 10 seasons in the majors, for 7 teams and had 8 uniform numbers. As it turns out, 1974 was his last year. And since he batted only .189 in 37 at bats, I'm sure this was his last card, too. His last game was on July 30, even though he wasn't released by the Reds until October 25. His card says he was an outfielder, yet he played third base in '74 more than twice as often as the outfield.

Cartoon: A home run into the bleachers? Big deal. The ball has shoe polish and a bandaid on it, no doubt pitched by Mike Scott. So how did Big Andy hit it so far? Well, even thought the fence was 461 feet to left center at Yankee Stadium, this card came out when the Big Ballpark in the Bronx was being remodeled. The fence was considerably shortened to, like, 399 feet in left center.

Ballpark background: Okay, this is Shea Stadium again. Same light tower, same flag. Same yawn.

#33 - Don Newhauser (BOS)

2010-11-29T00:44:00.000-08:00

This is the first Red Sox card in the set, and only the Dodgers are without a card yet. I certainly know Newhauser more from my ballcard collection than I do from watching baseball. But isn't that what ballcards are for? Didn't we as kids learn a lot about baseball from looking at these things thousands of times? The top star tells us Don was a "short reliever." This, I think, is 70'sspeak for something akin to a closer. Or maybe a setup man? His 1.84 ERA is impressive, but the 38 walks (more than strikeouts!) makes him a suspect as opposed to a prospect, I'm sure.

I haven't checked the '72 or '73 checklists yet, so with Don starting each year in the minors, and never playing in the Bigs after 1974, I'm inclined to believe that this was his only card. I always like this pitching pose, one of looking in after the follow through. Beaucoup bodacious sideburns, Don!

Cartoon: Uhm, yeah. Anybody who has ever watched David Letterman's "Will It Float?" episode with a baseball, or has watched a ball land in McCovey Cove in San Francisco knows that a baseball doesn't sink in water. It floats. It is obvious that the Topps cartoonist came before either was known. Or, wait...maybe Don's sinker is soooo good that it really does sink in water! Now that is a good sinker!

Ballpark background: The blueish green fence and the Orioles logo on the scoreboard just behind Don's glove give this away as Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.

#32 - John Grubb (SD/WASH)

2010-11-26T02:13:00.000-08:00

John (Johnny?) Grubb. Yes, there's a lot here. This is the first Padre card of the set, and it's also the first Washington/Nat'l League card. I love how they spell "National" and "League." His name is John on this card, but it is Johnny on his BR page. Though the card makes a big deal out of his 21 at bats in 1972 and his being one of the Padres leading hitters in 1973, he makes the NL All-Star team in 1974. And not for the Washington National Leaguers. Nope, these boys in yellow are the Sandy Eggo Padres, like in waffles for breakfast on the beach. The beach in San Diego is beautiful, and sandy. There are numerous waffle shops near the beach. I know, I went there this summer.

Grubb played a 16 year career, but was only approached being a regular player with the Padres. He played for that amazing 1984 Detroit Tigers team, picking up a World Series ring against...hehehe...his former team. Dontcha just love it when that happens? He racked up 99 homers in his career, one shy of triple digits. I love the color scheme of the Padres cards. Kind of a mix of goldenrod (remember your Crayola sets?) and butterscotch, this color in the Padre pennants is simply delicious. John's also one of those crossover players, batting left while throwing right. This picture of him looks like some dude named Kevin I used to know. Except Kevin never wore a hat. He looks here like, "Hey, there's a deranged Mets fan on LSD that's going to try to fly off the edge of the third deck!"

Cartoon: He hit safely in 5 of the 6 games he started? Well, you can go 1 for 4 every day and hit safely in all 162 games, shattering Joe DiMaggio's record, yet end up with a .250 average. Actually, though, for only playing in 7 games, hitting in 5 of them for a .333 average is not something to laugh at. But it's a cartoon, so I'll laugh at it because that's what cartoons are for. And, say, what kind of middle name is Maywood, anyway?

Ballpark background: With just a light tower over his right shoulder and a flag pole over his left, this was so obviously taken at Shea Stadium it's not even funny. That's because just a few cards prior in the set was #29 Phil Niekro at Shea Stadium, and there's the same lights and flagpole. Not funny, I know. But Shea Stadium nonetheless.

#31 - Mgr/Coaches Preston Gomez (HOU)

2010-11-22T18:53:00.000-08:00

This is the first manager/coach card in this set. The manager's photo is smaller due to the cut and paste heads of the coaches. This is just classic ballcard type of stuff. Off the top of my head, I don't know if the '74 Cubs team card is this way, but I've seen at least one Cubs team card that was made up of all cut and paste heads. There really aren't stats on the back, but there is a handy little summary of each one's playing experience. I like seeing the coaching staff, because it places them in time with a team, and there's little to no other stats for coaches. Managers have their own pages on stat websites, but where would one go for coaches or even bullpen catchers?

Anyway, I remember little about Preston Gomez, but I do remember hearing his name all the time. This card probably helped that greatly. Roger Craig and Bob Lillis have certainly made the rounds in ML history. I couldn't have possibly known this from this card, but a bit over a decade later, Craig would become one of the most popular skippers for the Giants. The world of baseball, with it's inside, good ol' boys network is an interesting study in itself. I wonder if anybody's written a book about it. Gomez was born in Cuba. I'm wondering when he came here to the States. Surely before Castro took power.

Okay, here's the first airbrush job on a non-Trades card. It's only a small head shot, but notice that Roger Craig's hat has been airbrushed. He wasn't a coach for the 'Stros in 1973, so Topps took the liberty to paint him up like one. I 'spect Hub Kittle's probably fairly old by now, being born back in nineteen and seventeen.

Cartoon: None

Ballpark background: This looks like a dugout to his right, and the fence has non-major league advertising. I'm guessing this is spring training.

#30 - Bobby Bonds (SF)

2010-11-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

I remember Bobby Bonds as a kid, and always liked him as a player. He was talented and made some great catches in the outfield, the collision catch high up on the chain link right field fence along with Mays being an all time great film highlight. He was a soft five-tool player who played in the shadow of the great Willie Mays. Bonds had great speed and a good sense for the outfield. Playing in Mays' shadow had its numerous advantages, learning first hand from the greatest who ever played the outfield.

Bobby was a multiple 30/30 guy. He was the 30/30 standard until Canseco came along and put up a 40/40 season. Bobby will always be remembered for this, and for his 300/300 career. He came up as a chip off the old Mays block, but the chip wasn't nearly as big. Nobody could ever match Mays, and in some sense there was a disappointment with Bonds' "deficiency" in that regard. Heck, McCovey and Cepeda didn't help out in that regard either. He didn't have a good relationship with the media (falling short of Cooperstown may have had something to do with that), and it's obvious that it rubbed off on Barry. Bobby's career had a strange wind down as he played for six teams in his last five years. This card was Bonds' last with the Giants as after the '74 season, the next Willie Mays was traded to the Yankees for the next Mickey Mantle, Bobby Murcer.

Cartoon: It's a good thing Bobby went into baseball instead of going into track. Barry might have been a track star. Here, he's got the longest set of spikes I've ever seen. I also like Bobby's middle name.

Ballpark background: This shot was snapped at Candlestick Park during batting practice. Bonds is wearing his home uni, and the differing dirt colors are evident between the home plate area and the foul area warning track. It was so windy at the 'Stick that the dirt closest to the fans' eyes was crushed brick, which didn't make nearly as much dust. Astroturf graced (AHEM! - I almost choked to death there) the 'Stick in those days. You can just make out the seam at the home plate cutout next to Bonds' left sleeve.

#29 - Phil Niekro (ATL)

2010-11-16T23:16:00.000-08:00

What can I say about a Hall of Famer with a 24 year career? He started out in Milwaukee two years before they moved to Atlanta. Phil's knuckle ball was the thing that made him famous, and his knickname was "Knucksie." He is brother to Joe Niekro, and uncle to short lived Giants first sacker Lance Niekro, who isn't known for throwing knuckle balls while having it around the infield. Phil never made it to a World Series, and only played in two NLCS, losing both of them with the Braves.

His uni is a bit odd, I think, as he's wearing a pullover top with a belted pant. I've never liked these Braves threads in my life, not even in 1974. Phil tossed a no-hitter in 1973, the year this photo was taken, and probably after the photo was taken, as he threw it in August. Phil had one of those classic multiple team careers where he finished with the team he played for the longest or first. Although he only pitched three innings for the Bravos at the end of his career.
Cartoon: I think it probably turned out for the best that neither played football. I guess one could infer that they didn't play either baseball or basketball with each other. Havlicek's got a nice haircut.

Ballpark background: This was taken at Shea Stadium. That light tower just keeps appearing in all kinds of cards. And that flag is a bit of a fixture, too. Notice the Mets player in the background. This position on the field must have been the photographer's favorite of all time. So many players regardless of team have appeared here and from this angle. Or so it seems.

#28 - Manny Sanguillen (PIT)

2010-11-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

Manny Sanguillen was a childhood fixture for me. He was the catcher for the Pirates. I forgot that he played some outfield, as the bottom star reminds me. It didn't matter, he was the catcher. His card said catcher, and that's how kids laid out their cards when playing or trading. Manny was the epitome of a bad-ball swinger. Maybe one of the most famous bad-ball swingers in baseball. Bad Vlad and a few others come to mind as well. But, when you can consistently put up a .300 average for a catcher in the 70's, you can swing at as many bad pitches as you want. And if you hit them for base hits, all the better. He was also instrumental in the Bucs two championship teams in 1971 and '79.

Manny is from Panama, and is only the second foreign born in this set so far. He's also shown on a horizontal layout. I'll be keeping track of horizontal player cards in the labels. All team cards and some special cards might be horizontal, too, but I'll just keep track of players. I'm not sure why his home is listed as Panama, Republic of Panama, but I'm sure Topps had a reason to put it this way.

Cartoon: Manny is the anti-Benjie Molina. I wonder if this cartoon is drawn out of regard for how fast Manny gets down the line to back up first base, or because Manny wears his gear to the plate and runs around the bases. [Update 2-6-11: I just noticed that this cartoon shows Manny as a left handed catcher!]

Ballpark background: This is a difficult ballpark to determine. It seems he's wearing a road uniform, as the uni color appears to be slightly darker than the white trim in the elastic belt and sleeve. There is real grass, which was kind of a rarity in the NL in the mid 70's. The dark seats that go all the way down to the field and the dark barrier are also problematic for me. Not Candlestick or Shea. Could this be Wrigley with a painted brick barrier? The batting cage is in the background. Maybe it was a spring training facility of somebody in the Grapefruit League. I simply don't know. So, I'm placing this in the category of undetermined.

#27 - George Scott (MIL)

2010-11-11T23:24:00.000-08:00

I always like seeing players with the same last name as me. Knowing my family tree extensively, I am sure there is no relation. Other notables are Jake Scott, the Miami Dolphin safety from the undefeated team, Fast Freddie Scott from the Detroit Lions past, Luke Scott who played for the Astros a few years ago, and a few assorted NFL linemen. There's also that Astros dude that used sandpaper on the ball, Mike. Byron? A few namesakes include a professional mile runner, professional golfer and a Chicago news anchorman. George Scott had a decent career of 14 years, was a slugger for a good part of it, and was coming off one of his two best years when this card was released.

Cartoon: Note, George is only ONE of the flashiest fielding first sackers in the bigs. We all know the cartoonist knows Willie Montanez is simply THE flashiest, he just can't say it. Not PC, even in 1974 terms. And George's cartoon is backhanding a ball from behind. His next move is to cross dribble between his legs twice, then an alley-oop to Michael Jordan at the hoop. Oh, wait. Maybe it will be to Wilt the Stilt at the top of the key for a sky hook. Okay, wrong sport. After I post this, I'll go onto YouTube to try to find some George Scott flashy action. I know he was flashy, because his last year he played part of a year with the Royals and his uniform number was 0. Having a number of 0 in the 70's was flashy, almost by definition.

Ballpark background: Add one part Brewers road uniforms, one part yellow shirt behind George's right thigh, one part yellow sock just below George's right knee, then we sprinkle a bunch of yellow in the crowd beyond him, top with a sloping dugout roof toward the field, mix well, bake at 475 for 15 minutes, and out pops the Oakland Coliseum.

Situation ID: [Updated 03-20-11] This action shot of Scott was at the Oakland Coliseum. It looks as if he is watching a popup. If this photo was taken in 1973, then it was likely on Saturday, August 18, a day game, when cleanup hitter Scott fouled out to first baseman Deron Johnson leading off the second inning off of pitcher John "Blue Moon" Odom. The A's took the game 6-3, on their way to their second of three consecutive WS victories. Here, George has no middle name shown on this card, while his BR page lists Charles as his mid-moniker.

#26 - Bill Campbell (MIN)

2010-11-08T22:40:00.000-08:00

Bill Campbell played for seven teams over 15 years. This card appears just after his rookie year. This photo was taken while Bill was a rookie. Looking at his career, Bill got screwed out of possible World Series rings by both Bucky Dent and Don Denkinger. Did you know that Denkinger was the home plate ump for the Bucky Dent game? I'm not sure that's even a coincidence, but it struck me as interesting just long enough to type it. Bill pitched in one World Series, in 1985 with the Cards, and appeared in three games. He relieved John Tudor after Tudor got rocked for 5 runs in 2.1 innings in game 7, a day after Denkinger's botched call. What a relief appearance. Hey, Bill, you're down by five runs in the World Series after the ump tossed it for us. C'mon in and hold'em while we rally to win. Of course, that's no big deal. The Angels came back and won under similar circumstances. Oops, sarcastic jab from a recently less disgrutled Giants fan.

Notice Campbell's vitals. He's 6'-3 1/2". I've never noticed a 1/2" mark on anybody's height before on a card. Heck, I'm 5'-10 1/2" and I always round down to 5'-10". Like on my driver's license. His BR page says 6'-3", so I'm going with that. Maybe Topps was bored the day they did Bill's card. Maybe Topps was experimenting with a new card design software package and was fiddling with the stacked fractions feature. No? How would you know?

Cartoon: Bill operated a radio in 'Nam. So did Robin Williams. Robin Williams is a Giants fan, so I doubt he likes Bill. But one never knows. Plus, Williams is more funny by default. I'm sure when Robin Williams and Billy Crystal go to a game together, they talk about Bill in 'Nam. Old school mic. Say, didn't Radar carry a radio on his back in M*A*S*H*?

Ballpark background: Oakland Coliseum, no doubt about it. I like Bill's Twins uni, too, set against the green seats of the Coliseum. I think it would be funny if the artist airbrushed "Twinks" on his threads to see if anybody would notice.

#25 - Ken Singleton (MON)

2010-11-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

Ken Singleton had a pretty good career spanning 15 seasons. He played in two World Series with the Orioles, winning the second in 1983. Here, he just got through his best season in Montreal, at .302/23/103. He looks really young and really good. One batting glove. Cool old Expos hat. Ken's ready to play, and he could be on my team.

Cartoon: Ken throws either righthanded or lefthanded? Huh? In baseball? His card says he throws right, and so does Baseball Reference. He was a switch hitter. Did the cartoonist mess up? Or does he really throw with both hands, but only with right in a real game? I like how he makes downward arm motions and the balls come out perpendicular to his motion. Singleton has some guns, I guess. Mechanical help.

Ballpark background: It looks like Ken was posing behind the Little League snack shack. You know, the one where I bought much of my 1974 set. Singleton's got on a home uni, and after looking at some Google images of Parc Jarry, I'm sure this pic was snapped during spring training. There appears to be a foul line crashing into a chain link fence with no foul pole. Maybe this was on a practice field. [Update: 1975 Topps has a card of Expos' Bob Bailey showing the same building. The palm trees in that card give it away that this is indeed spring training.] [Update: Notice the wax stain down the middle of the back of the card. I think the wax from the packs picked up some dirt from grubby little kid hands like mine.]

#24 - John Hiller (DET)

2010-11-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

John pitched 15 years for the Tigers, and only the Tigers. He had a pretty decent career, and his 1973 was a terrific year out of the bullpen. He saved 38 games (as we would calculate that today) and had an ERA of 1.44. He didn't quite fit the role of the current closer, as he finished far more games than he saved, and had 15 decisions. This meant that he was often brought in to take care of multiple innings at the end of the game. This is reflected throughout his career stats.

Although I was a fairly aware baseball fan during his career, and although I remember this card very well, I must say that I don't remember much of John Hiller as a pitcher. Did he get the notice that he deserved? Did I ignore him or the Tigers? I don't know. John is also a Canadian who grew up in Toronto.

Cartoon: I guess Toronto had sandlots just like every other North American city. I wonder if this cartoon is a public service of Topps for those US card collectors who are ignorant of Canada. You know, Toronto has sandlots just like every other North American city. I already said that, didn't I?

Ballpark background: This photo is a real poser, but I think I have an answer. First, I wondered about the huge beam that was about to hit Hiller in the head. What was this thing hanging from? What was this thing to begin with? It looks like it's stuck in the air. Is this some kind of minor league park with a weird roof? Next, I noticed the red barrier that stops at the 3rd base dugout. This says County Stadium in Milwaukee, but the lack of an upper deck that wraps at the foul pole would kind of eliminate that choice. Until I looked through Google images and finally Clem's Baseball. It seems that from 1954 until 1974, the 3rd base stands extended only a few dozen yards beyond third base. Grandstands ran from just about that point to near the left field corner, and a separate bleacher section in the outfield. If this Hiller photo was taken in 1973, then the pieces of the puzzle fit rather nicely.

The thing just to the left of his head is the edge of the upper deck on the third base side, with the "loge" or press box level in between the top and bottom of this thing. I'm guessing the angle (i.e. steepness) of the upper deck is the same as the angle of a line drawn from the camera lens to the upper deck itself. This would give an illusion of nothing holding up the upper deck. The supports holding up the upper deck would be just out of this picture. The grandstands down the left field line look from all the Google images to be more steep than the permanent stands behind home plate and extending to the edge of the upper deck. The thing sticking out of Hiller's right shoulder is the top of that grandstand, while the thing sticking out of his lower left back that angles just above the outfield fence beyond is the edge of that grandstand as it follows the angle down. There's a player just behind his left glute with the foul pole above his head. Just to the right of that foul pole is a slightly angled view of the edge of the bleachers. So, it makes real sense why that red barrier at the dugout and the yellow face of the dugout edge look so much like County Stadium when I visited in 1986. My guess is County Stadium.

THE GIANTS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!

2010-11-01T19:39:00.001-07:00

IT'S OVER! THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES! WE WIN! NOW IT'S TIME TO PARTY!

#23T - Craig Robinson "Traded" (ATL)

2010-11-01T17:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the first Trades card of the set. "TRADED" What a mark to have on a baseball card. "Robby" goes from the Phils to the Braves. The Trades set had a different format from the regular cards. A new photo was issued, showing the player with his new team, but rather than re-hash the players stats on the back - because he already had a card in the set - Topps decided to do a mock newspaper story giving tidbits of the trade and other info. But, as far as I can tell, all the Trades photos except one were airbrush jobs because Topps didn't yet have a current photo of the player on their new team. (Another reader commented to me that Bob Locker's card used a two year old photo when he was with the A's, and was traded back to them, so Topps used the filed shoot.) Topps took photos of players each year to include in the following year's set. Most were taken during the season at a ballpark, while some were taken during spring training. So if a player were traded in the off season, there would be no way for Topps to get a new photo of the player donning his new threads.

This was a separate set issued later in the year, but I don't know when. There have been several players so far that were traded during spring training that didn't have cards in the Trades set. I don't know what the cut off point was for being included in the Trades set, but at December 3, Craig got into the set. I'll have to keep track of this somehow. Maybe a new "page" at the top could show trade dates vs. getting into the Trades set.

Ballpark background: This photo was taken in Candlestick Park. You can see the VIP box at the top of the park next to his left ear. Craig was in a Phillies uniform, and it was airbrushed with Braves colors. His red-collared powder blue zip jacket was painted black and white, and his Phils hat was given two colors, blue on the edge of the bill, and white on the hat. The artists (ahem!) missed the blue on the side panel of the Braves two-tone hat at the seam, and the white is taken all the way to the left side of the hat outline. Topps seemed to take a good number of photos looking up from under a player's hat. These are the easiest airbrush jobs. Under the bill of his hat next to his forehead you can see an inverted number "18," which was his uniform number with Philly. Groovy sunglasses on both cards, Craig!

#23 - Craig Robinson (PHI)

2010-10-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

It's really funny looking at non-star players from eras past. Here, Craig Robinson looks like the guy in my high school yearbook who won the award for "most likely to remain the same the rest of his life." He's 5'-10" and 165 lbs. This is otherwise known as Average Joe. With a bell curve for dude size, Craig fits 37% of all American males. And such dudes can be a major leaguer when they grow up. I like that Craig is wearing one batting glove, and that photographers love to capture gloves laying on grass. Craig is a humble guy, too, as he even chokes up on the bat for a photo op. I didn't know that Eugene was a team in the PCL in 1971. I always thought the AAA had larger cities, like Portland and Las Vegas. I looked it up, and sure enough, Eugene, OR had a PCL team from 1969-73.

Craig was with the Phils in 1973, but was traded to the Braves in December. The next card in this set will be his traded card. Craig's 1974 season with the Braves was a regular one, playing in 145 games, and getting over 500 plate appearances. His next three seasons (his last) he would not play even 40 games in a year. He finished his career just one home run behind Duane Kuiper on the all time list. Kuiper had one.

Cartoon: Being signed is pretty darned thrilling, I guess. Craig didn't win a World Series or MVP or break records, I guess as well. Otherwise he might have said those things were most thrilling. What kind of pen did they use to sign contracts back in 1970?

Ballpark background: Although it looks like a great big lawn, I'm pretty sure this is Shea Stadium. Those twin 10,500 foot high light tower poles look like the ones at Shea. All the way to the left of Robinson's chin you can see the edge of the second deck sticking out, with the "lower deck" seats under it. I don't know what they were called, but it was kind of the next seating level in the "bowl" up from the field box seats. Other shots in this set and other years' cards give this away as Shea.

Another 1974 Topps Blog - Pennant Fever

2010-10-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I discovered another 1974 Topps set blog, called 1974 Topps - Pennant Fever, by somebody with a blog name of "wobs." It's funny because apparently we started our blogs at about the same time, and there are some odd things in common. I wanted to do this blog for months, and did some pretty extensive research (including the first million Google pages) before starting it to make sure nobody else out there was doing a 1974 set.

Well, "wobs" started his in June, and mine in July. He didn't do any posts in July, so there were probably no Google listings for it just from his two posts in June. He's doing the set numerically, as am I. We both posted a bit in August, in almost a "race." We passed each other, and in a total coincidence, we both posted card #14 Paul Popovich on September 29, 2010. Here's his, and here's mine. He surged ahead in October with a huge number in one day, and hasn't posted since the 15th. It will be really interesting comparing our work. He's taking shots at ballpark backgrounds, and dropping other great pieces of info in. Cool! I've added his blog to my blogroll and links.

no # - Trades Checklist

2010-10-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the checklist for the 1974 Trades set. This card has no card number (just like the team checklists), but I've decided to place it here for a couple of reasons. Since it has no number, I wanted it to be the first card of the Trades set to appear in this blog set. I've also decided to insert the Trades cards into the overall blog set immediately after that Traded player's original card. This is because I've always felt that these cards were just as part of the set as the others, and I wanted to make it easy to compare the two cards in two consecutive posts. And since the first Trades (#23T) card comes immediately after card #23, I decided to place the Trades Checklist card before #23. So, here it is, right after card #22. Nice chartreuse color, too - real 70's!

I obviously used this checklist to keep track of cards as I collected them, but stopped checking the boxes for some reason. The Trades cards are ripe with airbrushing masterpieces. Stay tuned...

#22 - Cy Acosta (CWS)

2010-10-29T23:51:00.000-07:00

While I remember this card from my youth, I never really made the connection of "Cy" as a name with Cy Young. I'm not sure if Cy is a nickname for Cecilio, or whether there is a reference to Cy Young. If the latter, they picked the wrong guy. He spent only four years in the bigs, with 1973 being his best. The 1974 season would be his last with the Sox, and would only make six appearances for the Phils in '75. He never started a game in his career, and came entirely out of the bullpen. In '73, he appeared in 48 games, finished 42 of them, yet had only 18 saves. I wonder what his role was?

I discovered a few discrepancies between his card and what Baseball Reference has on their website. His
'72 and '73 ERA's BR has as 1.56 and 2.23, along with 60 strikeouts in '73 and 97 innings tossed. I wonder why the difference?

Cartoon: What's a "hopping" fastball? Oh, I get it. It's a two-seamer with four legs and a smile.

Ballpark background: This photo was taken at the Oakland Coliseum. I was able to figure this out mostly because it looks just like it

#21 - Bob Gallagher (HOU)

2010-10-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

Bob had a short stint in the majors spanning four slightly active years between the Red Sox (1972), Astros (1973-74) and Mets (1975). It looks like 1974 was his most active year, with 102 games played. Most of those games were as late inning defensive replacements. Bob only had 87 at bats in those 102 games. Bob was traded to the Giants in March of 1976, but by the looks of it, he never set foot on the field with the Giants.

Cartoon: Bob's grandfather was active in the majors? He had a 16 year career between the White Sox and Red Sox. Pretty dang active if you ask me. And he got a ring with the 1917 Pale Hose. Although he had a long career, he wasn't a superstar. In 16 seasons he hit .264 with only 22 homers. See Shano Collins' career stats here. He was a 1B-OF, just like his grandson.

Ballpark background: Bob was definitely hitting rocks against the backside of a stable in Boone Co., Arkansas. Arkansas isn't far from Houston, if you take the train. Looks like he had a real bat. Carved from some ol' hickory tree, no doubt. I'm going to give this shot of downtown Manhattan the "spring training" label, despite not knowing if this was from spring training.

THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!

2010-10-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Philadelphia Phillies' dream of being the first team to win three consecutive NL pennants since the 1942-44 Cardinals has been slaughtered by the extreme underdog San Francisco Giants!!!! Juan Uribe hits an 8th inning opposite field home run to put the Giants ahead 3-2. Brian Wilson makes the perfect pitch - a low, backdoor slider - the pitch that awesome slugger Ryan Howard simply cannot hit. Howard was fooled badly, and THE GIANTS WON THE PENNANT! Another extreme form of torture!

The parties are spilling out into the streets! We're going to the World Series! Wahoooo!

#20 - Nolan Ryan (CAL)

2010-10-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

Uhhhhhhm, now how cool is this. My next card in the set is Nolan Ryan, just a couple of hours at most after the Texas Rangers win the AL pennant. I didn't plan this either. I was sitting here uploading the scans and the highlights were on the TV.

Okay, what can I say about Nolan Ryan? All time strikeout leader with 5714. Twenty-seven big league seasons, 324 career wins, all time walks leader with 2795, all time record seven no-hitters. member Baseball Hall of Fame. Only one World Series appearance, with the 1969 Mets, where he got a ring. He finished out game 3 with 2.1 innings pitched in a 5-0 Mets win over the Orioles. This 1974 card came just after his record setting single season record of 383 strikeouts. As a batter, he had a lifetime .110 average, and hit twice as many career home runs as Duane Kuiper, with two.

Ryan pitched in the radar era, where the speed of his pitches could be measured, even if not on every pitch. He was the fastest pitcher of my childhood for sure, and I'm certain he would be amongst the top today. Maybe still the fastest. I certainly wouldn't want to face him. Everybody knew he was the fastest pitcher and struck out the most batters. There were always arguments against him, even for the Hall of Fame because of his W/L record, and how he never played for many great teams. His long stints with the Angels, Astros and Rangers were with some sub-par teams. My biggest mistake of his career was staying home from his sixth no-hitter in Oakland because I was sick that night. I was planning to go sit in the bleachers, like I normally did.

Cartoon: Nolan sells footballs. Now nice. And pricey ones, judging by the tag. I'm not sure he operates a sporting goods store anymore. He's going to the World Series and runs a team. Probably doesn't have the time. "Hi, I'd like to purchase some Nolan Ryan commons. Got any?" "Not in my store, son. They're all star cards here."

Ballpark background: I simply can't make out what is behind Ryan. The blue fence looks like it could be Dodger Stadium, but all the stuff behind it kind of eliminates that. The background is too blurry. Are there trees? People? I think the Angels played spring training in Palm Springs in the 70's. Could this be another Cactus League park? Ryan has an Angels road uniform on. There seems to be a tunnel over the fence, but what is all the yellow stuff? Mystery to me for sure. Any input? [Update: Fleerfan - see comments below - has identified the ballpark in the background as Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I'm not very familiar with that old ballpark, especially with all the blurry background in the photo. But after looking at Fleerfan's link, calling that one out must have been a slam dunk. So, I'll update my labels for this post. Thanks, Fleerfan!]

#19 - Gerry Moses (NYY)

2010-10-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Gerry Moses' stint with the New York Yankees was very short, and already over by the time this card was released. Moses didn't play for the Yankees in 1974. He was traded during spring training to the Tigers, yet didn't have a card in the Traded set. So, along with Paul Popovich, (card #14), I'm adding a new "Traded with no Traded Card" label. I'm wondering if the Traded set had its own deadline for making the set. Moses played all of 18 games in 1973 for the Pinstripes, 17 at catcher, and one at DH. The following year, 1975, was his last in the bigs, and played a mere 7 games split between the Padres and White Sox.

I remember this card from when I was a kid, but nothing stood out about it other than it was a baseball card in my set. Of course, when you play behind Thurman Munson, you might not get much playing time at all. And just how his Moses' first name spelled anyway? This card says "Gerry," but the Baseball Reference [dot] com website spells it "Jerry." I typed in "Gerry" and it came up anyway. Maybe the web designers at BR had the same question and decided to allow both spellings get to his stats.

Cartoon: Wow, small world, to play sandlot ball with Archie Manning. What I wonder about Manning is why he would wear a football uniform playing sandlot ball. Maybe Moses is the one who convinced him that he had a brighter future on the gridiron. Don't look now, but I think Pig Pen grew up in their neighborhood, too.

Ballpark background: I really can't figure out where this photo was taken. It's likely that it was at a Spring Training facility of another Grapefruit League team, given the Yanks' road threads. There's a chain link fence at the stands, and there's no warning track before the fence. I've never seen a big league park like this, so I'm giving this card the spring training location label.

Earthquake

2010-10-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, October 17th, was the 21st anniversary of the earthquake that struck game 3 of the 1989 World Series in San Francisco. Candlestick Park had the weirdest things happen there, and I've witnessed many of those bizarre things. But to have a major earthquake cause a bridge to break, a freeway to collapse, a section of a city to catch fire and delay the World Series by 10 days, just minutes prior to the first WS game there in 27 years, really should have been predictable.

Yesterday's post of Gary Thomasson I actually did the day before, but delayed the posting by a day because I did two posts at the same time. I didn't realize it Saturday, but the anniversary of the earthquake would be a card of a Giant, with Candlestick Park in the photo. The light towers shown, one right on top of Gary's hat, and the other at the top of the stadium at the far left, are very high above the rim. The one at left, I believe, was the one that had a maintenance worker on top of it when the quake struck. Those towers shook violently from side to side, but he made it down okay.

#18 - Gary Thomasson (SF)

2010-10-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite cards in the 1974 set. It's because Gary's pose is so classic first baseman. And he's left handed which adds to the effect. He also looks like a real major league first baseman. He's one of the guys that played first base after Willie McCovey, my favorite all time player, was traded to the Padres. And I didn't hate him for it.

For a few years in the 70's, the Giants changed their uniforms slightly. The letters across the chest were changed from black w/ orange trim to orange w/ black trim. I'm not sure I like them. Gary was also notable in 1977 when he led off the entire season, in the top of the first on Opening Day in LA, and hit a home run. The Giants didn't quite turn that into a wire-to-wire season like they did their 2003 Opening Day leadoff homer. But Gary didn't seem to need that, as he played the following year during the second half of the season with the WS champs Yanks.

Cartoon: I don't recall reading that Gary was a professional musician. It looks here like he's playing the trumpet with the sound coming out upside down. I wonder what instrument(s) Gary actually played, and how much did he make. I'm sure he wasn't a member of Led Zeppelin, so maybe baseball paid more.

Ballpark background: Gary is pictured here at Candlestick Park. Notice the horrid green of the artificial turf. Yuck. There's a player or coach just off his right shoulder. Above this figure is the left field foul pole. As the lower deck seats change from orange to a dingy red, the box seats changed into bleacher seats, divided by a chain link fence. The upper deck curves around the foul pole, but behind the bleacher section, which is about 30 feet itself behind the fence where the scoreboard is located. The upper deck in left field may be the furthest stands from the field of any ballpark ever. It was no fun to sit up there. And those were the end zone seats for football.

#17 - Doug Bird (KC)

2010-10-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

Doug played the first half of his career with the Royals. He later played for the Phils, Yanks, Cubbies and BoSox. Doug had the misfortune of playing for pennant or Workd Series winners just a year or two shy of that team actually winning. Doug played against the Yanks in the three ALCS between 1976-78. He beat NY in one '76 playoff series, and lost one to the Yanks in the '78 ALCS. The Royals won the pennant in 1980. He played for the Phils in '79 (1980 WS champs) and the Yankees in 1980 (1981 AL champs).

At 6'-3", Doug is tall, but at only 175 lbs., he is skinny. Bean pole. You don't see players like this anymore. Tim Lincecum may come the closest to what used to be much more common. Doug's sideburns look good enough to toss on the barbecue. I think I saw him walking down the street in an episode of Streets of San Francisco when I was a kid.

Cartoon: Again, this cartoon wouldn't happen today with the restrictions in the contracts. I've never seen somebody ski in a baseball uniform, and have certainly never seen such short poles. Maybe his legs acted as poles.

Ballpark background: Here, Doug is posing for a shot at the Oakland Coliseum. The grass looks a bit dry in the area where his teammates are playing. I fully remember those huge scoreboards attached to the light towers behind the bleachers from my youth. I may even be able to figure out what the advertising is if I give it enough thought.

no # - Baltimore Orioles Checklist

2010-10-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

The team checklists in the 1974 Topps set didn't have card numbers. I've decided to post each one following the team's team photo card. Autographs that Topps was able to secure are shown on the front, while the team checklist is showed on the back. These cards were both issued as part of the set, and available by mail if you wrote to Topps. The mail order sets came in sheets of cards and left the buyer to cut the cards out if they desired. I got these checklist cards both ways. If I remember correctly, I didn't do such a good job of cutting my own sheets, and probably discarded those cards because they were too imperfect.

One thing that was pointed out on another blog (I forget where, and I wish I could remember) is that there were two differing sets of these checklist cards. Notice the bottom "printed" line of the card. Some cards had one star before the copyright, and some had two. Looking through my checklist cards, I have some with one and some with two. Anybody know the story behind this?

This card shows that I took liberty to use the checklist for my own record keeping. I updated it several times as there are both pencil and pen in checking the boxes. A few boxes are blank, indicating that these cards were acquired late in my collecting of these cards. I may have even bought some of these from card shops in the 80's.

Notice Powell's signature. Boog is in quotes. John "Boog" Powell. I wonder where he got such a nickname? Maybe we'll find out later on in the set. And a handwriting expert might be able to shed some light on the reverse slant of Brooks Robinson and Paul Blair's autographs.

#16 - Baltimore Orioles (BAL)

2010-10-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

This is the Oriole team (mostly) of lore during my youth. The pitching staff was simply amazing year to year. Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally. I'm sure that during my youth, baseball cards had a greater influence on forming an image of players as to their greatness than great players had in forming an image of their baseball card. I played with, shuffled, organized, re-organized and everything else with my cards so often that they became part of me. Kids are so impressionable. Hey, Boog Powell, Bobby Grich, Mark Belanger, Brooks Robinson, Andy Etchebarren. All those outfielders couldn't have shared three spots, could they? These names are etched in my memory forever. My eyes immediately run to Mark Belanger and Paul Blair at the end positions of the back row. Simply glancing at their form gives me a glimpse of great baseball from the 70's. This particular team won the AL East in 1974, as they did in '73, with losses to the A's in the ALCS. No doubt revenge for 1971.

Yes, the O's used to be the St. Louis Browns before they moved to Baltimore in 1954. And they originally started out as the Milwaukee Brewers at the formation of the American League in 1901 before moving to St. Louis in 1902. And the Baltimore Orioles team that was part of that original league moved to New York in 1903 and became the NY Highlanders before changing their name to the Yankees in the teens. It's odd to see the Brownies' names on the back holding all-time team records. Some of the all time greats.

Cartoon: Team photo's don't have cartoons on the reverse in this set. But if they did, I'm sure they could come up with some odd piece of trivia or ten on Earl Weaver.

Ballpark background: With their home uniforms on and everybody assembled in one place, I'd guess that this was taken at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The shape and deck layout, along with the pronounced upper deck tunnels all look like Memorial Stadium. A lot of great Oriole baseball was played there from 1954 to 1991. The team won the four pennants shown on the back of the card, plus 1979 and 1983 in their old yard. If you look closely at this picture, you can see Stabler to Casper in double overtime for a touchdown in another great Raiders playoff victory. This is the first Oriole card in the set, and I'm guessing that there aren't too many photos taken at this venue. I never got to see Memorial Stadium, and I regret it.

#15 - Joe Torre (STL)

2010-10-03T23:50:00.000-07:00

Joe Torre held a rather dubious (or should I say sad?) major league record. As player and manager, Joe participated in more games than anybody else in history without ever being in a World Series. Until the Yankees beat the O's in the 1996 ALCS. As manager, Joe cried. Literally. He then won four of the next five World Series. It's actually a bit of a touching story. As much as I hate things Yankees, Joe Torre is maybe the least offensive thing to ever live in the Bronx Zoo. I actually developed respect for him over the years.

Joe's picture here looks like he's just accidentally downloaded some chin music to his iPod. He's bending backward, having just avoided a stint on the DL, and his bat shows no signs of going around to get a strike call from the ump. A few things to notice here. Joe has 2000 career hits at the printing of this card. Joe was a multiple position player for nearly his entire career. Starting out as a catcher, he later took up first base, being C-1B for years. Then he switched from 1st to 3rd to be a C-3B, then later to 1B-3B, with most of his games at third. In '73, Joe flipped to mostly first base for the remainder of his career.

Cartoon: Joe certainly has MVP numbers in '71. Like batting .363. But, his trophy looks more like an urn. There's a lid with a handle on top. Wonder what goes inside? Whatever the design, Joe really loves it, as we can tell by the cartoon. I wonder if he takes it to bed at night. I never saw one like it in Little League.

Ballpark background: Joe is wearing a gray uni, so the Cards are on the road. I'm not familiar enough with Shea Stadium's dugouts, but this is a dugout, and I can see box seat bars on each side of Joe's waistline. This gives me inclination to guess Shea Stadium, but I'm not totally sure. So, I'll label this as "undetermined" and maybe come back to it later in the set in case I find other cards similar enough to convince me one way or another.

THE GIANTS WIN!

2010-10-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to my San Francisco Giants for winning the NL West on the last day of the season! It was a nail-biting season for almost 162 games. Now let's win like three consecutive World Series, okay?

GO GIANTS!

A New 1970 Topps Blog

2010-09-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Jim from Downingtown has started a new 1970 Topps Baseball Card blog. He's been blogging a while with his 1966, '67 and '68 sets. I'm adding it to my blogroll. Check it out.

#14 - Paul Popovich (CHC)

2010-09-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

This card shows Paul with the Chicago Cubs. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 1, 1974, just a few days before opening day. Even though he was traded, Topps did not issue a card of Popovich in its Traded set released later in the year. Maybe this was a belated April Fool joke, or maybe Topps thought the trade itself was an April Fool joke. In any case, Paul would play only two more years, '74 & '75, in a limited role with the Bucs. What never shows on his card is that when he was traded in June of 1969, the Dodgers sent him to the Expos, who traded him to the Cubs that same day. I'm not sure if it was part of a three-way trade, or whether the Expos planned the maneuver as the middle-man.

This is the first card in this set where the nondescript "infield" position shows on a card. His career was spent mostly at second base, with some short and third mixed in. In '74 he played about evenly between 2B and SS with the Pirates, with a majority of his second sacker action coming from starts, and all of his stints at short from being inserted later in the game.

Cartoon: I'm not sure what bonuses were back in the early 60's, but 40 grand seems like quite a lot. It seems that Topps is playing with words here, as Paul received only a "reported" bonus. Didn't he get a real one?

Ballpark background: This photo was taken in 1973 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, one of the home ballparks of my youth. In fact, 1974, the year of this Topps set, was the year of my first visit there. The green stuff you see behind Paul is actually artificial turf. It's a bit too green and uniform looking for astroturf, but that's what it is. I'm not sure why it looks so green, as Candlestick Park in the 70's had some of the most horrifically streaky, faded looking carpet in the Bigs. This photo must have taken advantage of the reverse-grain velvet effect. The orange seats were real box seats with real metal bars dividing up the rows. The dugouts weren't dug out, but level with the playing field. There are what looks like 25 towels hanging from the visitor's dugout wall. As was typical at the 'Stick, the shadow line from the upper deck divided the sun drenched box seats (tank tops and shorts) from the freezing reserved section (parkas and down coats, even in summer). Only the front row or so of the reserved seats see sun in this shot.

Charlie Manuel and the Integrity of the Game

2010-09-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel is being watched this weekend as they play the Braves. The Braves are still in the wild card race, and the question has been raised as to whether Manuel will compromise the integrity of the game by juggling his rotation and resting his stars to get ready for the playoffs, thus giving the Braves an unfair advantage over the Giants and Padres. What should Manuel do? For the answer, see my post at From The Bleachers, my baseball blog.

Labels 2

2010-09-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Testing labels...

Labels

2010-09-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

I've added a Labels page at the top of the blog to discuss how I am using labels, including to track certain things about the 1974 Topps Set. Have a quick look by clicking on the Labels button above or by clicking here. Some of the usual labels I'll be using in this set that haven't been applied yet may appear in the labels at the bottom of this post.

#13 - Tom Hilgendorf (CLE)

2010-09-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

I certainly remember Tom Hilgendorf, but probably only from my card collection. Here, Tom is in a pose similar to ones I remember doing on Little League picture day, and ones my kid does in pee-wee. Tom had a rubber arm and noodle neck in 1964-65. Pitching 19 innings in 110 degree heat? What about the humidity? I'm sure it was about 95%. Like Mickey Lolich, Tom is a switch hitting pitcher. Hmmm, I'm only at card 13, so we'll see if this is rare. Perhaps a label for switch hitters would be appropriate. Tom is in serious danger of pulling his stirrups up so tight that there will be daylight at the narrow part of his ankle. That's the way we did it in senior Little League. We even slit the stirrup and inserted elastic to get that thin stripe look, with no solid.

Cartoon: Hey, Tom can sure make a hand saw hum with the head of that hammer. Look at the sound waves coming off that thing! Yet another off season activity that today's contract might limit?

Ballpark background: It looks here like the Oakland Coliseum. Tom is wearing the Indians' gray uni's, so this isn't Cleveland. The metal bleacher sections with two groups of seating per section (center aisle) is consistent with Oakland. At the top of the picture over Tom's left shoulder is a small triangle of white. The center field gate is open and there is a concrete ramp leading up from it to the outside (the Coliseum playing surface is below ground level). There's also a distance mark on the left-center field fence, and quite a bit of real estate between Tom and the foul line. This all adds up to Oakland. Tom is near the stands on the first base line.

Blog Bat-Around: If I Were Commissioner

2010-09-20T02:57:00.000-07:00

[Update: This is cross-posted at my "From The Bleachers" blog.]

David at Indians Baseball Cards & Random Wax poses the following question for a blog bat-around:

The topic: With Bud Selig supposedly retiring in 2012 (and assuming the end of the world doesn't follow soon afterward), if YOU were asked to become the next Baseball Commissioner, what would you do? What changes would you like to make, what things would you leave as-is, what would you like to see as your legacy when your retirement time came?

Baseball has been screwed up under Bud Selig far beyond the average fan's knowledge. I'll expose a number of those dark secrets below and as commissioner, I would make the following changes, unilaterally, on my first day in office:

On the field changes:

Expansion to 32 teams w/ realignment. Either 8 divisions of 4 teams with no wild card, or 4 divisions of 8 teams w/ top two in each. There needs to be the same number of teams in each division. Right now, statistically, the AL West teams have a 50% greater chance of winning the World Series than NL Central teams, just by being in the AL West.
Use an unbalanced, but symmetrical schedule. Baseball needs each team playing each other team the exact same number of times in division, and same number of games with all teams out of the division, both home and road, from division to division, league to league, and those numbers have to be even numbers. Teams in the same division need to have the same common scheduled teams. Having divisions logically means an unbalanced schedule. Each division needs an even number of teams so that only division play occurs the last weeks of the season.
Eliminate interleague play. The players hate it. Attendance figures from largely weekend games when school's out and the weather is nice is not evidence that the fans support it either. And the argument that fans never get to see players from the other league is bogus. A majority of baseball fans live either in a metro area that already has one team in each league (the five largest markets - ten teams worth!, NY, LA, Chi, SF, and DC/Balt), or in a metro area that is a short drive from another team in the other league. (Philly, San Diego, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, etc.) Interleague play also skews the division race, as schedules are not identical. For too long, the Marlins have skated with playing six games against the hapless Rays while their division rival Mets have played six games against the World Champs. Enough.
The All-Star game will no longer decide Home Field Advantage in the World Series, and will revert back to alternating HFA between leagues each year. All-Star managers aren't able to focus on winning the game anyway, because two other expectations are more important: a) keeping other managers' pitchers from being injured, and b) making sure every player on an ever enlarging roster makes it into the game. A pinch runner for the batter who pinch hit for the defensive replacement from last inning? Hey, I just put three players into the game in four pitches! That's what the last three innings of the ASG have become.
Reduce the All-Star rosters to 24 max. and eliminate the "each team has one player" rule. Only one thing is less logical that requiring one player from each team, and that's the argument for it: "It's a fan's game." Uhm, the fans of the other 29 teams don't want to see your least worst player in the ASG when he's batting .279/11/36 at the break. He gets to play just because every other player on your team sucks even worse? And you want him to play in the ASG? Heck, you don't even want to see him play in your own ballpark. If you did, your attendance wouldn't suck so bad. I've lived through plenty of bad A's and Giants seasons where I was actually embarrassed for our representative to be seen in the introductions, not to mention the game.
Eliminate all the NFL rules that have been adopted into baseball, like the one that made George Steinbrenner an air traffic controller. Get rid of all the NFL tie-breaking, home field advantage and playoff matchup rules. All they do is complicate things and screw playoff ticket holders out of being able to use their tickets effectively. Football has these stupid rules precisely because they have no way to decide things on the field. Using head-to-head as a tie-breaker necessarily means that the winner has a worse record against inferior teams. Hasn't anybody at MLB corporate ever taken logic 101 at their local community college? Home field advantage and matchup rules mean that ticket holders don't even know when the game is and who it's against for the ticket they're holding in their hand. Last year's fiasco that allowed the Yanks (HFA) to choose which ALDS series to play in was a great example. They didn't have to choose until a few hours after the regular season was over. But there was a rain-out makeup on Monday that forced another one-game playoff on Tuesday, still part of the regular season. They got to decide whether to screw the Red Sox in choosing which day they played - hours before their game - or to make the other team play on a couple of hours sleep on the plane while in the air at 35,000 feet.
Eliminate TV ratings based playoff start times. The Yankees are guaranteed the prime time slot for every game ever, while the rest of the teams play bizarre day games in weird time zones. Every time a series is decided, the remaining series have their time slots revised according to a pecking order of prime time ratings. Several times since this has started, fans of one team with tickets in hand for tomorrow's game have gone to bed not knowing whether the next day's game would be at 1pm or 7pm because an extra inning game in the other league on the opposite coast that was playing past midnight may end that series and effect start times of all other games the next day because the ratings pecking order had to be rearranged. When you're a ticket holder for these games, you may be screwed out of hundreds or thousands of dollars because you can't sell or give away a day game ticket at the last minute. It's happened several times to me personally. Enough.
Allow each home team to set the time for its own division series playoff games. Not being able to go to or even watch your own team because you're at work and you fell into a day game slot at the last minute just because some dude on the east coast wants to watch it on TV is freaking lame. Let them stay up until 2am. That way, everybody will be able to see it.
All post season game dates with pre-figured division vs. division arrangement will be made prior to the season.
Even though I personally don't like the DH, I would keep it for one league. It's good for baseball because it is good at starting and keeping arguments going. But the current DH rule gives the AL team an advantage in the World Series. It gets to keep using its full-time, season long hitting specialist, while the NL team must scrape a utility player off the bench for its DH. If you don't agree, please tell me you'd rather see Lee Lacy hit than Reggie Jackson. After the last game of the regular season, I would give all the NL teams the option to draft one free agent AL DH player to use as their DH in the World Series, just to even things up.

Off the field changes:

Lifetime bans would extend only to the lifetime of the player. For example, once he died, Shoeless Joe would be in the HOF.
Change the territorial rights boundary from a distance based boundary (75 miles) to a population based one. The existing rule guarantees the Yankees an untouchable fan base of 25 million. Even though San Jose is 40 miles further from San Francisco than Oakland is, the Giants' territorial rights can stop an A's move to SJ. Why? If small market teams have problems making ends meet, they can move to Brooklyn and/or East Rutherford, Chicago, San Bernardino, San Fernando, or San Jose.
Holding the dubious distinction as the only person to have the steroids scandal occur right under his nose both as an owner and as a commissioner; and holding the dubious distinction as a commissioner who wouldn't even stand up in recognition that the greatest record in sports was just tied, and also in reference to the other 12 reasons listed above, my last act on the first day in office will be to impose a lifetime ban from baseball upon Bud Selig.

Leave as-is:

Most everything else.

Legacy will take care of itself.

#12 - Dave May (MIL)

2010-09-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

I'm liking this card. Dave has that bat barrel bulging into the camera angle, and it looks like he's actually swinging the thing. And this pose is a great reflection of his 1973 season. He went from .303/25/93/Total Base Leader/All-Star/MVP votes...(awesome pose!) to a woeful .226/10/42 in 1974 with not much less playing time.

He led "loops in batting?" 62 and 64? What the heck is that?

Cartoon: Maybe he had Jim Bibby's brother to cheer for. Were the ABA afro do's in style yet?

Ballpark background: I'm guessing Anaheim Stadium, after a delayed gathering of good evidence. First, the Brew Crew wore powder blue on the road. Second, the player behind his left shoulder appears to have a two-tone hat, with the lighter color on the bill. Next, the seats in the upper deck (no press box is there) indicate a three deck ballpark. The stands extend straight down the line, and slightly curve in the corner. The seating section width between the aisles matches the 70's and 80's layout, as do the seat colors. The clincher for me was the concentric arc of dirt behind home plate that I confirmed in a Google Image search for Anaheim Stadium, early 70's.

#11 - Jim Bibby (TEX)

2010-09-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, card lovers. I admit I don't like early era Ranger uniforms. I know the font selected is trying to give a pioneer days, Texas ranch feel. Not great on baseball threads. Either way, Bibby looks like business. This is a good pose and he looks like a really solid athlete.

Jim's glove is a bit worn, and he's got the old fashioned open wrist strap type. No designed hole to stick your finger through. The grass behind him is a bit shoddy for today's standards. Groundskeeping has come a long way in the last two decades. Being traded from the NL to the AL during the '73 season, Bibby is one of the first players to lose his batting privileges due to the DH. He pitched a no-hitter against the A's in '73 and became a member of the We Are Family, Buccos championship team of 1979.

The '74 season was Jim's workhorse year, starting 41 games and going 19-19. That's 38 decisions, folks. He was just one win and loss away from being both a 20 game winner and a 20 game loser. Imagine a 20-game winner with a record under .500. Man, baseball has changed.

A personal note on card graphics here. I had a 20 year career in architecture, so I know a bit about hand drafting. This original card border was drafted by hand, most likely with a pencil, and reproduced a bit on the primitive side. If you look at the upper right curved piping, you can notice that the drafter didn't put the circle template down correctly, as the arcs fall just short of the straight lines. In the lower left, the opposite occurs. The arcs overshoot their tangent. The line value also changes around the card, especially where lines meet arcs. Today's computer software designs just don't have that. If I were a high school drafting teacher, the Topps graphic artist would get a B-. Okay, enough of my geekiness.

Cartoon: Jim's brother played with the NY Knicks? Wow. It's one thing for family members to play baseball, it's another to split sports. Notice that each cartoon character is left handed. Conspiracy?

Ballpark background: Here, Jim is having his picture taken at Yankee Stadium during the 1973 season, likely August 7th (a twi-night double header) or 8th (day game). He was traded from St. Louis to Texas after the Rangers' first visit to the Bronx Zoo, so this pic was likely taken on their last visit. It's an overcast day, so time of day is hard to pin down. The tiny crowd in the bleachers may indicate either Yankee futility or early afternoon warm-up photos.

Ballpark Backgrounds and Other Stuff

2010-09-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

I like trying to figure out which ballpark is in the background of each card photo. Some are obvious, some take a bit of figuring. I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area, and many of the 70's cards were shot either in Oakland (AL) or San Francisco (NL). This is one reason I always try to get the location.

In each card description, I'm going to put the ballpark. If it's spring training, I'll say that, or if it cannot be identified at all. I'm going to add labels, and start each ballpark label name with the letters "bp" (e.g. "bp Shea Stadium") so that all ballparks are consecutive in one group in my labels list in my right margin. I'm also going to label players' positions (label starts with "pos"), and whether the photo (label starts with "pic") is a pose, action or candid shot, and the team (label starts with "tm"). Also, since players were smaller back then and did less muscle building, I'm going to label players over 200 lbs. I'll probably add other stuff as I go along, and if it's early enough in the set, I may do it retroactively with cards already posted.

I'm also going to include in my card description my comments about the cartoon found on the back of each 1974 Topps card.

#10 - Johnny Bench (CIN)

2010-09-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest catchers to ever play baseball. Today, Johnny and Yogi Berra are viewed just about as the two greatest ever. Johnny revolutionized catching with his patented one hand behind the back style. Not many injuries from foul tips or wild swingers. And this is the guy flat in the middle of that monster Big Red Machine lineup. It's enough to be a power hitting catcher, but that fact is overwhelming in knowing just how good a hitter he was. I hated the Big Red Machine back in the 70's, being a Giants fan myself, but just to be honest, it was a very respectful hatred. Except for Pete Rose.

Do you get the idea that the Topps editors wanted its collectors to know about Johnny's 1970 and '72 seasons? I wonder why. But I'd like to call attention to the double-knit polyester pullover pajama uniform Bench is wearing. And the half-calf stirrups. You won't find that in today's game, although it's nice that he didn't pull them up high enough to just see the stripes up the sides of the legs. Solid leggings look a bit better. Especially on a player like Bench. If Johnny ever had an air-brushed card photo, would the artist use Krylon paint?

Cartoon: I didn't know that Johnny sang country music. He's from Oklahoma, so I could guess that he listened to it. I wonder if his singing ever started any bar fights. Say, it looks like the Topps cartoonist had a good job for a while. Must have been seasonal work. Did this guy file for unemployment once the season started?

Ballpark background: Johnny is sporting the Reds road uniforms, and the players in the dugout in the background are displaying New York Mets home threads. My eddicated guess is that this ballpark background is Shea Stadium.

#9 - Mickey Lolich (DET)

2010-09-11T00:05:00.000-07:00

Uhm, what can I say? This is Mickey Lolich. I always liked Mickey. I always associated him with the '68 Tigers championship team, where he won three of their four WS games. I had his '71 Topps card in my shoebox, and for some reason I just loved it. He has a very similar pose on the two cards: the my-followthrough-just-stopped-and-I'm-waiting-to-see-if-the-batter-hits-a-line-drive-at-my-head pose.

Here, Mickey is donning the Tigers' new road uniforms, with the orange "D" on the cap, and the added piping and blue and orange striping. In my opinion, this is a major downgrade from their classic road uni's. The Tigers also adopted the double knit polyester pullover pajama uniforms, with the elastic waistband and no belt. Mickey was a switch-hitting pitcher, a very rare breed indeed. I also notice a drastic increase in sloppy penmanship from his '71 autograph to the one here. Mickey is also the first player in this card set to weigh 200 lbs or more.

Cartoon: Mickey relaxes by riding a motorcycle? So does Jeff Kent. Times have changed in just a few decades with guaranteed contracts - and their severe off-the-field activity clauses. These days, a player riding a motorcycle is grounds for contract termination and Tweet humor.

Background ballpark: This picture was taken at Comiskey Park. Notice the break in the double decks in center field, and the scoreboard. I also love the arched openings that so define Old Comiskey. Also notice what appears to be two-tone grass just behind his back, and a sliver just off his right shoulder. In the early 70's, Comiskey Park had a bizarre playing surface configuration. Astro-turf in the infield, and real grass in the outfield. Foul territory had a seam between grass and artificial turf stretching from first and third bases to the stands.

#8 - George Theodore (NYM)

2010-09-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

This would be George Theodore's only Topps baseball card of his career. He played two seasons with the Mets, 1973 and 1974. He saw limited action with 45 games in '73 and 60 games in '74. He hit only two homers, one in each year. His '75 homer came in 76 at bats, a solo shot for his only RBI of the year. Only 12 of his 26 games were in the outfield, and he made 2 errors in 7 total chances.

An interesting positioning of Theodore in Topps numbering system places him at card #8, just after #7 Catfish Hunter. These two cards came after all the front-loaded Hank Aaron stuff. The A's played the Mets in the World Series in 1973. Theodore played in two of the games, games 2 and 4. In game 2, he pinch hit for Mets pitcher Ray Sadecki and grounded out to short. Not much help in the Mets 10-7 win. In game 4, he was a late 8th inning defensive replacement for outfielder Cleon Jones, then popped out to end their half of that inning in another Mets win. Back out in the field in the 9th, the A's hit two singles to left field (there's no record of Theodore fielding the ball, and he was not credited with a fielding chance), so that half inning secured a Mets victory, and his major league career was essentially over. Catfish Hunter pitched in games 3 and 6, so the two never faced each other.

Nickname: Stork

Typo: George is shown here with a birthdate of 11-13-47, but all other records indicate he was actually born in '46.

Cartoon: George likes marshmallow milkshakes? I wouldn't know. But he sure makes a slurping noise.

Background ballpark: Shea Stadium, during batting practice

About The 1974 Topps Set

2010-09-05T00:25:00.000-07:00

The 1974 Topps set has some unique facts about it. It was the first Topps set to not be issued in series. The '73 set was the last set put out in series. All 660 cards were issued in one set. Later in the year, a special "Trades" set was issued to show players who had switched teams, presumably by trade. All cards in the Trades set have the word "Traded" across the bottom of the picture. This set was analogous to previous "high series" cards in years gone by.

The Trades set, since it was issued separately from the regular set, is considered by most card experts to NOT be a part of the 1974 Topps set itself. But, contrary to the experts, I DO consider it to be part of the same set. I collected them, and they were found in standard wax packs at the end of the year, I put them in the same shoe boxes with the same teams, I played with them just like the other cards, so those are the reasons why. The Trades cards did not have their own unique numbers, starting with 661. They used the same card number of the respective player in the regular set and added the letter "T" to the card number. So, Jim Wynn's standard card number was 43, and his traded card was 43T. The Trades checklist, unlike the checklist cards in the regular set, didn't have a card number. The fronts of the Trades cards are a collection of some of the most hideous photograph air brushing in baseball card history. Almost every card is airbrushed, since Topps had no time to get photographs of players in their new team's uniforms. Bob Locker's card is difficult to determine whether it was airbrushed or not, and if it was, it was a good job. The backs of the Trades cards contained no statistics, but were a mock "Baseball News" newspaper story and headline about the player's trade.

Topps also included a cool gimmick in '74: the Team checklist. Team checklist cards were not part of the numbered set, but were both found in wax packs and purchased separately in sheet form. You sent money to Topps, they'd send you the checklist sheets, and you'd cut the cards out (carefully) and put them in your set. The team checklists were un-numbered, and had each player's signature on the front, while the rear of the card contained each team's checklist. I will be posting each team checklist card immediately after that same team's normal team card (i.e. Baltimore Orioles will have their team checklist card posted after card #16). [Update: Thanks to Joe and WW for their comments below. Apparently team checklists were both part of wax packs and came in sheets. Corrections have been made to this post.]

Specialty card in this set include: a special layout for Hank Aaron's card #1 announcing him as the new all-time home run king. Five more cards show all of Hank's previous Topps card faces and give career info for the Hammer. League leaders from 1973 in various categories. All-Star cards showing all the starters in the 1973 game, position by position. Post-season cards highlighting the playoffs, each game of the 1973 World Series and the A's celebration. Also were non-team specific rookie stars cards.

One of the most interesting aspects of this set is that it was originally created with the idea that the San Diego Padres were going to move to Washington, D.C. for the '74 season. No team name was created yet, and no uniforms were made. So, Topps started issuing the Padres cards as "Washington" as the city name, and "Nat'l League" in place of the team name. When the Padres announced they would remain in San Diego for the 1974 season, Topps altered all Padres cards back to the traditional (all of five years for this expansion team at the time!) San Diego Padres. The Wash/Nat'l League cards were in the minority, and are more rare, and thus more valuable. Not all Padres cards were issued with a Washington format. I'm curious as to why this is, given that this '74 set was not issued in series, but as a whole set. If anybody can shed some light on that, please let me know!

All in all, the 1974 Topps set is not my favorite set, design wise. It's just the one I started collecting en masse. It's the one I remember most. I find the photography to be of lesser quality than of previous years, and the card design is just so-so. The dark green backs often make it difficult to read the stats. But I love the set nonetheless. This post will be placed on my pages list at the top of the blog under "About This Set."

#7 - Jim Hunter (OAK)

2010-09-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Jim "Catfish" Hunter. Or, simply Catfish Hunter, as I knew him as a kid. I grew up 20 miles east of Oakland and the A's won their first of three consecutive World Series in 1972 when I was eight. These came in the middle of five consecutive division titles. It was a great time to be a kid. I wasn't old enough to know that the Charlie Finley A's were a tiny blip invaders in a market that had been dominated by the Giants and Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Cepeda, Perry and Bonds. Their three trophy seasons only produced one season with a million in attendance. When you're a kid, things like that don't matter.

Catfish would end up in the Hall of Fame, and looking at his numbers from '71-'73 here, it's no wonder. All the A's players were intimate household names. Here, he's seen with a mustache, another crazy scheme of eccentric owner Finley. Finley paid any of his players 50 bucks to grow a 'stache. In those days, fifty bucks was a lot of cash, so most players joined in. Finley also relaxed facial hair and hair policies from the rest of baseball. The A's were also known as "The Mustacheo A's" in the early 70's. Rollie Fingers grew a handlebar mustache during that time and it became his career trademark.

Finley also started a uniform revolution. The A's started wearing white shoes in the 60's, along with a bit of color with their yellow vest uni's and green undersleeves. In 1972, the A's changed their look radically, with the donning of double-knit polyester pullover jerseys and pants without a belt, favoring an elastic waistband instead. Their hats took the traditional Gothic "A" and added an apostrophe and an "s." Their official colors were Kelly Green, California Gold and Wedding Gown White. Announcer Monte Moore always talked about the colors.

This picture of Catfish was taken on a Sunday, as the A's wore white on Sundays and either green or gold the rest of the week. This 1974 year would be his last with the green and gold, as he had a dispute with Finley and ended up with the Yankees the next year. Catfish Hunter will always hold a special place in my heart, as such things stick in the mind of a kid the rest of his life.

#6 - Hank Aaron Special - '69-'73

2010-08-30T01:34:00.000-07:00

First, Hank's four Topps cards. I love these four years, and the first three are great cards of Hank. In the 1970 shot, he's holding his glove and a ball. I like it because it is different from most posed shots. The '71 is a good shot, with what appears to be Shea Stadium stands in the background. I love the double-A "aa" in lower case letters on this card. The 1972 is a good pose, and appears to be from Spring Training. Even though Hank is an aging player, the psychedelic color layout works well with his photo. Okay, to be honest, his 1973 card leaves quite a lot to be desired. He's been moved from outfield to first base, the Braves have terrible new uniforms, he's trapped in an "action" shot that has little action other than fighting the sun with his shades down, and there's a horrible outfield fence in the background.

As I looked at the back, and his milestone homers, I noticed one pitcher standing out: Sandy Koufax. Then it suddenly occurred to me that his homer off Koufax would NOT have been at Dodger Stadium, but rather at the LA Colisuem, since it was 1959. Sure enough, and here's the box score. Koufax pitched one inning, the 9th, trailing 5-0, and gave up a homer to Hank, his second of the game. With Koufax as a lefty, and that short left field fence and 40 ft. high net, he could have popped a Wally Moon shot.

As I looked at the other teams on his milestone list, I realized that he played in a great number of ballparks in his career! Most teams in the National League during his career either moved, built new ballparks, or a combination of both. Then he returned to Milwaukee in 1975 to play in the American league and racked up eleven more new stadiums. I count 37 total ballparks. Here's a list as comprehensive as I think I can get: Hank would have played in four parks against the Dodgers: Ebbet's Field in Brooklyn (1954-1957), two games in Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ (one in 1956 and one in '57), The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (1958-1961), and Dodger Stadium (1962-1974); three parks against the Giants: Polo Grounds (1954-1957), Seals Stadium (1958-1959), and Candlestick Park (1960-1974); two parks against the Cardinals: Sportsman's Park (1954-1965) and Busch Stadium (1966-1974); two parks with the Braves: County Stadium (1954-1965), and Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium (1966-1974); two parks against the Reds: Crosley Field (1954-1970), and Riverfront Stadium (1970-1974); two parks against the Phillies: Shibe Park (1954-1970), and Veterans' Stadium (1971-1974); two parks against the Pirates: Forbes Field (1954-1970), and Three Rivers Stadium (1970-1974); one park against the Cubs: Wrigley Field (1954-1974); two parks against the Astros: Colts Stadium (1962-1964), and The Astrodome (1965-1974); two parks against the Mets, but only one of them new: the Polo Grounds (again, 1962-1963), Shea Stadium (1964-1974); one park against the Expos: Parc Jarry (1969-1974); and one park against the Padres: Jack Murphy Stadium (1969-1974). Then in the American League (1975-1976, unless otherwise noted): two parks against the Yankees, but only one of them new: Shea Stadium (1975 during Yankee Stadium remodel), and Yankee Stadium (1976); one park against the Orioles: Memorial Stadium; one park against the Red Sox: Fenway Park; one park against the Indians: Municipal Stadium; one park against the Tigers: Tiger Stadium; one previous park with the Brewers: County Stadium; one park against the Angels: Anaheim Stadium; one park against the White Sox: Comiskey Park; one park against the Royals: Royals Stadium; one park against the Twins: Metropolitan Stadium; one park against the A's: Oakland Coliseum; and one park against the Rangers: Arlington Stadium. Let's not forget All-Star games, either. Two parks in Washington, DC: Griffith Stadium, (1956), and RFK Stadium, (1962 [updated] and 1969); Whew! Way to go, Hank!

#5 - Hank Aaron Special - '66-'69

2010-08-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

Hank continues to rack up Hall-of-Fame accomplishments on the back of this card. The emphasis changes a bit from more season accomplishments on card #4 to a bit more on career milestones on card #5. Amazing. One of the best things about his career numbers is that they were relatively consistent throughout. He broke Ruth's record without ever hitting 50 homers in a season. Many of the other big sticks in baseball history have at least one 50 homer season.

One small thing I've always had against the 1969 Topps set is that it seems the graphic design crew ran out of fresh ideas. It takes the team name with the same font and places it at the same place on the card as the '67 set. It takes the same sized circle from the '68 set and uses the two years combined. Here, the circle is the same color as the '68 set (I think most teams are) and for some reason, Hank's '69 picture is a re-use of the '68, adding to the lack of innovation. Nevertheless, I like the '69 set. Classic Aaron on classic cards. Makes me wish I were a kid again.

Check Out My Baseball Blog: From The Bleachers

2010-08-08T01:45:00.000-07:00

If you like baseball as much as the cards that reflect the game, maybe you would be interested in stopping by my baseball blog, From the Bleachers. I've been writing for over five years on a wide variety of things. Commentary, personal experience, crazy stories, ballpark trips, history, and just sitting in the bleachers (or box seats).

Whether it's my attending 173 regular season games in 11 ballparks in 1986, to George Brett sitting down next to me and a friend in a bar and buying drinks all night, to being at the World Series during the earthquake, or reading my on-line heckling tutorial, I'm sure there's something for everybody. Check it out by clicking here.

#4 - Hank Aaron Special - '62-'65

2010-08-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

So far in this special series of Aaron, the Braves uniforms have not changed much. The hats are consistent. Hank has that gracious built-in smile...always. His hair style stays the same, and he is predictibly clean shaven. But one thing I notice is his face maturing from a young pup to a veteran ballplayer in his prime.

His list of accomplishments on the back of the card piece together just what kind of player he was. In '56 and '59 he led the league in batting. In '57 he led the league in homers. In '57 and '60 he led the league in RBI's. In '56, '57, '59, '60 and '61 he led the league in total bases. The card contains an error in the '61 year, claiming he won TB's for the fourth time, when it was actually his fifth time. In '57 and '58 he won a World Series and a pennant. In '58 he won a gold glove. In '63 he became a member of the 30/30 club. But notice his '62 accomplishment: "Although Hank didn't lead the League in any one category..." Uh, you mean Hank sucked in '62? Yeah, really bad, at .323, 45 and 128! So, Hank showed himself as a triple crown player who could also catch and run. That's a great picture of an overall player.

I grew up 30 miles east of San Francisco and 20 miles east of Oakland. Our famliy took one annual trip to a game in the 70's, usually in Oakland because it was so much closer and with less traffic. But in '74, Hank's all-time record prompted us to take in our first family Giants game when the Braves came to town, hoping to see the Hammer hit. We were disappointed as the homer king was given the day off.

How This Blog Started

2010-08-04T16:23:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I was told of an acquaintance of mine, and friend of many of my friends, that he had a really good blog about modern graphic design. I checked it out and really liked it. Dave C at grain edit was the guy and he and his team have such a talent for coming up with modern graphic design from the 50's to the 70's that they were ranked as one of the top such sites. Anyway, it struck me that the design of the 1972 Topps baseball cards, with their funkadelic layout, would fit in such a site. (I still need to approach him on the subject. Shhhhh!)

I began Googling for material on the '72 set, and came up with a few things. But the best by far was the 1972 Topps Set blog by MMays. Each card was scanned and posted, front and back. The memories came back from my childhood. I realized that I had almost a complete 1974 Topps set, and that I could do such a thing someday. So I tinkered around his blogroll and the blogrolls of those on his blogrolls. I noted that there seemed to be a great hole in the ballcard blogs: 1974. So I put the idea on the back burner until just a couple of weeks ago when I created the 1974 Topps Set blog.

I've been a blogger with Blogger for over five years now. The format changed greatly over this time, and I knew it. I've been fearful of all those mass info losses that people have experienced with changing a blog format. So starting a new blog has been an experiment in experimentation. I think I've got down what I want, and I've got a scanning process in place that should work for the entirety of this project.

I realize that there's a great community of ballcard bloggers out there, and I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes with either doing a 1974 set or using the 1974topps [dot] blogspot [dot] com address. I've found many of you out there after I picked my year and URL. Anyway, I hope to contribute to the community in the same way all those others have contributed to my enjoyment of baseball cards.

[This post will appear in my "pages" link list at the top of my blog under the heading of "How."]

#3 - Hank Aaron Special - '58-'61

2010-08-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

One of Hank's best facial features is that pleasant, built-in smile that always seems to appear in photos of him. He's also built physically for a baseball uniform. He always looks like a ballplayer's ballplayer. The classic Braves uniforms shown in the 1961 card just adds to his appearance. Hank just never looks like a Schmoe.

I've always had a kind of fantasy where I wanted to see the fans up close at his first big league at bat when a time traveler or angel or prophet says to them, "Yep, this kid will break Ruth's record some day." How would they react to such news? And, 20 years later it happened. Of course, neither 714 or 715 could go on the back of this card since he ended the '73 season with 713. All these years later, one thing I think I could say about Aaron is that he has been somewhat underrated as a player. And that's saying a lot.

I heard a story once that said the Giants were the first team to scout Aaron. But the Braves won out by a mere $1200 on a contract. Man, could anybody imagine Mays, Aaron, McCovey and Cepeda in the same lineup? The Giants would have won ten consecutive World Series. Cursed $1200!

#2 - Hank Aaron Special - '54-'57

2010-07-30T01:02:00.000-07:00

In the 1974 Topps set, cards numbered 1 through 6 commemorated Hank Aaron's soon passing of Babe Ruth to become the all time home run king. Card #1 is Hank's '74 card, while cards #2 through #6 were known as "Hank Aaron Specials." These extra five cards showed the face of all of Hank's previous Topps cards (with four faces on each card - times five cards. Hank had 20 previous Topps cards). Additional information is given on the reverse of each "Special" about Hank's career.

Here is the card showing Topps years 1954-1957. The first three of these come with two images and a printed autograph. Look how young he is! Also notice the error on the 1957 card. The image is reversed, and shows Hank batting left handed. I'm sure the "M" on Milwaukee's hat helped out on this one, as "M" is a mirror image of itself. He's turned inward so the "Braves" across his chest can't be seen, but if you look closely, you can see just the bottom of the reversed numeral "4" in his uniform number "44." Rookie mistake at Topps. Hank's list of major league records on the back of this card is impressive. Because the '54 card is a portrait layout and the '55 and '56 are landscape, it makes it a bit difficult to determine that his photo is the same one on all three cards. Another curious thing I noticed is that only on the '54 card is he ever named "Henry." Lastly here, the bottom record on the back shows his then 713 home runs as being the major league record for home runs for the same club.

#1 - Hank Aaron

2010-07-21T01:08:00.000-07:00

Henry Louis Aaron. What can you say? This card shows a 20 year career that is just one home run short of the all time record. 713. It must have been a terrible off-season, waiting all that time to get a shot in April. Hate mail by the truck load, much of it racist, with death threats and all. Move over Babe, here comes Henry.

Topps must have been in a slightly awkward position having to plan and announce their new home run king months in advance. Of course, it happened without too much consternation. They couldn't say what date, though, but did it matter to all the kids out there? I remember watching 714 and 715 on TV and getting caught up in the historical occasion. This card in my collection is a constant reminder.

The photograph of Hank leaves a lot to be desired. His smile is a bit too big, and his hat and uniform logos aren't visible. Maybe they wanted a big smile to go along with the occasion. Five other cards show the entire collection of Topps cards in his career to that date (see upcoming posts). The 1974 is by far the worst. It's been great to see Hank turn out to be such a spokesman - statesman, even - for baseball.

Ballpark background: [Update 09-05-10: I always enjoy trying to figure out the ballpark in the background on a ballcard. This shot appears to have been taken at the 1973 All-Star game in Kansas City. Notice the scoreboard just behind Hank's head.]

Introduction To My 1974 Topps Set

2010-07-18T02:34:00.000-07:00

I started collecting baseball cards in 1971 at the age of seven. I collected several dozen, mostly from candy or variety stores. Although I played in an organized baseball league in 1972 when I was eight, it wasn't until 1973 when I was nine that I played for a Little League with good fields, good grounds, and a snack shack that sold baseball cards. We received tickets after each game that could be used at the snack shack for various items. Since I loved baseball cards I used my tickets occasionally to get a pack after the game.

Well, the next year when I was ten, I went full out in collecting cards. I not only got them from the snack shack, but my mom (bless her!) was in charge of supplying bulk candy, etc., as the Women's Auxiliary President, to the Little League snack shack. We hit up the candy store big time. The local candy store had fully stocked shelves of not just ball card packs - but boxes and cases of cards. My personal 1974 Topps set was well underway.

It is my desire to post both fronts and backs of all my cards in the 1974 set, as is done on most other set blogs and websites. I have the vast majority of '74 Topps cards, with maybe a handful remaining to collect. I will post each card and hopefully give some description of the player and card along with each post. Numerical order seems the most natural to me, but if that isn't the case, I'll say so. Anyway, here goes with a blog that encapsulates a wonderful part of my childhood.