After a long holiday break, I have a few more All Star Cards That Never Were to share. In 1958, Topps created the first All Star series of cards to appear as part of the regular set. In that set, Topps had Bob Friend as the "Sport Magazine '58 All Star Selection". Warren Spahn was the left handed "selection".
As it turns out, Spahn was the starting pitcher for the NL in the 1958 ASG and Friend was the first righty to come on in relief. Solid, picks by Topps, specially seeing how this was a late enough series in the 1958 set and they most likely used the power of hindsight.
But just for the sake of argument, and to be consistent with my own agenda, here is a couple cards that never were based on the 1957 ASG. In 1957 Curt Simmons was the starter and Lew Burdette was the first righty to come on in relief.
Here is where Topps takes a turn that only Topps could. For their "58 All Star Selection" they chose Ed Bailey, who was the starter in the 1957 game. Del Crandall was the starter in the 1958 ASG. Crandall was also the Sporting News All Star selection for 1958.
Excellent cards. Glad to see you're back.
ReplyDeleteGreat work on these and love the uniform details visible on Crandall's photo.
ReplyDeleteThat first 1958 Topps All-Star subset came about, IIRC, because they signed Stan Musial to a new card deal midseason and were about to lose Ted Williams to an exclusive deal with Fleer for 1959 and wanted to sell on-card ad space to Sport Magazine. Glad that Topps stuck with All-Star cards over the years, as it's one of their best subsets.