1970 70 1969 AL Pitching Leaders Dennis McLain Mike Cuellar Dave Boswell Dave McNally Jim Perry Mel Stottlemyre
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| 1969 AL Pitching Leaders Dennis McLain Mike Cuellar Dave Boswell Dave McNally Jim Perry Mel Stottlemyre |
In the 1980's, Topps and other manufacturers began issuing multiple sets each year. It is now difficult not only to acquire each card, but even to figure out how many sets each manufacturer issues on a yearly basis. The smaller sets focus on long retired players, players traded during the season and upgraded (gold, chrome, etc.) cards featuring contemporary players. One needs baseballcardpedia just to get an idea of the various sets. Mint Condition can help explain the economics of the situation.
In the early 1970's, there were very few alternatives to the basic Topps sets. The most that Topps could offer to supplement the base cards were these League Leader sets. Even though these cards were part of the base set, I believe that these League Leader cards helped give rise to the alternative sets that now dominate the market. The seed of those sets can be found in these cards that pictured only stars and focused on specific statistics. There would be more such subsets later in the 1970 set and over the next few years. But it was not until competition emerged from Fleer, Donruss and others in the 1980's that these specialty cards were given their own separate sets.
Six (6) twenty game winners in the AL in 1969 (+ the nine from the NL). At least the AL card could fit them all on the front. You would have to go back to 2016 to accumulate 6 such 20 game winners for all of those years combined in the American League. As the stats have declined, the number and variety of sets each year has multiplied.
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