In near lockstep with the explosion of legal online sports gambling sites, the card-collecting industry has seen a proliferation of card breakers—parties that buy unopened boxes of sports cards and open them live on social media streams. Hobbyists (a/k/a gamblers) pay for spots in the “break” that will entitle them to keep all the cards in the box or case from a particular team. The outfits publicize their breaks with fantastic claims, “No matter which breaking method you choose, you always have a chance at uncovering the next Holy Grail!”
2022 Bowman’s Best case break offering from Filthbomb Breaks
In most breaks participants pick a team or several teams (typically priced commensurate with the potential values of the most expensive cards for each such team) or a random distribution of teams (usually for a less expensive entry fee that is the same for each participant). The card packs are opened live, and the cards are shown individually so that all viewers can see who gets what.
The main enticement for participants is the hope for a “hit,” a valuable—if not contrived—insert like a 1/1, rare parallel, or autographed card that far exceeds the entry fee. Card breakers profit by charging more for spots than the cost of the unopened box or case. If all of this sounds a bit like gambling, you are probably right.
“While surprise-based products can be sold, they are currently restricted on our platform. This means that sellers who wish to sell or promote such products must abide by our TikTok Shop Gambling, Gifting and Surprise-based Product Control Guidelines.”
TikTok guidelines
Social media giant TikTok announced in early March 2023 that it will no longer allow card breakers to broadcast their videos on its platform because of concerns that the activity may constitute illegal gambling. TikTok’s terms and conditions regarding surprise-based products were updated to specifically include “Surprise Trading Card Packs” and now require any presenter (e.g., card breaker) to sell any baseball cards in “the manufacturer’s original packaging and content without any alterations. All sold product(s) must also be sealed.”
PayPal had previously cracked down on breakers through its gambling prohibition, even when the specific activity was lawful or not legally defined as gambling, including: “Games of chance and games of skill – Includes any activity with an entry fee and a prize, regardless of whether the outcome is determined by chance or skill.”
Although the actual factors vary by state, the elements of gambling typically require (1) consideration [the price charged for entering the break], (2) chance [that the box(es) opened may contain chase cards such as 1/1s, parallels, and autographed cards, or alternatively, that the cards that are worth less than the entry fee] and (3) a prize [the insert cards (“hits”) have significant value on the secondary market].
You may be familiar with the phrase “no purchase necessary” when entering a contest promoted by a reputable company. Offering participants an option to enter a contest for free eliminates the “consideration” requirement—required to deem a contest illegal—even if a particular entrant had paid to purchase a product for entry. Not surprisingly, card breakers rarely allow free entry.
There are dozens of highly regarded card breakers operating now, however, the industry is unregulated and susceptible to issues. In 2022, Backyard Breaks got into some hot water when they decided to keep a Trevor Lawrence “Gold Kaboom” card (they believed to be valued in excess of $15,000) found during a break, instead of sending it on to the person to whom it was originally promised.
Otherwise, a breaker who is adept at slight-of-hand can easily make sure valuable cards are not seen or distributed. In fact, there are articles available to help new breakers appear trustworthy. These recommendations include: keeping both hands on the screen, using multiple cameras, and showing that the box is empty.
Several baseball card manufacturers faced charges of illegal gambling in the 1990s when valuable insert cards first took the hobby by storm. [The card manufacturers ultimately won because a customer’s disappointment from not finding an insert card was not sufficient to establish damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.] It seems like it is just a matter of time before a disappointed break participant pursues a similar case against a breaker.
It remains to be seen whether other social media outlets like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch will follow TikTok’s lead due to the potential that card breaks constitute illegal gambling or if lawmakers will seek to impose any regulations on the booming card breaking business. As for now it is still the Wild West out there for gamblers—caveat emptor.
Author’s Note: Over the last couple years I’ve quietly marveled as fellow collector Christopher Torres worked his way ever closer toward a remarkable Hobby achievement: a complete set of T206 Polar Bear backs. In this interview with SABR Baseball Cards, Chris shares his experiences with our readers.
SABR Baseball Cards: Chris, many of our readers may know you from your excellent real-time documentation of the Topps Project 2020 set. Were you also collecting tobacco cards at that time, or is this a more recent foray for you?
Chris: First off, thank you for your kind words on my Project 2020 work. What a tremendous time that was for us as a country but also for us in the baseball card community. I personal can’t believe we are about to hit three years since I released my first ever P2020 video and to this day I am forever thankful for everyone who followed and watched my Project 2020 series. I credit a lot of my professional success these days to my trial and error with recording those earlier videos.
Now at the time Project 2020 started, I was a collector of tobacco cards but on a very minor scale with no real purpose. I picked up my very first T206 cards at the 2019 National in Chicago as a way to commemorate my first ever trip to the National. I ended up with raw Solly Hofman and an SGC A Frank Chance along with a few T212 Obak Seattle cards. Little did I know then that the $60 Chance purchase would eventually send me off on a three year plus collecting journey for the entire Polar Bear back run set.
SABR Baseball Cards: What drew you to collecting Polar Bear backs in particular? Were there any other finalists in mind as you settled on Polar Bear?
Chris: As I picked up more and more T206 cards through 2020 and the first part of 2021, I found myself at a true crossroads in the set. I knew financially speaking putting together all 520 cards was going to be tough and I also wondered if I could truly appreciate 520 different cards. At times I found myself buying cards just because and never truly enjoying them.
Through that trial and error, the one card back that I truly appreciated was the Polar Bear back. Not only is blue one of my favorite colors (Go UTEP Miners!), the card back was so much more visually appealing than the others. The second part that really struck me was the confidence of their slogan, “Is Now, Always Has Been, Always Will Be” the best scrap tobacco.
Backs of some of Chris’ favorites. Keep reading to see fronts!
About two years after I picked up my first T206 card I sold off every single non-Polar Bear card, minus a few Southern Leaguer Old Mills, and decided to start over. By January 2, 2022, I was at 77 Polar Bears, which was just about 31% of the set’s 250 cards.
SABR Baseball Cards: Let’s dig in to that number a bit more. The Polar Bear subset has 250 different cards, which puts it at about half the cards of the full Monster. Is there anything that distinguishes these 250 cards? For example, do they represent just one of the three years 1909-1911, or are only certain teams represented?
Chris: The print years are the same as the broader T206 set (i.e., 1909-1911), but one very key property of the Polar Bear set is the inclusion of Ray Demmitt and Bill O’Hara in St Louis uniforms. (Editor’s Note: These St. Louis variations are two of the toughest cards in the entire Monster, trailing only the “Big Four” in scarcity.) These variations only occur in Polar Bear, as no other brands chose to update their teams following their trades.
I also personally put Simon Nichols on the same pedestal as Demmitt and O’Hara being that he retired in 1910 and was potentially replaced on the print sheet by Demmitt or O’Hara. However, the secondary market currently says otherwise.
SABR Baseball Cards: Which top-shelf Hall of Famers can be found with Polar Bear backs? For example, are all four Ty Cobb cards in the subset?
Chris: Polar Bear is unique as it only includes 32 Hall of Famers compared to the 74 in the entire 520 card set. In Polar Bear, Ty Cobb only has the “Red Portrait” and “Bat off Shoulder” variations. Walter Johnson has just the “Glove at Chest” variation, no portrait. Same with Christy Mathewson, no portrait in Polar Bear but the “Dark Cap” variation.
This is what makes Polar Bear unique in my mind. You are still getting a taste of all of the Hall of Famers but you aren’t having to buy as many different poses for a complete set. Only Cobb, Hughie Jennings, John McGraw, Joe Tinker and Vic Willis have two Polar Bear poses, and no Hall of Famer has three.
SABR Baseball Cards: What can you tell us about the Polar Bear tobacco brand itself?
Chris: The biggest difference between Polar Bear tobacco and the other tobacco brands represented in T206 (e.g., Piedmont, Sweet Caporal) was that it was sold in loose tobacco pouches versus rolled tobacco form (i.e., cigarettes).
This is also why finding these cards in great condition is so difficult. More than likely you will find them stained from the tobacco that was loose around the card and or with small bits of tobacco still attached to the card. To me those are some of the best Polar Bear cards because that small bit of tobacco harkens back to when it was first pulled out of the pouch in the early 1900s. You can’t replicate that in the modern Hobby.
SABR Baseball Cards: Aside from the T206 set, was Polar Bear involved in any other tobacco issues? For example, can Polar Bear backs be found in T205 or other notable sets?
Chris: As you correctly point out, Polar Bear was one of the 17 brands used in the T205 set but they are most famous for being in the T206 set.
SABR Baseball Cards: Tell us how you are keeping or displaying your collection. Slabs? Binders?
Chris: My original goal was to have a complete binder set as I always valued being able to hold a baseball card that was 110 years old as more important than owning the card itself. I never really valued a card being in a slab before because plastic is not true Americana. However, I had a shift around the 200-card mark to where I had “enough” of the feel game and started to value the look of the cards more than their feel.
Now that I’ve reached the 240+ mark in the set, I have just over 210 raw copies and 30 graded. SGC takes up the majority of the graded group with 21 in a tuxedo. I also find they display a whole lot better than the PSA versions, but you can’t beat a red portrait T206 in a red PSA flip.
Shelf display from Chris’ collection
SABR Baseball Cards: And what about condition? As tough as this set is to put together, I have to imagine you’ve made room for plenty of lower grade cards.
Chris: The one rule that I have always had with my Polar Bear set was to put together a back run set with very clean backs. I never honestly really cared about what the front looked like! So if you see a badly damaged Polar Bear back on my website, that is because it was obtained before I made the switch in 2021 and just haven’t gone back to upgrade it. I have financially prioritized new pickups versus upgrades the past two years.
SABR Baseball Cards: Knowing you are in the Seattle area, obviously there are no Mariners (or Pilots!) in the set. Have you adopted any particular team from the Monster as your favorite?
Chris: I will always be partial to the Chicago Cubs due to Frank Chance and Solly Hofman and the origin on my T206 collecting journey. Still, to me it was never about the teams; it was always about the back.
SABR Baseball Cards: There are so many beautiful cards in the T206 set. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, do you have a Top 5 among the Polar Bear run?
Chris: Completely ignoring how good the players are, here are my Top 5.
Chris’ Top Five (fronts)
Christy Mathewson – This card is gorgeous to me as it shows potential rubber-band wear and tear and then someone spilled something on it in the past. Or maybe the tobacco package got wet and this is a tobacco stain.
John Titus – Everyone knows, the only man with a moustache in the entire T206 set, not just Polar Bear.
Davy Jones – What a stud in this card. Someone must have liked him as they were making the set.
Del Howard – Very unique background, which is unusual for the T206 set, along with the popped collar and I have visited his grave here in Seattle. That was an interesting moment personally speaking.
Ed Konetchy – Feels like a very 3D image that feels very hard to pull off 110 years ago. This card has always stuck out to me as being very unique versus the other action shots.
SABR Baseball Cards: Earlier, you mentioned two of the Polar Bear set’s rarities: the St. Louis variations of Demmitt and O’Hara. Are these two cards part of your Polar Bear quest, or have you set your sights on a more modest goal of 248?
Chris: I go back and forth on this all the time. When I started this back-run set I knew I was committing myself to spending $1k for the Demmitt and O’Hara cards, and I was completely fine with that. Apart from Ty Cobb, those would be my two significant purchases. However, now that Demmitt and O’Hara are going for four to five times that price, the financial decision becomes much more difficult.
This is also why I decided to add them to my Polar Bear sleeve tattoo. Getting their cards on my arm was a a tad cheaper than putting down $8k for 2 cards and while some people will view that as “crazy,” you can never tell a Polar Bear story without Demmitt and O’Hara.
SABR Baseball Cards: Wait. What?! Did you say you got those cards on your arm??
Chris:
SABR Baseball Cards: That is AWESOME! We definitely support your right to Bear arms! So the tattoos will essentially sub for the cards here?
Chris: I’m currently at 244/250 for the set. Once I get to 248, I will take a look at the market and make a decision on those last two. Ultimately, if I am going to have a complete Polar Bear set, I need to have a Demmitt and O’Hara. Maybe I will find a great deal at the 2023 National for one of these cards! You never know. That would be incredible to finish this set at the place where it all began!
SABR Baseball Cards: It’s been amazing to follow your journey. You are truly putting together something that most collectors can only dream about. Thank you so much, Chris, for taking the time to share your story with our readers.
Author’s Note: You can view Chris’ entire Polar Bear set (in progress) on his website. Take a look, it’s awesome!
As Jason and I have been checking the blog feedback mailbox for your Burdick Award Nominations* we’ve realized that we don’t check that mailbox very often at all. This partly our fault since the blog email doesn’t go to either of us and partly due to WordPress not giving us a single notification about there being new messages.**
*Several great suggestions already. Please keep them coming and make the selection committee’s life as hard as possible.
**Literally everything else lights up with an unread-notifications counter.
Anyway, I’ve decided to clear out that mailbox and pull out all the messages which aren’t spam. It’s pretty apparent that a lot of the messages aren’t the kind of thing that Jason, me, this blog, or SABR are equipped to handle. But I’m going to go ahead and sort them into buckets and post everything here.
Apologies for this being extremely text-heavy. If anyone wants to chime in in the comments that would be awesome.
Possible future post ideas
My favorite messages are the ones that suggest possible future posts. I’d love for any of our contributors to pick these up and run with them. And if you have covered these in your personal blog by all means drop a link in the comments. My initial thoughts follow each question.
Do you have any knowledge about the mid 80’s Star Co player sets such as Mattingly, Murphy, Carlton. Were these licensed cards and do they have any value? I cant seem to find any useful info online about this time in baseball card production by the Star Company. The card’s design mirrors the Star Co basketball design from the licensed ’84, ’85, ’86 sets.
Given how prevalent these sets were—along with the gradient design and all of its “premium” parallels like Nova—it’s sort of amazing that we haven’t had anyone post about these both as cards and how they were clearly ordered by card shops to satisfy regional interests.
I am wondering who played the most MLB games but never appeared on a Topps baseball card. Marshall Bridges appeared in 206 games for 4 teams over 7 years-no Topps card. Anyone ever do any research along this line?
Another great post prompt. This obviously would be limited to the Topps era of cards since anyone playing before 1951 has a huge advantage here. My gut says the answer here is Tony Horton but I really have no idea.
I read Mark Armour’s excellent piece on Houston Astros cards of the 1960s. I wonder if anyone can shed any light on this: After issuing its inaugural team card of the Houston Colt .45s in 1963, why did Topps not issue Houston team cards in its 1964 and 1965 baseball sets?
So I had no idea about this. I do know that the team photos were often provided by the teams so maybe Houston didn’t provide a new photo. A the same time I’ve also seen the same team photo used in multiple years so who knows.
Why does the 1969 Topps set have so many cards that use the same photo as their card in the 1968 set? I always wondered why.
We also get a lot of questions about what things are worth. This is a subject which Jason and I (and Mark and Chris before us) avoid on here. It’s quite possibly the only subject that we avoid on here. This blog is about usage and how it intersects with our understanding of baseball.
All that said, I’m including the questions here since the hive mind in the comments might be useful. As before my initial reaction follows each question.
I wanted to sell my complete Baltimore Orioles collection (from 1954 to present). This has 2776 regular issued cards (Topps, Bowman, and in the crazy 90’s Fleer, Score, etc) and 438 special issued (e.g., MVP, World Series, etc) for 3214 cards. I contacted Heritage Auctions and they said they mostly deal with graded cards. Do you have any suggestion on where to sell?
Forget about the “where to sell” question I want to know more about this collection, how it started, what were the toughest things to find, and why you’d part with something that cool after completing it.
I was given the 1933 big League set. My question is that all the cards don’t have the white border around the card. Do they still have value?
In this community we believe that cards have value because we value them. There are plenty of us for whom trimmed cards like this are the only way to afford them and as a result we treasure all those well-loved classics.
I was wondering if you guys could help me out with a 1960 Venezuelan Yaz. I sent it to PSA and it is authenticated as a Venezuelan but, after posting on eBay and receiving messages questioning its authenticity as a Venezuelan. You guys have anyone that can help?
I have a team signed baseball from the 2000 2001 Cuban national championship team. Wondering if there’s any value in it
I’m 100% certain that there’s someone out there who would value that.
I’m doing some research on the intersection of baseball card value and copyright protection. To this end, I’m trying to find a database of old baseball card values from early Beckett Baseball Card Magazines (1984-1994). Are you aware of any such database or would you know anyone that might have such a database?
Leaving this in the value section but even someone as jaded about the monetary value side of the hobby as I am would be interested in a historical card value ticker. If such a thing exists by all means drop a link in our comments.
I have a Goudey 1933 Joe Cronin card with a card #189 front ( with a Joe Cronin fielding pose ) and a Joe Cronin #63 card back. My online research to date has not yielded any information, any indication that such a “wrong back” error card has ever been identified. I just read Jason’s very interesting and informative article about the 1933 set, and there was no indication of any prior knowledge of this error. How can I find out the market value of this card, which has some edge staining and would probably grade as a 3 or 4 ?
Zero idea on market value but I’d love to see photos of this.
Advice & Mysteries
We also get a decent amount of “what is this?” and “please help” questions. Many of these could likely be solved by some time on TCDB but some are genuine mysteries. Others are too open-ended to really respond to.
I have a Gaylord Perry signed set of 6 cards that I believe a company called Star Enterprise printed due to Gaylord being a spokesperson for them. I’m not positive on the company name but it’s very close. How can I send you photos of cards to see if you have ever seen them?
Best way to send us this kind of thing is to tweet at @SABRbbcards so we can retweet it to the hive mind. That said I really hope this is talking about the Peanut Farm cards.
Hello I am looking for some info on Dan Dee Mickey Mantle 2 sided advertising card with Frank Thomas on back any info I would greatly appreciate
No ideas. If anyone knows please drop a comment.
Our son found a Waite Hoyt baseball card in a used book from Library sale in early 1990s. It looks to be dated 1933 or 1932 and it looks like the others I have seen listed on ebay, it is printed in color on front. Only difference is the back is not printed in green ink, it is printed in black ink. Do you have any idea why it would have black ink on back?
I hate to say it but black ink makes me think it’s a reprint. I don’t know enough about these though to say anything definitive.
I am looking for a source of a high resolution version of the original image used for the red portrait T206 Ty Cobb
Can you point me to a source or reference that may be able to shed some light on the Hygrade All Time Greats set? Specifically, I am looking for information concerning corrections that were made and changes to player photos. There include completely new photos, additions to photos and many recentering of photos, which I believe may have been done to show the players team on their hat or jersey which were obscured.
As always the first stop is TCDB. This is a reminder to me though that I’m long overdue on a post about my Hygrade Baseball Cards Collectors Kit which introduced me to the hobby.
Great article on Donruss Diamond Kings. Is there a source online that provides a listing and checklist for each set for each year. I know the artist changed in the 1990s.
To my knowledge, there’s nothing Diamond Kings specific. Instead you have to check TCDB set by set.
What is the best way to collect Topps baseball cards issued in previous years (1940s to 2010s)? Is ebay a good place to look? Or are there other (and cheaper) ways to collect?
Zero way to answer “best” but this blog has talked about multiple sources of cards from websites like Ebay, COMC, and Sportlots to in-person opportunities like shows and card shops.
I have a lot of Donruss Diamond Kings baseball cards. If you would please email me back because I have lots of questions about these cards.
Looking for a Babe Ruth and Stan Musial Dexter Press Baseball Hall of fame postcards to purchase.
Do you have anything on Jim / James McNeil who played for the Raleigh Tigers in the 1960s?
These three questions are all examples of the kind of thing we don’t really do on here. Anything we’ve covered already can be found via the search function and everything else will be researched using the same tools available to everyone else. We’re not a marketplace or reference librarian.
How to join the blog
The last batch of questions are all basically the same thing and are asking how to join the blog or submit a post. I’ve emailed everyone already and sent invite links out. And I fully apologize again for the delay in getting back to people.
I would like to join SABR & follow this blog.
Join SABR. Though you don’t need to join in order to follow the blog.
I’ve written a piece that I’d like to submit for consideration on the SABR Baseball Cards blog. Are there any guidelines rules for submission? To where should I submit my draft when it is ready?
The one rule is that you have to be an active member of SABR. If you are, contact us (Jason and I promise to check that more regularly) and we’ll get you started. As for guidelines, this place is a sandbox. Focus on cards. How they intersect with your life. How they relate to our understanding of baseball. How they fit in to the larger culture.
If I wanted to write an article do I do it in Google Sheets or Word?
Please not Google sheets. Yes Jason uses a lot of spreadsheets in his posts but those are images by the time he posts them. Outside of that, blogs are primarily plain text. Once you’re a contributor you can compose directly on WordPress. Word or Google Docs are also fine. As is the body of an email.
How do I submit a blog post? I don’t see a create button—or am I missing something?
Once you’re a contributor you’ll have access to the WordPress UI which definitely has both a create post button and a submit post button. If you’re not a contributor yet then we need to get that step taken care of first.
I don’t quite plan on doing a post like this again unless we get another great batch of possible post suggestions. I have my fingers crossed that this will inspire a few posts or at least some blog comments.
In 2023, there are dozens of baseball card sets at every price point. Any major star has thousands of cards available, with hundreds added annually. We can buy most cards we want in just a couple minutes, at a competitive price.
But 50 years ago, there weren’t nearly as many choices for collectors as there are today. There was the Topps set, sometimes a couple Topps inserts and test issues such as Super or Deckle Edge, and a few food issues such as Milk Duds and Kellogg’s. These sets weren’t made for the organized hobby, which was just as well because there really wasn’t much of an organized hobby in the 70’s.
What was the organized hobby in the early-70’s? There were a few thousand adult collectors nationwide. There were a few small card shows in and near major cities, along with a few hobby newspapers. They were invaluable in creating the knowledge base for the hobby. There were a handful of full-time mail-order dealers like Card Collectors Company and Larry Fritsch cards. They advertised through mainstream publications like The Sporting News, and produced their own catalogs that could number up to 100 pages. There were few storefront dealers, and no Internet. The first National Convention would wait until 1979.
TCMA emerged as the first card manufacturer that targeted the organized hobby. TCMA stood for “The Card Memorabilia Associates,” or the initials of the founders, Tom Collier and Mike Aronstein. The company was headquartered in Westchester County, north of New York City .
Their first sets included the SCFC “Sports Cards for Collectors” 1969 Yankees pictures (see Al Downing below) and an Old-Timers set. The latter set included pen drawings not only of Hall of Famers but forgotten players–that is, forgotten by all but SABR members.
1969 SCFC Al Downing
1972 saw the first sets issued under TCMA’s name . They released several reprint sets of vintage issues such as 1887 Allen & Ginter and 1922 American Caramel. They also released the first few series of a set that would number over 500 cards featuring players from the 30’s. To cap it off, they produced a set of the Cedar Rapids Reds in the Class-A Midwest League, the first of hundreds of TCMA minor league team sets over the next 16 years.
Though TCMA would become best known for minor-league sets, their sets featuring vintage players deserve examination. They found a market among serious collectors of the time. Many 70’s collectors wrote away to players for autographs. There weren’t a lot of contemporary cards for stars of the 30’s and 40’s, and many collectors were hesitant to send off vintage cards for autographs for fear of losing them.
Enter TCMA—their sets had a clean design conducive to an autograph, and if they weren’t returned with an autograph at least it wasn’t a 1933 DeLong that was lost to the U.S. Mail or to a former player ambivalent to autograph requests. Many of these sets were designed to feature players who signed through the mail, in fact some dealers sent a list of player addresses along with the cards. This explains why many early TCMA cards offered on Ebay are autographed.
TCMA also offered sets that allowed collectors of modest means to own cards of 19th century players, along with 20th century players who didn’t appear on a lot of cards. One great examples are the 1936–39 Yankees Dynasty set, including not only greats like Gehrig and Lazzeri but journeymen like Paul Schreiber, who appeared in 12 major league games over two generations. What a great find for someone like me who has to have all the players, not just the legends! Others include the 1975 1951 New York Giants set and the 1972 The Yawkey Red Sox set. One of the largest early TCMA sets was the “All Time Greats” postcard issue. The set consists of several 24-card series of attractive black and white postcards. It covered virtually everyone in the Hall-of-Fame including executives like Lee MacPhail, Judge Landis and Will Harridge.
1975 TCMA All-Time Greats Postcard Ott/Gehrig
In 1975 TCMA expanded their offerings. To promote their retro and minor league sets, they produced their first catalog called “Collector’s Quarterly.” Through this catalog, they marketed their first sets of current major leaguers. Those came out under the SSPC (Sports Stars Publishing Company) label. There was a 1975 set for the Mets and Yankees, and then a 660-card set in 1976.
1975 TCMA 1927 Yankees Jake Ruppert. Hard to find cards of a baseball owner and a brewery owner!
SSPC’s 1976 set was an attempt to challenge the Topps monopoly. They were sold only as a set and only to the hobby. The fronts had no team name or player name—a “pure card” design perfect for autographs. Topps cards had facsimile autographs many years and nothing is more awkward than an authentic autograph written over a fake one.
1976 SSPC Larry Murray. SSPC featured many players not available in any Topps set.
Topps took notice and went to court to stop the further release of these sets. TCMA was allowed to sell through their stock, which took several years.
SSPC would be heard from after 1976 though. In 1978, team sets were produced as pages in their magazines for several teams. A set of vintage players even appeared in the 1979 and 1982 Yankees yearbooks.
By the late-70’s, TCMA was becoming better known for minor league sets. TCMA representatives went to minor league general managers with a proposition- TCMA would take pictures of their team, and provide the team sets for sale in their memorabilia stands for free, in exchange for the right to sell team sets in their Collectors Quarterly catalog for $3–3.50 each team. TCMA photographers not only covered players, but sometimes managers, coaches, team executives, trainers, even bat boys and mascots!
By 1979 dozens of teams had TCMA sets, a number that expanded through the 80’s. By the time TCMA stopped production in the late-80’s, virtually every minor league squad had at least one annual team set, some had as many as three.
1982 TCMA Columbus Clippers Don Mattingly
TCMA didn’t leave the vintage market. In 1978 and 1979, they produced attractive full color sets of players of the 60’s (in 1978) and the 50’s (in 1979). These sets were from 275–300 cards and featured both legends along with players who had never appeared on a card before. They followed up with a second series of 1960’s in 1981. All three sets are collectible today and not expensive.
1979 TCMA The 50’s Bob Martyn1980 TCMA Galasso Glossy Greats Tony Lazzeri
TCMA also collaborated with large dealer Renata Galasso on several sets. They co-produced the annual 45-card retro sets included as a bonus with every purchase of current year Topps sets from 1977-84. These attractive sets are known as “Galasso Glossy Greats.”
1983 TCMA 1942 Play Ball Joe DiMaggio. TCMA produces several “fantasy” sets filling in the gaps left by vintage card issuers
Collectors were discouraged from pursuing TCMA’s sets by the hobby papers of the time. TCMA sets were considered “illegitimate” and “collector’s issues.” They weren’t considered fully collectible because they weren’t released in packs at candy stores, nor as a premium for another product. Most TCMA cards weren’t licensed by Major League Baseball nor the Players Association, or even the players itself. Nevertheless, TCMA thrived in a time where former players hadn’t monetized their career like today.
In the late-1980’s TCMA saw a formidable competitor for its minor-league throne, the Pottstown, Pennsylvania based Pro Cards. TCMA continued to release retro cards, but at a slower pace. At the same time Mike Aronstein, the head of TCMA, was acquiring a huge database of player photos and built a successful business providing 8×10 glossy pictures and other player items such as keychains. The TCMA label morphed into PhotoFile, which still markets licensed items for all major sports.
Aronstein and TCMA were before their time. TCMA cards aren’t always easy to find but are generally affordable considering their age and print run. Their sets are an important part of the history of the hobby. They deserve a look from every vintage collector and every baseball historian.
Any good baseball fan over the age of forty knows the name Boog Powell: Burly, genial redhead. Baltimore Orioles fence-buster and fan favorite. 1970 American League Most Valuable Player. Subject of one of the 1970s’ most-loved Miller Lite punchlines.
Less known is that Boog had a stepbrother in the major leagues from 1968 through 1973: utility man and pinch-hitter Carl Taylor, who spent six seasons in the employ of the Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, and Kansas City Royals. (Topps mentions this on the back of Carl’s 1969 and 1974 cards; on his 1970 card, he is referred to merely as Boog’s “relative.” None of Boog’s cards make mention of a stepbrother.)
After Boog’s mother died during his childhood, his father remarried a woman whose son, Carl Taylor, became Boog’s stepbrother. Two and a half years’ Boog’s junior, Carl possessed the same penchant for mischief as the aptly nicknamed Boog—called so by his father because “booger” was a southern term for a boy who gets into trouble, which was eventually shortened to “Boog” (correctly pronounced like a soft, suthun’ “book”).
Carl also possessed the same penchant for baseball as did his elder stepbrother, which eventually led to their playing on the same little league team. In fact, their Lakeland, Florida, squad made it all the way to the 1954 national championship in Williamsport, Pennsylvania—or as Boog and Carl referred to it, the Fuckin’ Little League World Series Mixer. (Boog also had a biological brother, Charlie, who played on this team and who eventually reached the minor leagues. An injured shoulder suffered in a fall from a treehouse is rumored to have curtailed Charlie’s career.)
Boog and Carl’s early years together are hazy but seem to indicate that they shared a bedroom despite a general unease between them. Eventually, they began to bond through favorite dinosaurs and Carl’s Phil Cavarretta–model Louisville Slugger autographed by fellow Chicago Cub Randy Jackson. (The young Carl had bumped into Jackson several years earlier, and all Carl had on him was the Phil Cavarretta bat—and Carl was not going to not get Randy Jackson’s autograph, right? Boog surely would have done the exact same thing.)
In fact, it seems that Boog and Carl bonded so well that the boys constructed a bunk bed so they would have more room to do activities—although they made the mistake of agreeing on the physically imposing Boog taking the upper bunk, which nearly spelled Carl’s end.
Several years later, the Powell family relocated from Lakeland to Key West. The boys’ disappointment in having to leave behind the treehouse in which Boog had stored his complete collection of the relatively new magazine called Playboy was placated by their exciting new surroundings at the western tip of the Florida archipelago. It was not only here that Boog became a three-sport star at Key West High School but where Carl began to mature as an athlete, himself. Even more significantly, being no more than a mile at any point on the island from the warm waters of the Straits of Florida made every week Shark Week. Boog and Carl could watch this favorite spectacle in-person almost any time of year—at least until Mr. Powell tired of their lackadaisical attitudes and insisted that they get jobs.
Still, they found time to indulge their other shared passion: Boog and Carl would take their father’s 13-foot Feather Craft Topper—usually without his permission—put on their plastic Key West Fire Department helmets, hook up a line to the bilge pump, and spray the shore or other boats with seawater, in a ritual they came to call “boats ‘n hose.” (Scamps that they were, Boog and Carl would sing gleefully from offshore, Boats ‘n hose, boats ‘n hose, I gotta have me my boats ‘n hose…)
This is not to imply that all was rosy between the stepbrothers. Reportedly, they feuded, and on one particularly charged occasion, scuttlebutt has it that Carl—despite extremely emphatic warning from Boog not to touch his marching-band tuba—indeed made contact with the instrument in an unsightly way, which precipitated a horrible brawl.
1954 Florida Little League World Series team. Boog is back row, third from right; Carl is front row, fifth from right.
Soon enough, though, both boys were making waves for their high school team, the Key West Conchs, and attracting the attention of major league scouts. (A 1959 Fort Myers News-Press article garnered Boog attention as he obliterated rival pitching by batting .571 and slugging an ungodly 1.036 over 11 games.) The Conchs won the Florida state championship in 1958, propelled heavily by Boog’s bat, and repeated in ’59. Not long after his graduation, the Baltimore Orioles outbid the St. Louis Cardinals and signed Boog for $25,000. Carl soldiered on with the Conchs, and like his stepbrother, he, too, signed on with a major league organization, the Pittsburgh Pirates, shortly after graduating.
Boog hit like wildfire in the minors and found himself in Orioles duds by the last week of the 1961 season—his major league debut being the game in which Roger Maris tied Babe Ruth’s mark with his 60th homer run of the season. Carl took longer to ripen, beginning his sojourn through the minors in 1962 and finally reaching major league pay dirt in Pittsburgh’s second game of the 1968 campaign.
Shortly before Opening Day, after Carl had officially made the Pirates squad, Pittsburgh and Baltimore coincidentally clashed in a spring-training tilt. When Boog and Carl met on the field during warmups, Carl was heard to quip excitedly, “Did we just become major leaguers?” to which Boog replied ardently, “Yup!” after which, they ran to the bullpen and did karate to limber up.
Although Boog and his 230-lb frame hardly could claim that he hadn’t had a carb since 1964, he’d enjoyed consistent success for the previous five seasons, finishing third in the American League MVP race as he helped the Orioles to a surprise World Series championship in 1966.
Carl’s major league career did not bear immediate fruit. As catcher Jerry May’s backup, Carl got into only 44 games and hit a dismal .211 in 1968. Would he remain in the majors? Carl had worn a tuxedo on the first day of spring training yet managed to impress the coaching staff with his bat, his glove, and a sense of irony that skipper Larry Shepard confessed he hadn’t seen since Dizzy Dean pitched a barnstorming game against Indiana’s Greencastle Galoshes in two-tone wingtips. This ability to think outside the box, coupled with a surprisingly operatic singing voice that endeared him to general manager Joe Brown, kept Carl with the parent club in 1969.
A wise decision it was. Playing first base, the outfield, and coming off the bench, Carl suited up for 104 games and batted a sizzling .348, the highest batting average on the club and .0008 points better than National League batting champion, Pete Rose (albeit in 470 fewer plate appearances).
One would think that an effort like Carl’s 1969 would keep him in Bucs black and white for a while—but convinced of Manny Sanguillén’s and Al Oliver’s future stardom, and well stocked through its rich farm system, Pittsburgh swapped Carl shortly after the season to St. Louis for Dave Giusti and Dave Ricketts. Carl worked another 104 games in 1970, but his batting average tumbled nearly 100 points—and he soon entered the journeyman phase of his career. Dealt to Milwaukee, Carl became a Brewer in name only, as that club packed him off to Kansas City before the new season began.
Batting .189 and unhappy with his lot, United Press International reported on May 23, 1971, that Carl had “burned his uniform and other baseball equipment” (i.e., very possibly his tuxedo) and quit the Royals. Coincidentally—or not—this took place in Baltimore, and Boog tried to talk him out of it after the game. Was there an element of step-sibling rivalry? Boog was the reigning A.L. MVP, owner of two World Series rings, and justifiably earning $70,000 more than Carl. Possibly still smarting from the trade after his .348 season—especially because Pittsburgh became a playoff team the following year—Carl may have been dismayed that, unlike Boog, he wasn’t snappin’ necks and cashin’ checks.
“I wanna make bank, bro!” Carl allegedly complained to Boog. “I wanna get ass. I wanna drive a Hemi ‘Cuda.”
Boog may well have thought that he had a huge doucher for a stepbrother, but whatever plagued Carl didn’t last, so—at least secretly—he wasn’t a doucher. Carl returned to the Royals and appeared in two games for Kansas City before being farmed out to Omaha, where he pummeled American Association pitching for a .362 mark. As luck would have it, Pittsburgh bought his contract for its stretch drive, and Carl found himself on a first-place team. Alas, while the Pirates claimed the National League East, Carl was ineligible for the playoffs, having been acquired three days after the playoff-eligibility deadline. He watched idly as Pittsburgh sliced through San Francisco for the pennant and defeated Boog’s own Orioles in a seven-game cliffhanger to become champions of baseball (although Carl has, at times, augmented his autograph on baseballs with “71 World Champs”).
Likely much to Carl’s surprise, Kansas City bought back Carl shortly before the start of the 1972 season. Carl enjoyed his final two major league campaigns in powder blue, before retiring after the 1973 season. In 411 games, he had accumulated 298 total bases—the same amount Boog amassed in his 1969 season.
Boog’s career continued into summer 1977, first with a trade to the Cleveland Indians in early 1975—where, in the Tribe’s all-maroon road uniforms, he resembled, in his own words, “a massive blood clot”—and then as a pinch-hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who, with a healthy lead in the N.L. West, jettisoned Boog three weeks before clinching a playoff spot.
Boog soon became a favorite pitchman of Miller Lite beer, filming numerous television commercials in the wake of his major league career, several with good-natured former umpire, Jim Honochick (“Hey, you’re Boog Powell!”). These ads, including a few with former Japanese baseball player, Koichi Numazawa, were so well received that Boog enjoyed prestige worldwide.
Riding high, Boog attempted an ambitious start-up company with Carl that would delve into multiple endeavors, including entertainment, management, computers, research & development, and security. They were prepared to put in the man-hours to study the science of what customers need, but, alas, they couldn’t find investors—who could have been possibly you. Later, Boog entered the restaurant industry—and Boog’s BBQ restaurants thrive to this day.
Through February 28, the SABR Baseball Cards Research Committee is accepting nominations for the Jefferson Burdick Award for Contributions to the Hobby.
NOMINATION CRITERIA
Nominations should come from active SABR members (click here to join) and honor a living person who has made significant contributions to the hobby of baseball card collecting in such areas as—
In short, we are looking for the individuals who have made baseball card collecting better for the rest of us.
NOMINATION AND AWARD PROCESS
Have someone in mind? Here is what we’d like you to do.
No later than February 28, use the Contact form on this website to let us know your nominee(s) along with with a brief description of their role or contributions. A few sentences is sufficient at this stage in the process.
Be available for follow-up in case more information is needed.
Publicize this Call for Nominations to other SABR members with an interest in baseball cards.
On our end, we (your committee co-chairs, Nick and Jason) will vet the nominees and then work with our Awards Subcommittee to choose the award winner.
On a sunny afternoon in January 1992, a line of fans stretched from inside the Huntington Beach High School gymnasium, out into the parking lot. That Saturday, the gymnasium was the scene of a sports card show. And though eight-time MLB All-Star and former National League Rookie of the Year, Darryl Strawberry, and the L.A. Raiderettes were on site attracting their own throngs of fans, those standing in the longest line were not waiting to meet them. Instead, their line snaked its way to a table, behind which sat 19-year old Marc Newfield, a baseball player who to that point had never played a game above AA. Newfield was a hometown kid who, just a couple years before, played basketball in this same gymnasium versus rival Huntington Beach High School as a member of the crosstown Marina High School Vikings varsity basketball squad.
It was during his time at Marina High School that Newfield established himself as a star baseball player, one of the most heavily scouted hitters in the nation. In June 1990, the Mariners selected Newfield in the first round of MLB Amateur Draft. As a 17-year-old, he tore up the Arizona Rookie League, clubbing a mammoth homerun (some said it went nearly 500 feet!) in his first professional game on his way to batting .313/.394/.495 with 6 HRs and being voted the league’s MVP. Then, as an 18-year-old in 1991 in the High-A Cal League, his first full-length season, Newfield continued to flourish. In 125 games, he hit .300/.391/.439 and was named a Cal League All-Star and the MVP of his San Bernardino Spirit.
But at this card show, organizers had hired Newfield to appear and sign autographs. After signing for two straight hours, he paused for a respite, observing “My hand’s killing me. All these people…I never expected anything like this. I don’t know what’s going on.” The painfully humble Newfield was bewildered by the gaggle of grown adults waiting in a lengthy line on a Saturday afternoon for his signature.[1]
Many of the dealers and collectors in attendance that day viewed Newfield as a commodity and believed his early professional success would help them make a buck. One vendor was selling his cards for $1.75 each and explained, “He’s $2.50 according to the book. Somebody else here is selling them for $3.50.” Another vendor was laminating Newfield’s cards, mounting them to small wood plaques, and selling the simple displays for $15. A Huntington Beach card shop proprietor on site that afternoon claimed to have 10,000 Newfield cards stocked away in his inventory, lecturing: “The idea is to buy his card cheap now and sell high when he’s made it.” He then held up a box, “There are 1,000 Marc Newfields in here. Hopefully, someday, this card will be worth $70 [similar in value to a Frank Thomas rookie card at that time], too. That’s $70 times 1,000.”[2]
As demonstrated at the January 1992 card show, Newfield’s first two professional seasons launched him into the stratosphere of the baseball card hobby. Baseball card manufacturers, too, wanted a piece of the teenager. At the end of the 1991 season, Upper Deck had scrambled to send a photographer to San Bernardino’s Fiscalini Field to snap shots of Newfield in a Seattle Mariners uniform in what was described as a “just in case session.” Upper Deck did not want to run into the same issue it had a couple years earlier when it did not have a photo of Ken Griffey, Jr. in a Mariners uniform and was forced to airbrush his San Bernardino Spirit hat a lighter shade of blue in order to include him in its 1989 set. Similarly, here Upper Deck wanted to account for all contingencies in the event that Newfield, like Griffey, leapfrogged higher levels in the Mariners minor league system and reached the big leagues in early 1992.[3]
That August 1991 day at Fiscalini Field, Upper Deck provided Newfield a #24 Mariners jersey to wear during the shoot. At the time, Newfield—who was more focused on his own season than the goings-on at the big-league level—had no idea that this #24 jersey with no name sewn on the back was that of Ken Griffey Jr. Even without the knowledge that this jersey was Griffey’s—and the added sense of pressure that such a comparison would inevitably stir in a teen—the modest Newfield, who at that point had not played higher than Class-A, was already uncomfortable being put on a pedestal. Lacking even the slightest hint of ego, he sheepishly confessed on the day of the Upper Deck shoot that though he was honored to be photographed and presented as a big-league talent, “It’s kind of embarrassing. It just seems like it’s not the right time.”[4]
Newfield had no idea that Upper Deck put him in a Griffey jersey.
That whole season, Newfield had done his best to navigate the attention thrown his way. He’d been an attraction at ballparks around the Cal League, signing for young fans. He didn’t mind doing this—it came with the territory. But he admitted getting irritated “when the same people ask for me to sign over and over again. They bring 10 cards one day and five the next.” Though this constant attention might have led some young athletes to develop an attitude or sense of entitlement, Newfield handled it like a professional well beyond his 18 years. Tommy Jones, his manager at San Bernardino, explained in 1991, “He’s handled the off-field pressures of the season very well: baseball-card companies, national magazines, TV, radio, all the media,” adding that Newfield never let the attention affect his play or his relationship with his teammates.[5]
Everybody in the baseball card hobby wanted a piece of Marc Newfield. In January 1992 Baseball Cards magazine named Newfield its “Hot Rookie” in a feature story. The Beckett Focus on Future Stars profiled Newfield twice—in August 1992 and April 1994. And Beckett Baseball Card Monthly showcased the young ballplayer, interviewing him for its April 1994 edition.
I was no different. I had my own Marc Newfield collection. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and by 1992 I was 7 years old and developing my own interest in baseball cards. When I acquired a Seattle Mariner, I put it in a special binder with other Mariners cards. I recently dug out that old Mariners binder and found six different Marc Newfield cards dating 1991 through 1993.
Two of those cards have always stood out to me, and I’ve long wondered the story of those cards and the player pictured in them. I ran an internet search for Marc Newfield and quickly discovered that since his professional baseball career ended in the late 1990s, the once-shy kid from Huntington Beach has, perhaps unsurprisingly, lived outside the public spotlight.
Fortunately though, after a little effort, I was recently able to track down Newfield and speak to him about his personal and professional journey, and of course, about his baseball cards. Like all of us, he’s grown up in the intervening three decades since these cards were issued. But he maintains a sharp memory of those early days of his pro baseball career. He’s also patient and generous with his time. The humble kid from the early 1990s maintains a low profile these days, and, consistent with the personality he showed as a teenage baseball star, he’s still eager to come through for others. It was a real pleasure discussing his cards, and as a result of those conversations, I’m now a bigger fan of his than when he was a hero of mine as a youngster.
The Favorites
Newfield in his Marina High School varsity uniform
The first card I’ve always loved is the 1991 Topps “#1 Draft Pick” (#529). It shows a 17-year old Newfield in his senior year of high school, wearing his Marina Vikings pinstripes. On one knee in a traditional amateur baseball pose, an aluminum bat leaning into his body, a Mizuno batting glove on his left hand, and stirrups showing from below mid-calf, Newfield displays the widest, most sincere smile ever featured on a professional baseball card. The obvious happiness in his face reminds me of the great joy that baseball has brought so many of us. Newfield told me that, indeed, the most fun he ever had on the diamond occurred, not during his ten professional seasons or when he was in the major leagues, but in high school. He specifically recalls the summer of 1989 following his junior year, when he was learning to play first base on a Mickey Mantle 16U team that won tournaments all over the nation before securing a National Championship at Waterbury, Connecticut. The reverse side of the card lists this accomplishment along with Newfield’s high school offensive statistics and many prep accolades, the sort of eye-popping achievements that explain the swarms of scouts in attendance at his high school games.
As a child, I did not understand why this Seattle Mariners baseball card did not show a player in a Mariners jersey. It made no sense. But it also made the card unique. None of the other cards in my collection had players wearing another team’s uniform. And back then, the card’s uniqueness made it stand out against others.
Just a couple of kids, waiting for a ride to the big leagues
Perhaps my favorite card, though, is the 1992 Upper Deck Top Prospect (#51) checklist. I liked it for the same reason as the 1991 Topps card: it was unique. Newfield is not even in a baseball uniform, but rather street clothes, looking like a teenager waiting for a bus. And here, the card shows two players, a second unique trait!
Newfield stands with Montreal Expos prospect Rondell White, and each has a team-issued duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Newfield sports a San Bernardino Spirit hat, and his oversized outfielder’s glove pokes out of his unzipped bag. But I’ve wondered: why doesn’t he have a bat in his bag the way White does?
The card shows the two young men standing in grass, seemingly along a road. Newfield pointed out that in the card, he is wearing two different shoes—I’d never observed this detail before. The grey shoe on his left foot is actually a medical boot. Following the 1991 season, he had undergone a surgery to try to correct a foot issue that had been bothering him for years and had become increasingly painful. He was recovering from that surgery when Upper Deck staged this photo. That surgery, however, did not alleviate the pain, and he was forced to undergo a much more invasive foot surgery in 1992 that cut short his season at AA Jacksonville.
White’s right hand rests on Newfield’s left shoulder, like a nurturing big brother. Interestingly, Newfield explained that he and Rondell White had no prior relationship—they were not friends, nor did they enjoy a personal connection. Upper Deck simply paired them together for this card. Nevertheless, the men gaze, together, into the dream-filled distance.
Behind them is a short wire rope fence, and a post rises over their heads with two signs attached. One sign points left toward Seattle; the other right to Montreal—with this signage, the photo should have been taken in central North America at a geographic point between those two big-league cities. But rather, Upper Deck had flown White out to Orange County, California, where Newfield lived in Huntington Beach and was recovering during the offseason. They staged the photo nearby, along California’s iconic Pacific Coast Highway.
Newfield has his own favorite cards from his playing days, though unlike me, he was never much of a baseball card collector growing up. Early in his career, he admitted that seeing himself on baseball cards was exciting and surreal, if not a little odd: “I’ll get a card, or my friends get the cards, and we kind of laugh because we all grew up together. It’s weird that one of us would be on a baseball card.” In 1994 he told Beckett magazine that his favorite of his cards was the 1994 Fleer Major League Prospects (#26), in which he is shown following through on a swing, in front of a Mariners logo.[6]
Newfield’s favorite card in 1994
But these days, his favorite card is the 1996 Select Team Nucleus (#22) that pictures Newfield, with Padres teammates Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti. He smiles and suggests how “ridiculous” it was that Select included him on a Team Nucleus card in 1996. After all, the Padres had acquired Newfield from the Mariners at the 1995 trade deadline, and he’d played just 21 games in a Padres uniform by the time the card was produced. But those 21 games represented the first time in Newfield’s young career in which he was afforded the opportunity to play every day and adjust to big league pitching without fear of imminent demotion or losing his place on the lineup card. And Newfield excelled, hitting .309/.333/.491 during that stretch. That late season performance in 1995 landed Newfield on this 1996 Team Nucleus card alongside first-ballot Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn—Mr. Padre himself—and Ken Caminiti, who would win the NL MVP after that 1996 season and eventually land in the Padres Hall of Fame. And though he still thinks the card is ridiculous, Newfield values this card because he was featured alongside two baseball legends. It is also not lost on him that, of the three ballplayers on the card, he’s the lone survivor.
Newfield’s all-time favorite card from his playing career
Though the vendors at the January 1992 Huntington Beach card show may be disappointed that Newfield’s cards won’t finance a lush retirement, I still enjoy flipping through my Marc Newfield collection and adding more to my growing set. Each card tells its own story. And now, after I’ve had the good fortune of meeting Marc Newfield and getting to better know the man pictured in the cards, they are more valuable to me than any others in my collection.
[1] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.
[2] Mike Penner, “Investing in Stars of the Future,” Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition), February 2, 1992: 1.
[3] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.
[4] Gregg Patton, “Majors seem in the cards for Newfield,” San Bernardino County Sun, August 23, 1991: C1.
[5] Jim Callis, “On the Mark,” Baseball Cards, January 1992: 55.
[6] Matt Hayes, “Focus on Marc Newfield,” Beckett Focus on Future Stars, April 1994, No. 36: 20.
Keith Hernandez (L) and Frank Thomas (R) – 2022 Mets Old Timers Day
“I’m so thankful that my dad was able to go to Old Timers’ Day. “It meant the world to him to see his old teammates. I was thrilled with how the fans greeted him. I was so happy to see him in uniform again. We will treasure those memories forever.”
Maryanne Pacconi (Frank Thomas’s daughter)
Frank Thomas, who passed away at 93 on Monday, January 16th, was a bright spot on the 1962 Mets team that won only 40 games. Frank had one of his best seasons in 1962 smashing 34 home runs and driving in 94 runs.
Road Trip to Citi Field
In early July my daughter and I had a wonderful time visiting Frank at his home in Pittsburgh. We talked about his playing days and our families. During the visit several Casey Stengel stories came up during our conversation. One of them was about the time he hit two home runs in three consecutive games during the ’62 season. “When I hit my first home run to start the streak, I was wearing glasses with yellow lenses. It was a twilight game, and the yellow lenses made it look like it was daylight. I circled the bases and then sat back down in the dugout. Casey looked over at me and asked – Where did you get the glasses? I said the trainer gave them to me. Casey said – Tell him to order a gross of ‘em for the other players.”
Towards the end of our visit, Frank mentioned that he was going to be at the Mets Old Timers on August 27th. “It’s probably my last one,” he said. And then a big smile came across his face, and he added – “The Mets called me up and wanted my measurements. They are going to make me a uniform!”
I told Frank that I would be there, and after returning home from Pittsburgh, I bought two tickets for the game. This was going to be the first Mets Old Timers Day since 1994. The game was heavily promoted by the Mets organization and was a sellout.
I went to the Old Timers game with a high school buddy of mine – another baseball fanatic – who also lives near Boston.
We left early in the morning and got to the park in plenty of time to see Frank make his red-carpet entrance into the stadium along with the other former players. He was using his walker but moving at a brisk pace. I am certain that getting to the Old Timers game was a major effort for Frank since he had a bad fall prior to the event.
The Mets did a phenomenal job putting together the Old Timers game. Sixty-five former players and managers returned for the event. Joining Frank on the field from the 1962 team were Jay Hook, Craig Anderson, Ken MacKenzie, and Ed Kranepool.
Howie Rose, longtime radio broadcaster for the Mets, was the master of ceremonies and introduced each player before the game. The pre-game festivities also included retiring Willie Mays’ number 24.
It was obvious that the former players who had come back for the event had a great time. On the field I saw lots of laughing, high fives, hugs, and pictures being taken. The program stated that each Old Timer received a ring with their name on one side and the number 60, representing the team’s 60th anniversary on the other side. That was a nice touch.
Mets Cards of Frank Thomas Issued by Topps
Topps issued cards of Frank for each year he played for the Mets.
The Mets being an expansion team in 1962 created a problem for Topps. They could not get pictures of players in their proper uniforms and meet production schedules. As a result, Topps used a picture of Frank without a cap and wearing a Cubs uniform for his 1962 card – #7. Topps used a similar solution for just about all of the other Mets players with cards in the 1962 set. The exception being the Al Jackson card – #464 – which was a late production run 6th Series card.
1962 Topps Card #7
The 1963 card of Frank – #495 – is my personal favorite. I have always liked the design of these cards and the photographer took a nice color head and shoulders shot of Frank for the main image on the card.
1963 Topps Card #495
The batting stance picture used on his 1964 card – #345 – is similar to the batting stance pictures on his 1957 Topps card – #140 and his 1960 Topps card – #95.
If there was a Hall of Fame for major league ball players that signed Through The Mail (TTM), Frank would be in it.
In his autobiography Frank recalled his youth and stated: “I’d wait outside of the clubhouse after games and try to meet the players and get their autographs. Many guys would walk right by us kids with no acknowledgement whatsoever. It was very disappointing to see. That’s one of the reasons that I made a point to ALWAYS sign autographs as I left the clubhouse. I didn’t want some young fan’s recollection of me to be that I walked right past home as he held out his autograph book for me to sign.”
Since 2019 Frank and I had been communicating on regular basis, primarily by mail. Frank was old school. He did not text and he did not have a computer. I would bang out a letter on my computer, and Frank would respond back with a handwritten letter. He would answer my baseball questions in his letters and give me updates on his health and his children. The nominal fee that he asked for signing baseball cards went to two charities: – Camp Happy Days-Kids Kicking Cancer and Courageous Kidz. I gladly contributed to his charities and sent him cards that spanned his career to sign. I always received the cards back promptly – beautifully signed – along with a thank you note.
Letters from Frank were signed…
Frank Thomas
The Original One
1951- 1966
I always got a kick out of that.
Apparently, anyone that contributed to his charities made the Christmas card mailing list. To my amazement, I received my first custom Christmas card from Frank in 2019.
2022 Christmas Card from Frank Thomas
Through baseball card collecting, I had the opportunity and privilege to become friends with Frank Thomas. I will miss him.
Planning a Return Trip to Citi Field
My two teams have always been the Red Sox and the Pirates; however the whole experience on August 27th really left quite an impression on me and has turned me into a Mets fan too.
Last November I wrote about how Fox Sports has been using junk wax baseball cards as inspiration for its web graphics. It was a fun piece to work on and one of the best things about it is that it came to the attention of the designer at Fox who worked on those graphics. Garrett Prentice (@garrett_psd) has been a designer for Fox Sports for two years and has previously designed key art for television and movie releases. He has also designed for both the Washington Commanders née Redskins and the Los Angeles Rams.
We’ve been following each other on Twitter for a few months now and when it became clear how popular the baseball card graphics were with this community I asked him if he’d agree to answer a few questions about himself, his designs, and his relationship to card collecting. Garrett graciously agreed to answer my questions and put a lot of thought into his responses. What follows here required basically no editing.
Nick: Looking at the Fox Sports story cards as well as your portfolio shows a lot of designs that distinctly reference physical prints. From things like worn edges, wrinkled paper, and scotch tape to seriously geeky things like reproducing halftone rosettes, creating two-ink looks, and including printing crop marks and registration it’s clear that you appreciate the history of graphic design and the fingerprints of its production. Can you talk about your design influences and whether the baseball cards are a natural progression from this or if they were something special for you?
Garrett: I make it a point to include a decent amount of texture and familiar printing techniques in my work so that it doesn’t feel digital and synthetic. Sometimes, all the little extra things that you mentioned can really elevate a design. It shows attention to detail. I used to go to antique stores a lot in college, and would keep an eye out for fine details that I could incorporate in my work.
While in college, I loved the work of Fraser Davidson, Michael Schwab and Darrin Crescenzi. Although they have extremely different styles, I was really drawn to each of them. Davidson has a fun and playful side to his work that I really love. He is also probably the best sports logo designer in the world. Schwab has an iconic and vintage style that is timeless. Lastly there’s Crescenzi, whose work is so elegant and modern. I always thought he had the coolest style of any designer. He made a pretty sweet Game of Thrones poster you should check out.
These days, I’m influenced by Neil Jamieson, Matt Lange, and TRAN LA. Most of the time I try not to pull inspiration for my work. I just try to make the best design with the images I find. I’m also inspired by the social team at FOX Sports. It’s pretty awesome that I have access to their PSDs* — not only because I can incorporate them into my work, but because I can dive in and see how they did something.
*.psd is the native Photoshop file format which preserves all layers, masks, etc.
I think making baseball cards at some point is a natural progression, but I just need to keep working hard and learning. There are so many great designers out there to learn from.
Nick: How did you choose the card designs you’ve been using since they’re as old as you are? Do you just like the “junk” era of cards or is that part of the general nostalgia marketing that’s currently directed at my generation?
Garrett: I gravitate to the ’90s era of card design simply because it reminds me of my childhood. I started asking my mom to buy me cards around at 10 years old, so that would be around 1996–97. I had mostly Topps and Upper Deck — which I always revered the most because I loved the shiny logo. Another reason for this is that I didn’t have the money to afford the “premium” cards.
Nick: Making digital web graphics look like physical objects is something I’ve thought about for long time with things like the Topps Bunt App. Sometimes I feel like it’s not fully embracing what digital is best at. Other times it’s a reminder that we have centuries of practice about what works best for communication. Outside of the way they look, what are your thoughts as a graphic designer about what it means to maintain and reference the concept of a physical object in the digital realm.
Garrett: I think it’s nice to have a little bit of both. Sleek and polished digital design certainly looks awesome when it’s executed the right way, which is how a lot of my favorite NFTs look. But adding the printed or real-world mistakes and imperfections just shows me that the designer took the time to add another layer of detail. I think there should always be room for digital art that looks organic or is a reference to mixed media. It gives things a warmer feel. Take a look at the work by Sergio Santos (@elsantosbaseball). He does this to the extreme, mostly because he paints everything, but also because he doesn’t care if it’s perfect, which is why I love his work.
Nick: Both regarding cards and regarding the other reference materials you’ve used (like the Harry M. Stevens scorecard), what’s your reference library like and is it part of your personal collection?
Garrett: My reference library includes a ton of cards from my youth, about 100 Sports Illustrated magazines that I saved (mostly from the late 90s) and hundreds of Starting Lineups. I also love buying printed things on eBay, like old postcards, money, and recently, a map of The Masters golf course at Augusta National. Aside from that, my main reference sites are Behance, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, IMP Awards, The Cardboard Connection, and Automobilist.
Nick: If you have a personal collection what do you collect and how long have you been collecting?
Garrett: I have a respectable junk card collection that isn’t worth anything from a collecting standpoint. Upper Deck and Topps were my favorite brands as a kid, and I would jump at an opportunity to work with either of them. Although I love cards, what I cherish most are my Starting Lineups. I love the packaging and they’re just nostalgic for me. My favorites are the 1991 Michael Jordan, and two Kobe Bryants (1996, 1998). They’re all in very good/mint condition, but I’ve never sent them in to be graded. I’m too nervous they will get banged up in delivery.
I bought three (Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Steph Curry) of the newly released NBA series, but I was underwhelmed. I really don’t like the new branding, and the size and packaging style of the originals can’t be beaten.
Nick: Your portfolio shows off the vertical images. Fox Sports however tends to emphasize the horizontal versions due to mobile site and social media preview reasons. I appreciate that the two versions are actual redesigns. Which aspect ratio do you prefer (if any) both in terms of creating the cards and in terms of the final product?
Garrett: I start with the vertical since that’s what the user sees first on the Home Screen. The art used to go full-bleed on the home screen before the FOX Sports app was recently redesigned, so that was always the main priority. I typically prefer the vertical also, since it’s more similar to one-sheets I’ve designed in the past.
Nick: How do you feel about people printing your work out and putting them into binder pages?
Garrett: It’s a huge compliment. It’s always nice to see people appreciate your work, with whatever you do. I appreciate the time they took out of their day to do something like that. It’s really cool.
This article was written by Bruce Markusen. You can find Bruce on Twitter at @markusen_s.
There’s little doubt that Nate Colbert enjoyed his 76 years on this earth. Colbert, who died earlier this month, always seemed happy. And he loved to smile. Evidence of that can be found on his 1969 Topps card, where he flashes a full and uncontrolled smile for the cameraman. Although Colbert was still an unproven player at the time the photograph was taken, his card seems to reflect his sheer happiness over simply being in the major leagues.
Aside from his extreme and ever-present smile, something else stands out about Colbert’s 1969 Topps card. He is not wearing a cap, not for the team that first signed him (the St. Louis Cardinals), not for his previous team (the Houston Astros), or his new team (the San Diego Padres). The decision to have players pose capless was a common technique used by Topps at the time. In the event that a player changed teams over the course of the winter or during spring training, the capless photographs maintained a more generic appearance. With the capless pose, Topps could easily crop the photo so as to eliminate the name or logo of the old team on the jersey.
In the case of Colbert, other factors were at play. As an expansion team, the Padres had yet to play a game, which would have theoretically limited Topps’ opportunities for an updated photograph showing Colbert wearing his new team’s colors. More pertinently, in a development involving all major league players in 1969, a lingering dispute between Topps and the MLB Players Association caused havoc with the production of baseball cards. Unhappy with the paltry compensation given to players for the rights to use their images on cards, Marvin Miller had instructed players to refuse posing for photographs in 1968, both during spring training and the regular season. That explains why so many of the cards in the 1969 Topps set feature photographs that are two or three years old (or even older). Those photos often depict traded or otherwise relocated players without caps, or sometimes show them from angles that obscure the logos of their old teams.
In contrast, Colbert would appear on Topps cards in his full Padres regalia from 1970 to 1974. By 1970, the union had negotiated a new and far more favorable deal with Topps, allowing the card company to resume its business of taking updated photographs. Of that series of Colbert cards, the most memorable is the 1973 version, which once again gives us a smiling Colbert. Even more noticeable is Colbert’s uniform, the Padres’ all-yellow uniforms that they first introduced in 1972.
Those duds, arguably the gaudiest uniforms of an outlandish era, may have been ugly, but as Colbert pointed out during a 2008 visit to the Hall of Fame, he looked at that uniform with a philosophical approach. “The yellow ones, which were called ‘Mission Gold’—I don’t know where they got that name from—when I first put them on, I felt really embarrassed. But I looked at it like, this is the major leagues; this is the uniform I was required to wear,” said Colbert. “I took a lot of ribbing, especially from the Reds and Pirates players. Even my mother used to tease me. She said I looked like a caution light that was stuck.”
While Colbert would become most associated with the Padres’ yellow-and-brown look, his career path could have gone far differently; he might very well have worn the more conservative cap and uniform of the New York Yankees. As an amateur free agent in 1964, the year before the major league draft came into being, Colbert was pursued aggressively by the Yankees. They had promised to exceed any offers given to him by any other team, but ultimately Colbert chose to go elsewhere.
If the Yankees had signed Colbert, they presumably would have brought him to the majors by the late 1960s. That would have been good timing for a struggling franchise filled with aging players and prospects who were not up the standards of the organization during its glory years. In particular, the Yankees had an unstable situation at first base. The retirement of Mickey Mantle at the start of spring training in 1969 forced the Yankees to switch Joe Pepitone from the outfield to first base. But Pepitone himself would depart after the 1969 season, via a trade with Colbert’s old team, the Astros.
From 1970 to 1973, the Yankees struggled to find anyone capable of giving them the ideal power expected from a first baseman. Role players like Danny Cater, Johnny Ellis, and Mike Hegan, the oft-injured Ron Blomberg, and an aging Felipe Alou took turns playing the position. Blomberg was the best hitter of the group, but injuries curtailed his production, while his poor defensive play made him a better fit at DH starting in 1973. Even if healthy, it’s doubtful that Blomberg would have matched the production of Colbert. A young Colbert would have supplied some much-needed right-handed power to a Yankees lineup that leaned heavily to the left.
But Colbert-to-the-Yankees never happened. He briefly considered the Yankees’ offer before choosing to sign with his hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals. That was Colbert’s dream; he had always wanted to play for the same team as one of his boyhood heroes, Stan Musial. Unfortunately, the Cardinals did not think Colbert was ready to succeed Bill White at first base and had no room for him in left field (where Lou Brock resided). After the 1965 season, the Cardinals left Colbert unprotected in the Rule Five draft.
The Astros jumped in and picked up Colbert, who by the requirements of Rule Five had to stay on the major league roster the entire season or be offered back to the Cardinals. In the spring of ’66, Colbert made his major league debut. According to Colbert, he became the second member of his family to play in the major leagues, after his father, Nate, Sr. The younger Colbert claimed that his father was a catcher who was a onetime batterymate of the great Satchel Paige, but there is no official record of Nate Colbert, Sr. having appeared in an official Negro Leagues game.
As for the junior Colbert, he played in only 19 games for the Astros, accumulating a mere seven at-bats without a hit. For some reason, Astros manager Grady Hatton refused to use Colbert in the field, instead giving him only the handful of bats and a few pinch-running appearances. It turned out to be a wasted summer for the 20-year-old Colbert.
By 1967, the Astros were free to send Colbert back to the minor leagues, where he could accrue both actual playing time and badly needed experience. They assigned him to the Amarillo Sonics, their Double-A affiliate in the Texas League. He then returned to the Astros midway through 1968 and was later given a September looksee at first base, but he did not hit well and showed a propensity for striking out. He also clashed with Astros manager Harry Walker, who tried to force Colbert into becoming a contact hitter who hit to all fields. Colbert wanted to pull the ball—and hit with power.
Still, Colbert found his fair share of fun away from the field. Some of that came through sharing a clubhouse with the most colorful teammate of his career. During his visit to Cooperstown in 2008, where he regaled visitors with stories from his major league days, Colbert recalled playing with Doug Rader, the quirky and unpredictable third baseman who was forever playing pranks and testing the limits of sanity. “When we were with the Astros,” Colbert said, “[Rader] and one of the guys, another player on the team, went down to the pet store. That’s when it was legal to own alligators. And they bought three alligators, baby alligators. They waited until we were all in the shower, and they let them loose in the shower, down in Cocoa, Florida. We were trying to climb the walls, these little baby alligators all around us.”
Rader made life in Houston memorable for Colbert, but he longed for an opportunity to do more on the field. A much-needed break would soon come his way. After the 1968 season, the National League added the Padres and the Montreal Expos as expansion franchises. The Astros left Colbert unprotected in the expansion draft, giving the Padres the chance to select his contract. With the 18th pick of the draft, after such obscure selections as infielder Jose Arcia and pitcher Al Santorini, the Padres took Colbert. He would soon become their best player.
After starting the season in a platoon role at first base, Colbert caught the attention of his new manager, Preston Gomez. At first, the Padres planned to platoon Colbert with the lefty-hitting Bill Davis, who was six-feet, seven-inches tall and was known as “The Jolly Green Giant.” Colbert went on a short hot streak, impressing Gomez. The Padres soon traded Davis, clearing the way for Colbert to play every day.
From 1969 to 1972, Colbert put up huge power numbers, twice hitting 38 home runs in a season and twice posting slugging percentages of better than .500. Those numbers become even more impressive given his home ballpark, San Diego Stadium, which featured a distance of 420 feet to center field and outfield walls that stood 17 feet high. In 1972, Colbert’s best year, he collected 111 RBIs, accounting for nearly 23 per cent of the Padres’ run total for the season. That remarkable 23 percent figure remains a major league record.
Colbert was never better than he was on August 1 that season, when the Padres played a doubleheader against the Braves at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium. Colbert hit two home runs in the first game, one against Ron Schueler and one against Mike McQueen, and then smacked three more in the nightcap, victimizing Pat Jarvis, Jim Hardin, and Cecil Upshaw.
The fifth home run matched the doubleheader record set by his boyhood hero, Musial. (To make the story even better, Colbert claimed that he was one of the fans in attendance at Sportsman’s Park the day that Musial hit his five home runs.) Rather dramatically, Colbert hit the record-tying home run in the ninth inning against Upshaw, a tough right-handed reliever who threw with a submarine delivery. That home run gave Colbert 13 RBIs for the doubleheader, establishing a record for a single day.
Colbert’s years with the Padres provided other memorable moments, including the infamous night in April of 1974 when new team owner Ray Kroc took over the public address system on Opening Night at San Diego Stadium. “Well, we had just gotten thumped in LA,” said Colbert, setting the scene. “And we came home… and were getting thumped again [by the Astros]. So I was the hitter, and somebody comes on the mike and says, ‘People of San Diego…’ It scared me, I thought it was God. You know, I thought, oh gosh, the rapture was coming, and I’m not ready. And he said, ‘I want to apologize for such stupid baseball playing.’ So in protest, I said to myself, I’m not swinging.’ I just stood there and I walked… We eventually got a rally going. We scored five runs [actually three runs]. He [Kroc] apologized to us later. And I told him, ‘You own us. You can say what you want!’ ”
That same season, Colbert struggled in making the transition to the outfield. The Padres moved him there to make up for wintertime acquisition Willie McCovey, who took over first base. That was also the summer that Colbert’s chronic and longstanding back problems worsened. Diagnosed with a congenital condition caused by degermation of his vertebrae, Colbert’s hitting mechanics were severely affected by 1974, leaving him with a batting average of .207 and a paltry 14 home runs. That winter, the Padres traded Colbert, sending him to the Detroit Tigers for a package of shortstop Eddie Brinkman, outfielder Dick Sharon, and a minor league pitcher named Bob Strampe.
Colbert would spend an unproductive tenure of two and a half months in Detroit before being sold to the Montreal Expos at the June 15th trading deadline. (That explains why Colbert appeared on only one Topps card as a member of the Tigers. Appropriately, the 1975 card shows him with an upturned cap and another large smile.) He would fare little better with the Expos before being released in June of 1976.
Later that summer, Colbert signed with the Oakland A’s. Although he appeared in only two games and went hitless in five at-bats for the A’s, he enjoyed his time playing for another controversial owner, one who surpassed Ray Kroc for unpredictable behavior. “As far as Charlie Finley, I loved Charlie Finley,” Colbert said. “I thought he was awesome. When he traded for me, he told me that he always wanted me to play for him. He told me couldn’t afford me the next year [1977], but he wanted me to have a good time that year [1976]. He told me if I needed anything, just call him. He treated my wife and I very well.”
Becoming a free agent after the 1976 season, Colbert drew little interest from teams. One team, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays, offered him an invite to spring training as a non-roster player. Colbert took the offer, but his back problems persisted, resulting in his release early in spring camp. The release officially ended his major league career.
It was during his brief tenure in Oakland that Colbert met his wife, Kasey, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. The couple would have nine children and 22 grandchildren. They both became ministers and co-owners of an organization that provided advice and counseling to amateur athletes considering careers at the professional level.
While Colbert did a lot of good work with kids, his post-baseball life also involved controversy. In 1990, Colbert was indicted on 12 felony counts of fraudulent loan applications. He listed real estate assets that he did not actually own on several loan applications to banks. Under the maximum penalty, he could have faced 40 years in prison, but Colbert eventually pled guilty to only one charge and served six months in a medium-security facility.
After his release from prison, Colbert returned to his ministry and opened up several baseball schools. He also served briefly as a minor league manager in two independent leagues before again returning fulltime to his ministry work.
In more recent years, Colbert hosted a weekly radio show on KBAD Radio, an affiliate of NBC. He also hoped to write a book about his experiences, including his work as a minister, though he never did embark on such a project. But for Colbert, his ministry was clearly his obsession. “I love to pray,” Colbert said during his visit to the Hall of Fame. “And I love to teach. I love the involvement with other people.”
Given the broad smile on his 1969, 1973, and 1975 Topps cards, Nate Colbert’s affinity for people should have come as no surprise. He made life fun for many of his teammates and helped a lot of youngsters along the way. And there’s little doubt that he enjoyed just about every day that he spent playing our game.
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 