A few more from Rating the Rookies

Over at my other blog, Rating the Rookies, I am still creating Cards That Never Were. Here a a few of my latest creations:

Dan Boitano, Willie Mueller, and Lenn Sakata shared a 1980 Topps Future Stars card while on the Brewers. You can see the whole story by clicking here.

In 1975 Marc Hill, Dan Meyer, and Leon Roberts shared a Topps rookie card with future Hall of Famer Gary Carter. The full post is available here.

1989 Topps Mickey Mantle

1989 was another bland effort by Topps. I'm all for a clean and classic design, but this could have used a little help. Maybe using the actual team logo instead of  a standard font for all teams. Plus there is no position or even a facsimile autograph. Action shots were also few and far between. They did, however, manage to squeeze their logo in. With so many card sets issued in 1989, Topps got lost in the crowd.

1975 Topps 1964 Rookies of the Year

Here is the 1964 edition of my running theme using the 1975 Topps MVP card format to showcase the Rookies of the Year.  And once again in 1964 neither Rookie had his own card, both were featured on multi-player rookie cards. Even so, the "Cards That Never Were" featured on this ROY Card were already made for me.

First the American League rookie, Tony Oliva. Leading the league in Hits, Runs Scored, Doubles, Batting Average and Overall Bases, Oliva was a near unanimous winner. Wally Bunker, a 19 game winner for the Orioles received one vote. In both 1963 and 1964 Topps featured Oliva on multi-player rookie cards, but in 1989, Topps created an individual 1964 rookie card of him as part of their "Turn Back the Clock" subset.

In the National League, Dick Allen was putting up similar numbers. He led the league in Triples, Runs Scored and Total Bases. Allen was also nearly unanimous in ROY voting with Rico Carty and Jim Ray Hart each getting one vote.  

Like Oliva, Allen was featured on a multi-player rookie card in 1964. Naturally for all things Dick Allen, I have to defer to the Dick Allen Hall of Fame. He has remade all of Allen's cards, and is in the process of placing him on every Topps issued card. In addition he posts photos and updates for all Phillies games and has numerous other home made cards. He was kind enough to let me use his 1964 card in this post. 

Another card I asked to repost was his 1977 Topps Dick Allen Card That Never Was.

Allen spent his last season as a first baseman for Charlie Finley's depleted Oakland A's. During his time in Oakland he wore the number 60 on his back and Wampum on his name-plate. He graduated from Wampum (Pennsylvania) High School in 1960. Very cool, and just another reason why I have always been a big fan of Dick Allen.

Once again I want to give a big thank you to the Dick Allen Hall of Fame blog for an assist on this posting.

1986 Topps Pete Rose Special 1986-1989

In 1986 Topps put out a series of Pete Rose cards similar to the 1974 Hank Aaron Specials. On the back they were referred to as "The Pete Rose Years", but on the their checklist Topps referred to them as "Rose Specials".

Of course the cards put out in 1986 do not include his entire career which ended as a player in 1986 but continued as a Manager until 1989. Rose was the last Player/Manager in the MLB in 1986. Before giving the job to Robin Ventura, Kenny Williams had considered making Paul Konerko a Player/Manager of the White Sox.