1973 Alt-Topps Requests

 We've had a few distractions during this thread. Some were good, Alec Mills surprise no-no. Most were not, the passing of Tom Seaver, Lou Brock and Gale Sayers.  So finally, here are the requests:

 Just a few requests this time. "Rumple" wanted to see Willie Mays and Ken Boswell of the Mets.  I used the All Star Format for the aging "Say Hey Kid". It was his last All-Star start.  He was the replacement starter for Roberto Clemente. Clemente had just come back from 2 weeks off with an injury then played a 12 inning game against Cincy just before the All Star break.  Danny Murtaugh, both the Pirates manager and the All Star manager, gave him the night off to rest.  Sadly, that would have been Roberto's last All Star game, too.

"Bob" wanted to see if a longer team name would work in the horizontal format.  So I made a multiplayer card. These were more prevalent in the 60s but this pose looked like it was made for one of those cards.  The team name is compressed but I think it still works.

Since there are always requests for post-season cards, I couldn't pass up using these two great pictures from the 1972 Pennant Series.  The reaction of Dick Williams and Mike Hegan in the background as Tenace crosses the plate is priceless. The A's scored the winning run on an errant throw in the 11th inning to beat the Tigers in game 1 by a score of 3-2.  

Although Clemente took out Darrel Chaney in what would possibly be an illegal move today, The Pirates went down quietly 7-1 to the Reds in game 4 of the NLCS.

**********************************************

Another note on this post. It wasn't showing up on other blog lists. So I had to delete and re-post it.  Has anyone else encountered this with the new blogger format?

Gale Sayers

1943-2020

2020 can't end soon enough for me. Seems like bad news everyday.  Today a personal hero and Bears great , Gale Sayers passed away.  Looks like I'll be re-watching "Brian's Song" tonight.  One of the few movies that it is acceptable to see a grown-ass man cry.

His career was cut short by injuries, and he was pretty well represented on cardboard due to his super-stardom.  He even had a 1972 card despite retiring that September.  So I had to settle for this odd ball 1971 Kelloggs 3D Card That Never Was.  

I had made one other card of the Kansas Comet. That was his Rookie of the Year card from the 1965 Philadelphia set:

**************************************************

For those of you that caught it, I removed my previous post from today and posted this instead.  I will repost the requests from the 1973 Alt Topps set in a few days.

Alec Mills No-Hits the Brewers

2020 has seen two no-hitters and both were tossed by Chicago pitchers.  Alec Mills pitched the 16th no-no in franchise history.  Not surprisingly, Mills did not even have a card in any major set this season.  His only card is in the latest wave of 2020 Topps Total.  So here is a 2020 Heritage to commemorate the occasion. 

Even More 1973 Alt-Topps

All Stars, Leaders, World Series and Team Cards

It's unfortunate that I had to break from this series of posts.  I paused to pay tribute (in my own unusual way) to two superstar players who coincidentally, were in their prime in 1973, Tom Seaver and Lou Brock. 

Getting back to my Alt-Topps 1973 set, once again, I decided to take another unused Topps prototype for a subset. I chose the Hammer and Rod Carew to represent the 1973 Alt-Topps All Star set.

I saw this oddball mash-up among the group of Topps rejects. It's Pete Ward in the same pose as his 1964 Topps Stand-Up card.  But the team is the Orioles and the name on the card is Vida Blue.  There would be no way I could possibly make this card design into an entire set.  But it was simply way too cool not to use, so instead I used it as my 1973 All Star insert card design.

For my leader cards I went traditional(ish) in the design, but I took some liberties by including leaders in slugging percentage. I like the idea of non-traditional stats being used for leader cards.  That might be an upcoming post....

For the World Series I used traditional Red-White-Blue color scheme. This shot of the Series MVP Gene Tenace scoring the winning run in front of a dejected Johnny Bench is a classic.

The team cards are about a 50/50 ratio design to team photo.  Other than that they are fairly traditional team cards.

I chose the Royals and Expos just because I hadn't made any cards of them yet.  I don't want anyone to feel left out.

********************************************

Just as I've done in previous Alt-Topps posts, I'll make as many request as I can. Hopefully, I'll post them in a few weeks. Just post your requests (or even ideas for other subsets, etc) in the comment section.  Thanks.

Lou Brock

1939-2020

Depending on whether you were from St. Louis or Chicago, Lou Brock is remembered as the greatest trade of all time or the worst.  But he was honored and respected universally. He passed away yesterday at the age of 81. The same season that Hank Aaron set the all time homerun record, Brock set the single season stolen base record.  That was the year I really began collecting and these were my favorite (non-hometown) players.

I'm in the midst of creating an Alt-Topps series for 1973 and this card fits in nicely.  I've also created a number of cards featuring Lou Brock over the years.  Many were stolen base leader cards which Topps didn't include until 1973.  Here they are again: