Category: Canada

Cardboard Typos and Gripe-o’s—Part 2

For nearly 30 years, editing has brought home my bacon. It wasn’t my desired profession; I fell into it like an open manhole—and I’m still trying to climb my way out. The grammatical, punctuational, and syntactic boo-boos I fix have been mostly in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, but they’ve been pretty easy to spot in my spare time as well—which means, to a degree, on the backs, and sometimes fronts, of baseball cards.

Years ago, I began jotting down factual errors and spelling typos (punctuation issues and lack of hyphenation are so rampant that chronicling them would be a never-ending and pointless task). I do not keep abreast of baseball card commentary as vigilantly as I once did, so at least one of the following errors has been posted elsewhere, which means that others—maybe many—in this simple and hardly comprehensive multi-part list might also have been documented in that long interim.

Here, Part 2 continues this absolutely uncomprehensive, and extremely random, list of baseball card errors (see Part 1 here).

  • 1911 T201 Mecca Double Folder Lefty Leifield (backed with Mike Simon): Unlike other pitchers in the set, the stats for this talented Pirates southpaw feature batting and fielding records—Lefty’s pitching ledger for the previous season has been mysteriously replaced by his work with the glove. Yet it’s not even Lefty’s statistics. Card-mate and battery mate Mike Simon—whose statistics are completely absent under his own name—appears at first glance to have his statistics erroneously replacing Leifield’s field work (note the inclusion of passed balls). However, the lack of quality control on Mecca’s part is even more out of control than this: Beyond problematic typesetting, the statistics listed are wildly incongruent with Simon’s (as well as all other NL catchers’) performance in 1910—none more so than his alleged .536 fielding percentage—a number that couldn’t keep a catcher on a sandlot field. Just as egregious is his 64 passed balls. In actuality, Simon was not charged with either a single error or passed ball during the previous season. Who knows how these numbers were conjured—the lowest fielding percentage registered by any catcher in the majors in 1910 was .875, and after the rule changes of the 1890s, no catcher had let more than 27 balls past him since the turn of the century. If some supercentenarian is still manning the phones at Mecca Cigarettes, somebody should call to get the lowdown—pronto.
  • 1912 T207 Germany Schaefer: It’s common knowledge that Jim Delahanty’s T207 contains multiple misspellings of his surname (“Delehanty”) on the back (though the front is correct), but that spelling miscue also appears on the back of Germany Schaefer’s T207 (the two were swapped for each other, along with Red Killefer, in 1909, accounting for the mutual mentions). Schaefer’s bio also contains a more personal blunder, stating that, “Since arriving at the Capital he has played first, second, short and third….” However, the utilitarian Schaefer never took the field as a shortstop after his days in Detroit. As a macabre aside, Schaefer, a renowned baseball prankster, died of tuberculosis in the same New York village where Christy Mathewson succumbed to the disease six years later. (It may have even been the same sanatorium; I’m not certain.)
  • 1954 Topps Vern Law (#235): Vern’s “Year” line denotes that he spent the previous season “IN MILITARY SERVICE,” yet “IN” is missing the “I.” I’m not familiar with an Idaho accent, but perhaps Topps was writing in Vern’s native vernacular. (I’ve largely avoided minor points in these lists, but to spotlight Topps’ sloppiness, in the right-hand cartoon mentioning Bing Crosby, “Pirate’s” is incorrectly singular possessive; it doesn’t need an apostrophe at all, but if one is used, it should follow the “s” to be plural possessive. Misuse of the apostrophe is one of the most pervasive marks of ignorance found in print.)
  • 1933 Goudey Tony Lazzeri (#31): Goudey took “Poosh ‘Em Up”’s games played in 1932 and pooshed ‘em down, stating that he played 141 games—Lazzeri actually suited up for 142 games in 1932. Perhaps unfairly, his bio begins that “coming to the bat in his first world series with bases filled, struck out.” This is a necessarily incomplete, almost Twitter-like, reference to Lazzeri’s inning-ending whiff at the hands of Grover Cleveland Alexander in Game 7 of the 1926 World Series, of course. To be fair, it was actually the fourth time in the Series that Lazzeri came to the plate with the bases full. Twice, he delivered important sacrifice flies, including the eventual game-winning run in the top of the 10th in Game 5—without which the Series might never have gone to a seventh game and given baseball that gilded moment.  
  • 1933 Goudey Burleigh Grimes (#64): Burleigh’s bio declares that he “[b]roke into baseball in 1913 with Ottumwa in the Central Association.” With apologies to Radar O’Reilly, who was born right about the time that this card hit the shelves in his native Ottumwa, Burleigh was no rookie in 1913, having pitched in 9 games for the Class D Eau Claire Commissioners of the Minnesota-Wisconsin League in 1912. Had Radar been old enough to watch Ol’ Stubblebeard on the mound, he might have remarked, “Uh-oh, spitters!”
  • 1933 Goudey Earl Averill (#194): More inaccuracy than error—and much like Lefty Gomez’s cards mentioned in Part 1—virtually all of Earl Averill’s cards denote his birth year as 1903, whereas all official sources, including his headstone, report it as 1902.
  • 1949 Bowman Bob Lemon (#238): Bob was anything but a lemon as a pitcher, seven times reaching the 20-win circle and earning a place in the Hall of Fame; however, his cards are a strange and recurring saga of geographical ineptitude on the part of multiple manufacturers. Beginning with his rookie card, Bowman misspelled his birthplace of San Bernardino, California, as “San Bernadino.” (Incorporated in 1869, the city’s spelling had been officially established for 80 years by the time Bowman inked Lemon to a contract.) For most of Bowman’s existence, it repeated this error. One might attribute this to the same biographical information being used rotely over the next 6 years—except that Bowman got the spelling correct in 1951 and 1952, then inexplicably reverted to the original error for the remainder of its run. So, defying any semblance of logic, Bowman printed “Bernadino” in 1949 and 1950, changed correctly to “Bernardino” in 1951 and 1952, and then went back to its mistake in 1953, 1954, and 1955. If that weren’t bizarre enough, all three of Lemon’s Red Man Tobacco cards (1953-’55) also misspelled his birthplace as “Bernadino.” (I don’t know if Red Man, which had long been only a tobacco company, made some kind of deal with Bowman for its baseball information when deciding to issue its own cards—some of their bios read similarly in places—but blame would still fall on Red Man Tobacco for not at least proofreading its product.) In contrast, none of Topps’ cards that list a birthplace erred on this spelling, and Lemon’s 1954 Red Heart and Dan-Dee cards also are correct.
  • 1960 Leaf Jim Coates (#35): A double-dip for Jim. “Binghampton” is a misspelling. Hold the “p,” Leaf. A bigger blooper is that Leaf was under the impression that Coates had never pitched in the majors before 1959—his “Past Year” totals are identical to his “Lifetime” totals. However, Jim appeared in 2 games for the Pinstripes way back in 1956, making the majority of those lifetime statistics incorrect.
  • 1960 Leaf Al Spangler (#38): Al’s home is listed as “Maple Glenn, Pa.” Leaf apparently turned over a new leaf and gave Spangler’s home an extra “n”—the town is spelled Maple Glen. To my knowledge, it never went by “Glenn.”

Rife with typos, Topps’ 1964 Giants subset contains more than its share. Among them:

  • 1964 Topps Giants Orlando Cepeda (#55): Cepeda is denoted as having laced 38 triples as a rookie in 1958. This is diamond hogwash. Did Topps think third-base coach Herman Franks waved a red cape every time Cepeda rounded first so that the Baby Bull came raging uncontrollably into third? Owen Wilson’s 36 triples in 1912 has never been bested, and, in fact, no player has legged out more than 26 ever since. Cepeda, of course, ripped 38 doubles, not 38 triples.
  • 1964 Topps Giants Billy Williams (#52): Topps really shortchanged Billy by stating that he clubbed “20 two-baggers” for the Ponca City Cubs in 1957. The sweet-swinging Williams swatted twice that many in pacing the Sooner State League in doubles.
  • 1964 Topps Giants Carl Yastrzemski (#48): In the right-hand column, Carl was cited to have “wrecked havoc” on opposing pitchers. This is a malaprop—the term is, of course, “wreaked havoc.” At least Topps spelled his surname correctly.
  • 1964 Topps Giants Harmon Killebrew (#38): Deceptive text, even if inadvertent, is a no-no to an editor, so I’m calling out Topps for Killer’s headline, KILLEBREW WINS 2ND HOMER CROWN. As evidenced early in his bio, “For the second consecutive season, the Minnesota Twins’ slugger was the American League home run champion.” This is certainly accurate, Harmon having claimed the crown in 1962 and ’63. However, the headline implies very strongly that these were his only two homer titles to that point—yet Killebrew had also topped the AL in 1959, meaning, of course, that he’d nabbed his third homer crown in 1963, not his second. If I didn’t call this out, I’d be negligent in my long-time occupation as an editor.

If the 1964 Topps Giants subset is something of an editor’s treasure trove, the 1960 and 1961 Fleer sets are a gold rush. Some of the most problematic assemblages of cards out there, they have often caused me to wonder if the company headquartered in my hometown ever employed a fact checker or proofreader. Many’s the time I fantasized about going back in time to be hired as Fleer’s text editor. With a primo job like that, how could a young Ann-Margret not date me?

  • 1960 Fleer Christy Mathewson (#2): Fleer failed to list that Christy also pitched for Cincinnati. Some may say “Big deal—he pitched only 1 game for the Reds.” Well, it was a big deal. That final game—a victory—ultimately allowed Mathewson to tie Grover Cleveland Alexander for most victories by a National League pitcher (even though his true victory total wasn’t discovered until many years after his death). Fleer rectified this oversight—sort of—in its 1961 set, stating that he pitched all of his games “except one” for New York, without specifying that other team. However, Fleer did picture Matty in a Cincinnati uniform—although neither is this definitely, because Christy was better known in red as Cincinnati’s manager for several seasons, which Fleer references.
  • 1960 Fleer Joe Medwick (#22): Fleer anointed Medwick with an RBI total of 1949—which, at that time, would have put Ducky fourth on the all-time list, a handful ahead of Ty Cobb. Now, Medwick was an excellent run producer and, in fact, stands as one of the few National Leaguers to top the Senior Circuit in RBI for 3 consecutive seasons, but the actual total of runs he drove across the plate was a far less robust 1383. Remarkably, Fleer repeated this huge blunder on Joe’s 1961 card (#61).
  • 1961 Fleer Rogers Hornsby (#43): The Rajah’s home run total is incorrectly listed as 302 (he hit 301); his triples total is also inaccurate: 168, though he actually hit 169. His hit total is correct, so I wonder, if among all of the other revisions to old-timers’ statistics, one of Hornsby’s round-trippers was downgraded to a three-base hit. (301 was, as long as I can recall, his established home run total, as can be seen on his 1976 Topps All-Time All-Star card—which is almost certainly from where I first learned the total.)
  • 1961 Fleer Ty Cobb (#14): One of the biggest statistical oversights I’ve seen occurs in Cobb’s bio, as Fleer denotes Ty as having led the AL six times in hitting. As any moderately informed baseball fan knows, Cobb snared an incredible 11 batting crowns (or 12, depending on which source you consult—the Hall of Fame still claims the latter). Regardless of which you consider the true count, Cobb’s run of double-digit batting crowns was, even then, long regarded as one of the most amazing feats in sports annals—and an inexcusable gaffe by Fleer, especially considering that his 1960 Fleer card denotes Cobb as capturing 12 batting titles.

  • 1961 Fleer Grover Cleveland Alexander (#2): Fleer goofs again, misspelling “immortal” in the opening line of Alex’s bio (and fails to include a period as well).
  • 1961 Fleer George Sisler (#78): George’s bio is almost cruelly ironic in its boast that he “played in six World Series.” Sisler, of course, is renowned among the game’s greats who never played in the Fall Classic. (George worked for Brooklyn and Pittsburgh as a scout and batting instructor in later years, but this certainly does not equate with playing in a World Series, and his attachment to pennant-winning teams in either of these capacities fell far short of six anyway.) How could such a false statement be written—and, worse, approved? Perhaps more than any other card in Fleer’s 1960 and ’61 sets, this colossal blunder indicates a shameful lack of commitment to its product and the consumer.

  • 1975 TCMA Red Russell: Typos among “quasi-professional” sets such as TCMA are plentiful. One example is from TCMA’s 1975 issue spotlighting the 1919 White Sox squad. Breaking in with the Southsiders in 1913, Russell crafted one of the best—and most overlooked—rookie seasons by a pitcher, winning 22 games for the 5th-place Sox. By 1919, his arm was gone, facing just 2 batters all season, in a June loss to Boston, which ended his pitching career at a fine 80-59 mark. Soon after this final appearance, Russell went to the Double-A Minneapolis Millers and reinvented himself as an outfielder. He returned to the majors in 1922 and put in a pair of partial seasons for the Pirates, thwacking 21 home runs in 511 at-bats. TCMA’s goof lay in labeling him “Red” Russell. Born in postbellum Mississippi and raised in Texas, he was well known as “Reb” Russell for his obvious Southern heritage. Even so, mild kudos to TCMA for including in the set the member who played least on the roster during the season (there are a few White Sox who played more than Russell yet were not included).
  • 1954 Red Heart Stan Musial: Stan’s bio claims that he has played in “9 All Star games as a Cardinal outfielder.” Through the end of the 1953 campaign, Musial had played in 10 All-Star Games. Yet even if this statement is taken literally—that is, counting his participation only as an outfielder, regardless of how silly it would be for Red Heart to ignore his other appearances in the Midsummer Classic—Musial had, to that time, participated once as a first baseman and once as a pinch-hitter, so the count strictly as an outfielder was 8—which still did not jibe with Red Heart’s claim. It’s also interesting to note that Red Heart, as late as 1954, referred to the Fall Classic as the “World’s Series”—an antiquated spelling that had essentially died out by the 1930s.

And just for good measure, I’m throwing in several hockey card errors:

  • 1957-58 Topps Jean Guy Gendron (#52): Between this entry and the following one, you will see that Gendron appears to have been the target of a systematic process of sloppiness and inconsistency, the likes of which the sports card industry has never seen. In the English bio of this, Gendron’s rookie card, Topps heretically refers to the Montreal club as the “Canadians.” Frankly, Topps should consider itself lucky that Montreal fans didn’t fly into a bleu, blanc, et rage, bus down to Brooklyn, and burn the plant to the ground. Despite being Gendron’s official rookie card, this also establishes a long and winding road of instability concerning his first name. Gendron’s first name appears to officially have been spelled with a hyphen, “Jean-Guy,” as evidenced by several official sources as well as the back of his true rookie card, the 1952 Juniors Blue Tint. Yet from 1957 to 1963, Topps always denoted him simply as Guy Gendron (although, as you can see, the reverse of his rookie card is “Jean G.” Gendron). He then became “Jean Guy” on his 1968 card (shown for a different reason in the following entry), was amended to “Jean-Guy” in 1969, then was stripped of the hyphen in 1970 and 1971, and enjoyed a restored hyphen for his final card, in 1972. (Gendron’s 1970 Dad’s Cookies card and 1970 Esso stamp also feature the hyphen.)

  • 1968 OPC Jean Guy Gendron (#185): The statistical record claims that Gendron was “Not in N.H.L.” during the 1967-68 season. Although the long-time NHL veteran had been dispatched to the AHL’s Quebec Aces in 1964 and remained there for 4 seasons, Gendron did suit up for 1 game with the phledgling Philadelphia Flyers—even picking up an assist—during his final year with Quebec. (Gendron would go on to play 4 seasons with the Orange and Black, becoming one of the team’s best forwards in its early years.) Furthermore, though not an outright error, Gendron’s bio begins that he, Andre Lacroix, and Simon Nolet “are counted heavily on this year by Coach Courtney.” This is a strange reference to Philadelphia’s inaugural head coach, Keith Allen, whose given name was Courtney. I’m inclined to believe that OPC mistook “Courtney” as his surname, because it’s difficult to believe that OPC was on an overly casual first-name basis with the little-known skipper of a barely established expansion club.

  • 1979 OPC J. Bob Kelly (#306): This is likely well known to all except the young’uns. Rather obviously—at least it should be—the player depicted is not J. Bob Kelly—better known in rinks as “Battleship” Kelly—but long-time Broad Street Bully, Bob “the Hound” Kelly. (The pictured Bob Kelly has his own OPC and Topps cards that year; J. Bob Kelly has no Topps counterpart.) As an aside (though not an error itself), OPC denotes that Kelly was “Now with Oilers”; however, Kelly’s last skate in the NHL occurred during the previous season’s quarterfinals as the New York Islanders swept Kelly’s Chicago Black Hawks. Battleship did split 4 games between the Cincinnati Stingers and the Houston Apollos of the Central Hockey League during the 1979-80 season, but he never played for Edmonton, despite the Oilers drafting Kelly from Chicago in the 1979 NHL Expansion Draft.
  • 1969-70 Topps (#59) and OPC (#59) Carl Brewer: Perhaps it’s something of an honor to be incorrect in two countries, as both Topps and OPC were in listing Carl’s home of Muskegon, Michigan, which is misspelled as “Muskegan” on both cards.  
  • 1971-72 OPC (#156) and 1972-73 OPC (#100) Rogatien Vachon: Errors north of the border get a little more complex with this pair of Rogie Vachon cards. Each errantly refers to Vachon as “Roggie”—the first card twice in the bio and the latter card in the cartoon. OPC then wised up and never again made this misspelling (the reverse of Topps/OPC 1978-79 cards, which feature the player’s autograph, confirm the spelling in Vachon’s own hand, as if confirmation were needed). OPC dropped the puck a second time on his 1972-73 card, botching Vachon’s first name as “Ragatien.” (Topps got the spelling right but featured the same erroneous cartoon.) A former coworker who is a cousin of Vachon responded to my request for Rogie’s comments on this with, “Jesus, Randy, I’m busy. Leave me alone!”

Player Collection spotlight – Tim Jordan

Editor’s note: Do you have a player you collect? We’d love to hear about it. All SABR members are eligible to write for the blog!

I’ve written about Tim Jordan once already for the blog, and it was exactly that piece that led to this one. You see, back in March I had become fascinated with Tim Jordan but had exactly zero of his cards. For that matter I had exactly zero cards from any set he was in, not even the 1990 Target Dodgers set!

It’s hard to say when exactly you go from some cards of a guy to a full-fledged “player collection,” but I’m pretty sure it requires having at least one card. That changed about a month later when I landed one of the two Tim Jordan poses in the T206 set.

The card held tremendous appeal for me aside from simply being my first ever T206 and my first Tim Jordan. For one thing, there is the sunset. It was after all the American Caramel sunset that first captured my attention. This one wasn’t nearly as spectacular, but I still loved it.

Second, the position of the hands and body. Huh? In my scouring of various newspaper articles on Jordan I learned that his swing featured the same leg lift popularized by more famous hitters such as Mel Ott and Sadaharu Oh. If you look for it on the card, you can see it.

Well that was that for a while, though I managed to pick up several other T206 Brooklyn cards of other players in the several months since. I desperately wanted the T206 Jordan portrait card and the American Caramel, only I wasn’t quite desperate enough to pay the prices asked for the very small number of cards on the market.

Uncharacteristically (but not regrettably) I added a double of my same Jordan, only with a different back (Polar Bear), simply because the price was right and the Jordan cards I really wanted just weren’t popping up. I realize it’s a stretch but one could argue this is the first card ever to feature two rookie home run champs: Tim Jordan on the front and Pete Alonso on the back.

Then the floodgates burst and I was able to add this beauty to my collection.

Granted, running the table on T206 Jordan poses doesn’t quite match the achievement of collecting all four Cobbs or–let’s face it–any two of most players, but for a collector who began the year with a Monster Number of zero it was still a huge achievement. It also took me from Tim Jordan card-haver to Tim Jordan collector.

That said, I wouldn’t be typing this post (yet) if not for the package that arrived this morning. THE Tim Jordan card that began my fascination with the Dodger slugger.

The corners are so rounded the card can practically roll, and there’s also a bit of a diamond cut to it. Still, I somehow managed a crease-free, (hopefully) unaltered Jordan for about the same price I almost paid for much, much worse looking specimens. Ah, and it’s also my first card ever from an American Caramel set.

Not counting my Polar Bear back variation, my Tim Jordan collection is now up to a whopping three cards, which puts it about 700 cards behind my Dr. K collection but on the bright side requires far less storage space.

As I think about the future of my Jordan collection, let me put it out there right now that I’ve never really been a “completist.” The three cards I have already are by far my favorite cards of his, and I have a feeling most future Jordan acquisitions, 1990 Target aside, would involve spending a lot more for cards I like a lot less.

Still, I’ll highlight four-ish cards that will at least warrant saved searches on eBay just in case. The first two are from the 1911 Turkey Red Cabinets set. If I add either, there will be display challenges due to their 5-3/4″ X 8″ size. Still, I’ve always wanted a card from this beautiful set, and I suspect I could figure something out.

UPDATE: Hey, it was my birthday! What can I say?

The final card holding an unrealistic spot on my want list is this 1912 C46 Imperial Tobacco card. Though I’m not a true “type collector” I do like the idea of adding a card from a set I don’t yet have, not to mention a very early Canadian issue. The card also feels important to my Tim Jordan collection in that Jordan enjoyed quite a career resurgence with the Maple Leafs under manager Joe Kelley (no, not him!).

UPDATE: One of my SABR Chicago buds read this post and just happened to have an extra one of these! 😱 Check one more off the list!

Ah, and did I mention that MLB Historian John Thorn was kind enough to send me an old business card featuring…

You guessed it…Tim Jordan!

And shoot, I knew window shopping can be a dangerous sport. Just added another Jordan (or Jordon if you prefer)!

Returning to the cards I still don’t have, there are two Jordan cards in the 1910-11 Sporting Life set. I wouldn’t turn down either but the Dodger/Superba fan in me certainly prefers the blue background. (The other is catalogued as “pastel background.”)

With all the cards I’ve just shown, you might be wondering what’s not on my Tim Jordan want list. Okay, not much, but you can see a fairly comprehensive list of his cards at Trading Card Database. Where some listings lack images you can usually pull them up with a Bing or Google search. Among them was one that I’ll declare a “best of.” It combined a sunset, the leg lift, his Brooklyn days, and his Toronto days all onto a single card. Why, such a card seems worthy of a museum, you might say. And indeed, that’s where you’ll find it!

How about you? Who is a player you collect, perhaps one a bit off most other collectors’ radars? How far along are you? What cards are you still looking for, and which are you willing to live without? If you haven’t written for the SABR Baseball Cards blog yet, highlighting your player collection might be a friendly way to get things started.

Simulacra

Dave

Central among my beliefs is that the 1987 Topps set is the finest collection of baseball cards ever produced. There are no hard facts to support this claim, only my personal zealotry, and though I understand that my love is highly subjective, and the product of timing and circumstance as much as it is of accomplishment in design, I’m unshakable: this is the set, this is the year.

Arguments can and frequently are made for the 1952 Topps set, with its bold primary colours, its painterly portraits, and its Mickey Mantle rookie card, and had I been born a generation earlier I’d likely agree. If I’d been alive to see it first, I’d have been aware that the ‘87s owed much to the 1962 Topps, and so might’ve fallen in love with that set to the exclusion of all others. On the other hand the 1915 Cracker Jack set is iconic for good reason, and our impressions of the white border tobacco card set issued from 1909 to 1911 are necessarily favorable both for the design’s simplicity as well as for its inclusion of the famed Honus Wagner card.

But give me ’87.

Each card presents a photo, either action or posed, with the player’s team’s logo in a roundel in the upper-left corner, and the player’s name in a colored rectangular box with a black border in the lower right, the name rendered in an all-caps font that appears to be a kissing cousin to comic sans. But the background is what distinguishes: faux wood, the unstained grain of a Louisville Slugger running top to bottom, with enough subtle variance from card to card to suggest that real wood was used, or at least consulted, at some point during the design process. The overall effect places the cards adjacent to something real, something natural: wood bats swung through thick summer air, connecting with genuine horsehide balls, which are sent skidding across dirt and grass before settling into the soft, worn pockets of leather mitts.

Career stats—often including minor league numbers, if the player in question has only a year or two of big league experience, and so speaking offhandedly of Kinston, North Carolina, or Syracuse, New York, or Visalia, California—listed on the reverse in blue against a highlighter-yellow background, overtop an unbleached cardboard stock.

Beautiful.

In Canada they were branded O-Pee-Chee, and featured what felt like a token effort toward bilingualism, the player’s position in both French and English, as well as the small biographic fun facts, and yet with statistical categories listed only in English. They were otherwise virtually identical to the American originals.

I bought them from convenience stores—Becker’s on Youville Drive, or Mac’s on St. Joseph Boulevard—for thirty-five cents for a wax pack of 17 cards. If my father was sent out in the evening for a liter of milk, sometimes he’d come home with one in hand. My friends collected them, too, and we traded, with an eye toward amassing our favorites. We were not yet victims of the belief that these rectangles of paper would make us rich. This was a couple of years before the hobby became an industry, at least in my part of the world, characterized by conventions and trade shows where children were elbowed aside by grown men with dollar signs where their eyes ought to have been. The card and comic shop down the hill on St. Joseph hadn’t yet opened.

Joe Posnanski has said that baseball is never as beautiful as it is when you’re ten years old. I guess I’m testifying to that—or anyway, to that general time in my life between about eight and twelve. I watched the NBC Game of the Week, scattered Blue Jays games on CBC, TSN, and CTV, and a weekly digest show on CTV called Blue Jays Banter. When a Jays game wasn’t on TV, which was the norm, I listened to the broadcast on AM radio, CFRA or W-1310, on a transistor unit next to my bed.

Around the time that the Blue Jays reported to Dunedin for Spring Training, 1987, I would have started collecting the cards in question, noticing with great interest when the display box appeared on store counters. This was mere months after Boston’s historic Game 6 collapse (“It gets through Buckner!”) and the Mets’ subsequent title; it was two seasons after 1985’s painful memories, which saw Toronto enter the postseason for the first time in their existence, only to lose the ALCS in heartbreaking fashion to the Royals (I have yet to forgive George Brett). Kansas City then defeated their cross-state rivals, the Cardinals, in seven games to earn their first title. Stacked together, along with what would eventually transpire at the end of the ’87 season—Frank Viola and the Twins besting the Cardinals to win their first Series—that might represent the most thrilling three-year run in the game’s history, with three consecutive seven-gamers that’d be hard to imagine if they hadn’t actually happened. It was, I mean to say, a wonderful time to be a baseball-loving kid, and a great time to collect cards.

Darrell

We’d lived on Rivermill Crescent in suburban Ottawa since the late summer of 1984, when we’d arrived to find our newly built house surrounded by mounds of dirt, open foundations, and unpaved driveways. Across the street, behind the houses under construction, was a great thick forest, a ravine treed with mostly deciduous species—beech and birch and maple—and hatched with trails. In the middle of it wended a silty creek cut deep into banks of mud.

As the neighborhood rose around us, the houses filled with families who presented a tribute to the nascent diversity of Canada’s capital. My new friends’ families came from Hong Kong and Pakistan, the boys my age first generation kids who loved Michael Jordan and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My friend Wil lived across the street. He was a Giants fan—Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell—though what it meant to be a fan of a team on the West Coast, or really of a team from anywhere other than the nearest major market, was not what it means today. Before the internet the scarcity of information, the lack of regular televised games, and the lag between when a thing happened and when it appeared in the newspaper’s sports section, all conspired to illustrate how far away everything was on this enormous continent. Chicago was the moon; San Francisco, and all the West Coast, was Mars. You saw those players in color on rare Game of the Week appearances and then during the playoffs, if you were lucky; otherwise you contented yourself with deciphering box scores, cutting their photos out of glossy magazines, and collecting their cards.

As I preoccupied myself with all this, my older brother and sister wandered the thickets of adolescence, almost completely obscured from my view. Peter is six years older than I am; Robyn seven. For a long time the differences in our ages meant we had very little to do with one another. I sat alone in the backseat on family road trips while Robyn and Peter stayed home and hung out with friends, threw parties, waded neck-deep into teenage dramas.

Robyn had a boyfriend from across the Ottawa River named Yvon. He was dark-haired, stubbly, smoked cigarettes, and spoke with a Quebecois accent. He was always kind to me. Took me fishing once. Yvon drove a 1976 Dodge Colt in a swampy shade of green that had originally been my grandmother’s, but which came into my parents’ possession, which they then sold to Yvon for a few hundred dollars. I remember him paying my father cash, handing over what was to that point the largest sum of money I’d ever seen in my life, thinking that this was the adult world; this was what it was to transact business, to be connected to commerce.

Yvon didn’t know baseball, but he treated me like something other than a child, and he listened to me with patience. On a night in late summer or early fall, he parked the Colt between the street lights on Rivermill, across from the forest, and we lay atop the hood watching the Aurora play across the face of the night. It was astonishing, but what should have made the heavens feel proximate instead made me aware of the terrifying size of the sky under which we huddled.

Juan

I had thought, until quite recently, that I had a complete set of the 1987 O-Pee-Chees, but if I ever did I don’t now. The whole set comprises almost 800 cards; I might have a third of that. My stack seemed so large to my young eyes, but now it looks almost pathetically small. This, I take it, is an example of how things from that point in our lives come to assume outsize proportions. We build our own legends and then accept them as facts.

There are complete sets kicking around on eBay, on Amazon, and it’s tempting to go all in, to fork over a relatively small sum in order to capture in adulthood what tantalized and inspired wonder in childhood. But I guess it wouldn’t be the same. Something about this set tells me I could never actually complete it, not in the most important sense. Maybe the trick, or the lesson, is to be happy with what I already have.

There are cards in this set that I can sketch with my eyes closed, so iconic are they for me, so emblematic of that time. For some, they are in fact what flashes into my mind when a name is mentioned.

Texas catcher Darrell Porter in a pair of ridiculously large eyeglasses that may or may not be back in style now, depending on when you’re reading this.

Jack Morris, in Detroit’s home whites, having just released a pitch, his limbs in unnatural degrees of torque, his face a grimace of effort.

Fernando Valenzuela, fresh off a 21-win campaign, in Dodger roads, his plant leg rigid as while he lunges forward to send a screwball toward whatever unfortunate National Leaguer has dug in sixty and one-half feet away.

The Giants’ Juan Berenguer, a workhorse righty, looking imperiously over his left shoulder, above the camera, beyond the photographer, toward the horizon.

The luxuriously mustachioed Keith Hernandez, recent World Series champion, looking light and pleased with life, on a practice field somewhere in Florida.

Sturdy Floyd Bannister in the White Sox’ beach blanket home uniforms, his shoulders wide, his right leg just slightly recessed at the beginning of his motion.

Marty Barrett, the Boston second baseman, whose name in Vin Scully’s mouth during that ’86 Series is a sound indelibly linked to my childhood—Mah-ahty Bawrhit, Scully sang/spoke, inserting diphthongs and pauses where most of us wouldn’t dream of putting them—and whose ’87 card depicts him in bright sunshine acting as the pivot in a double play in what can only be Spring Training, for why else would there be a basketball hoop immediately beyond the wall just barely visible over Barrett’s shoulder?

A trio of A’s captured by a photographer during the same road game, in Tiger Stadium, I think, wearing Oakland’s ’86 green tops, and bathed in similar light: glowering Dave Stewart, in his windup, staring holes through a hitter, who is out of frame; reliever, and possessor of an all-time great baseball name, Moose Haas, warming up along the first base side, the rows of seats beyond him out of focus, receding into the darkness of the ballpark’s overhang; and still-skinny Mark McGwire, depicted during his ’86 cup of coffee, with no way of knowing all that lay before him.

Dave Stieb looking so uncannily like an old gym teacher of mine—same winged haircut, same mustache—who used to lead us in laps around the gym, playing Beach Boys records on a portable turntable perched on the gym’s stage, and who would reward us at the end of class by walking on his hands around the middle of the floor, finally flopping back down, his face red and bulging.

Ernie Whitt, the avuncular and soft-seeming catcher, whose name still causes my father to reminisce over one of Whitt’s late-career stolen bases, an event so implausible that it warranted a headline in the next day’s write-up, or so recalls my father.

Willie Upshaw who, with apologies to Fred McGriff and, even later, John Olerud, and even Carlos Delgado, remains my favorite Jays first-sacker, for reasons that are spongy and unscientific, but which owe much to this very card, with Upshaw’s pose of readiness, crouched, that huge trapper open and waiting near his right knee, and the lingering scent of bubblegum still borne by the cardboard.

A shoebox full of these, many more forming untidy stacks on my desk, and on the bookshelf to my right as I type this. Still others used as bookmarks. The Marty Barrett card pinned to the wall above my workspace.

Looking over them all now, deep in the pre-Opening Day trough of winter, interspersed with other baseball cards that span a forty-year period, what first strikes me is how unique the ’87s are. Shuffle together a deck of assorted cards—O-Pee-Chees or Topps from 1979, or 1983, with some from 2003, or 2013, and some Bowman cards from any given year, a handful of Upper Decks from the early nineties, a few Donruss, a Leaf or two—and then rifle through the stack.

Most every card is bordered in white, but the ’87s stand out immediately. They’re so unlike virtually any other issue. The second thing which occurs to me about them has to do with that wood grain. I notice not how evocative of natural materials it is; rather what I see is how the wood grain is perfectly in tune with the era’s penchant for simulacra. That faux-wood border, veneered furniture, wood panelling, canned sitcom laughter, drum machines, artificial turf—all suggestive of something real but in their deficiencies creating further space between the manufactured and the real. I see not the proximity to realness, but the distance between the actual and the representational. I see the desire to simulate, to contain, to miniaturize. I see the need to recreate something random and unruly using something inexpensive, convenient, safe.

Fernando

When we weren’t collecting, trading, or memorizing baseball cards, or playing road hockey, G.I. Joe, or DOS-based video games in Wil’s unfinished basement, we were in the forest. We played war there, hiding behind trunks, laying down amid the ferns, using sticks as machine guns. We rode our bikes on some of the trails. We caught frogs and threw rocks into the creek. Gradually, we pushed at the borders of what we knew of the forest, pressing further and further into it, adding clearings and swales to our mental maps, wondering what still lay beyond.

We’d heard of some kids who’d found cattle bones in our woods, and others who’d pushed all the way through to Orleans Boulevard; the edge of the known world. There was a sandpit, somebody told us, where teenagers rode dirtbikes and held bush parties.

Wil and I found a fence one day, or the remains of one. A farmer’s partition, toppled, regularly spaced logs slumping out of their ancient post holes, and strung with rusted barbed wire. I had trouble incorporating this into my understanding of time and space, this echo of a time removed from 1987, the suggestion of a world beyond my own.

Above, nailed to a tree, a sign: NO TRESPASSING, it beckoned.

Floyd

Editor’s Note: For more of Andrew’s award-winning writing, visit his website. Of particular note is his book of baseball essays, “The Utility of Boredom.”

DiMaggio’s really long streak

I ended my previous post with the teaser that neither the 1961 Topps “Baseball Thrills” subset nor its 2010 reboot, much less its 1959 precursor, included what I had grown up understanding to be the most incredible baseball feat of them all.

Rather than imagine the Topps intern assigned to building the checklist simply whiffed on Joltin’ Joe (or that there even was a Topps intern with such a job!), I have to believe Topps simply lacked the rights to feature DiMaggio’s likeness on cardboard. A look at other postwar sets during and after DiMaggio’s career show his absence in 1961 was definitely the rule and not the exception.

1933-1941 (AKA “Prewar,” depending where you lived!)

During the early part of the Clipper’s career, while he was not in EVERY set, one can say he tended to appear in every major set you’d expect to see him in, and then some, including these two gems from the 1933-36 Zeenut set.

Knowing DiMaggio didn’t make his Yankee debut until 1936, it’s not a big surprise that he didn’t appear in the three major gum card releases of the mid-1930s: 1933 Goudey, 1934 Goudey, and 1934-36 Diamond Stars. That said, his appearance in 1933 Goudey wouldn’t have been completely out of the question since that set did include 15 minor leaguers, including a fellow Pacific Coast Leaguer, Pete Scott.

Meanwhile, the 1934 Goudey and 1934-36 Diamond Stars checklists did not include any minor leaguers, so there’s no reason DiMaggio would have even been up for consideration.

Now some of you may know about the 1937 Diamond Stars extension set and surmise that Joltin’ Joe might have cracked that checklist. Unfortunately, all that seems to have survived is a single sheet of 12 cards, which of course DiMaggio is not on. All we can say for sure then is that if National Chicle did have a Diamond Stars card planned it would have been a gem!

The two-year stretch from 1936-37 did see DiMaggio appear on several cards, now as a Yankee, though there is room for debate among the collecting orthodoxy as to which constitute his true rookie card. (Don’t ask me, I’d vote for his San Francisco Seals cards!)

These four from 1936 have the benefit of being a year earlier than the 1937 cards, hence score a few more rookie points for their date of issue. On the other hand, all are of the oversized premium variety, which not all collectors put in the same category as the smaller cardboard offerings that come from packs of gum or cigarettes.

In fact, DiMaggio did crack one (cataloged as) 1936 (but really 1936-37) set of gum cards, but the fact that the World Wide Gum were only issued in Canada gives pause to a good many of the Hobby’s arbiters of rookiehood. If nothing else, though, note the nickname on the back of the card. A bit harder to read but the bio would not pass muster today in its reference to Joe as “a giant Italian.”

One of DiMaggio’s most sought after cards, rookie or not, was another Canada-only release and came out the following year under the later-on-much-more-famous O-Pee-Chee name.

Back in the U.S., DiMaggio made it onto two cards in 1937, but as with the preceding year they were both of the larger premium variety. The Goudey offering (left) is not much (any?) different from its 1936 counterpart, while the Exhibits 4-in-1 is particularly notable in its pairing of the Yankee Clipper with Lou Gehrig. (Oh, and the other two guys are pretty good also.)

It is finally in 1938 that Joltin’ Joe receives his first ever, God honest American gum card as a Yankee, thanks to the 1938 Goudey “Heads Up” set. Like the other 23 players on the checklist, he in fact appears twice, once with a plain background (card #250) and once with a cartoon background (card #274).

Finally, DiMaggio and Gehrig make it onto another 4-in-1 of Yankee legends, this time swapping out Tony Lazzeri for Bill Dickey.

To this point, just about every card I’ve shown, save the 1938 Goudey pair, has some level of oddball status attached. This was not the case from 1939-41 when Gum, Inc., hit the scene with its three year run of major bubble gum releases under the Play Ball name. Though the term is perhaps overused, I’ll throw DiMaggio’s 1941 card out there as one of the truly iconic cards of the Hobby.

The Play Ball cards weren’t DiMaggio’s only cards from that three-year stretch. He could also be found in the 1939-46 Exhibits “Salutations” set, yet another oversized offering…

And the 1941 Double Play set, where he was paired with his outfield neighbor, Charley Keller.

If there’s a theme to all of this, beyond just the opportunity to post a lot of incredible cards, it’s that Joe DiMaggio was no stranger to cardboard during the prewar portion of his career. On the contrary, he was in just about every major set there was, and then some!

1942-1951

These next ten years take us to the end of the Yankee Clipper’s career while also leading us through the wartime era where not a lot of card sets were being produced. DiMaggio cards didn’t simply follow the dip in overall card production but practically disappeared altogether.

Joe’s first card, post-1941, comes from the 1943 M.P. & Company card, a somewhat “off the radar” almost certainly unlicensed set, something we’ll see quite a bit more of as we proceed through this section of the article. (Side note: This set is screaming out for one of you to solve the remaining 21% of a mystery.)

Two notable aspects of the card are Joe’s position, right field (!), and the fact that his recent hitting streak is not mentioned.

The latter of these notables is addressed five years later in the 1948 Swell “Sport Thrills” set, which also happens to be the first gum card set of baseball highlights and a possible inspiration for the 1959 and 1961 cards Topps put out under a similar name.

First off, I’ll show the back of the card, which is everything you might expect to see in a card featuring The Streak.

However, the front of the card is more than a bit disappointing to DiMaggio collectors for obvious reasons. “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” indeed!

What I read into this card is that Sport Thrills did not have permission from DiMaggio to use his likeness on the card. Yes, it’s possible the folks at Swell truly considered “stopping the streak” a greater achievement than the streak itself, but I kind of doubt it.

But then again, look who made it onto the set’s Ted Williams card, so who knows!

1948 was also the year that Gum, Inc., reappeared on the scene, beginning an eight-year stretch (1948-55) of baseball card sets under the Bowman name. the Bowman sets managed to include pretty much every big name of the era but one: Joe DiMaggio.

Personally I would have loved to see the Yankee Clipper in one of these early Bowman sets, but a “what if” we can consider as collectors is whether the rights to Joe D. would have left another Yankee centerfielder off the checklist in 1951.

You might not have expected any mention of Topps so soon, but it’s worth noting that Topps made its baseball debut not in 1952 or even 1951 but in 1948 with 19 of the 252 cards in its Magic Photos release featuring baseball players.

The first five cards pictured could lead you to believe the players were all retired greats, but in fact six of the cards in the set featured images of the 1948 World Champion Cleveland Indians. Well shoot, this was the one year from 1947-53 that the Yankee’s didn’t win the World Series! Crazy to think it, but perhaps if the Yankees and not the Indians had signed Paige and Doby, there would be a playing career Topps card of Joe DiMaggio!

One of the least known (in terms of origin, not familiarity) releases of the era was the 1948 Blue Tint set. DiMaggio has a card in the set but in what’s emerging as a common theme the card (and entire set!) are believed to be unlicensed.

Similar to the 1938 Goudey cards a decade earlier, the 1948 1949 Leaf set finally presents us with an unambiguously mainstream, all-American, picture-on-the-front, New York Yankees card of the Clipper. It even boasts #1 in what is one of the earliest examples of “hero numbering” in a baseball card set.

Astute collectors may now say, “A-ha! That’s why he wasn’t in Bowman. Leaf signed him first.” However, my own belief is that Leaf not only didn’t sign DiMaggio but didn’t sign anyone, making this card as well as the rest of the set unlicensed. (As always, I would love it if a reader with more information is able to confirm or correct this in the comments.)

The next same year M.P. & Company was back with what I wrote about last year as the laziest set ever, adding to our tally of unlicensed Clipper cards. I rather like the blue added to Joe’s uniform since the 1943 release, but I don’t love the bio remaining unchanged even six years later.

In 1951 Topps hit the shelves in earnest with five different baseball offerings, a number that now feels small but was huge for its time. Though DiMaggio had already achieved all-time great status, there was no reason to expect him in the Connie Mack’s All-Stars set, in which the most modern player was Lou Gehrig.

However, there was reason to expect DiMaggio in the Current All-Stars set, which featured 11 participants from the 1950 All-Star Game. While DiMaggio wouldn’t consider the contest among his career highlights, having gone 0-3 and grounded into a double play, his presence at Comiskey that day at least qualified him for this tough Topps release.

Two other closely related Topps issues from 1951 were the Red Backs and Blue Backs. Though nobody would confuse their checklists for the top 104 stars of the era, it seems reasonable to think Topps would have gone with DiMaggio if they could have.

The final Topps offering of 1951 is one that seemed almost assured to include DiMaggio but didn’t. Topps Teams featured complete team photos of every team on the checklist, but there was only one problem. The checklist did not include the Yankees!

We close out the 1942-1951 stretch with the 1951 Berk Ross set, one that did in fact include a Joe DiMaggio card. In fact, there were two cards if we count his two-player panel with Granny Hamner as separate.

While not a lot is known about these Berk Ross cards, the one thing most collectors believe is that these cards, much like the other DiMaggio cards of the era, were unlicensed.

1952-1961

As much as some collectors, then and now, would have loved to see a 1952 Topps card of the Yankee Clipper, we of course know he did not crack the set’s 407-card checklist, nor should he have been expected to. While “career capper” cards are the norm today, the tradition at Topps for many years was to focus its flagship set on the players expected to play in the current season.

DiMaggio did find himself with an unlicensed career capper in the 1952 follow-up from Berk Ross

Beyond 1952 we are clearly in post-career territory, meaning DiMaggio cards would mainly rely on three types of issues: all-time greats, highlights, and reprints.

Of course that’s if we’re talking about the cards themselves. Joltin’ Joe was in fact the frontman for the 1953 Bowman set, his likeness and endorsement appearing on the boxes and the wrappers.

Side note: Topps liked the idea enough to try their own version of this in 1954.

The first opportunity for a post-career DiMaggio card came from Topps in 1954. If you’re confused, the set I’m talking about isn’t the 1954 Topps baseball set of Hank Aaron RC fame but a 1954 Topps set that mainly consisted of cards like this.

The 1954 Topps Scoop set captured 156 notable moments in our history, and four of them came from the world of baseball.

DiMaggio and his famous Streak would have been right at home in the set, but their absence was hardly conspicuous either given the primarily non-sports focus of the set.

The next opportunity for a DiMaggio card came in 1959 when Topps issued a ten-card Baseball Thrills subset as part of its main release. However, Topps focused all ten of the cards on current players.

The same year, Fleer issued its 80-card Ted Williams set. As the set’s name indicated, all the cards were of Ted Williams. At the same time, many of the cards included cameos of other players and personalities. As linked as the careers of Williams and DiMaggio were, a card of the pair would have fit the set perfectly.

The very next year, Fleer issued the first of its two “Baseball Greats” sets. The checklist boasted 78 retired greats and one active player (an eyesore of a Ted Williams card) but no Joe DiMaggio.

The checklist nearly doubled to 154 cards in 1961, leaving plenty of room for Joltin’ Joe. Of course, he was nowhere to be found.

Another player highlighting the history of the game in 1960 and 1961 was Nu-Cards. Their 1960 “Hi-Lites” set of 72 postcard sized cards was at the time the largest set of its kind ever issued. Two of the set’s cards featured DiMaggio, ending his decade-long exile from cardboard.

The 1961 Nu-Card “Scoops” set, one of my favorites, added 80 cards, now standard sized, but numbered as if the set were much larger. Again, DiMaggio makes the set twice.

As already mentioned, Topps was also back in 1961 with “Baseball Thrills,” but this time they departed from the 1959 version by including mostly retired stars. Still no Joe.

Nostalgia was evidently in the air in 1961 as yet another player entered the scene with an all-time greats offering. Golden Press produced a booklet of 33 cards that I rate among the best looking ever made.

I don’t know enough about the Nu-cards and Golden Press sets to know if DiMaggio’s image was used with his permission or if perhaps different rules might have applied when cards were issued in book form, as was the case with Golden Press. What I will say is that his absence from the biggies (Topps, Fleer), particularly on the 20th anniversary of the Streak, was more than just accidental.

1962-1971

This next ten-year stretch is one that was fairly thin on tribute cards, so there were few sets produced were a DiMaggio would have made sense.

The 1962 Topps set included its ten-card “Babe Ruth Special” subset, no doubt timed with the falling of Babe’s single-season home run record the year before. It was a fun set but not one that Joe DiMaggio would have belonged in.

DiMaggio did make an appearance in a 1967 set that might cause some collectors to say, “Hey, he finally got a Topps card!” The card came in the “Retirado” subset of the 1967 Venezuelan issue often referred to as Topps Venezuelan. However, the set was almost certainly not produced by Topps, and was more than likely a…you guessed it…unlicensed issue. (A future SABR Baseball Cards article will cover this topic in more detail.)

Bazooka issued an all-time greats set in 1969-70 that included small cards of baseball’s immortals and larger cards of baseball’s greatest achievements. In this case, DiMaggio might have fit either but ended up in neither.

To the delight of eagle-eyed collectors in 1970, the Yankee Clipper did make a cameo on the Oakland Athletics team card. However, I am not among the Hobby contingent that regards team cards as player cards, meaning I personally don’t treat this as a Joe DiMaggio card.


Topps again featured amazing achievements in its 1971 “Greatest Moments” set. However, with all moments coming from current players, there would have been no place for Joe D.

As in the previous ten years it would be up to the smaller players to keep Joe DiMaggio’s cardboard legacy alive. One such player was Robert Laughlin, later affiliated with various Fleer sets of the 1970s. His cult classic World Series set (original version) from 1967 featured DiMaggio as the broom swinger of the 1939 Fall Classic.

With production of these Laughlin cards limited to 300 sets, collectors were forced to head to Oakland area Jack in the Box restaurants to feed their appetite for the Clipper, though it’s possible the younger burger eaters would have been even happier to land a different Yankee slugger.

1972-1979

The birth of TCMA in 1972 almost single-handedly accounted for the rapid spike in DiMaggio cards over the next decade, with Robert Laughlin and Shakey’s Pizza doing their part as well.

Two Robert Laughlin offerings that included DiMaggio were the 1972 “Great Feats” set and the 1974 “All-Star Games” set.

The “Great Feats” set, with mostly minor changes, became Fleer’s 1973 “Baseball’s Greatest Feats” set. One major change, however, was that DiMaggio’s card was dropped, almost certainly out of legal fears by Fleer.

TCMA’s first DiMaggio card was part of a beautiful set dedicated to the All-Time New York Yankee Team.

As were the Laughlin cards, TCMA cards were unlicensed and sold direct to hobbyists by mail order. Lawsuits would eventually hit TCMA, but at least for the time being they were able to issue cards of the Clipper with impunity. I can certainly see their “1930s League Leaders” card (left) from 1973 escaping the notice of Joe and his legal team, though was sufficiently under the radar, but I wonder if their 1973-74 “Autograph Series,” designed for signature by the players, might have been pushing things just a bit.

Among TCMA’s other DiMaggio offerings around this time were these postcards pairing the Yankee Clipper with other top-shelf Hall of Famers.

TCMA’s 1936-39 Yankees Dynasty set, issued in 1974, produced another two cards of Joe DiMaggio.

And if you couldn’t get enough DiMaggio/Williams cards, TCMA had your back in 1974 with its “1940s League Leaders” set.

I know a lot of collectors knock the unlicensed stuff, but I’m personally thrilled that TCMA was out there creating the cards that needed to be created. Topps had more than 20 years to figure out a way to pair Joe D. and Teddy Ballgame, and it never happened. This card needed to happen, and I’m glad it did.

We’ll take a quick intermission from TCMA cards to present a three-year run (1975-77) of DiMaggio cards from Shakey’s Pizza.

And now we’re back with more TCMA, this time a 1975 reboot of their All-Time Yankees set featuring all new photos.

Reprint cards and sets hit the hobby mainstream in 1977, including these two cards of DiMaggio, both originally from 1938. The first came from Bert Randolph Sugar’s book of “Dover Reprints” and the second came from Jim Rowe. (DiMaggio’s 1941 Play Ball card would come out as a Dover Reprint the following year.)

1977 was also the year that Renata Galasso began her 270-card magnum opus known alternately as “Decade Greats” and “Glossy Greats.” The first series of 45 cards, issued in 1977 in partnership with TCMA, assigned its very first card to Joe DiMaggio. (DiMaggio returned to the set in the 1984 Series 6 release.)

Evidently it was very much in vogue to lead off a set’s checklist with the Yankee Clipper as we see it happen two more times in 1979 TCMA issues, their 1953 Bowman-like “Stars of the 1950s” and their lesser known “Diamond Greats” set.

Before heading to 1980, I’ll just note that we’ve made it to 1979 with not a single Topps card of DiMaggio and possibly not a single licensed card from any company since either 1941 or 1948.

1980-present

The Me Decade kicked off with a beautiful Perez-Steele postcard of the Clipper. Dick Perez was not yet associated with Donruss, but Dick would soon lend his artwork to multiple all-time greats sets produced by Donruss over the next few years. You can probably guess whether or not those sets would include Joe DiMaggio. (Interestingly, there was no DiMaggio in the 108 “Great Moments” postcards released by Perez-Steele from 1985-1997. Ditto for the 44-card Perez-Steele “Celebration” series in 1989.)

DiMaggio was in an 30-card unlicensed set of “Baseball Legends” produced by Cramer Sports Promotions, the company that would soon become Pacific Trading Cards.

While other card makers joined the party, TCMA was still king in the early 1980s when it came to the all-time greats. Their third go-round of an All-Time Yankees set presented collectors with an early version of a “rainbow” nearly 40 years after Goudey did the same.

This same year, TCMA also included DiMaggio in its “Baseball Immortals” issued under their SSPC brand.

These 1980 “Superstars” are sometimes listed as TCMA and sometimes listed under the Seckeli name. (Andrew Aronstein, son of TCMA co-founder Mike Aronstein, believes the cards were sold by TCMA but not produced by TCMA. The Standard Catalog notes the cards were probably produced by Card Collectors Closet in Springfield, MA.) The set included 45 cards in all and five of DiMaggio.

A second series of 45 cards followed in 1982, this time with some non-baseball cards in the checklist and only a single DiMaggio.

The same year, Baseball Card News put out a set of 20 cards, including two with DiMaggio, one solo and one alongside Bob Feller.

1982 also saw three more TCMA sets with DiMaggio cards. Baseball’s Greatest Hitters and Baseball’s Greatest Sluggers featured standard sized baseball cards, and “Stars of the 50s” featured larger postcard-sized cards.

The streak of (probably) unlicensed DiMaggio cards finally met its end following the release of one last (probably) unlicensed DiMaggio card from the Big League Collectibles “Diamond Classics” set.

Before presenting the licensed DiMaggio issue, we’ll take one quick detour to highlight a set DiMaggio should have been in but wasn’t. The 1983 Donruss “Hall of Fame Heroes”set of 44 cards presented a terrific opportunity for DiMaggio to make his “big three” debut. (Donruss continued to put out all-time greats sets in 1984 and 1985 but neither included Joe D.)

Instead, DiMaggio signed on with Authentic Sports Autographs (ASA) for a twelve-card, limited edition set consisting entirely of DiMaggio cards.

I suspect “The Joe DiMaggio Story” by ASA represented the first time the Yankee Clipper got paid for his likeness on a baseball card in 42 years.

Rather than continue set by set, I’ll refer readers to an article from Night Owl Cards on DiMaggio’s more modern issues (or lack thereof) and simply close with some highlights.

DiMaggio’s next appearance with a major baseball card maker, which for now I’ll define as holding an MLB/MLBPA license, came in 1986 as part of the Sportflics “Decade Greats” set.

I can’t say for certain, but I think this was the first DiMaggio card to come out of a pack since 1961’s Nu-Card Scoops set.

Contrast this with the 1985 Topps/Circle K “All-Time Home Run Kings” box set, where the Yankee Clipper was represented OBO (“on box only”). On the bright side for Lee May collectors, DiMaggio’s hard pass on the set is likely what got May in, since 33 cards was a much more typical number for sets than 34.

I hate to bill this next one as “major card maker,” but it fits the definition I offered earlier. So here it is, 1989 Starting Lineup Baseball Greats.

The next major card maker to score a deal with Joe was, well, Score, in 1992. Several different cards, most very nice looking, were inserts either in packs or factory sets. The relationship would migrate to Score’s Pinnacle brand in 1993.

DiMaggio finally made his Fleer debut in 1998, though it was in a somewhat unusual way. The card was part of Fleer’s tribute to the Sports Collectors Digest hobby publication and showed DiMaggio signing cards for Pinnacle in 1993. How many times do you see one brand of baseball cards featured on another?

It was only a matter of time before Upper Deck got into the DiMaggio derby, though it would have to be posthumously. The relationship would continue until more or less the baseball (mostly) death of the company in 2010.

And what about Topps? The “baseball card company of record” at long last issued its first Joe DiMaggio card in 2001 as part of the “Before There Was Topps” subset. (For all those Mantle collectors who regard the 1952 Topps as Mantle’s rookie due to its being his first Topps card, I present to you your DiMaggio rookie!)

Topps would really jump into the DiMaggio game in 2007 and to this day remains your most likely source for future DiMaggio cards, even if Topps does not have an agreement in place at the moment. Overall though, Topps produced baseball cards from 1948-2000, a span of 53 years, with no Joe DiMaggio. Topps didn’t quite match 56, who who the hell ever will?

So all of this was my really long way of saying that it makes sense there was no Streak card in the 1961 Topps Baseball Thrills subset. Too bad though, it would have been a helluva card!

The tragedy of the commons

Those who have visited the memorabilia room (checks with fiancee…okay, GUEST ROOM) at our house know most of my best cards live on the wall. Though there’s some variety to my methods, I most often use top loaders to provide at least some protection of the actual cardboard. This new T205 Brooklyn display (thanks to David at Cigar Box Cards) is a good example.

While the cards are just sitting loose on the “shelves” each is in not only a tobacco size top loader but a penny sleeve as well. I took a similar approach to my Dodger team sets from 1956 and 1957, where cards were first put in sleeves and top loaders before being glued into the frame.

Sometime about a month ago I got to thinking about how even though my main collecting interest is vintage cards the Dodger fan in me really needed a card display honoring the 1988 World Series team. Not being the 1910s or the 1950s I naturally had several choices for sets to draw from: Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Score at the very least, and plenty of others if I was okay focusing mainly on stars. Mix and match approaches were possible as well.

Ultimately I decided on 24 cards from the 1989 Topps set, complemented by four cards from the under-the-radar World Series subset unique to the O-Pee-Chee release.

Unfortunately, a funny thing happened to me when I bought my frame, carefully measured to ensure enough room for four rows of 28 cards. They didn’t fit, at least not with the top loaders on them. The best I could do was six rows of three and way too much white space to look good.

Then a strange and foreign thought crossed my mind. Did I even need the top loaders? Did I even need any protection for the cards at all? After all, we were talking about $6 maximum worth of cards. The obvious solution was simply to glue the cards in directly. Besides solving the sizing problem, there would also be less glare in avoiding extra layers of plastic between cardboard and eyeball.

There was only one problem.

I couldn’t do it!

“I will not fire on innocent people!”

I couldn’t destroy perfectly good baseball cards, no matter how worthless they were. I reached out to my fellow collectors online and realized I wasn’t alone. Yes, some collectors said, “do it!” but most offered suggestions for other methods that would keep the cards intact.

Ultimately I decided that I needed to do it. I needed to not be crazy about a $6 stack of cards. I needed to realize that gluing some cheap cards to a picture frame didn’t make me a bad person or bad collector.

I was that kid standing at the end of the diving board over a cold pool, one step from doing what needed to happen but unable to budge. And then I jumped. And not just any jump. I jumped the shark.

I headed to my magazine shelf and grabbed a Sports Illustrated issue I’d been saving in plastic for more than 30 years. My stomach turned. My throat was dry. I cut off the cover and glued it down.

The process was agonizing for me, but I really liked how the final product turned out. A funny thing that hit me when it was over was that the new design probably could have fit the top loaders after all. Still, less glare, so I’ll call it a win. And really, what did I lose besides a few dollars worth of cards and my baseball card collecting soul?

Solving the border crisis

A common complaint among vintage collectors who run across newer issues is that we miss the good old days when baseball cards had borders. Looking at cards like these 2017 Astros leaves us feeling (ahem!)…cheated.

The borders we overlooked as kids have come to symbolize all that was right about baseball cards. Joni Mitchell had us pegged. You really DON’T know what you’ve got till it’s gone. No, we’d never pave Paradise to put up a parking lot, but we sure wouldn’t mind a thin cement edge around it.

The borders on our cards have taken on almost a spiritual significance with “meaning of life” level implications. We ponder koans such as, “Is a card without a border even a card?”

The sages teach us that without nothing there could be no something. Cardboardismically speaking, the border is the yin to the image’s yang. Form needs outline.

The vintage collector therefore must find “border in the chaos,” else risk serenity and sanity alike. Should he even consider collecting cards post-2015, his best, nay ONLY, option is Heritage!

Whatever you hear on TV, friends, THIS is the real border crisis, but fear not…

Tengo un plan para eso…and it won’t even raise your taxes! (Checks new eBay policy. “Okay, so maybe a little.”)

Add just THREE CARDS to your collection and you’re gonna win on borders so much you’ll be tired of winning on borders.

1960 Fleer ted williams

Let’s start with Ted Williams. Compare his 1960 Fleer card with that of Hack Wilson or any other player in the set. That’s some serious border! Where some perfectly centered cards are said to have 50-50 centering, Teddy Ballgame comes in at 150-150!

Back in the day you might have found this card an eyesore, but that was then. Now you probably look at the card and wish the borders were even bigger!

1936-37 World wide gum Lou Gehrig

The second must-have for the border hoarder is the 1936-37 World Wide Gum card of Lou Gehrig. (Note that this issue is catalogued as 1936, but Matthew Glidden makes a compelling case that 1936-37 is more correct.)

At first you may shrug away Larrupin’ Lou’s border as nothing special, no different than that of teammate Dickey. Look closer though and you’ll see that Gehrig’s image comes to a refreshing end more than a quarter inch from the card edge. After unremarkable offerings in 1933 and 1934, World Wide Gum definitely put the Border in “North of the Border!”

1934 Butterfinger Paul Waner

Finally we come to the 1934 Butterfinger card of Paul Waner, the card that I believe sets the standard when it comes to border-to-image ratio.

While the Dizzy Dean image from the same issue flirts tantalizingly close to the card edge, the Waner card has more margin than Gould selling hammers to the Pentagon. If the card had any more border we might forget it was a baseball card altogether and assume it was a Home Depot paint sample for Gotham Gray. If Big Poison were any smaller on the card he would have been Little Poison.

Teddy Ballgame, the Iron Horse, and Big Poison. Three players who made the Hall of Fame by a wide margin, but even more importantly, three cards who made the wide margin Hall of Fame. Border crisis averted, at least for now.

Intel briefing on Canadian Goudey

WHat are these?

Show these two cards to most collectors, and they’ll identify them without hesitation.

1933 Goudey Rabbit Maranville and 1934 Goudey Lou Gehrig, right? In fact, both cards come from a single Canadian release known variously by the names V354, 1934 World Wide Gum, and 1934 Canadian Goudey.

“Aha, so Goudey just released their same cards in Canada, eh?”

Sort of, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. For a two-year stretch, Goudey did release their cards in Canada, but it was only some of their cards and not necessarily the ones you might have expected. This article seeks to explain the what, when, and why (or at least how) of two years of Canadian baseball cards that aren’t nearly as confusing or strange as they first appear.

1933 world wide gum

We’ll start with the first of the Canadian Goudey releases, the 1933 World Wide Gum set, designated as V353 by Jefferson Burdick in his American Card Catalog. As the two Babe Ruth cards below show, the World Wide Gum fronts (left) are indistinguishable from their U.S. Goudey (right) counterparts.

back differences

However, differences on the card backs are evident. On this particular card, the most prominent differences are the card number (80 in this set vs 144 in the U.S. set) and the footer, which shows World Wide Gum of Montreal as the distributor and Canada as where the printing took place. Additionally, each of the World Wide Gum card backs has two language variations: English only and French-English.

In addition to minor layout differences and a more crammed look, the French-English cards commonly omitted the final paragraph of the player bio as a space saving measure.

Side note: I have three possible theories for the language variations.

  1. French-English was “Plan A” but necessarily took longer than English-only. As such, early runs of English-only were produced to avoid delay.
  2. English was “Plan A” but poorly received by the market, leading to a second release in French-English.
  3. French-English was produced for areas with large francophone populations (Quebec, New Brunswick) while English was produced for predominantly anglophone areas.

If you know the answer (or have a different theory) let me know in the Comments. While I can’t produce any viable alternative theories, I can also offer reasons why I think each is incorrect! (I’ll avoid going down that rabbit hole here, but I’ll offer more info in the Comments section on request.)

checklist differences

Another major difference between the two sets is their size. The U.S. set included 239-240 cards, depending how you count the Lajoie card. Meanwhile the Canadian set was much smaller, including only 94 cards. On the off chance you’re wondering which 94, you came to the right place.

  • Cards 1-52 and 58-67 on the Canadian checklist align perfectly with the U.S. release, including numbering. For example, card #1 in both sets is Benny Bengough.
  • The other 32 cards, at least at first glance, appear to be more or less random, though we will later see they are not.

The chart below shows the correspondence between the Canadian and U.S. checklists.

A final mini-mystery, particularly if you know that Goudey cards of the era were printed on sheets of 24 cards each, is the unusual size of the Canadian set: 94 cards.

As it turns out, the size of the Canadian set and the apparent randomness to the second half of the checklist are both explained by various quirks of the U.S. set.

meanwhile back in the states…

As mentioned, Goudey printed its 1933 set on sheets of 24 cards each. However, the cards on the sheets were not numbered sequentially, instead jumping around and leaving gaps. A 2015 article written for PSA by Kevin Glew provides this summary of card numbers by sheet.

For example, here are Sheets 1, 2, 3, and 6 from the U.S. Goudey set…

…or if you prefer, a complete set of 1933 Canadian Goudey! Yes, all the “randomness” of the Canadian checklist is simply a reflection of the oddball numbering scheme used in the States. World Wide Gum simply took four of the first six U.S. sheets and renumbered the cards sequentially from 1 to 94.

For those of you who’ve already done the math, you’re a step ahead of me. Correct…there are 96 cards here, not 94. However, we can also look at the number of different cards. While there were no duplicates on the set’s first three sheets, the sixth sheet introduced extra cards for three different players: Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig.

I’ve marked up an image of the final Canadian sheet to demonstrate how the 96 cards became 94.

  • Babe Ruth’s two “full action” cards, double-printed as 144 in the U.S. set were both numbered as 80 in the Canadian set.
  • Jimmy Foxx was the star of the first U.S. series (sheet) as card 29, a number that was retained in the Canadian set as well. The Beast’s second card, identical to his first save numbering, was assigned 154 in the U.S. set and 85 in the Canadian set.
  • Lou Gehrig was the top player on the third U.S. sheet as card 92. His Sheet 6 duplicate is card 160 in the U.S. set. In the Canadian set both cards are given a single number, 55.

In summary then, the 94-card Canadian checklist is perfectly explained by its four source sheets from the U.S. set, the retention of Ruth DP, and the creation of a Gehrig DP. Armed with this information, we are ready for the 1934 edition, a set I believe is the strangest of the entire decade.

1934 World wide gum

As shown at he beginning of the article, this 96-card set colors very much outside the lines by merging cards from both the 1933 and 1934 U.S. sets.

The first 48 cards follow the 1933 U.S. design, and the final 48 cards follow the 1934 U.S. design, so we’ll look at each of these groupings separately.

the lower 48

Cards 1-48 on the 1934 Canadian Goudey checklist match up with the following 48 card numbers from the 1933 U.S. set: 53-57, 68-74, 80-91, 100-105, 115-120, and 130-141. While this grouping of numbers appears odd on the surface, you are now zero shocked to see a perfect match to U.S. Goudey sheets 4 and 5.

For those of you keeping score at home, that means Canadian gum chewers pocketing both the 1933 and 1934 World Wide Gum sets now had Canadian counterparts of every card from the first six sheets of the 1933 U.S. issue.

back differences

While the card fronts were a perfect match with the U.S. series, a number of expected differences could be found on the backs of the cards: reduced bios to make room for French translation, new card numbers, WWG/Montreal vs Goudey/Boston, etc., i.e., the same things we’d already seen the year before. Another key change, one that’s particularly helpful to collectors sorting their cards, is the “1934 Series” header.

My favorite changes, however, are not evident from the Frankhouse card, and show that the World Wide Gum set was not simply a lazy retread of its neighbor to the south. (This just in: Readers from Windsor, ONT, would like to remind you that their city is actually south of Boston!)

team updates

The very first card in the 1934 World Wide Gum set provides one of many team changes.

And lest you imagine such changes are few and far between, here is card #2. As the card front suggests, Morgan was with Cleveland in the 1933 set but the back of his 1934 Canadian card reflects his move to Boston, a transaction that occurred in October 1933.

Not owning this half-set nor even finding a complete run of 1-48 online, I am not able to provide a full catalog of team changes. (Other sources such as Trading Card Database are not yet reliable for this set.) As such, I will simply share two more examples to convey the idea that someone in Montreal (or Boston) was willing to go the extra kilometer (or mile) to keep things au courant (or current).

I particularly like this next example in that it involves two teams many collectors were not even aware had 1933/34 Goudey cards, the Milwaukee Brewers and Montreal Royals.

And my all-time favorite is this one. First, here is the 1933 Goudey version…nothing too unusual.

But what’s this? When I first saw it, I thought mission must have had an alternate meaning in French or that Friberg might have been Mormon and taking a break from baseball. It’s also hard not to think of the Blues Brothers movie: Friberg’s on a mission, a mission from Goudey!

As it turns out the answer is more Reds than Blues. Friberg had simply headed west to San Francisco to play for the Mission Reds of the Pacific Coast League. The story goes that one time Bernie was left out of the Mission lineup and a lone fan in the San Francisco crowd immediately began chanting “FREEEEEEEE-berg, play FREEE-berg, man!”

The upper 48

No decoder ring is needed to understand cards 49-96 in the Canadian set. They correspond exactly the first 48 cards in the 1934 U.S. set, just in a totally different order easy enough to confuse for random.

Look a little more closely and you’ll find in fact the first 24 Canadian cards are a shuffled version of U.S. cards 1-24 and the final 24 Canadian cards are a shuffled version of U.S. cards 25-48.

The sequencing looks even less random when you look at a 1934 Goudey uncut sheet or two. Here is how the first two sheets, 1-24 and 25-48, of the U.S. issue were numbered. I am happy to award a prize package to anyone who can find the pattern!

And here is how World Wide Gum numbered the same 48 cards. (No prize this time if you spot the pattern!)

And here you were thinking the Canadian set was the random one!

Side note: Cards 1-48 in the Canadian set (i.e., the “lower 48” profiled earlier) worked in exactly the same way. While numbering on sheets 4 and 5 from the 1933 U.S. set was in no particular order, World Wide Gum re-numbered the cards on each sheet sequentially from left to right and top to bottom. For example, while these same cards were numbered 119, 116, 118, 117, 136, 132, etc., in the 1933 set, here is their numbering in 1934 World Wide Gum.

Back differences

By now you’re a pro at anticipating what differences the Canadian card backs will show versus their U.S. counterparts. You can check off your guesses against Heinie’s (ahem) backsides.

However, the 1934 U.S. series actually features two other styles of card backs.

  • Cards 1-24 match the Manush card already shown.
  • Cards 25-79 and 92-96, the remaining “Lou Gehrig says…” cards in the set, feature the first card back shown above.
  • Cards 80-91, the “Chuck Klein says…” cards, feature the second card back shown above.

Because the Canadian set doesn’t include U.S. cards 80-91 it’s not a surprise at all that no Canadian cards have the Klein back. Given the space saving measures already seen on the Canadian cards, the absence of the Gehrig signature might not surprise you either.

Nonetheless I do attach significance to another missing element: the line on U.S. cards 25-96 that reads “By arrangement with Christy Walsh.”

Christy Walsh was of course the super-agent of many of era’s biggest stars, among them Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Walsh’s “arrangement” with Goudey is often cited as the main reason there are no Babe Ruth cards in the 1934 U.S. set.

Certainly it is possible that the Walsh tagline was omitted in Canada only to conserve space. On the other hand, legalese is often the last to go. My own hunch is that the Goudey/Walsh arrangement extended only to the United States and did not extend north of the border. In particular, I connect the absence of the Walsh tag line with the set’s checklist boasting this heavy hitter.

There he is, Babe Ruth, on a 1934 (and sort of) Goudey card! Meanwhile American collectors could only dream of such a card in their wildest mastication fantasies!

Odds and ends

For all the ink I’ve spent explaining the construction of the two Canadian Goudey sets, one question I’ve left alone is the why. Here are my best guesses to a few questions that remain outstanding.

  • Why did the 1933 set draw from Sheets 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the U.S. set vs some other set of sheets (e.g., 1-4)?
    In order to have a product on shelves in any timely manner, using low-numbered U.S. sheets was a necessity. In my own research I’ve come to believe that Sheets 1-3 and 5 were all ready to go even before the start of the 1933 season whereas the other six sheets were prepared in a series of later efforts. As such, the use of Sheets 1-3 is probably no surprise: they were available quickly. As for why the set then skipped to Sheet 6, I suspect it was for the star power. Boasting a Foxx, Gehrig, and three Ruth cards, this was the one to put out there if the clock was ticking and you wanted the most buck for your bang.
  • Why did the 1934 set use any 1933 cards at all?
    Again I’m going to go with time-to-market. Waiting on true 1934 Goudey cards and adding time for translation meant it would be a while before cards could hit shelves. Meanwhile here was a ready made supply of cards that needed only translation and (in some cases) team updates.
  • Why did the 1934 set switch in the middle to the 1934 Goudey cards?
    An auction house listing I read suggested the change was in response to criticism that the set was “behind the times.” I doubt this for two reasons. First, unless kids were in frequent correspondence with their American cousins, I’m not sure they would have noticed or complained much. Second, provided the 1934 U.S. cards were ready for us, why wouldn’t WWG want to use them? While modern collectors might frown at WWG putting out a set using two different card designs, bear in mind that Goudey (U.S.) did the exact same thing in 1933.

FURTHER READING

  • Matthew Glidden has a terrific write-up of World Wide Gum cards, going well beyond the 1933 and 1934 baseball sets. Among the highlights is his rock solid case that the 1936 issue (as catalogued) was in fact a 1936-37 issue.
  • Some very clean front/back scans of the 1934 World Wide Gum cards are here. The collector is pretty far from a complete set, but his images are among the better ones online.
  • My own gum-in-cheek article on the history of the Goudey Gum Company is here. Most Goudey company biographers skip the poisoning scandals. Not me.

The surprisingly long history of traded sets

Author’s note: My goal here isn’t to list EVERY set with Traded cards. In many cases, the set I highlight will stand in for similar issues across a number of years, before and after.

1981 Topps Traded

The first Traded set I became aware of as a young collector was in 1981. At the time the main excitement for me was that Fernando Valenzuela finally got an entire Topps card to himself. Of course, as the name suggested, it was also a chance to see players depicted on their new teams, such as this Dave Winfield card portraying him in a Yankees uniform.

Dozens of similar Traded or Update sets followed in the coming years, leaning considerably on the 1981 Topps Traded set as a model. However, 1981 was definitely not the beginning of the Traded card era.

1979 O-Pee-Chee/Burger King

My first encounter with O-Pee-Chee cards was in 1979. While most of the cards in the 1979 O-Pee-Chee set had fronts that–logo aside–looked exactly like their U.S. counterparts, every now and then an O-Pee-Chee required a double-take. Back here in the US, I was not yet familiar with the 1979 Topps Burger King issue, but they took things even a step further.

1979 Topps Bump Wills

Not really a traded card, but here is one that at least might have looked like one to collectors in 1979. Having been a young collector myself that year, I can definitely say Bump and hometown hero Steve Garvey were THE hot cards my friends and I wanted that year.

1970s Kellogg’s

The most fun Trades cards are ones where the player gets a genuinely new picture in his new uniform like the 1981 Topps Traded Dave Winfield. Next in line behind those are the ones where the team name on the card front changes, such as with the 1979 O-Pee-Chee Pete Rose. Distinctly less exciting but still intriguing are cards were a “Traded line” is added. We will see some sets where such a line makes the front of the card, but much more often we’ll see it as part of the small print on the back.

Here is Buddy Bell’s card from the 1979 set.

And here is Ken Reitz from the 1977 set.

In case it’s a tough read for your eyes, the second version of the Reitz back, at the very end of the bio, reads, “St. Louis brought Ken back in a trade.” The Bell card has a similar statement. Admittedly these cards are a bit bizarre in that the card backs already have the players on their new teams, even in the initial release. Because of that, one could make an argument that the second versions are less Traded cards than “updated bio” cards, but let’s not split hairs. However, you slice it two Reitz don’t make a wrong!

Similar cards can be found in the 1974, 1975, and 1976 Kellogg’s sets as well.

1977 Topps

Not really a Traded card but a great opportunity to feature a rare 1977 proof card of Reggie Jackson as an Oriole, alongside his Topps and Burger King cards of the same year.

1976 Topps Traded

This set features my favorite design ever in terms of highlighting the change of teams. Unlike the 1981 Topps Traded set, these cards were available in packs and are considered no more scarce than the standard cards from the 1976 Topps set. While the traded cards feature only a single Hall of Famer, this subset did give us one of the classic baseball cards of all time.

Side note: Along with Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Lou Brock, Lee Smith, and Joe Carter, Oscar Gamble was “discovered” by the great John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil. Well done, Buck!

1975 Topps Hank Aaron

Collectors in 1975 were rewarded with two cards of the Home Run King, bookending the classic set as cards #1 and #660. Aaron’s base card depicts the Hammer as a Brewer, the team he would spend his 1975 and 1976 seasons with. Meanwhile, his ’74 Highlights (and NL All-Star) card thankfully portrays Aaron as a Brave.

1974 Topps – Washington, National League

The National League’s newest team, the San Diego Padres, wasn’t exactly making bank for ownership in San Diego, and it looked like practically a done deal that they would be moving to D.C. for the 1974 season. As the cardboard of record at the time, Topps was all over the expected move and made sure to reflect it on their initial printings of the 1974 set. Because there was no team name yet for the D.C. franchise-to-be, Topps simply went with “Nat’l Lea.” (Click here for a recent SABR Baseball Cards article on the subject.)

Of course these San Diego/Washington cards aren’t true Traded cards, but that’s not to say there weren’t any in the 1974 Topps set.

1974 Topps Traded

This subset may have been the most direct precursor of the 1981 Topps Traded set. While cards from later printings were randomly inserted in packs, the subset could be purchased in full, assuming you threw down your $6 or so for the ENTIRE 1974 Topps factory set, traded cards included, available exclusively through J.C. Penney.

The Traded design is a bit of an eyesore, and the subset includes only two Hall of Famers, Marichal and Santo. For a bit more star power, we only need to look two years earlier.

1972 Topps Traded

As part of the high number series in 1972, Topps included seven cards to capture what the card backs described as “Baseball’s Biggest Trades.”

The star power is immense, though some collectors see this subset more as a case of what might have been. One of the seven trades featured was Nolan Ryan-for-Jim Fregosi. However, as the bigger name at the time, Topps put Fregosi rather than Ryan on the card.

Net54 member JollyElm also reminded me about another big miss from Topps here. Yes, of course I’m talking about the Charlie Williams trade that had the San Francisco Giants already making big plans for October. “Charlie who?” you ask. Fair enough. Perhaps you’re more familiar with the player the Giants gave up for Williams.

Topps took a pass on this one, but–as always–Gio at When Topps Had (Base) Balls is here to take care of us.

1972 O-Pee-Chee

This next example is not a Traded card, but it is one of the most unique Update cards in hobby history. RIP to the Quiet Man, the Miracle Worker…the legendary Gil Hodges.

You might wonder if OPC gave its 1973 Clemente card a similar treatment. Nope. And if you’re wondering what other cards noted their subject’s recent demise, there’s a SABR blog post for that!

1971 O-Pee-Chee

Though the first Topps/O-Pee-Chee baseball card partnership came in 1965, the 1971 O-Pee-Chee set was the first to feature Traded cards. (The 1971 set also includes two different Rusty Staub cards, which was something I just learned in my research for this article.) My article on the Black Aces is where I first stumbled across this 1971 Al Downing card.

Where the 1972 OPC Hodges and 1979 OPC Rose cards were precise about dates, this one just goes with “Recently…” Of course this was not just any trade. Three years later, still with the Dodgers, Downing would find himself participating in one of the greatest moments in baseball history.

1969 Topps

At first glance, these two cards appear to be a case of the Bump Wills error, only a decade earlier. After all, Donn Clendenon never played a single game with the Houston Astros, so why would he have a card with them? However, this is no Bump Wills error.  There is in fact a remarkable story here, echoing a mix of Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood. I’ll offer a short version of it below the cards.

Donn Clendenon played out the 1968 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which explains his uniform (sans airbrush) in the photos. However, at season’s end he was selected by the Expos in baseball’s expansion draft. Still, that was a good six months before these cards hit the shelves so there was time for a plot twist.

Three months after becoming an Expo, Montreal traded Clendenon, along with Jesus Alou, to the Astros for Rusty Staub. Based on the trade, Topps skipped Montreal altogether and led off their 1969 offering with Clendenon as an Astro. But alas, Clendenon refused to report to Houston, where several black players had experienced racism on the part of the team’s manager, instead threatening to retire and take a job with pen manufacturer Scripto. Ultimately the trade was reworked, Clendenon was able to remain an Expo, and he even got a raise and a new Topps card for his trouble.

1966-1967 Topps

Thanks to Net54 member JollyElm for providing information on this set and providing the occasion to feature Bob Uecker to boot. While the card fronts in these years gave no hints of being traded cards the backs indicated team changes in later printings. Here is an example from each year. In 1966, the only change is an added line at the end of the bio whereas 1967 has not only the added bio line but also update the team name just under the player name area.

Note that the corresponding OPC card backs follow the later (traded) versions of the Topps cards.

Topps League Leaders – 1960s and beyond

In August 2018 Net54 member Gr8Beldini posted a particularly devious trivia question. The subject was players whose Topps League Leaders cards depicted them on different teams than their base cards in the same set.

These 1966 Frank Robinson cards are among 11 instances where this occurred in the 1960s and 70s. If you can name the other 10, all I can say is you REALLY know your baseball cards!

1961-1963 Post Cereal

We’ll start with the 1962 and 1963 issues, which feature the now familiar Traded lines. Note however that there were no prior versions of these same cards minus the Traded line. Roberts is from the 1962 set, and McDaniel is from the 1963 set.

Post mixes it up a bit more in 1961 in that there were numerous variations between cereal box versions of the cards and mail-in order versions. The Billy Martin cereal box version (left) lacks a Traded line, but the mail-in version (right) indicates Martin was sold to Milwaukee in 1960.

BTW, thank you to Net54 member Skil55voy for pointing me to the Post Cereal variations.

1959 Topps

Thanks to Net54 member RobDerhak for this example, which follows (really, precedes) the examples from 1966-67 Topps. Note the last line of the bio on the second card back: “Traded to Washington in March 1959.” (You might also enjoy an unrelated UER on both backs. See if you can find it!)

1956 Big League Star Statues

A tip of the hat to Net54 member JLange who took us off the cardboard and into the a fantastic set of early statues, possible inspirations for the Hartland figures that would soon follow and an early ancestor of Starting Lineup. Doby’s original packaging puts him with his 1955 club (CLE), but later packaging shows his 1956 club (CHW).

1955 Bowman

You know those Traded lines that O-Pee-Chee seemed to invent in the 1970s, at least until we saw them from Topps on the card backs of their 1967, 1966, and 1959 sets? Well, guess who the real inventor was?

1954 Bowman

Bowman’s Traded line didn’t make its debut in the 1955 set, however. Here is the same thing happening with their 1954 issue.

Is this the first set to add a “traded line” to the front or back of a card? As it turns out, no. But before showing you the answer, we’ll take a quick detour to another early 1950s issue that included team variants.

1954 Red Man

George Kell began the 1954 season with the Red Sox but moved to the White Sox early in the season. As a result, Kell has two different cards in the 1954 Red Man set. There is no “traded line,” but the Red Man artists did a reasonably nice job updating Kell’s uniform, and the team name is also updated in the card’s header information.

Red Man followed the same approach in moving outfielder Sam Mele from the Orioles to the White Sox. Meanwhile, Dave Philley, who changed teams prior to the start of the season, enjoyed those same updates and a traded line.

1951 Topps Red Backs

Notice anything different about these two Gus Zernial cards?

Yep, not only does the Chicago “C” disappear off his cap, but the bio on the second card begins, “Traded to the Philadelphia A’s this year.” So there you have it. At least as far as Topps vs. Bowman goes, Topps was the first to bring us the Traded line. And unlike so many of the examples we’ve seen from 1954-1967, it’s even on the front of the card!

1947-1966 Exhibit Supply Company

If there’s anything certain about issuing a set over 20 years is that some players are going to change teams. As such, many of these players have cards showing them playing for than one team (or in the case of Brooklyn/L.A. Dodgers more than one city.) Take the case of Harvey Kuenn, who played with the Tigers from 1952-1959, spent 1960 in Cleveland, and then headed west to San Francisco in 1961.

The plain-capping approach used in the middle card might lead you to believe that the Exhibits card staff lacked the airbrushing technology made famous by Topps or the artistic wizardry you’ll soon see with the 1933 Eclipse Import set. However, their treatment of Alvin Dark’s journey from the Boston Braves (1946-1949) to the New York Giants (1950-1956) actually reveals some serious talent. (See how many differences you can spot; I get five.) I almost wish they just went with it for his Cubs (1958-1959) card instead of using a brand new shot, which somehow looks more fake to me than his Giants card.

1948 Blue Tint

In researching my Jackie Robinson post, I came across this set of cards from 1948. Among the variations in the set are the two cards of Leo the Lip, who began the year piloting the Dodgers but finished the year with their National League rivals. No need to take another picture, Leo, we’ll just black out the hat!

And if you’re wondering how many other players/managers appeared as Dodgers and Giants in the same set, we’ve got you covered!

1934-36 Diamond Stars

We’re going way back in time now to capture a Traded card sufficiently under the radar that even Trading Card Database doesn’t yet list it. (UPDATE: It does now, but PSA does not!) Its relative obscurity might lead you to believe it’s a common player, but in fact it’s Hall of Famer Al Simmons.

After three years with the Chicago White Sox, Bucketfoot Al joined the Detroit Tigers for the 1936 season. As a set that spanned three years, Diamond Stars was able to update its Simmons card to reflect the change. The cards appear similar if not identical at first glance. However, the Tigers card omits the Sox logo on Al’s jersey, and the card reverse updates Al’s team as well.

Another Hall of Famer with a similar treatment in the set is Heinie Manush. Some collectors are familiar with his “W on sleeve” and “no W on sleeve” variations. These in fact reflect his move from the Senators to the Red Sox. This set has so many team variations, most of which are beneath the radar of most collectors, that I wrote a whole article on the subject for my personal blog.

1933 Goudey

The 1933 Goudey set included some late-season releases, including a tenth series of 24 cards that included key players from the 1933 World Series. Even the most casual collectors know the Goudey set included more than one card of certain players–most notably four of the Bambino. What not all collectors realize is that the set includes a Traded card.

Hitting great Lefty O’Doul was originally depicted as a Brooklyn Dodger, the team he played with until mid-June of the 1933 season. However, when the final release of trading cards came out, Lefty had a new card with the World Champion New York Giants.

Of course, if Lefty’s .349 lifetime average isn’t high enough for you, there is an even better hitter with a traded card in the set. His move from the Cards to the Browns on July 26 prompted a brand new card highlighting not only his new team but his new “position” as well.

1933 Eclipse Import

Another hat tip to Net54 member JLange who offered up a set not even listed yet in the Trading Card Database. Also known as R337, this 24-card set may be where you’ll find one of the most unusual Babe Ruth cards as well as this priceless update. Not technically a Traded card since the player is with Cleveland on both cards (and was with the Tribe continuously from 1923 until midway through the 1935 season), but…well, first take a look for yourself, and then meet me on the other side!

Yes, that is the Philly mascot on Myatt’s uniform. After all, he played for Connie Mack’s squad back in…wait for it…1921! But no problem. Let’s just find someone with pretty neat handwriting to scribble Cleveland across the uni on our next go-round. Problem solved!

1927 Exhibits

My thanks to Net54 member Peter_Spaeth (whose worst card is 100x better than my best card!) for tipping me off to this set and allowing me to use his card of Old Pete. In a move that perhaps inspired future O-Pee-Chee sets, here is Grover Alexander, Cubs uniform and all, on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Other HOFers with mismatched teams and uniforms are Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and Tris Speaker. In case you haven’t guessed it already, if you want to see a ton of star power on a single checklist, you owe it to yourself to take a look at the HOFers in this set.

1914-1915 Cracker Jack

If you view the 1914 and 1915 Cracker Jack sets as two different sets (that happen to have a gigantic number of nearly identical cards), then there are no Traded cards. However, if you view the two releases as a single set, then there are numerous Traded cards. Among the players to appear on two different teams, the biggest star is unquestionably Nap Lajoie. who appears in 1914 with his namesake Cleveland Naps and in 1915 with the Philadelphia Athletics. In addition to the change in the team name at the bottom of the card, you can also see that “Cleveland” has been erased from his jersey.

Another notable jumper in this set is HOF pitcher Eddie Plank who has his 1914 card with the Philadelphia Athletics and his 1915 card with the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League.

1911 T205

I will take any excuse to include cards from this set in a post, so I was thrilled when Net54 member Gonzo alerted me to the team variations in this set. Here are two players who were traded from the Boston Rustlers (who?) to the Chicago Cubs. David Shean went packing on February 25, 1911, and George “Peaches” Graham made his move a few months later on June 10.

Gonzo also notes that many of the images from the 1911 T205 set were reused, uniforms and all, for the 1914 T330-2 Piedmont Art Stamps set. (I will freely admit to never having heard of this issue.) One HOF jumper is double-play man Johnny Evers, whose picture has him on the Cubs but card has him on the Braves. There are also several players attached to Federal League teams though their images still show their NL/AL uniforms.

1911 S74 Silks

It was once again Net54 member Gonzo for the win with this great find! On the other end of the aforementioned “Peaches” Graham trade was Johnny Kling, depicted here in his Cubs uniform while his card sports the Boston Rustlers name and insignia.

1909-11 T206

Another multi-year set, the Monster includes a handful of team change variations. The Bill Dahlen card on the left shows Dahlen with his 1909 team, the Boston Braves. Though he would only play four games total over his final two seasons in 1910 and 1911, the cardmakers at the American Tobacco Company saw fit to update his card to show his new team, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1887-90 Old Judge

If T206 isn’t old enough for you, then let’s go even farther back to the juggernaut of 19th century baseball card sets, N172, more commonly known as Old Judge. According to Trading Card Database, Hall of Fame pitcher Amos Rusie has cards with both the Indianapolis Hoosiers (1887) and the New York Giants (1889-90). I was unable to find what felt like a real NYG card of Rusie, but I did find one where a strip of paper reading “New York” had been glued over the area of the card that had previously said “Indianapolis.” My immediate thought was that a collector was the culprit behind this cut-and-paste job. But how funny would it be if this is how the Old Judge cardmakers did updates back then!

Epilogue

When I first stumbled across Traded cards, it was love at first sight. What a thrill to end up with two cards of a top star, and what better way to turn a common player into a conversation starter. To the extent baseball cards tell a story and document the game’s history, Traded cards hold a special role. Unfortunately, these cards have a dark side as well. At least in 1983 they did. If you ever doubted that 8 3/4 square inches of cardboard could rip a kid’s heart out, stomp it to bits, and then spit all over it, well…here you go.

Cardboard Crosswalk: 1936 World Wide Gum and 1955 Bowman

Author’s note: The “Cardboard Crosswalk” series focuses on the commonalities of different sets many years apart. The first installment of Cardboard Crosswalk can be found here.

On the surface, these are two sets that would appear to have little in common, as these cards of Connie Mack and Hank Aaron will serve to illustrate.

Mack and Aaron
Among the main differences between these two sets–

  • 1936 WWG cards measure 2-1/2 × 2-7/8 inches, in the ballpark of the 1933 and 1934 Goudey issues. Meanwhile, the 1955 Bowman cards measure 2-1/2 × 3-3/4 inches, much closer to today’s baseball cards.
  • The 1936 cards are of course black and white (player selection aside!) while the 1955 Bowman cards have so much color they’re like watching a game on your brand new television set!
  • And finally, the 1936 cards were issued in Canada while the Bowman cards were issued in the United States.

Of course the main purpose of a Cardboard Crosswalk is to identify similarities, not differences. We’ll get there soon, but first I’ll share some irresistible odds and ends at least obliquely related.

The Mack and Aaron cards I selected were of course 19 years apart. I find it incredible that these two gentlemen have cards as players that are EIGHTY-NINE years apart!

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As impossible as that ought to be, we were only two years away from something much crazier. Imagine if Frank Robinson (RIP) had made his debut just two years earlier and had a card in the 1955 Bowman set. Then couple the Mack card with this one and we’d have cards 119 years apart!

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Okay, next detour. Fans and collectors are accustomed to seeing Mr. Mack in a suit. That was pretty much his trademark as manager of the Athletics for half a century. However, the idea of players wearing suits seems like the territory of NBA/NHL draft pick cards and baseball sets like Stadium Club and Studio. (Note to self: Definitely do a post on the Prehistory of Leaf Studio.)

Sure, collectors might scratch their heads and recall Babe Ruth all dressed up on some of his 1962 Topps Babe Ruth Special cards, but those cards, issued more than a quarter century after his retirement, aren’t exactly on his master set checklist. Meanwhile, just look at these two dapper fellows out of the 1936 set. (As an aside, you could caption the image with Appling saying, “Mirror, show me what I would look like buff” or Zeke saying, “Mirror, show me what I would look like trim.”)

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On the other end of the spectrum, the 1936 WWG set included some top-notch images of Hall of Famers.

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And if you squint a bit, you may even see some resemblance between the 1936 cards and some Topps Hall of Famer cards of the 1970s.

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L
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D
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Sorry, I’m back now. The Lord just struck me down for comparing any card to the 1976 Bench. Lesson learned.

Finally, it would be impossible not to be impressed by the incredible checklist for the 1936 set. Where else are you going to find Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio in the same set, not to mention Hank Greenberg, Jimmie Foxx, and Dizzy Dean? And the set is definitely your go-to for Montreal Royals, with 14 of them on the checklist! (Depending if Trading Card DB makes my correction, you may only see 13. However, Rabbit Maranville should be included as well.)

And now, onto the crosswalk!

The reason I chose these two sets was that despite their being “only” 19 years apart, they feel so much more distant to me. Perhaps it’s because one of the sets rightly could have included Babe Ruth as a player while the other genuinely did include Henry Aaron, or perhaps it’s because two absolutely cataclysmic events, World War Two and the integration of Major League Baseball, happened between their issues.

Of course, 19 years isn’t exactly forever in baseball terms, so it should not be surprising that the two sets had some overlap across their respective checklists. For the crosswalk portion of the post, I’ll put the spotlight on the five subjects common to both sets, who remarkably enough entered the 1955 Bowman set for four different reasons! We’ll proceed alphabetically.

Dick Bartell

Entering the 1936 season Dick Bartell was a 28-year-old shortstop for the New York Giants with arguably his two best seasons still ahead of him. In the 1955 set he was a coach under Birdie Tebbetts with the Cincinnati Redlegs. (If you’re keeping score, put a check in the coach column.)

Bartell

Phil Cavarretta

Entering the 1936 season Phil Cavarretta (two Rs, two Ts, the WWG card has it wrong) was a promising 19-year old first baseman for the Cubs, having joined the club at 17. His 1945 season, albeit with many players off to war, won him the 1945 NL MVP award. While he would join the managerial ranks in 1951, he continued to play for several more years. As such, the back of his 1955 Bowman card lists him as “First Base, Chicago White Sox.” Put a checkmark in the player column (or player-manager if you prefer).

Cavarretta

Charlie Grimm

Having made his playing debut in 1916, also at the age of 17, the 1936 season would be Grimm’s last as a player. It would also be his fifth as Cubs skipper en route to a 19-year managerial career. It is as the manager of the Milwaukee Braves that he is included in the 1955 Bowman set in a reaching-right-out-of-the-set pose that might have scared kids away from television for years. (Kids, it’s okay, he’s actually a very nice man. His nickname is Jolly Cholly, and he plays the banjo! Wait, what? That didn’t help?)

Grimm.jpg

All joking aside, I love Charlie Grimm, who happens to be related to a friend of mine. If you are unaware of Grimm’s role in launching Hank Aaron’s career, Howard Bryant tells the story here.

Al Lopez

Entering the 1936 season, this Hall of Famer was a 27-year-old catcher with the Boston Bees, still in the first half of what would be a 19-year playing career featuring MVP votes in seven  of his seasons. He would succeed Lou Boudreau as manager of the Tribe in 1951 and preside over the 111-win juggernaut that would go to the 1954 World Series and fall victim to Willie Mays and “The Catch.”

Overall, Lopez would finish above .500 in all 15 of his seasons as full-time manager of the Indians and later White Sox and finish up with two pennants and a .584 lifetime win-loss percentage, good even today for tenth all-time.

Lopez

So that’s another manager, which puts us at a coach, a player, and two managers. What on Earth could be left? Owner? GM? Scout? Commissioner?

Lon Warneke

Entering the 1936 season, the Arkansas Hummingbird was a 27-year-old right-hander coming off consecutive seasons of 22, 18, 22, and 20 wins. He would have certainly won the Cy Young Award had there been on in 1932, as he led the National League in both wins and ERA while taking the Cubs to the famous “Called Shot” World Series.

Before turning to 1955, let’s pause to admire a nice trio of 1930s cardboard, from which one could make a very expensive flipbook on pitching follow-through.

Warneke.jpg

Those of you who know the 1955 Bowman set or Warneke’s biography well have long known what’s coming. For the rest of you, I’ll remind you of the first half of this post, in which I briefly detoured to suits on baseball cards. The suits I showed you then belonged to subjects of the 1936 set, but the 1955 set had some suits of its own!

W
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F
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Behind the plate is a man who ought to know quite a bit about balls and strikes…

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So there you have it, the five men featured in the 1936 World Wide Gum and 1955 Bowman sets: a coach, a player, two managers, and an umpire. It would be easy to find checklists with more subjects in common, but I can’t imagine a more interesting variety than this one!

Extra! Extra! Read all about the prehistory of 1981 Donruss!

If you bought packs in 1981 try to remember the first thing about 1981 Donruss that jumped out at you. The paper thin stock? The occasional typo? The cards sticking together? This mismatched uniforms and team names?

Okay, come to think of it those were all salient features of the debut baseball set from Donruss. Still, the one I was hoping you’d say is the multiple cards of can’t-miss Hall of Famers like Pete Rose!

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As a young collector I’d certainly seen multiple cards of the same player before. The Topps Record Breakers  and 1972 Topps “In Action” cards were prime examples. However, what distinguished the Donruss cards was that nearly all of the extras looked just like the base cards, at least from the front.

As I learned more about collecting, thanks to some local shows and my first Sport Americana price guide, I began to realize the Donruss extras had ancestors in the hobby. What follows here are the sets I learned about in the order I learned about them.

1933-1934 Goudey

There are numerous examples in the 1933 set, particularly given the 18 repeated players on the set’s final “World Series” sheet. However, the first one I encountered was the most famous of them all: cards 53, 144, 149, and 181 of the Sultan of Swat.

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It would have been around that same time that I also learned of the two Lou Gehrig cards (37, 61) in Goudey’s 1934 follow-up release.

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My eleven-year-old self resolved almost immediately to eventually owning each of these Ruth and Gehrig cards. (Spoiler alert: 38 years later I’m still at zero.) In the meantime, the multiple cards of Rose, Yaz, Stargell, and others from my 1981 Donruss shoebox would have to do.

1954 Topps

Ever since I got my 1976 Topps “All-Time All-Star” Ted Williams, I decided he was my favorite retired player. As I flipped through my price guide looking for older Ted Williams cards I might be able to afford, I at first thought I found a typo. How could the Splendid Splinter be the first card and the last card in the 1954 Topps set?

There was no internet, and I certainly had no friends with either of these cards. I was simply left to wonder. Were there really two cards? Did they look the same or different? It took visiting a card show to finally learn the answer. Cardboard gold.

Ted Williams.jpg

It was much later that I learned Topps had been unable to make cards of the Kid in their 1951-1953 offerings. As such, his Topps debut in 1954 was long overdue and something to be celebrated. Perhaps that’s how he ended up bookending the set on both sides. Or maybe it’s just that he was Ted Freaking Williams.

1909-1911 T206

The tobacco areas of the Sport Americana were a bit intimidating to me as a kid. I recall parenthetical notes next to some of the names (e.g., “bat on shoulder”), but the checklist was dizzying enough that the notes went in one eye and out the other. Again it took a card show for me to see that these cards were my great-grandfather’s Donruss.

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1887 Old Judge

Fast forward about ten years, and I received a gigantic book for my birthday with pictures of thousands of really old cards. It was here that I first learned about “Old Judge” cards, including the fact that some players had more than one card.

Old Judge

As an aside, that second Radbourn card looks more like a crime scene from Clue than an action pose, but okay.

1971 O-Pee-Chee

“1971 OPC? That was unexpected,” you may be saying to yourself. Wouldn’t the OPC cards match the 1971 Topps set, which had no duplicate players at all? I thought the same thing too until I ran across this pair.

Staub

The card on the left, number 289 in the set, is known to high-end collectors as “Staub, bat on shoulder” while the card on the right, number 560, is known as “Staub, bat off shoulder.”

Exhibit postcards

More for convenience than accuracy, I’ll lump various “Exhibits” issues under a single umbrella. Perhaps because these cards were issued across more than four decades and seemingly included zillions of players, it seemed unremarkable to me initially that the same player might have multiple cards in these sets. I’d known this fact for years, but it wasn’t until I reached the “gosh, what am I missing” part of this post that I made the connection between these cards and their Donruss descendants.

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As an aside, I just love that second one of the Splinter. As Anson Whaley notes on his Pre-War Cards site, these sets provide some of the most affordable vintage cards of top-shelf Hall of Famers. On my office wall side-by-side right now are Exhibit cards of Williams and DiMaggio that I paid about $25 apiece for. Along with these Life magazines from 1939 and 1941, the cards really hold the room together.

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1952 Wheaties

It’s at this point in the post when I have nothing left in my own head and have to rev up the research engines. Time thumbing through the cards “gallery” of great players is never a waste of time, whether or not I find what I’m looking for, but here is a great pair I ran across in my review of Stan the Man.

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A quick look at the set checklist indicates that not just Musial but all thirty subjects in the series had both a portrait and an action shot. Can you imagine if Donruss had done the same in 1981? Consider the boldness of crashing the baseball card world as an utter newcomer and not just competing with Topps but unleashing a 1,100+ card behemoth of a set with multiple cards of every single player!

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No joke! Many was the day I pulled two Cliff Johnson cards from the same pack, but unfortunately they were the same Cliff Johnson cards. This portrait-action pair, on the other hand, would have taking the situation from blown penny to blown mind!

1922 American Caramel (E121)

Similar to 1952 Wheaties this is another set that features multiple cards of numerous players, such as this Max Carey pair.

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I got a bit of a laugh from Trading Card Database when I saw the names given to each of the variations. The first card, not surprisingly, is referred to to “batting.” The second card is referred to as…so okay, back in high school I was getting ready to take the SAT. I wasn’t much of a reader back then, and I knew the test would include a lot of words I didn’t know. A few evenings before my testing date, I set out to memorize the entire dictionary. Naturally, this proved to be a bigger job than I could really tackle so I finally gave up after the word “akimbo.”

I only once in my life after that–and definitely not on my SAT–encountered the word in print, and I took pride in not having to look it up. And then this morning, more than 30 years after memorizing the dictionary from aardvark to akimbo, here is is again.

akimbo.JPG

If you don’t know the word perhaps you can guess it from the card: it simply means hands on hips. And for any young readers preparing for their own SATs, nothing helps you remember a word more than having a mnemonic, so here you go: Mutombo akimbo.

Mutombo.jpg

But back to our main topic…

1941 Double Play

A tip of the hat from Red Sox collector extraordinaire Mark Hoyle for sharing this one with me. The 1941 Double Play set includes 150 cards (or 75 if you didn’t rip the pairs apart). Most of the images are portraits, but the set includes 10 (or 20) action shots that provide extra cards in the set for many of the game’s top stars such as Burgess Whitehead–okay, Mel Ott.

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But yes, Whitehead does have two cards as well.

1934-1936 Batter-Up

Thanks again to Mark Hoyle for this one! As this 192-card set was issued over three years, I suspect but don’t know for certain that the repeated players in the set were released at different times. As the two Gehringer cards below show, there are also small differences between the earlier and later cards including where the card number is located and how wide the cards are.

Batter Up

1934-1936 Diamond Stars

I’ll close with one of my favorite sets ever. Perhaps because I never managed to own more than 6-7 cards from this set, I never paid any attention to an oddity of its checklist. The last dozen cards, numbered 97-108, are all repeats of earlier cards in the set. Here is a listing of the players and their card numbers.

Diamond Stars

And here is an example of the cards themselves.

Dickey

The card fronts appear to be identical, while the backs differ in not only the card numbering but also the ink color and the stat line. In particular, the first Dickey card provides his batting average for 1934 and the second provides his average from 1935. (Read this post if you’re interested in more significant variations.)

Wrap-up

Aside from my Dwight Gooden collection, my collection tops out at 1993. However, as I see other collectors show off the more modern stuff, it’s clear that extra cards of star players are practically a fixture in today’s hobby.

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As the examples in this post illustrate, 1981 Donruss was by no means the first set to include extra base cards of star players. However, we can definitely credit Donruss with being the first major modern set to re-introduce this great feature into the hobby. And you thought the only thing that stuck from that set was its cards to each other!

Author’s note: I’d love it if you used the Comments area to plug other pre-1981 sets with extra base cards of the big stars. Some categories I’m intentionally ignoring are errors/variations/updates, single player sets (e.g., 1959 Fleer Ted Williams), team issues, and sets focused more on events than players (e.g., 1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops). Thanks, Jason