1971 Alt-Topps

Here is another design that I only had a black and white image to work with. I tried to replicate it using a similar shot of the great Roberto Clemente. The Font is reminiscent of Topps 1971 football cards. That plus the photo of Clemente drove may decision to make this an Alt-1971 set. 

One quirk about this prototype is the oddly specific player position. Here it defines Clemente's position as "Right Field" instead of the more generic "Outfield".

As usual, I created base cards of the MVP and Cy Young Award Winners. In 1971 the NL Cy Young winner was Fergie Jenkins.  Always a workhorse for the Cubs, Jenkins led the league in complete games and innings pitched. He also led in Wins with 24. He also led in strikeouts to walk ratio with an outrageous 7.11 to 1. The next closest was Tom Seaver with 4.74 to 1.

The AL Cy Young winner was Vida Blue. Blue also had 24 victories and was simply lights-out in 1971. He led the league in Pitching Ratio and ERA, and averaged 8.7 strikeouts per 9 innings. His performance also garnered the AL MVP.

The NL MVP was cardinals third-baseman, Joe Torre. A Gold Glove catcher for the Braves, he was dealt to the Cardinals in 1969 after his offensive stats began to sag. The Cards made him a corner man and his numbers went right back up. In 1971 he led the NL in RBI's, Batting Average, Hits and Total Bases.

Since the AL MVP already has a card, I decided to make a base card of 1971 Comeback Player of the Year. This was Norm Cash's second time winning the award. In 1965 he hit .223 with 7 homers in the first half of the season.  In the second half he batted .307 with 23 dingers. After hitting .259 with 15 homers in 1970 his first half of 1971 rose to .293 with 20 homers and an All Star start.