Topps All-Star Misses: 1968 NL Battery

 The National League All Star battery according to Topps in 1968 was Ken Holtzman (LHP), Bob Gibson (RHP) and Tim McCarvey (catcher).  The actual Sporting News All Star selections for 1968 were Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal (both starting pitchers, both right-handed. I don't get this either). At catcher TSN had the rookie, Johnny Bench.

Juan Marichal, being one of the Sporting News All Star selections for 1968, plus being the starter in the 1967 All Star Game certainly deserved a card in the 1968 All Star subset.

Chris Short (who much like Maury Wills, was ignored by Topps from 1959-1966 for unknown reasons) was the first left handed pitcher to make an appearance in the 1967 ASG. TSN made no All Star selection for LHP in the NL. The only lefties to leave the bullpen in the 1968 ASG were Short and Mike Cuellar.  Since Short was the first to appear (9th and 10th inning, Cuellar pitched the 11th and 12th), he gets an All Star Card That Never Was.  At least in my alternative reality... 

The starting catcher in the 1967 ASG was Joe Torre. Topps had McCarver who was a reserve in 1967. McCarver outperformed Torre going 2 for 2. Torre went 0 for 2.

Here is another cool possibility.  Johnny Bench's first Topps card was a Reds Rookie Stars card in 1968, shared with pitcher, Ron Tompkins.  He was also the actual Sporting News All Star Selection in 1968. Wouldn't it have been great if his first solo card was an All Star card from the same season?

Who probably didn't merit inclusion in the 1968 Topps All-Star set, but was in it anyway?

Ken Holtzman

Ken Holtzman had a 9-0 record and 2.53 ERA in 1967.  Due to military service he only pitched 12 games.  Billed as "the next Sandy Koufax" the young Jewish lefty had a great 1967 season despite not pitching enough inning to qualify for any league leader categories.  He would not play in an ASG until 1972 after he was traded to Oakland.  He didn't get named to The Sporting News All Star roster until 1973.

1965 & 1966 Topps Chris Short

This is the final installment of my versions of the Chris Short cards that never were. If you read the last few posts you know that like Maury Wills, Short was missing from Topps sets during the same time period for possibly similar reasons. Unlike Wills, the missing Chris Short cards are not as well documented. 

Chris Short led the Phillies in starts and innings pitched in 1965. He still managed to make 7 relief appearances earning 2 saves. The left-out lefty had a career high 237 strikeouts and went 18-11.

In 1966 Short won a career high 20 games which was enough for at least one sports writer to throw him an MVP vote. 

1963 & 1964 Topps Chris Short

I am continuing with my versions of the Chris Short cards that never were. If you read the last few posts you know that like Maury Wills, Short was missing from Topps sets during the same time period for possibly similar reasons. Unlike Wills, the missing Chris Short cards are not as well documented. 

In 1963 Chris Short was a semi-regular in the Phillies rotation. The Phillies themselves improved from a 7th place finish in 1962 to 4th place in 1963 but Short's record fell below .500 again. On the bright side, he was throwing a lot more strikeouts and his ERA dropped below 3.00 for the first time in his career.

In 1964 The Phillies had a 6 1/2 game lead in the NL pennant chase on September 20th, only to succumb to an epic 10 game losing streak to land in 2nd place behind the Cards. 

Short's season reflected the Phillies efforts as well. He was 17-7 with his last win of the season coming on September 14th. His final 5 games of 1964 resulted in 2 losses and 3 no-decisions. He also made  his first All Star appearance and even garnered a couple MVP votes. In addition to his 17-9 record, he had 181 K's and was 3rd in the NL with a 2.20 ERA. (Which is what started this whole thread)

1961 & 1962 Topps Chris Short

I am continuing with my versions of the Chris Short cards that never were. If you read the last few posts you know that like Maury Wills, Short was missing from Topps sets during the same time period for possibly similar reasons. Unlike Wills, the missing Chris Short cards are not as well documented. 

In 1961 Chris short led the league in wild pitches. He was still splitting time between starting and coming out of the pen. His record was an abysmal 6-12 with a 5.94 ERA. Although his record was right in line with the last place Phillies, who had an overall record of 47-107 and gave up an average of 5.1 runs.

The 1962 Phillies improved to 81-80. That was still only good enough for 7th place, only beating out the 2 expansion teams and the Cubs' disasterous "College of Coaches".

Chris Short improved as well. His record went to 11-9 and his wild pitches were cut in half.

1959 & 1960 Topps Chris Short

If you have been following this blog you know that I stumbled upon a player who like Maury Wills, started in 1959 but (possibly) because of contractual problems with Topps had no cards until 1967. There have been several takes on the missing Will cards. A couple of those coming from Topps themselves. If you want to see all of them in one place follow this link to the Garvey-Cey-Russell-Lopes blog. He has created some very nice versions of Wills' missing cards.

For my part I plan to double up on my Chris Short cards. Frankly there is not as much to say about Short as there is Wills. But I am not good enough to crank out 8 cards at once and still keep my day job.

I went with the "Rookie Stars" format for his 1959 card. Short was hardly a "star" in 1959. He appeared in only 3 games getting no decisions but surrendering 3 homers and 13 earned runs in just over 14 innings. But that puts him right in league with the other riff-raff that made up the "Rookie Stars of 1959". This was a very cool looking subset with mostly mediocre rookies. To my count 9 of the 31 players featured in this subset didn't even play in 1959. Several others saw very limited play.

In 1960 Short made the squad on a more permanent basis. He played 3 games in AAA Indianapolis then  appeared in 42 games for the big league club. Most of his appearances were in relief but he did manage 6 wins, 3 saves and a respectable 3.94 ERA.

1965 Topps National League ERA Leaders Redux

While making these recent posts featuring 1965 leader cards that never were, I stumbled upon a mystery. 

 I was wondering why Topps made their ERA leader cards with only 2 pitchers instead of the usual 3. This is the original NL ERA Leader card. The card above is what I think it should have been.

In 1962 they made a couple leader cards with 3 players instead of 4 because there were players tied for 4th place. In this case it was because Joe Adcock and Dick Stuart were tied for 4th with 35 homers.

And in this case because Johnny Podres, Lew Burdette and Sandy Koufax were tied for 4th with 18 wins each. (By the way, which Topps employee let their 4 year old daughter cut these pictures out?)

But normally Topps just keeps adding players like in this ridiculous 1970 leader card where they doubled the normal number of photos to accommodate the 4 way tie for 3rd with 20 wins each.

Even in the 1965 season they bumped the number of players up to 4 in this case to accommodate Mantle and Killebrew's tie for 3rd with 111 RBIs each.

And included 5 photos in 2 of their leader cards to include all 3 tied for 3rd in homers.

and in this case the 2 tied for the lead with 20 wins and the 3 tied with 19 behind them.

So why only 2?  

The answer is Chris Short.

Like Maury Wills, Chris Short made his Major League debut in 1959 and also like Wills, short had his 1st Topps card in 1967. From '59-'67 Maury Wills was playing in World Series, winning the NL MVP and setting stolen base records and was conspicuously missing from Topps sets. He was, however, included in Post and Fleer sets of that era. Chris Short was just missing. No Post cereal cards. No 1963 Fleer card. Nothing. He was a solid pitcher, though. He was a regular in the Phillies rotation, even representing Philadelphia in the 1964 All Star game.

If the explanation for why Wills had no cards from 1959-1966 is simply that Fleer got to him first, then why didn't Chris Short have any cards (including Fleer) during that same period? After digging around the interwebs I found only one unsubstantiated reference stating that Chris Short was under exclusive contract with Fleer and set to appear in a later series that was never published. If anybody has any other info please let me know. 

In the mean time, I think I've found my next project.