“Every team needs a Bob Oldis.“
Joe L. Brown, Pittsburgh Pirates’ General Manager, 1956-1976

I met Bob Oldis in January of 2010 in Bradenton, Florida at the Pittsburgh Pirates Fantasy Camp. I was at the camp as a fan, not one of the players.
Since 2010 was the 50th anniversary of the Pirates winning the World Series a number of other players from the 1960 team were at the Fantasy Camp including Bob Friend, Vern Law, Bill Mazeroski, Bill Virdon, Bob Skinner, and Joe Gibbon.
I am a diehard Pirate fan, but I have to admit that was not aware that Bob Oldis was member of the 1960 team prior to attending the camp.
Bob was the third string catcher for the 1960 Pirates team and played in 22 games during the season. He collected 4 hits in 20 at bats for an average of .200. Bob did see action in the 1960 World Series coming in as defensive replacement in the 4th and 5th games. The Pirates won both of these games at Yankee Stadium.
I had advance information that some of the 1960 Pirates were going to be at 2010 camp, so I brought some pictures from the 1960’s with me for autographs. One was a picture of the Pirates lined up on the field before one of World Series games. When I showed the picture to Bob, he said – “That’s the first time I have seen that picture.” I told him – “You are in the picture someplace.” Bob’s reply was – “I don’t think so. I was in the bullpen.”
All the former players that I have met at various Fantasy Camps appear to be having a good time. However, at this camp Bob was clearly enjoying the experience. He was even helping some of the fans get autographs of some of the other former Pirates in attendance.
In February of 2019 I wrote a letter to Bob recounting our meeting in 2010 and asking him to sign his 1961 Topps card and also a custom card that I made that had a picture of the both of us at the camp. He signed both and sent me back a nice note.

I had seen several bloggers post Player Collection Spotlight pieces and thought that a Spotlight on Bob would be interesting. However, when I was researching his baseball cards online, I noticed that there was a 5-year gap between when Topps issued his 1955 card and his 1960 card. At first I thought I missed something, but upon digging into Bob’s career a little more he did indeed play in the minors for 4 seasons starting in 1955 with no call ups to the majors until 1960.


Gapper Definition
In doing some further research into players with gaps between when their cards were issued, I came across the Gappers blog post on the Night Owl Cards site from 2017. In the post Gappers are defined as “players who have disappeared off cards for a least three years and then returned.” The post also states that players that “didn’t come to a contract agreement with Topps…aren’t true gappers.”
The Gappers post focuses on players from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Vincente Romo is cited as the player with the largest gap. Topps issued a card of Vincente in 1983. His previous card was in issued in 1975. A gap of 8 years!
Baseball Card Trivia Question
So, my baseball card trivia question is……
Question: What major league player is the first gapper? (Gapper defined above)
Answer: Bob Oldis (1955 Topps card and 1960 Topps card) – I think. There are many of you out there who know a lot more about baseball cards than I do, so please weigh in by way of a comment. Is Bob Oldis the correct answer?
Bonus Question: What major league player has the biggest gap between his standard Topps player card and his Topps manager card.
Answer: Tom Lasorda (Topps 54 player card and 1973 Topps manager card) – I think.
