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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Markusen: Card Corner: Roberto Clemente

Should Topps have produced the 1973 Clemente card?  For my money…they should have junk-dumped the whole strabismustingly dull set. Why, why…you’d have to be a total Breazealot to love them!

With Jeter and Clemente sharing so many common character attributes—loyalty, leadership, and reliability come to mind—it seems appropriate to put the spotlight on Clemente’s final Topps card, which came out over 35 years ago. It is a card that always stirs sadness, fond reflection, and moral debate in this writer’s mind.

At the time that Clemente died so horrifically and unexpectedly in a New Year’s Eve plane crash in 1972, the Topps Company had already produced his baseball card for the 1973 season. The tragically untimely passing of one of the game’s superstars placed Topps in an especially difficult quandary: should the company continue its original plan and issue a card for a venerable player who was deceased, or should it pull the card from distribution out of respect for the loss of a revered legend?

After some internal debate and discussion, Topps opted to publish the card, which had been assigned No. 50 in the series. Topps certainly had precedence on its side, having issued a 1964 “In Memoriam” card for Ken Hubbs after the young Chicago Cubs second baseman who died while piloting his own plane. On a subjective note, I have to say that I heartily endorsed the decision. As one of the few Topps card that depicts Clemente in action, it’s an inherently aesthetic card. Clemente’s beloved status also mandated the publication of the card. As a player so revered, his fans deserved to have one last memento of Clemente. On all fronts, this seemed like the right decision by the folks at Topps.

Repoz Posted: September 30, 2009 at 09:53 AM | 12 comment(s) | Login to Bookmark
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   1. Leroy Kincaid Posted: September 30, 2009 at 10:58 AM (#3336304)
Hey! I like '73 Topps.
   2. Shooty: Applying to be Fearless Leader Posted: September 30, 2009 at 11:03 AM (#3336307)
Hey! I like '73 Topps.

I was given a giant box of '73 Topps when I was a kid and I put together a set out of it so I have a soft spot for it. There were a lot of good pitchers in 1972 is what I learned from it.
   3. Repoz Posted: September 30, 2009 at 11:19 AM (#3336313)
Hey! I like '73 Topps.

Many years ago I ordered a complete '73 Topps set from a company (cough..gurgle...renatagalasso...hurl mega-Oreo soup splash) that turned out to be an O-Pee-Chee set that looked like the card cuts were made by Richard Cottingham on another Jersey shore torso gutting extravagansi!

So...this might have something to do with my dislike of the set.
   4. Shooty: Applying to be Fearless Leader Posted: September 30, 2009 at 11:23 AM (#3336315)
that turned out to be an O-Pee-Chee set that looked like the card cuts were made by Richard Cottingham on another Jersey shore torso gutting extravagansi!

O-Pee-Chee's were rare and exotic when I was a kid. They would pop up mysteriously and beguile my friends and I with its weird texture and indecipherable French...
   5. God Posted: September 30, 2009 at 11:39 AM (#3336328)
'73 Topps was a huge improvement over '72 (as, indeed, anything would have been). But it doesn't hold a candle to the back-to-back gems of '70 and '71.
   6. God Posted: September 30, 2009 at 11:40 AM (#3336330)
   7. Dale Sams Posted: September 30, 2009 at 12:12 PM (#3336358)
I loved 1972, especially the outer wrap. It's the only set I collect.
   8. Yankee Redneck is a Pinhead. Posted: September 30, 2009 at 01:33 PM (#3336456)
'73 Topps was a huge improvement over '72 (as, indeed, anything would have been). But it doesn't hold a candle to the back-to-back gems of '70 and '71.


I hated the 1971 set, those black borders chipped and flaked off like crazy.

Gimmie the clean lines of 1967, now that's a baseball card!
   9. salvomania Posted: September 30, 2009 at 01:40 PM (#3336462)
As I recall, '73 had fewer stat columns on the back than '72... one thing that completely boggles my mind is that on current Topps cards, pitchers' hits allowed aren't included, yet both runs and earned runs (which one could calculate) are, as well as useless columns of zeroes on most cards under "complete games" and "shutouts."
   10. bob gaj Posted: September 30, 2009 at 03:39 PM (#3336677)
OPC cards were always cut hideously. they probably had a large order of poutine after their cutting shifts were done....

repoz - renata galasso was always selling stuff...what ever happened to them?
   11. Elvis Posted: September 30, 2009 at 09:37 PM (#3337069)
I was wondering about Renata Galasso, too. The story at the time was that she was selling cards to put herself through college.
   12. Bruce Markusen Posted: October 01, 2009 at 11:09 AM (#3337323)
Two things I love about the 1973 set:

The colored silhouettes of the player's position on the front of the card made them ideal for matching when flipping.

Also, the set had loads of action shots, far more than Topps had ever before done.


The one drawback to the set, however, involved some of those same action shots. Some of them were photographed from so far away that it seemed like the cameraman was situated in the parking lot across the street from the ballpark.
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