One More for Gibby

 1935-2020

It's like deja vu all over again. The last thing I want is for this blog to evolve into some sort of obituary page with baseball cards.  But I simply cannot let the passing of yet another legend go without any some recognition for what he meant to the sport and to the hobby. So here is one more card for the 1973 Alt-Topps set.

Oddly, with Tom Seaver's recent passing, I had mentioned Bob Gibson and his 1968 "Card That Never Was".  Both he and Seaver pulled the exact same stunt of posing as lefties.  Both even had their cards make it as far as the same proof sheet before being noticed by a sharp-eyed proofreader.

Here are those actual Cards That Never Were again, along with the proof sheet:

You can see Seaver 2nd over in the 2nd row.  Gibson is 7th from the left in the 4th row.

Of course this latest card of Gibson isn't the first time he'd been featured in this blog.  Here are some more cards that I had made in the past:

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.

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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:

One More for "Mr. Tiger"

Last week baseball lost another legend.  Here is one more card in the style of the 1967 Alt-Topps. Over the past several years he has been featured on this blog more than a few times.  In fact, he was even included in my latest posts of the 1967 Alt-Topps.  He was on the AL batting leaders card.

He passed away on the 6th of April and his #6 was retired by Detroit in 1980.  I thought it might be interesting to see how Kaline performed on April 6th over his Hall of Fame career.  But what I came to realize is that the baseball season for the most part used to begin mid-April.  Its has been creeping earlier and earlier since 1970. Kaling had only played on April 6th 3 times in his career. Collectively, he hit .462 in just 3 games: 1970, 1971 and 1974.  He went 6 for 13 with 3 walks, 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored.  Not bad.

Here are the cards that I've created for this blog in the past:

Even More 1975 Alt-Topps

Traded, Post-Season, Leaders and Rookie Stars

There were certainly bigger trades in the 1975 season.  In my last post I mentioned two, Hank Aaron and Bobby Murcer. But here are couple semi-stars that ended up on unexpected teams. (Sorry Buzz if I stole your thunder).  Padres star Nate Colbert found himself on the Tigers for the first part of the 1975 season. He was later purchased by the Expos and would end the season in Montreal. After the Cubs traded Randy Hundley to the Twins in 1974, he was released then signed by the Padres. In 1976 he would return to the Cubs, He finished his career there in a much diminished capacity.

For the Playoff/World Series cards, I tried to incorporate both team color schemes. Rather than mimic the actual 1975 two-tone color scheme, I faded the colors.

On the leader cards, I kept the gradient color background of the playoff cards for continuity.  I copied the mid-seventies style of having one leader from each league on the cards. I also incorporated the team logos onto the cards as I did on the traded cards.

I had to include a HR leaders card which featured one of my favorite players, Dick Allen. In the NL Mike Schmidt won the first of 8 home run titles.  Rod Carew led the AL in batting average 6 times in the 1970s.  Meanwhile in the NL, "the Roadrunner" Ralph Garr hit a career high .353 and led the league in triples with 17.

Just for good measure, I threw in a couple Alt-Topps All Star Rookies.  Frank Tanana would go on to lead the league in strikeouts in 1975. Bill Madlock would be Co-MVP of the 1975 All Star Game.