Reliving the 1970's with Topps

John Boccabella A PCL alumnus and an original Expo.  His lifetime statistics add up to about one season's worth. He came close to hitting enough doubles for a good season.  The other categories - not so much.  I remember the early 1970s Expo cards for their near anonymity - with a few exceptions. Looking at the Expo cards was the equivalent of looking at cards of the last place AL teams.  These cards were the cannon fodder for the Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer cards.  Previous Post                                                        Next Post First Post  

Carlos May The cartoon says a lot.  That no White Sock ever hit 30 home runs in a year as of the beginning of 1970 tells a story not only about the White Sox, but MLB as a whole. Today, offense has become so inflated that 30 home runs hardly seems like an accomplishment any more. But in 1970, 30 was the holy grail for the White Sox.  May did not reach the 30 HR mark in any season of his career. Bill Melton would be the first Sock to reach (and exceed) 30 - and he would do it in 1970.  Melton had more home runs than May in 1969.  I wonder if Melton's 1970 card expressed the same hope as May's.   May's more notable feature was being the brother of Lee May of the Big Red Machine (and other teams).  Previous Post                                                             Next Post First Post

  Hoyt Wilhelm Wilhelm was already 47 years old when this card appeared in packs.  What is more noteworthy is his lifetime ERA of 2.46 after nearly two decades in the majors.  He achieved a season ERA below 2.00 six times after turning 39 years old.  He had so many lines, Topps had no room for a cartoon or text.  They combined his 1958 stats with two teams, but not his 1957 stats. Is that because his two teams in 1957 were in two different leagues? He was a teammate of both Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. The list of longevity related ironies is probably quite long.  This card features another airbrushed hat.  Previous Post                                                  Next Post First Post

Charlie Metro Charlie Metro is an example of the idea that success in the minor leagues does not necessarily translate into success in the major leagues.  Metro achieved numerous first place finishes in the minors, including the PCL. His management of the Royals lasted less than half of the 1970 season.  He was replaced in June by Bob Lemon. He would work as a scout and coach in the majors until the mid-1980's, but he would never manage again.  This card would be his last.  This is the first air-brushed cap of the set.  Metro's original hometown was Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania.  Nanty Glo Borough was once a party to a well known legal case. The case resulted in an often cited precedent in Pennsylvania that is still known as the Nanty Glo rule. Metro had nothing to do with this case or the rule, but that rule has given Nanty Glo Borough a more significant claim to fame than Metro's time with the Royals.   Previous Post         ...

Larry Dierker   Apparently one 20-win season gets you a multiple-of-5 card.   Dierker had a long career as pitcher, manager and broadcaster.  He was National League manager of the year in 1998.  He was discussed in Milo Hamilton's book. (I forget what it said about him.)  He was discussed in Bouton's book, as he was just about the Astros' best pitcher as they remained in contention into September of 1969. He wrote two books of his own, one of which was titled after Dierker's brain surgery during the 1997 season.   Previous Post                                                    Next Post First Post

Hank Allen   I am guessing the collectors of 1970 did a doubletake when they opened their packs and saw a name that was almost "Hank Aaron."   This was Allen's final card, but not his final year in the majors.  He spent part of 1970 with the Brewers. Like his Milwaukee teammates that year , he did not appear on a Brewers card.  He finished his career with the White Sox in 1972 and 1973.   Another PCL alumnus from the Hawaii club.   Previous Post                                                   Next Post First Post     

Jack Hiatt Three different PCL teams, two of which apparently were affiliated with the Giants.  Hiatt played for the Expos and Cubs in 1970, but he never made it onto a card with either one of those uniforms, as he was traded to the Astros in December.   If you take his major league totals from the back of this card, it adds up to one decent season.  Previous Post                                                       Next Post First Post

John Hiller It would be years before Topps began including "save" information on the backs of cards.  The most important information for a relief pitcher would be unknown to the kids collecting cards in the early 1970s and beyond.  Hiller received half of a page in Bill Pennington's biography of Billy Martin - "Billy Martin: Flawed Genius" - p. 199.   But that is a story for another day (and another set or two).  Previous Post                                               Next Post First Card  

Nate Colbert   Not all of the good cards came in multiples of 5 or 10 . One of only two or three good Padres cards in the early years of the team.   The PCL, despite its name, apparently extended far beyond the coast.   Previous Post                                             Next Post First Post

Carl Yastrzemski Multiples of 10 are better than multiples of 5 .  Yastrzemski is the biggest star of this set so far.  Yastrzemski was less than halfway through his career when this card was issued.  The back of the card includes two of the best three years that he would ever have. Previous Post                                                                       Next Post First Post  

1970 Topps Checklist 1st Series  In the early 1970s, the different series were issued consecutively.  The 6th or 7th series were issued late in the season.  Cards in those series would become scarce and achieve value out of proportion to the quality of the players depicted. The early series achieved much higher circulation and would be much more easily obtained for years (and even decades) to come.  The first checklist is noteworthy for including the league leader cards, much like the first series in most of the sets of the early 1970s.   Previous Post                                                              Next Post   First Post

  Jose Martinez I have no memory of this card or this player, despite being a Pirate fan. Every team, no matter how successful, has a card of a player that was relatively unknown.  Martinez had only 20 at bats in 1970.  It would be his last year in the majors, but not his last card.  Previous Post                                                                          Next Post First Post

  Gary Boyd  Russ Nagelson Gary Boyd did not have a Topps card in 1971 or 1972 (or probably ever again).  Russ Nagelson had a Topps card in 1971 with the Tigers (very late in the set), but not in 1972 (or probably ever again). That is all I know about these guys.  Their careers appear to have been much more typical of the average major leaguer than the players to which Topps assigned multiple-of-5 numbers.  In the early 1970s, cards like this were the price I paid while waiting for Willie Stargell to show up in a pack.   Previous Post                                                       Next Post  First Post

  Grant Jackson I do not know why the PCL had two different teams affiliated with the Phillies. Did the Phillies have two AAA teams?  Did they have one team that moved from Arkansas to San Diego between 1965 and 1966? If not, did Arkansas play against San Diego? Was the PCL more than just a AAA league?  If I knew all of these answers (and more), baseball would be less interesting to me. Jackson would be a hero on the 1979 Pirates team that won the World Series. In fact, he is the last Pirate pitcher ever to win a World Series game. He may never lose that distinction. As the winning pitcher from game 7 of the 1979 Series, he won the last MLB game ever played in the 1970s.   I did not know who he was in the early 1970s.  As he became well known in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, I rediscovered him in my old collection from the early 1970s. For Jackson and other newly acquired Pirates, it was eye opening to learn that they had a history and had not simply droppe...

  Wes Parker Wes Parker is the biggest star so far in this set.  I did not realize in the early 1970's that Topps followed a certain pattern in their set numbering.  Those cards ending in a multiple of 5 were a little better than the rest of the set.   As kids were finding this card in their packs in the summer of 1970, Parker was enjoying his best season.  Previous Post               Next Post First Post

Tom Egan In the early 1970's, players from the American League were mostly unknown to me - except for the big stars and the members of the AL World Series teams. The Angels would not make the playoffs until 1979.  Until then, they were conspicuous in their anonymity to a young National League fan.  I thought of Angels cards the same way I thought of cards from the Indians, the White Sox, the Brewers and other perennial losing teams in that League. Players like Tom Egan were just filler in the packs that prevented me from getting Pirate cards and stars like Willie Mays and Johnny Bench.  The back of the card has two entries from the PCL.  Egan played on the Hawaii Islanders that eventually received attention both in Jim Bouton's book and the biography of Harry Kalas (It was famous for much more than being discussed in a few books).  Kalas was the play-by-play man for the Hawaii team during or shortly before Egan's time there. The Seattle team was replaced by the ...

  Darrel Chaney Darrel Chaney shared playing time at shortstop in 1970 with Woody Woodward and Dave Concepcion, with Concepcion and Woodward getting most of the time.  Concepcion would soon win the position outright. Chaney would be mostly forgotten, even though he got some playing time on the team that went to the 1970 World Series.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  Neither was the Big Red Machine.  I was not a big fan of a gray bordered set.  Had all of Topps' sets featured gray borders every year, I might soon have lost interest.  But one set like this only two years after the sandstone border of 1968 and one year before the black border of 1971 provided nice variety.  In the 1960s and 1970s, if you didn't particularly like the Topps set of the moment, you needed only wait a year and something very different might come along.   Decades later there would be many sets each year (even within the Topps company). Incredibly, there is less vari...

Diego Segui Diego Segui has become known as the starting pitcher in the first ever games for both the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and the Seattle Mariners 8 years later.   Others have disputed this account, saying that he was not the starter for the Pilots that day, but was merely on the roster.  I am too lazy to look it up. Either way, having a career that spanned that amount of time (and much more) is noteworthy.  I remember Segui for being part of the A's dynasty not long after this card was issued. I also remember that I could not pronounce his name in the early 1970s.   Segui is unique for being one of the Pilots of 1969.  The Pilots were virtually forgotten in the 1970's.  I do not think that I ever heard of them until 1980.  That year, I obtained my first 1969 card and it happened to be also my first Pilot (Mike Marshall). Today, the Pilots are discussed often among those who reminisce about the classic era of baseball.  There are Pilo...

New York Mets World Champions These are the "miracle Mets" that won the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles a few months before this card appeared in packs. That series continues to rank among the most celebrated series in baseball history. Fans continue to lament the eventual loss of players from this team and wonder about what might have been. The Mets held on to certain players from this team too long because they had been heroes in 1969.  Very rarely had a team gone from worst to first so suddenly. Year after year in the 1960's, the Mets finished last or near-last. The turnaround came only in the year of the miracle itself. Just as quickly, they would fade from contention, winning one division title in 1973 only when their division rivals were weakened with age, injuries and untimely death. By the late 1970's the Mets were a joke.  As the 1970s began, the future of the Mets' division and league would belong to the Pirates, Phillies, Reds and Dodger...