Vintage equipment: 1962 Topps

A couple of more cards with interesting equipment from the 1962 set . . . 

The '62 Walter Alston is one of the great manager cards of all time, with Smokey posing with a bunch of bats in what looks like a broom closet. If he looks like he's grimacing in pain, it might be because at least one bat is poking him in the stomach. Unfortunately, only one bat has a number visible on the knob. It appears to be #30, the late, great Maury Wills. Wills famously didn't have a card in the set until Topps created a fake card for the '75 MVP subset, but he makes a bit of a cameo appearance on this card. (Wills's name is also on the NL hitting leaders and Dodgers team card. I guess it's also in the team photo on the latter.)

Julio Gotay's glove looks like it was colored with a marker. I don't know why, and I couldn't find any other photos of him with a glove. Certainly an unusual look.

Contest winnings from Johnny's Trading Spot

I got an interesting mix of cards in my latest Johnny's Trading Spot contest winnings.

Three great Yankees here. I already had Stottlemyre but the two Finest are new to me. Hard to believe the Torre-era Yankees dynasty started over 25 years ago.

Some cards representing earlier Yankees dynasties. This is a 1970 Fleer set with funny little illustrations by Robert Laughlin. I wish the 1942 one wasn't the best one here. I only had 1949 already, the rest are all new to me.

Thanks Johnny!

TCDB trade: Jaysredlegs

I sent a few cards to Jaysredlegs and picked out an eclectic lot of cards.

This was the big highlight for me. One of the great early funny picture cards. There are a lot of newer cards with Boggs and a chicken, but this one was first.

These were the others I picked, across a variety of years and brands. I didn't realize until I put them all together that there was a running theme with these.

Wallet Card at the Ghostbusters firehouse

I know there are some Ghostbusters fans on the blogs who will appreciate this. Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company No. 8 was built in 1903, five years after the unification of the various independent city fire departments into the FDNY. Located near the World Trade Center, these firefighters were among the first responders to 9/11. One member, Lt. Vincent G. Halloran, lost his life that day. As you can see in the photo, part of Moore street was renamed for him.

The building is best known for its appearance in the Ghostbusters movies. It was chosen by actor and writer Dan Aykroyd, who was familiar with the area and the building. 40 years ago, when the movie was filmed, the Tribeca area was pretty run-down, as can be seen in the movie. It is now one of Manhattan's wealthiest and most exclusive areas. 

The Ghostbusters sign was added to the building, still an active firehouse, in 2020. When I passed by there were lots of people taking photos in front of the building, and indication of the continuing popularity of Ghostbusters.

 

1981 Topps Mike Willis

 

The front: Simple spring training head shot in a rather bucolic setting.

The back: Willis and Garland both grew up in Nashville.

The player: Originally and Orioles prospect, Willis was an expansion draft pick of the Blue Jays and spent five seasons in the team's bullpen. In 144 games he went 7-21 with 15 saves and a 4.59 ERA.

The man: After his career Willis was a minor league coach for a few years. In 1990 he moved to Houston, where former Blue Jays teammate Balor Moore got him a sales job at his company, Brittex International Pipe Supply, where Willis has worked ever since.

My collection: I have seven of his cards, from 1976 to 1981. I would be interested in trading for 1977 O-Pee-Chee #103.

1986 Sportflics Decade Greats: 1960s outfielders

 

Al Kaline: Al Kaline was one of the best Tigers of all time. He started his career off spectacularly. In 1955 he won the AL batting title at the age of 20, hitting .340 with 27 HR and 102 RBI. He had another monster year in 1956, hitting .314 with 27 HR and 128 RBI. From then on, he was a consistent, if not exactly spectacular, presence on the Tigers for almost 20 years. He regularly hit around .300 with 20+ HR and 75+ RBI. His numbers would have looked better if he was able to stay on the field more consistently; he only topped 140 games played three times between 1962 and 1973, though he did play a full season in 1974 thanks to the new DH rule. Overall, in 22 seasons he hit .297 with 3,007 hits, 399 HR and 1,582 RBI. After his career he was a long-time Tigers announcer. He died in 2020. I have his base Topps cards from 1959, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1974.

Tony Oliva: While Kaline's career was long and steady, Oliva's was short but spectacular. He was the best pure hitter in the American League from 1964 to 1971, winning three batting titles and five hit titles. Unfortunately, injuries caught up to him in 1972, limiting him to just ten games. The DH rule helped him get back on the field, and he had four more seasons where he was a regular, but no longer a star. He was a long time coach for the Twins, and still lives in Minnesota. I have his base Topps cards from 1968 and 1971-1976.

Billy Williams: Billy Williams quietly starred for the Cubs under the shadow of Ernie Banks, but he was a terrific player in his own right. Williams's career was somewhat similar to Kaline's, with long stretches of high-level consistency, with overall year-by-year numbers that were a little more impressive, due to his considerably better durability, including a 1,117 consecutive games streak. He was good for a .280-.310 average, 25+ HR and 90+ RBI from 1961 to 1973. His best seasons were 1970 (.322, 42 HR, 129 RBI) and his 1972 batting title season (.333, 37 HR and 122 RBI). He moved to the American League in 1975 to take advantage of the DH rule, in a trade with Oakland. He retired in 1976 with a .290 average, 2,711 hits, 426 HR and 1,475 RBI. He was a long time coach for the Cubs, and still lives in the Chicago area. I have his base Topps cards from 1968-1976.

This is the last card in the 1960s section of the set. I am going to do something different for the 1970s and 1980s to wrap up this series.

A Year of Topps Designs: 1961

1961 seems to have been a quiet year at Topps, compared to other years of the era. That quietness is reflected in both the numbers and designs of their sets in '61.

The baseball set is the only set of any kind with a photo background in 1961. Two simple boxes at the bottom with the player's pertinent information form the only design element on the card.

Like the baseball design, but not having a background? Then the football set is for you. A very similar bottom, just with one box instead of two, and a monochrome background.

Hockey always went with the artificial background. There is some more life to this design with the colored boxes. This was also the only set of the year with text at the top of the card.

The only other "serious" set was for sports cars. No movies, TV or music for Topps in '61. This set combines elements of the baseball and hockey designs, with a horizontal alignment.

The only other Topps sets in '61 were two humourous sets, both of which have a more-or-less serious front, with a punch line on the back. One was Funny Valentines. The front starts off innocently enough...

...until the back drops the hammer.

If you didn't like that "humor", you probably won't care much for the humor in the only other Topps set of the year, Crazy Cards. The front provides some seemingly innocuous trivia . . .

. . . with a "crazy" twist on the back. Many of them involve someone getting killed or seriously injured. It's definitely one of Topps's darker sets.

3CDB

I've had a few more TCDBers reach out to me for small trades. It's nice giving my cards a new home and going through people's tradelists to pick out some interesting cards.

I traded some cards of Mets players in other uniforms to NYMHall in exchange for these three 1975 SSPC Yankees. These are different photos from the more well-known SSPC set. The top two are Sandy Alomar and Dick Tidrow; the bottom is Alex Johnson, who had a brief stop with the Yankees toward the end of his long MLB career. His only Topps card as a Yankee was airbrushed, so this is his only card in a real Yankee uniform.

I recently put my 1988 Donruss cards into TCDB, and already the copyright variations have yielded two trades. I sent some to Griffey423 and picked out some fun variety. I always like picking up the SCD and BCM ripoffs of old Topps designs. I really liked the comic-book explosion on Jay Buhner's card. The sliding Hershiser's appeal is obvious. I always thought of Mike Moore as kind of a journeyman, probably because he was on the Mariners for so long when they were a laughingstock. I thought a card listing him as "the final piece of the puzzle" was funny, though he was actually quite good with Oakland. I hope he is still remembered by A's fans today.

Finally, I turned a Rickey Henderson copyright variation into a great Broder card from 1988, thanks to Rickey supercollector Rherrod. Trades like these make it worth the extra time to look for variations.

Wood vs. Wood #129

Last time 1962 managed a 4-2 victory. Will 1987 come out on top this time?

While it appeared that Topps just used a photo of a middle-aged man wearing a casual sweatshirt hanging out in his backyard, that's actually 28-year-old outfield Lee Walls with his Phillies jersey barely discernible on what is supposed to be a Dodgers card. Walls had a 10-year career with five teams. He was primarily a utilityman, but was an All-Star outfielder with the Cubs in 1958, hitting .304 with 24 HR and 72 RBI in what was by far his best season. After his career he was a long-time minor league manager and major league coach. He died in 1993.

Rick Cerone is stepping into the batters box at Anaheim Stadium on his 1987 card. He only played in one game for the Brewers at California, on May 11, 1986. Cerone went 1-for-3 in Milwaukee's 5-1 loss. Rick Cerone caught for eight teams in his 18-year major league career, including three stints with the Yankees. The Yankees traded for him after the tragic 1979 season when catcher Thurman Munson was killed in a plane crash. Cerone had by far his best season in 1980, hitting .277 with 14 HR and 85 RBI. After his career he was a Yankee announcer and was the founder and owner of the Newark Bears minor league team. He is now retired and lives in his native New Jersey.

Vintage equipment: Cliff Cook

Third baseman Cliff Cook had a pretty short major league career, making it onto just three cards, with the Reds in '61 and '62, and the Mets in '63. On both his Reds cards, under his jersey, he is wearing a with a prominent Reds logo. It really stands out, and I haven't seen such a jacket on other Reds of the era. (Looking at TCDB, it appears Bill Henry on his '62 high number has a similar one.)

As you can see on the '61 card, Cook's jersey number was 19. And yet, on both cards you can see on the sleeve of the jacket the number 42. Jim Brosnan wore #42 for the Reds during all of Cook's tenure there. Were Cook and Brosnan buddies? Did Brosnan not need the jacket and give it away? I would assume that Topps took both photos at the same time, on a day where Cook just happened to be wearing Brosnan's jacket, and then used photos from the same day two years in a row. I could not find any photos of Brosnan wearing the jacket, nor could I find any indication that the two were close friends. Still, it's an interesting little oddity, especially given the significance of that particular jersey number in baseball history.