Topps All-Star Misses: 1969 NL Battery

The 1969 Topps NL All Star battery consisted of RHP Bob Gibson, LHP Jerry Koosman and catcher Johnny Bench.  The actual 1968 All Star Game had Drysdale as the NL Starter and Jerry Grote behind the plate.  The first lefty relief pitcher was Steve Carlton. Carlton was also The Sporting News choice for All Star left-handed pitcher in 1969. Both Drysdale and Carlton could have been in this set. 

Tom Seaver was the Sporting News selection for All Star right-handed pitcher in 1969 and his battery-mate Jerry Grote was the 1968 ASG starting catcher.  So these Mets merit inclusion, too.

 

Who probably didn't merit inclusion in the 1969 Topps All-Star set, but was in it anyway?

Although Gibson never left the bullpen in the '68 ASG, I cannot fault Topps for giving him an All Star card based on his 1968 Cy Young & MVP season. I also (kind of) can't fault Topps for Koosman.  He only face one batter in the 1968 ASG but it was the final batter.  He struck out Yaz and got the save as the NL won 1-0 in the Astrodome. Despite Grote starting the 1968 ASG, Bench was the Sporting News choice for 1969 All Star catcher. Bench was also the 1968 Rookie of the Year and the runner up was Koosman. So despite having 4 other cards that could have been included in the 1969 All Star sub-set, I have to give Topps a pass.

1965 World Series: The Missing Topps Set

 For years I've been wanting to tackle this missing piece of the 1966 Topps set.  From 1960 to 1980, Topps has included World Series cards in their sets with notable exceptions of 1966 and 1979. Now 55 years later, I'm making my version of that missing 1966 set. 

Game one the Dodgers were without their ace, Sandy Koufax who was observing Yom Kippur. Instead, Drysdale faced Mudcat Grant.  Grant was coming off a career year with a league leading 21 victories.  But this game was no pitching dual. Each team had 10 hits and all but one starting position player had at least one knock. The Twins iced it early with a 6-run 3rd inning.

Koufax returned for game two but it was Jim Kaat's game. Not only did he deliver a one-run complete game, but drove in two insurance runs in the 8th inning.

Down two games to none, the series moved to Chavez Ravine.  Claude O'Steen pitched a gem, spreading 5 hits over 9 innings to get the shutout.

In Game four the Dodgers evened the series at two.  Despite giving up solo homers to Killebrew and Olivia, Drysdale mowed the Twins down.  For the second game in a row a Dodgers pitcher threw a complete game. 

In the pivotal 5th game, Koufax threw the Dodgers 3rd straight complete game.  He shutout the Twins as the Dodgers took the series lead 3-2.  Maury Wills went 4 for 5 plus a stolen base.  But he wasn't the Dodgers only base running threat, Willie Davis stole 3 bases in game 5.

Game 6 was the Twins turn to showcase their pitching.  Mudcat Grant not only delivered another complete game victory, but contributed with his bat.  He drilled a 3 run homer in the 6th to push the Twins lead to 5-0. Ron Fairly hit a solo dinger in the 7th to provide the Dodgers only tally.

With the series tied at 3, the Dodgers sent their ace to the mound. Koufax threw his second shutout of the series and the 1965 Cy Young Award winner added another World Series MVP to his trophy case.

1989 All Star Game Honorary Captains: Carl Yastrzemski & Don Drysdale

The 1989 ASG was played under the "Big A" in Anaheim. Once again neither Honorary Captain had ties to the host team.

The AL Captain was newly minted Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.  The 1989 class consisted of two first-ballot superstars, Johnny Bench and Carl Yastrzemski. The veteran's committee also selected Red Schoendienst and umpire Al Barlik. Yaz's stats read the way you would expect of a first-ballot HOFer; Triple Crown winner, AL MVP, All Star Game MVP, 18 All Star Games, 7 Gold Gloves.  But there was controversy too.  Yaz was accused of a lack of hustle when he thought the play or game wasn't important.  This led to a much publicized rift that may or may not have caused the Sox to trade Tony Conigliaro to the Angels.

The NL Captain was Dodgers great Don Drysdale. Had he not been forced into early retirement (age 32) due to shoulder soreness, Drysdale might have been a first-ballot HOFer, too.  He was an imposing pitcher at 6'5" and he had a 2 for 1 rule: "If one of my teammates got knocked down, then I knocked down two on the other team”.  His stats bore that out. In his 14 season career, he was in the top-ten of Hit-By-Pitch 12 times. If you are wondering if this was intentional or not, he also finished in the top-ten for strikeout to walk ratio 10 times in 14 years.

Here are the Topps versions of the Captains Cards that appeared as inserts in the 1990 set.

Even More For 1963 Fleer

In my previous post I pointed out some other types of cards that might have been included in the 1963 Fleer set had it not been cut short due to Topps' lawsuit. In my last post I added manager, rookie and team cards. But what set would be complete without leader cards?

Again I made one example from the American League and one from the National. Not a bad selection of players either. Five out of six are in the Hall of Fame now.  I tried to remain true to the Fleer design, but when I was done it looks reminiscent of Topps 1964 Leader cards.

Also missing from the initial 66 cards were World Series cards. Not necessarily essential, but usually a source of action shots in the 1960's when most cards were posed. Again, one card example featuring the National League team, and one for the American League.

 I decided to go with black and white photos out of necessity. While I could find a few color photos of the 1962 Series. Topps colorized their WS cards in the early 60's but revered to black and white in the later part of the decade.

One of my favorite subsets, the All Star cards, were notably missing from the 1963 Topps set. When Topps did  include All Stars, they weren't often the starting All Stars from the previous season. Often they were labeled "Sporting News All Star" but often that wasn't the case either.

In my examples, both players were Sporting News All Stars in 1963.  Luis Aparicio played starting shortstop in the 1962 All Star Games while a member of the White Sox. In 1963 he was the backup to Zoilo Versalles . Johnny Edwards was the Sporting News All Star in 1963 but was a backup to Ed Bailey of the Giants in the 1963 All Star game. Edwards took over for Bailey as the Reds catcher in 1961 when Bailey was traded to the Giants. Edwards, a three time All Star and two time Gold Glove catcher was succeeded by Johnny Bench in 1968.

In the Original 66 cards was the rookie card of Maury Wills. On that card, instead of the usual player drawing, Fleer put "N.L. Most Valuable Player '62". They replicated that for their 1998 Mickey Mantle insert card. I made a Rookie of the Year card for Ken Hubbs using the same design.

While most sets of this era didn't have "Award" cards, it seem like a logical extension. So here is the other R.O.Y. from 1962, Tom Tresh and the 1962 Cy Young Award winner, Don Drysdale.

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.

30 Tribute Card Project - Part 3

I am continuing on with the 30 tribute card project I started based on  this article on the Sports Collectors Daily website. In my last post, I was able to check 5 more off the list ( numbers 5,6,11,13 and 14) with cards created by other people on the web.

     The #16 card on the list give us the first repeat offender. White Sox Cards made this tribute card of Rocky Colavito. Colavito's last Topps card was a 1968 hat-less White Sox card that looks suspiciously like his 1964 hat-less K.C. Athletics card. Although he barely hit his weight on the Yankees, this seems a more fitting last card for a 9 time All Star.

  #19 comes from Punk Rock Paint which is just chock full of custom card goodness. Beyond just baseball cards, this site has produced cards from Star Wars, Lost, The Big Lebowski, etc. This Drysdale tribute comes from his "Shoulda Been" series.

   This Maury Wills tribute card was created for the Garvey-Cey-Russell-Lopes blog and is #21 on the list. What is even cooler is that the blogger sent his tribute card off the Maury Wills and got it back signed.

 

    Another repeat offender Dick Allen Hall of Fame gives us #22 on the list. This is another one of those cards that I has several versions to choose from. Mays actually had a card in the 1974 Topps set, but it was a World Series card, not regular issue.

    Just as there were several Willie Mays tribute cards, there were also several for #23 on the list, 1977 Topps Hank Aaron. This particular one comes from Punk Rock Paint again. Among other reasons, I had to give this one the nod for the choice of photography. It was "borrowed" from Steve's Baseball Photography Pages, an absolute favorite of mine.

  Here is the list so far. The Black X represents cards produced by Topps, The red X represents those made by other baseball card geeks:

1.       1952 Joe DiMaggio X

2.       1956 Ralph Kiner

3.       1957 Bob Feller X

4.       1957 Phil Rizzuto

5.       1957 Jackie Robinson X

6.       1961 Ted Williams X

7.       1962 Jackie Jensen

8.       1964 Stan Musial X

9.       1964 Early Wynn

10.   1965 Duke Snider

11.   1966 Yogi Berra X

12.   1966 Warren Spahn 

13.   1967 Sandy Koufax X

14.   1967 Robin Roberts X

15.   1968 Whitey Ford

16.   1969 Rocky Colavito X

17.   1969 Roger Maris 

18.   1969 Eddie Mathews

19.   1970 Don Drysdale X

20.   1972 Ernie Banks X

21.   1973 Maury Wills X

22.   1974 Willie Mays X 

23.   1977 Hank Aaron X

24.   1977 Frank Robinson 

25.   1978 Brooks Robinson 

26.   1978 Jim Wynn

27.   1980 Lou Brock

28.   1980 Thuman Munson 

29.   1984 Johnny Bench 

30. 1984 Carl Yastrzemski 

To be Continued......

1963 Topps All Stars - The National League Battery

1963 Topps Don Drysdale AS

Drysdale pitched the 1st 3 innings of game one. He surrendered a single hit, a lead off triple to Luis Aparicio. He then got the next 2 batters to pop out to the infield and struck out the next. He left the game in a scoreless tie. Juan Marichal pitched hitless 4th and 5th innings and got the win.

1963 Topps Johnny Podres AS

His teammate Johnny Podres started the 2nd game. He also pitched scoreless frames. In his only at bat in 4 All Star game appearances, Podres doubled then scored on a single by Dick Groat.

1963 Topps Del Crandall AS

Del Crandall played in 11 All Star games and started in 8, from 1953-1962. Although he was hit-less in his final 2 All Star appearances, the 4-time Gold Glove backstop tagged out the go-ahead run in the top of the 3rd when Billy Moran tried to score from 1st on an error on center fielder Tommy Davis. 

1962 Fleer Don Drysdale

 

In 1962 Fleer didn't issue a baseball card set. It did issue baseball stickers (see the Fleer Sticker Project). It also issued a nice looking set of AFL football cards. I used these cards to further my theme of putting active MLB players on pre-1981 Fleer cards.

The 1962 Cy Young award winner was Don Drysdale. He led the league in victories with 25 and strike outs with 232. He was named starting pitcher in the first of two 1962 All Star Games. He pitched 3 scoreless innings but didn't get the decision in the NL's 3-1 victory.