One of the best things about 1968 Topps is that they stopped cutting the background out of the team photo cards. Here on the Mets card you can see a message on the Shea Stadium scoreboard:
A ONE-WORD MESSAGE TO BASEBALL'S LEAGUE LEADING FANS: "THANKS"
You can also see that the Mets are hosting the Cubs, and in the out-of-town scoreboard, Atlanta is at Philadelphia, SF is at Houston, the Orioles are at KC and Detroit is at Minnesota. This means the photo was taken on Friday, June 16, 1967. The Mets hosted the Cubs that day. The other out-of-town scores are actually from the night before (it took me several minutes looking at 1967 schedules to figure this out). Looks like the scoreboard was still being set up for the new slate of weekend games. It was a rough night for the Mets and their league-leading fans - they lost to the Cubbies, 4-3 in 10 innings, on an unearned run due to an error by Mets catcher Hawk Taylor.
I can’t quite see.....but imagine Nolan Ryan is featured on the card.
ReplyDeleteRyan didn't play for the Mets at all in 1967, due to illness, injury, and military service. I'm guessing he isn't there. I can see Tom Seaver and Yogi Berra (who was a coach at the time), though.
DeleteAlways have a deep appreciation for your detective work.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen that card before. The Dodgers team card in '68 Topps has the background cut out.
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