1966 Topps NL Leading Firemen: Abernathy, Linzy, McCool

In 1965 the Fireman of the Year awards went to Chicago pitchers on the North Side and the South Side. On the North Side, Abernathy also led the league in Saves with 31. His nearst competition came from Frank Linzy and Billy McCool with 21 saves each. Both Linzy and McCool had 9 wins but Linzy had the better record with 3 losses compared to McCool's 10.

1966 Topps AL Leading Firemen: Kline, Fisher, Miller

Once again the pitcher with the most saves was not the "Fireman of the Year". I've given up trying to figure out how The Sporting News determined the leaders. So I've ranked them once again strictly by save totals.

 In 1965 Ron Kline led the AL with 29 saves but the Sporting News Fireman of the Year award went to Eddie Fisher. Fisher had 5 fewer saves but also had 4 fewer blown saves. He had the most pitching appearances and a 15-7 won-loss record compared to Kline's 7-6. Fisher also pitched the final 2 innings of the 1965 All Star Game. He surrendered a single hit to crosstown rival Ernie Banks. Rounding out the top 3 was Stu Miller. Miller was tied with Fisher with 24 saves but had 14 relief wins compared to Fisher's 15.

2024 Topps Heritage

This year's 1965 design for the Heritage set is one of my favorites. And I don't think I am alone. But it seems that every year, just after the set has been out for a little while, people start anticipating next year's set. But what I am really looking forward to the set 10 years from now. The 1975 set included one of my favorite subsets: the MVP cards. 1975 was the 25th year for Topps Baseball cards but 2024 will only be the 24th year of the heritage sets because they never made a set for the 1951 cards. 

In anticipation of this set, I've cobbled together a few MVP cards I hope will be included in their set.

I had to cheat on this one because Ichiro was not included in the initial heritage set but he did have a card in the 2006 Topps '52 set. Close enough.

1979 Topps Rookie Prospects

There were 9 different players receiving Rookie of the Year votes in 1979. Only 4 appeared on cardboard that year. In my past posts I made cards for Rick Sutcliffe and John Castino. I also made a card for Alfredo Griffin on the Blue Jays. Just to satisfy my O.C.D. I needed to create a card for the other Rookie of the Year candidates.

Jeffery Leonard, Mark Clear and Ron Davis were left out of the 1979 Topps set. Rather than make individual cards for them or remaking the team prospect cards, I put them all on one card. The 1979 prospects cards were not great looking cards. They look like they took the photos directly the team media guide. Many of them had the players wearing their minor league uniforms like the photo I used of Mike Clear. 

The remaining players receiving ROY votes were Scot Thompson of the Cubs, Pat Putnam of the Rangers and Russ Baumgarten of the White Sox.

1979 Topps Rick Sutcliffe

Rick Sutcliffe was the NL Rookie of the Year in 1979. Although he came up for a cup of coffee with the Dodgers in both 1976 and 1978, he would finally make an impact in 1979.  He won 17 games and lost only 10 on a sub-five hundred team. He would later win the Cy Young award in 1984.