I didn't begin to become interested in Bob Gibson until much later in life. Baseball Cards certainly helped the process, but they probably more-so followed along after another key happenstance.
The Card That Started It All
2019 Stadium Club
This is not the first Bob Gibson card I ever acquired. But it is the one that finally made me put it in the "Players" box and then start making sure his card was pulled from any other set from which I had obtained one.
You might think Gibson is about to begin an assist on an infield grounder, looking at this photo, but I think this is actually just how the end of his delivery looked. Some day I will check that out on old video.
A bigger reason I began this collection was obtaining a much, much better fountain of information about him than any handful of Baseball Cards ever could be. That is the following book I lucked into for real cheap at a used book sale:
I have considered giving this book away a few times, to people met at random who prove to have a deep love of Baseball, but I have abandoned that plan in favor of giving this one a permanent spot on a bookshelf with plans to read it again some day. That will probably kick off a much more significant round of collecting Bob Gibson cards than this ezee-peezee effort with cards made in the 21st Century.
I highly recommend that book. And yes/no, it did and didn't inaugurate a similar Reggie Jackson collection as this one in that Reggie cards would have inevitably found their way into that "Players" box anyway, too. But I definitely look forward to finding Gibson's cards a fair bit more.
2006 Topps Rookie of the Week
This was from a Local Card Shop give-away/promo program Topps created. A shop gave me a complete resulting set of the cards a few years later as they couldn't really sell them very well. That's because it was a fun idea, but like oh so many Topps ideas, execution was a bit less than good.
The concept was simple: create a new Baseball Card of the same design as a famous player's iconic Rookie Card. For an indication of just how iconic Gibson's 59 RC is, check out how many times it was re-imagined in the Topps 2020 project. I truly wish I could afford cards from the 3 recent, and continuing (I think) art card projects.
This 2006 effort has it's plus, and minus. A great photo to be sure. That's always a plus. But every collector of 20th Century Baseball Cards knows Bob Gibson's RC is pink in color, not whatever pitiful approximation of that is presented here.
The cards in the little 25 card checklist all suffer from similar problems. Thin, blindingly white card stock, seemingly run down the street to the nearest Dunkin' Donuts for an extra three coats of gloss, poor/odd colors, and a weird ability to use 20th Century warm analog photos but make them look like cold first generation digital photos from many years later. Some really astounding results when you see them; not in a good way. If you've never run across one, don't run towards them, would be my advice. Some of them can make their original Rookie Card inspiration never quite the same in your mind, ever again. Bob's smile makes that card, at least, and it has a bonus point in that it faithfully reprints the original 1959 back.
2008 Heritage Baseball Flashbacks insert
It will be an interesting project for me, some day, to try and research this card as to whether it might be a picture from Gibson's debut game. That could probably go either way. But this card does somewhat function as a "Rookie Debut" card for him. Although that is not clearly apparent from the front of the card, the back fills us in -
A shut-out in a Rookie Debut. Followed by a 10, yes TEN inning outing. Can you imagine the headlines today? Those would mostly be castigating the Manager for risking the long-term health of a promising new Major League Pitcher like that. The good ole days, indeed.
2011 60 Years of Topps insert
1964 Topps reprint
A serviceable enough card from a design as 100% functionally perfect as 1958 Topps. No complaints with the original; this reprint suffers some from the same issues as the 2006 RotW project shown above - mega-gloss, and way too www - whitewhitewhite. I doubt 1964 Topps cards were this white the day they were printed. This is then one of those odd cards that look better in a scan than in-hand.
2011 Topps Lineage
Lineage grows on me every time I work with it some. The foil printing of the player name makes it the opposite of the previous card - better in-hand than in-scan.
I like having another portion of Gibson's delivery depicted, as we will see on the remaining cards. The design nicely complements the key geometry of the picture as your eye is drawn right up to the baseball; always a good result on a card.
2014 Archives
This card probably feels very, very familiar to anyone who has a collection of real, i.e. during-career issued Bob Gibson cards. This photo is almost certainly just one shutter click away from the photo used on his 1972 Topps card.
This card has a big advantage over the '72 in that it was printed in the 21st century. That makes me think Topps could do OK by simply re-creating cards from the 60s to 80s, though I don't know how that would or could work in the necessary technologies. Sometimes reprints are not actually an improvement on originals. But this card, is a keeper.
2020 Archives
A card which perfectly illustrates what I was just thinking. Not all 20th century photos printed in the 21st century can create the crisp results we consider routine on Baseball Cards today. This photo has major focus issues but overall still delivers the goods. 1974 Topps is as wonderful as ever; I am strongly considering backtracking into 2023 Heritage to enjoy it some more though I would likely have to make some compromises on including the infernal Short Prints and skipping the really super bad fake backdrop cards.
2020 Topps 1985 Topps insert
As always with these efforts, the concept of WHY? on the 35th anniversary stamp is an annoyance. I prefer the cleaner design re-uses in Heritage and Archives. Next up in the 35th ann. series inside 2025 Topps Baseball packs will be 1990 Topps. Commence the wailing and lamentations.
I do like that on this one, we don't get a CARDINALS-Cards repeat in the logo button, which happens with a lot of teams on the 1985 design.
2022 Gallery
The final (? have heard that Topps will be moving some products to a "semi-annual" basis) release of Gallery was a bit bittersweet in that the product dropped the all-art concept and moved actual fresh artworks of baseball players to just some of the insert checklists. But it still delivered many nice photo-sourced Baseball Cards on a simple, clean design. Less, is more.
I could see including this card in another page of cards from this release, with the scattering of 20th Century players on the checklist. It won't be leaving this particular page, however.
Card Most on the Bubble: There are a couple here that I could see being replaced some day. The alternative 59 Rookie would look much better with a simple reprint of the true original, or of course, even better, a copy of the real thing. Though I expect to collect more Bob Gibson cards the next time I read his book with Reggie, when I likely delve into his original cards I won't be mixing them with these. That makes the 64 reprint the most likely to be replaced in years to come.
And there are multiple routes I could go with Gibson cards, given my affinity for absorbing that book. A true challenge for a whole lot of baseball players outside of Rickey Henderson is to find 9 different horizontal cards. This can be done with modern Gibson cards, I think. It wouldn't surprise me if that becomes possible just with Stadium Club cards although that might be a ways out (haven't counted yet). It also seems remotely possible that Gibson has been on 9 different Baseball Flashbacks in Heritage — I anticipate a fantastic one soon to appear in 2024 Heritage High Number, for example, now that I think about it. Cya, 1964 reprint. Weird 1959/2006 card, watch your back.
The Result
Gibson is my uncle's favorite player. My uncle was also a card collector, and the majority of my 1970-1972 Topps cards came from him when he had me sort his collection and let me keep any doubles he had.
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