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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The gravity defiling cowlick! The moosegrease-induced bald spot! The cheapo Johnson & Johnson hickey-hider! The “I Just Made A Very Disturbing Entry For Your Mom In My MILF File” leer! The classic George Brunet!
With a large void created by the sudden absence of baseball, the Topps Company is doing something smart and innovative this winter. As a way of commemorating Topps’ 60th anniversary in 2011, the company is holding an online contest to determine the 60 greatest Topps cards of all time. Topps has nominated 100 cards, giving collectors a baseline. All in all, this is a terrific idea by Topps.
...The inclusion of such cards is necessary and appropriate, but Topps goes a bit too far with its emphasis on superstars. Topps has nominated 15 additional Mantle cards, making for 16 Mantles among the top 100. That’s too many. There are also multiple selections for Clemente, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Cal Ripken Jr., Pete Rose and Thurman Munson. Yet there are virtually no cards that could be categorized as unusual or offbeat in any way.
Topps might have been better served by supplying a wider variety. When thinking of great baseball cards, one doesn’t think only of superstars, but also of cards that display particularly eye-catching action photography, or cards that have some unusual feature or error.
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1. Tim Wallach was my Hero Posted: November 14, 2010 at 02:55 PM (#3689723)??????
I think you mean goose grease. Or bear grease. Only parvenus use moosegrease.
http://www.vintagecardprices.com/card-profile/165137/1968-Topps-Ed-Mathews-58-Baseball-Card-Value-Prices.htm
"Ed Mathews, 3B-1B" - how the mighty have fallen
I also just yesterday bought a pack of 2010 Topps update cards - many of them with midseason highlights like a David Ortiz Home Run Derby winner card - and got a bizarre one called "There's No Tying in Baseball."
Yes, they put out a "Tales of the Game" card about the humiliating 2-2 All-Star Game tie.
If this card had Bud Selig's befuddled face at home plate on the front, it would be a winner for sure.
http://cgi.ebay.com/2010-Topps-Update-More-Tales-of-the-Game-12-A-S-Tie_W0QQitemZ350411102160QQcategoryZ213QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo=SIC&its=I+C&itu=MRU-64482+UCI+IA+UA+FICS+UFI&otn=15&pmod=260690951750&ps=63&clkid=4950449483366112383
Yeah, and the treatment the boys gave that one in The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book was classic as well, dealing with everything from the bizarre baseballs-stuck-to-the-bat thing to Zernial's hand signal ("Is he indicating that the Athletics are a big zero?") to his pink undershirt.
Damn, some stuff never gets old.
I think that the original photo was in black and white, but for some reason the Topps colorization process resulted in the pink undershirt
(and there IS an explanation for the 6 baseballs)
Thanks for linking that article. Good stuff.
I'm in awe that they could get six baseballs to adhere to that bat in that manner using scotch tape. That's impressive. Perhaps scotch tape in 1951 had more oomph to it than it does today.
Also love the Billy Martin in action. The vein in his neck is popping out just so.
I had that card!
No, Brunet had no reputation for loading up the baseballs, at least none that I was ever aware of. He had a reputation for being an abundantly entertaining character, however.
Years ago I wrote a THT article on the amazing career of George Brunet (he pitched professionally for something like THIRTY FIVE YEARS and never once spent a day on the DL), and in response I received a very sweet email from his daughter. That's the kind of thing that makes it all worthwhile.
You know, I had several shoe boxes full of these vintage cards dated from around 1964 to 1969, and I still haven't forgiven my mother for throwing them away after I left for college.
fixed
(hey--whatever happened to my Pumpsie Green card??--you s'pose it finally made it to Israel?)
I had Topps sets from 1953 through 1955 before I gave it up. I eventually sold the '54 & '55 but kept the '53, and I wonder what they'd be worth today if I hadn't stuck them in a photo album where they've been stuck for the past 40 years. You win some and you lose some, but at least I can still look at the fronts.
My mom somehow managed to keep her hands off those sets for several years after I moved out of the house, but she did throw away a '52 Mantle Topps in not so great condition, a bunch of '51 Bowmans (no Mantle or Mays among them), a glorious '53 Bowman Musial, and worst of all, a postcard from Malcolm X, sent from Mecca to a woman I stayed with in the civil rights movement. My mom didn't think much of good old el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
My late mom never threw away a single card - I still have about 10,000 BB/FB/BKB/HK cards - nor anything else of what she considered to be my personal possessions.
I was very, very lucky, I know.
I was very, very lucky, I know.
What makes you really lucky is that when it came to baseball cards, 99 out of 100 moms did exactly the opposite.
Awesome.
My mom eventually threw away my cards, but they were so beat up - from trading, flipping, being pinched at the corners by the rubber band that encircled them - that they were pretty much worthless anyway. I got the most out of my baseball card collection when I was collecting them, and that's OK with me.
But my grandmother never threw out any of my dad's cards. I've got more than a thousand cards from the 40s and 50s in really good condition, including many of those on the Topps list, that my dad passed down to me (in what I think is the same old fruit box that his mom stored them in). And eventually I'll do the same, passing them down to my youngest son, the only ballfan among the Unacceptable offspring.
But my cards are my cards, still.
I separated out the Hall of Famers - including Ryan and Bench and Carew and Schmidt and Winfield and other rookie cards - and the Namaths and O.Js and Wilt Chamberlain and Pistol Petes and Bobby Hull and Bobby Orrs - into a protected album many years ago.
But I still treasure my "Seattle Pilots" and "WASH NAT' LEA' cards, and all the goofy scrubs from the Cleveland Barons and California Golden Seals and San Diego Conquistadors and Buffalo Braves and Washington Senators and inaugural Montreal Expos as well.
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