1975 Alt-Topps

Once again, I am working from a black and white print. This one looks about 1975 vintage due to the Toy Cannon in Dodgers blue.  There was a lot going on here that I could not duplicate exactly.  I tried to find a glove shape that would allow enough space for a decent photo. The font was just impossible to duplicate but I think mine captures enough of the original gist. 

In typical fashion, I made some base card mockups using the Cy Young Award winners for the 1975 season. Jim Palmer won his second of 3 Cy Young Awards in 1975. He had career highs in victories (23), complete games (25) and shutouts (10). The NL also had a 3-time winner. Tom Terrific won his 3rd and final Cy Young. He led the NL in strikeouts (243) and wins (22).

The AL MVP, Fred Lynn, was also the Rookie of the Year.  I decided to substitute Lynn (and save him for later) with the runner-up MVP in the AL, John Mayberry.  Mayberry had career highs in home runs (34), RBIs (106), slugging (.547) and hits (162). He also led the league with 119 bases on  balls.  In the NL was Joe Morgan who won his first of two consecutive MVPs for the Big Red Machine.

Another departure on this set is the color selection.  In 1975 the Topps set was all over the place with many color combinations for teams.  For the Alt-Topps set I tried to match the team colors.

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Just a quick note to the usual suspects that have been following my blog these past years:

I've been trying to stay active on this blog but haven't been very successful lately.  You can probably tell by the post season cards I posted.  I missed the Wildcard games.  Somehow I managed to post for the Divisional Series but again missed the Championship Series and World Series.  So, I've got a bunch of half-finished projects that I may post at a later date.

Sometimes the real world comes crashing into the hobbies that were meant to take your mind off the real world.  Having said that, I managed to finish this 1975 Alt-Topps project and will try to create a few requests, as usual.  Just leave comments and I will do my best.

Even More 1972 Alt-Topps

World Series, All-Star, Leaders and Traded Cards

I'm not done yet. 

Here is what I imagine the World Series cards would look like in my Bizzaro Universe 1972 Topps set.

And the All Star cards.  I went with a Detroit Tigers color scheme because the 1971 classic was played at Tiger Stadium.  Hard to believe that 1971 is still the only season in which both starting pitchers were African-American. 

As a side-note, the Pirates fielded a line up that featured African Americans in every position also in 1971 for the first time in MLB history.  This wasn't done with any forethought of creating history as most of the regular line up featured black players. It was more of a happenstance due to injuries.

For the Leaders cards, I adopted the format Topps used in 1970 and 1971.

In the real 1972 set Topps began making late-series Traded cards. I mimicked that here using the original concept model, John Mayberry and another famous guy who wasn't in the original 1972 Topps Traded sub-set.

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I thought I'd try something different. Just wondering if anybody actually reads this all the way to the bottom. If you did, I'll take a few requests for this alternative set. If you have a player you'd like to see, base or sub-set, just post it in the comments before October 15th.  Then I'll do what I can to create those cards and make a final posting under the 1972 Alt-Topps heading by the end of the month.

1972 Alt-Topps

After being away for so long, I was undecided when (or if) I would start posting again.  But I do have quite a backlog of cards that I've already made. I also have quite a few ideas that still need to be fleshed out. What I do know is that I just don't have the time to post very often. So I'm going to try posting once a month.

Like I said before, "Cards That Never Were" was not a unique idea when I started this blog.  And lately there are even more blogs out there with similar content. Additionally there are Twitter, Facebook and other accounts devoted to the very same concept. Rather than just add more to the pile, I wanted to try something a bit different.

I came across some of Topps rejected concept cards on The Topps Archives and Keith Olbermann's Baseball Nerd and various other message boards and blogs.  Similar to what I did with the 1963 Fleer set, I decided to create an outline of what these mock-ups could be as a complete set. I will try to incorporate what we've all come to expect in a complete set: Rookie cards, All-Star cards, Leaders, World Series, etc.

For my first "Set", I think this was a prototype for the 1972 set. The designer used John Mayberry's 1971 card and put it inside his design. I decided to clean it up a bit and see what the cards might have looked like if Topps went with this design in 1972.

Here are few base cards, using the MVPs and Cy Young winners from 1972. Oddly, Three of the four were on new teams in 1972. Carlton had a card in a St. Louis uniform plus a late series "traded" card. For Dick Allen and Gaylord Perry, Topps just recycled old photos and tried to pass them off as their new team.

I tried to keep close to the color schemes that Topps used in 1972. If that Mayberry card was made using the color scheme the Astros used in 1972, it would look more like this:

In my next post I'll delve into this concept a little deeper.