Getting ready for 2027 Heritage

I have read it typed that all Topps designs "grow on you eventually."

One that took longer than most for me was/is 1978 Topps - the very first set of Baseball Cards I actually collected to full completion. I was quite proud of that, at the time.

Some 12 years later, I exchanged that set, and the next 3 after it, for an epic vacation which I will never forget. I am a little less proud of that funding source, but, epic.

Ever since I have had those 4 sets on my mind, particularly when the designs re-appear in the 21st century. 

The nostalgia was notably lacking for the 1978 set, compared to the others. Back in year 1978, I wasn't so enthused about the design. After being introduced to Baseball Cards with bright colors and dynamic graphics, I now had a card with a team name in cursive, reminding us kids of homework in grade school. And little else. A player name and a baseball with the POS in it. That's all, kids.

This same nostalgia surfeit seemed in play back at Topps, which would seemingly prefer to recycle a design a 3rd time before ever manning up to revisit 1978. When that finally happened at scale (100 card checklist) in 2022 Archives, the set was constructed with lots and lots of fake backgrounds — a truly disturbing trend at the time that probably peaked in that set.

That didn't help rekindle a desire to revisit 1978, at all.

But meanwhile, I knew of an easily overlooked re-use of 1978 Topps that occurred back in 2018:

2018 Topps "On Demand 1978 Tribute"

Now of course anyone familiar with 1978 Topps will notice a missing element instantly. A famous 2010s player was like, what's up here?

Far be it from me to explain how Topps could forget to put a baseball on a Baseball Card.

A bigger loss is an effort on the back that couldn't even be called "phoning it in" -

And here I like the little game that should be included on a 1978 Topps card back, and have a big plan for it, some day, hopefully to be seen here, eventually.

But for me, I wasn't noticing the "modern take" loss, as much as the gain - full bleed, yet framed. Has this ever been done on another trading card design? Probably. But, also probably, not very often, at all. I quite liked this major change to original 1978.

A nice way to keep full bleed all without white borders effectively shrinking the image size. Occasionally, this can cause problems though -

oops

One would think that by 2018, Topps coulda figgered out a software way to improve the cropping here; something it seems has been a bit better as the 2020s roll along now.

Another thing that intrigued me about the little 30 card set was finding a few Candids mixed into the usual Baseball action:

these, I always like in a set of Baseball Cards

Now a simple 30 card checklist is essentially no different than an insert checklist, and whenever one revisits a small checklist some reminiscing will be involved -

the classic 1977 Topps wrapper pose

or, the classic 2011 Topps Update pose?

(I hope Night Owl's Night Card binder still needs a #21, but I doubt this)

and sometimes, reminiscing gets, odd

who?

And of course, we can't have a checklist of Topps Baseball Cards that doesn't include .... Rookies. Which is so often where reminiscing can get even weirder still:

This is actually a very nice Baseball Card; I always like the appearance of the Padres 'camo' uniform on a card.

Still, on these small checklists, the Rookies can so easily become very distracting, years later, after they haven't become famous. Particularly when other Rookies on the very same checklist become, a GOAT.

And like many a Rookie Card card, finding it years later just results in a far more puzzling "Who?" than one about a faded star from a previous decade. Although I expect my Baseball Cards to answer that question for me, via the cards that appear after the RC card, that option really wasn't coming to mind for me with Christian Villanueva.

Normally I quite like following the Mexican born players in MLB, as tengo amigos de Mexico. Villanueva's career, however, has to be followed by baseball-reference.com as he played just one season in MLB for a reason I can't discern, despite a seemingly successful 2018 campaign. He is still playing Baseball, but back home in Mexico, where no one makes Baseball Cards.

This pleasant trip back to 2018, and 1978, finally became a completed collecting project just recently, when I finally found a For Sale listing that I long expected, even though I already owned a third or so of this set from individual card purchases on COMC. That was a listing for just 29 of the 30 cards. Which existed because:

This is of course THE card from this particular Baseball Picture Card product. Luckily, I had already made the rare (for me) hard decision to spend a two digit sum on this single Baseball Card back during the season when the GOAT demonstrated his mastery of yet another part of playing Baseball, that being running the bases.

I decided that a nice way to make a unique Shohei Ohtani collection would be to simply collect his (very) occasional base-running card, rather than the thousands of pitching & hitting cards available. But you can't really have much of a collection of Baseball Cards without including a Rookie Card card, can you? I can, easily, but I just really wanted this particular card from the small set I was already partly through collecting anyway. This one is very much an In Action card, something not always the case even with base-running cards. I spent just a modestly upper two figure sum of bummin-around-money obtained on COMC by selling off random other low-leverage Ohtani cards pulled from packs, though of course only the ones from after 2018. This card is now a mid three figures card and a winner of the grading lottery might even get four figures for a copy of this one.

Unfortunately the 30 card checklist only has 8 Rookies so I can't quite fit it into my new paradigm of placing Rookies altogether on their own, more easily forgotten page of cards, rather than mixing them in with the Stars of the day. And really I would need the checklist to be 10 RC cards long, as that Ohtani card is now worth a bit more than is best for 9 card page storage, going forward. That's a bit of a shame as I thought it would perfectly anchor a simple page of 9 base-running cards but that's probably not to be, now. Even though I still quite look forward to assembling that page.

Meanwhile this little set presents other binder-ing problems. With essentially nothing to ever look at on the back of the cards, basic 18 cards/page is the way to go with such cards. But what if there are 29 cards? That calls for 7 additions but I think I found a set for that...

...I actually put this (actually 50¢) card in the Buy pile on-sight, instantly, a few moths ago — because I had already forgotten all about 2022 Archives and I was seriously wondering when else Topps had revisited 1978. All despite never ever warming up to Gerrit Cole Baseball Cards, even though I would be more than happy to take him fishing and listen to his Baseball stories.

I guess I had successfully tried to block memories of perhaps the most abominable set of the 2020s, with all those faked backgrounds chock-a-block all over the checklist.

Another option would be to procure the further 10 cards from 2018 Topps On Demand 1978 Tribute, which were inserted into the 2,040 sets produced at a rate of 2 cards/box, meaning there are only 100-ish copies of each one. Those feature players from the year 1978 and I very much wants those, too, but I also just run out of energy trying to chase cards with just 3 digit print runs. I so despise being stuck in a Limited Edition Hobby, so often. Anyhow,

The Results

Vintage Fun

 

We all know we aren't really supposed to "play" with our Baseball Cards by literally mixing them into a mess like the one in this picture. And instead we play with our Baseball Cards every other way imaginable, but definitely never have we ever randomly mixed cards every which way possible, from sets up to 11 years apart, all at once, spread all over everywhere.

Although I do often look at my Baseball Cards the way Yaz is looking at his Baseball Bat there, I didn't go all scrambled eggs with them today. And, some of these cards I don't even own. 

A bit of a pity because just a few days ago I came across a certain picture in my photo library - 

That's a small town in Michigan, not just in the Upper Peninsula, but on the way totally wonderful Keewenaw Peninsula, one of my favorite places to go. I am fortunate that I do get to visit it several times per year, while working. I love how the continuing existence of that sign illustrates the residual cultural power of Major League Baseball in our Society, some 55 years after George Brunet's last Major League Game. Truly a lifer/gamer, his career continued on after 1971 in Mexican Leagues.

Unfortunately, the most routine Baseball sight up in that area today is an old Little League diamond, sporting grass that hasn't been cut in a decade or two, at this point. 

His sudden appearance on a Baseball Card image, right in front of me just recently, is a clear sign I need to get in a higher gear on collecting his Baseball Cards. Even his Burlap card, a set I am never going to assemble even a 9 card homage for.

But that's all a bit tangential to that bit of from-way-outta-left-field happenstance. Pretty prescient of say, maybe 16 year old me to obtain his appearance on a Baseball Picture Card product, some 42 years before I came across that homage in his old home town. I know I have posted that picture before. If you knew that, I am truly impressed.

So I kinda sorta have a George Brunet card, courtesy of my long-hoped-for reunification with my 20th century Baseball possessions. Which, as it turns out, weren't just Baseball Cards. That big ole box of wonderfulness also included this:

What a nice thing Topps did here, back in the day. What are the odds Fanatics would allow a product like this to be created? Hardly seems likely any more. And such a product today would have to feature mega-successful (?) players like the 2 current players on the "cover" of Series Two, if you can even remember what packages of Series Two even look like, which would be impossible for me if I hadn't written a blog entry about a pack of it, and scanned the wrapper. Because there are still no Baseball Cards for sale in my local grocery store, right in the prime of Baseball season. Excellent work there, Fanatics. Not.

But back in the early 1980s, Baseball Cards were well on their way to a big, big "upswing" - you know, the kind that launch Home Runs. And so Baseball Cards weren't just wrapped in wax and waiting for you in the candy aisle. The first books about Baseball Cards were appearing, and, in other products.

I was quite pleased to discover this in with the collection of my youth. I immediately started thinking about where and when I could assemble it.

And when I opened the box, it does look good for completion — a lot of pieces in there. The key problem with already-opened jigsaw puzzles is of course — what if some previous human being controlling the box, let a piece escape? Let's just banish that thought, and vibe this puzzle together, 100% complete.

One of the very first pieces I picked up should be recognizable to anyone so old they are still reading about Baseball Cards on a screen, rather than blowing twice as much time to have someone else read to them about Baseball Cards as part of a "video." Surely, y'all remember this guy -

'Ol Blue Eyes played Baseball?

are we sure about this?

I would imagine many of you sharpies could even already identify exactly which set this card appeared in originally. I'm not quite that quick on the '60s draw, but my suspicion is it might be a Burlap card. There is only one way to find out...though I know a modern day Baseball Card Influencer would of course present you with a video replay of the process involved, here on this blog, you'll just have to wait a 'lil bit while the 20th Century is lovingly re-lived here at Base Set HQ.

Just the first sorting of the edge pieces instantly supplied Baseball flashbacks -

And even in 1983 or so, the creators of this bit of wonderfulness knew to tip a hat to Rookie Cards:

These peeps knew their Baseball Cards, and they weren't messing around - the Mantle card is an autographed copy.

And their knowledge was not just via the SuperStars (necessarily) teased on the cover of the box. That was certain to me, not just some of the time, but, instantly, when I found this piece -

Surely, you must know that card.

No?

How about now?

Still no? 

Pop Quiz Time: what team does this card purport to represent?

Texas, you say?

Then your 1970s Baseball Card Kid street cred is revoked.

Adults today will blubber on about how much they love the 1971 Munson, or the 75 Brett RC, or be foggy on which decade is which and insist the Ricky RC is The Greatest. 

But if you were ripping packs in the late 1970s - that excerpted bit shown there is from THE most famous Baseball Card of the decade. The folks who made this puzzle were from my tribe.

Which was a wonderful thing, for me, today, because after a long day at the ER (I was not the patient), some drifting back to old-timey Baseball was just the ticket this evening.

It helped tremendously to be intimately familiar with the designs of all these cards. Yup, that right there is a corner of a 1972 Topps, yes, sir. 

As did owning many of them. Good to see you again, Pops.

Particularly since the box was a little deceptive on what was included inside the 7 square inches of flashbacks. Usually those are created by 1/8" squares.

Perhaps, that familiarity was all a little too much help, as just 100 pieces of such perfect wayback machine good times would never be enough. I basically knew that going in. Which makes owning and operating this Baseball Card blog a Very Good Thing, quite often, as it extends my joy with these goodies from the past.

The cut of my puzzle, as compared to what is seen on the box cover, makes me suspect there may have been a larger, 500, or maybe 1000 piece version of this puzzle created also. One can dream.

Or, maybe some other astute jigsaw puzzle creator has used this concept. I sure hope so. Jigsaw puzzles are incredibly relaxing, I find, and of course, so are Baseball Cards. To combine the two was straight Genius.

So until the day I find another one of these, I will just have to occasionally re-assemble this one. Fun.

My Biggest Baseball Card Day, Ever

 

I have been both eagerly anticipating, and completely dreading, this particular day for a long, long time.

Today I finally discovered whether I still own my childhood Baseball Cards.

How could I lose track of such a thing? Well it wasn't a deliberate decision, that is certain.

Some 20 years ago now, my seasonal life working in different states at different times of year went through a difficult period as my Michigan apartment building was going to be re-modeled. I had a sweet deal there, only having to pay half rent the months I was gone, as my landlord didn't want to lose a tenant (I did mention this was 20 years ago). So with that economic fact and the concept of moving everything I owned out of a 2nd floor apartment and then back again, later, I wanted to cut a deal.

What we worked out was that I would put all of my possessions in one corner of the building while the first apartment was rebuilt. When it was done, that one would be mine and all of my possessions would only have to be moved 10 yards.

After many twists & turns to the story, I eventually learned that my former sweet deal of half-rent for an unused apartment couldn't continue, as my landlord had used public financing of some sort for the remodeling, and the State would now be a participant in the financial end of the renting, which also came with new low income eligibility requirements - no special deals for part-timers. Simultaneously, down at my winter job I was starting up a new business partnership with a co-worker after our previous employer retired - & I needed every last cent I could scrounge. I managed to avoid selling off Baseball Cards, that time, but I could not pay the many months of now full rent for an apartment I wouldn't be living in while launching a new business.

So down all those stairs (extra-tall first floor in a downtown business building) went all of my possessions. Or, almost all. I knew already at the time that a few things were missing, as contractors had been in the building for about a year at that point. But I couldn't worry about it, right then. Everything went to a storage unit and out-of-state I went.

Subsequently, I never could quite get that storage unit emptied, as I lived on-the-road (jobsites) ever more & more. Years passed. New Baseball Cards accumulated. Online Baseball Cards appeared in my life, which was-is wonderful. But all new Baseball Cards inevitably reminded me of my childhood Baseball Cards. And that, was only partially pleasant.

A couple-three years ago now, I finally emptied that old storage unit, after another sweetheart deal finally drew to a close. I was both eagerly anticipating, and dreading, that particular day for a long time. The dread hit, very hard — my record collection assembled in college was largely destroyed by what proved to be a leaky storage unit. The music on all those records is fine, but the value of them is generally gone (molded covers). Many thousands of dollars worth of value.

Plenty of my book collection had also succumbed. However this was only a problem amongst certain boxes stored directly on the floor; most possessions were just fine.

But - my childhood Baseball Cards weren't in that storage unit. The horror, the horror.

I did find a few card items, that might make for an interesting post one of these days, as it included an unopened Hobby Box of a mid-10s product. And my college days Baseball Cards had been with me all along, as those had been acquired after leaving the "nest."

The problem created by emptying the storage unit was simple. If my childhood Baseball Cards weren't in there, that meant either I had wisely trundled them back over to my parents' house on the concept of general Security - OR they had been in my old apartment, accessible to a random melange of contractors for a year. As I have described them before, they became Schrödinger Baseball Cards.

The only way to prove their existence, was to go spelunking in a cavern like this one:

That's the closing image from the first Indiana Jones movie, showing the audience where the Ark of the Covenant ended up.

My Dad's basement isn't that large of course, but it was stuffed to the gills with antiques and his lifetime of possessions, some of them valuable, some of them not. Except of course, to him, for whom they were ALL valuable and needed to be kept. Forever.

My Dad is still with us and will be for some time, I can report, but now that he can no longer walk the steps into his own basement, he has finally relented on allowing us to begin sorting it all out.

And after many months and weeks of occasionally hauling things to Goodwill, or Recycling, or the trash can once a week, or a Safety Deposit Box, I could finally reach an area of shelving holding a half dozen remnant boxes of my "stuff."

So today, my final 5 yard journey to find the fate of my childhood Baseball Cards commenced. Truly a pity I hadn't spent my many years of Odyssey away from them eating Lotus flowers with Charlize Theron (how pleasant that would have been), sigh.

What I was mainly on the look-out for, was the image seen above already -

The Topps Super Sports Card Locker

Although my childhood collection was a fair bit larger than what could fit in that well beloved Baseball Card product of my childhood, I was particularly far more keen to find it than a few shoe boxes of cards, because I believed my collection of 1975 Topps, the first Baseball Cards packs I had ever opened, would be inside. 

Instead,

The horrors didn't return as I had finally found the Super Sports Card Locker inside a box sitting on top of the crucial shoe boxes. So I knew my 75s were now just one more box lid away.

Reunification with 8 year old me's key collecting accoutrement was interesting. I kinda screwed up using it, by putting the little team labels down at the bottom of the card slots, instead of on the side panels as intended.

I have long been planning to put this device back into use, as each and every year I still faithfully first sort Series One cards by team, to help me know which player plays on which team - isn't that the point of Baseball Cards? Only much later will I ever re-assemble a set by card number.

Alas, these days the Super Sports Card Locker wouldn't quite work to lovingly pull out an under construction "Team Set" when my favorite team has a new opponent to study, as there are only 26 card slots. Because this product was created before the Mariners and Blue Jays joined Major League Baseball. 

The Locker is a cheerful celebration of sports however, let's admire a little:

Art by Ray Hammond

I think if I peel the protective plastic layer off the front/doors of this storage product, it too will look acceptable once again. So it seems likely come next February I will be putting some cards back in this, although the M's & Jays, and Rays & Marlins, will just have to squeeze in with some extra bunk mates, somehow.

Finally after that very short initial dopamine hit from Memory Lane, there they were:

Reunited

and it feels so Good!

1975 Topps!

I must have sure been proud of my collection of whichever set of Topps "Big" is sitting there next to my truly beloved. I'm sure I'll look through that stack of cards, someday. But not, Today. Today, is 1975 all over again. Hooray!

That picture doesn't reveal a simple thing - my modest collection of The Minis. That stack there with the Mike Marshal '74 Highlight is all Minis. Those came into my collection a few years after 1975, once my family had moved to Michigan, where all my new neighbors could only purchase Minis in 1975. I'm glad to have them, and they almost certainly explain the complete absence of doubles/dups in my regular size 1975 collection. Those are the other 2 stacks in the little shoe box, one standing vertically, one horizontal there next to Big Orel Hershiser. 

And thus I ended up with a new-all-over-again First Card, for 1975 Topps:

Unfortunately, I have zero idea why this card appeared on top of the stack of cards.

But, that's OK.

This card proved to be the just exactly perfect Baseball Card to dive into another long-awaited card enjoyment: finally reading Night Owl's 1975 Topps blog, some 14 years after I discovered it. I could never bring myself to start into that, knowing that Schrödinger's cat might have died in that storage unit, or a shifty contractor employee's grimy hands. So today has another wonderful and long hoped for milestone: really learning just who some of these players really were. And my first specific, as in, by-card-number reading of NO's blog revealed the mystery of that batting helmet, at long last, courtesy of another courteous reader of that entry, in the comments.

The mystery of the stack continued. Let's go back 51 years...

In a little better shape than the Brooks, but what was the connection? Was I pulling Stars out of the little slots in the Super Sports Card Locker, 20 years back? 

   Maybe.

What a relief to know I really do own my own copy of this Baseball Card, so easily memorable courtesy of Purple + Pink. And mine is as AUTHentic as it gets with centering like that. Just exactly perfect.

And I was of course, yeah, reading the backs, immediately. This one supplied the first treat:

- as the Topps card back writer gives us a sly reference to Ryan's nickname there in the cartoon / trivia question.

That little trio of cards soon surrendered to proper Baseball Card organization as decided on by 8 year old me: team by team, is The Way.

Thus next appeared a robust amount of 1975 Topps Detroit Tigers, probably reinforced significantly in the later years of the decade by my neighbors, after rounds of backyard Home Run Derby.

That held an answer to something I had been wondering through the 2010s, on the next card, as well as informing a bit of up-to-the-moment Baseball action -

What I had been wondering all through Lamont's run coaching for the Tigers while Jim Leyland was managing all those great teams 20 to 10 years back now - was where did Lamont play in the Bigs (Detroit, surprise), and what position (Catcher, like oh so many Managers, Coaches, and Broadcasters)? 

This card is a perfect one to enjoy for me today, as the Tigers' next series is with Pittsburgh, where a Fan Favorite from those Leyland teams, Don Kelly, is the Manager now. And he has in turn hired Gene Lamont to be his Bench Coach. 1975 Topps, still part of The Game. I would have to think Gene Lamont has to be the very last MLB paycheck receiving 1975 Topps card though. The 3 broadcasts this coming week will be a little sweeter now.

The Tigers collection also held an entry for my newest and long-overdue Player Collection, though that one was not launched until events in 1978:

Following along soon after was another Player Collection need, on another robust team effort as my Mom's family was from Missouri -

The team organization quickly made me move into a let's-cut-to-the-chase mode, no matter how much I was loving each and every Baseball Card flashback to 1975.

The one card the most on my mind though all those years of uncertainty,

was this one:

I'm fairly sure this Baseball Card is not considered one of the better Hank Aaron Baseball Cards ever made. 

But for me, THIS IS MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE BASEBALL CARD.

And it's not really close to the 99 other cards that might be in 2nd place. I pulled this Baseball Card from a wax package at some point during the 1975 Baseball season, with still fresh memories of being summoned to the TV set by my otherwise not-sports-fans-at-all parents, when Hammerin' Hank became the new Home Run King not long before.

And now, I owned Hank Aaron's Baseball Card! How freaking cool is that?

Infinitely cool. 

And even though I could have purchased a copy of this card at any time in about the last 40 years, a new copy wouldn't be MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE BASEBALL CARD, because it wouldn't have been the one I pulled from a pack. Simple as that.

Now of course, one can't peruse a stack of 1975 Topps Baseball Cards without pondering the two most famous cards in the set. I presumed I had pulled both of them as a youth, & -

- yeah, I'm still reading the backs and learning the workings of Major League Baseball.

Do you know how old Robin Yount was during his Rookie season in 1974?

18.

I did not know that until the year 2026, all thanks to Topps Baseball Cards. Truly an impressive stat when you think about it.

Alas, it does not appear that 8 year old me lucked into owning the other key Rookie card in the set, for a player on Kansas City's team. A slight disappointment to be sure, but that's nothing compared to the immense Joy I re-obtained today, with the Baseball Cards my Mom didn't throw out.

For now though, I have some Baseball Cards to read. Cya soon...

No time for the $ Box? Try the Vintage box...

 ... it's much smaller. That's the situation I found myself in this morning, when I had a pleasant dream of pawing my way through somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 cards priced at 89¢, or maybe 83¢, perhaps depending on the Good Vibes I could radiate while visiting my wonderful Friendly Local Card Shop.

Alas, pawing my way through scores upon scores of Chrome Mojo Bowman cards of players who might as well just be random AI mockups since most of them will never reach the Majors and become known to Humanity, well, that is a little time-consuming. Particularly when one makes it past all that Bowman nonsense (every pose the same because photo-shopping the MLB uniform on would be too challenging with unique photographs) - only to realize I had already pawed my way through this particular 91¢ box a few weeks back, because there ain't no 84¢ box like an 87¢ box loaded with seemingly every Ken Griffey card ever made, except of course for all the expensive ones.

So that was a little deflating, with a clock ticking. 

Fortunately I remembered another box on the ever-growing shelves of wonder down at the LCS - a simple '2 row' box of "Vintage, Priced as Marked." That would be far quicker to search, and just possibly more fun, too. Let's see what happened...

I won't be labeling these sets. If you don't know them, you may have stumbled onto the wrong blog, even though I rarely post "Vintage," which is because I can very rarely purchase it, in-hand, like I could today. Such a delight.

Aurelio Rodriguez is 100% for sure my favorite 1970s Detroit Tiger. Mark Fydrich was cool and all, and listening to Al Kaline call games on the TV not long after his retirement was pretty sweet too. Ron LeFlore's life story is endearing, and then those 1978 Rookies all came up together and we know how that turned out...

But none of those will ever knock Aurelio off my pedestal. When I found this classic 70s card shot at Yankee Stadium it went in the Buy pile instantly, dinged corners and just exactly perfect 1970s centering and all. The back is perfectly readable, and that's a big part of what counts.

Aurelio is my favorite because when I was just a young lad, there was a trivia question on the Tigers ballgame every night, Ernie Harwell / radio edition. And somehow I knew an answer to a certain question was: "Aurelio Rodriguez." A result of Baseball Cards? Likely. 

And even better, this first-time caller down to my local radio station (still humans working in them, way back then) was - the first caller! And I got the question right. 

My prize was a pair of tickets to a game at far-away Tiger Stadium. This seemed of course monumental to us living in a small town in northern Michigan, but today I know the tickets probably weren't even $20 back then. My Dad heroically fathered-up and agreed to take me on the 5 hour journey to deepest Detroit, even though he never really cared for pro sports, at all.

When we had managed to find the big ole Stadium easily visible from the freeway even though the exits were confusing, managed the chaos of PARKING HERE, and made it inside, we discovered we were on the opposite side of the stadium from our ticketed seats, necessitating a long journey through the concourse.

Partway through, my Dad stopped and got my wide-eyed attention - here came a Detroit Tiger, in full uniform. For some reason a player had to traverse the concourse full of fans. As he approached, it proved to be: Aurelio Rodriguez! I was, and still am, in total awe of seeing a 100% live professional Major League Baseball Player, in full uniform, walking right past me just a few feet away.

The free seats proved to be not that great. Well underneath the upper deck, way out in the outfield, and with a post involved. Such was life in ancient Baseball stadiums.

The game itself, against the Chicago White Sox, was also anti-climactic for a First Time, Kid? It was a classic "Pitcher's Duel" with just one run scored. Although such games can be very interesting to serious Baseball fans, for a ten year old that could barely see the action, it was a little less than exciting.

But my main man, Aurelio, made several key plays at the Hot Corner along the way. And the one run? That was scored by the Detroit Tigers for a Victory - with the GWRBI knocked in by, of course, Aurelio Rodriguez.

Now that I am all grown up and I can deliberately collect Aurelio Rodriguez Baseball Cards pretty easily, well, it's time, which was marching on this morning -

Now this - is a celebration card.

All those "modern" cards with mounds of players waiting at Home Plate for the guy who just hit the Walk-Off can't hold a candle to this one.

And the star isn't even the two 70s Superstars captured together, but rather Third Base Coach Alex Grammas running to Home in victorious ecstasy.

This however is a celebration that I should kinda frown on, as it knocked out my pre-Michigan 2nd favorite team, the Pirates, out of the playoffs. But that's something I wouldn't be aware of until a couple years later and was just too young for this one. 

I also quite like the caption: "Foster's Run Decides It." We only occasionally see Playoffs cards any more in the Topps Baseball set but on "modern" versions the back of the card would pointlessly have the "line score" showing how many Runs each team scored in each inning, as a sum total of statistical information, capped off with a sentence that would say something like "George Foster's key hit in the bottom of the 9th produced a win in Game 5 for Cincinnati" even though we already knew that from the front. And all that would be surrounded by a bunch of useless white space.

This card presumes that all the Baseball Card collectors knew perfectly well what happened in the dramatic 1972 NLCS and didn't need to say anything more than the simple 4 word declarative on the front. Leaving the back to be filled with the 1972 NLCS stats for the Reds, both Hitting and Pitching. And that's how Baseball Cards commemorating a playoff series are supposed to work.

This card has a somewhat better back - the game's Box Score, though without revealing the Pitcher's key details, nor who had the RBIs, but oddly including the fielders' Put-Outs, Attempts, and Errors.

Anyhow we all see infinite amounts of Pitchers Pitching cards these days. But back in 1974, they were still just occasional highlights on the checklist, making them more dramatic. To pull an "In Action" type card from a World Series game was the most dramatic of all.

I particularly like a Pitcher Pitching card that shows the complete Pitcher, and one at this point in the delivery supplies its own visual momentum so much better than a cropped torso does.

I was of course in awe of the Oakland A's as my Baseball awareness began, so I had to have this for many reasons, that being just one. I always collect "World Series" cards whenever I can, though without shopping my way into a whole pile/binder of them, but rather just casually. Looks like I will have to get in gear on finishing off a set of 1974 postseason cards (have a few already) sooner, rather than later.

Another very casual collection is of Topps Rookie Cup cards. I would thoroughly enjoy owning a set of them all the way through the very long run of this concept, but doubt I will ever manage that, from the 20th Century at least. 2011 on is looking pretty good for this, though Topps semi-routinely boofs the requirements of their own endearing subset, which always cools my enthusiasm for these somewhat when it happens every 3rd or 4th year any more.

I am also currently quite rueing a decision to try for completing a collection of these from 2013 Heritage, started innocently enough by just putting the Cup cards on a binder page when I found one. Little did I know that the Mike Trout and Bryce Harper cards in that set were each part of the infernal Short Prints that year. Oh how I hate the product I should love the most.

But when I was a kid I thought these were great. How else were we supposed to know which of the Rookies on those few 4-way Rookie Cards back then turned out to be any good? The Cup appearing on their card the next year, that's how.

So this morning I had a comforting realization. I may not ever have the time, money, and Baseball Card prioritizing in place to make one of those full runs of Topps Rookie Cup cards, which certainly must exist. But what I can do instead, is collect one such card from all the pre-2011 sets I am not completing, which is the vast majority of them.

now I've got 66 covered, too

Do I deliberately collect Pete Rose cards? No, not really. They do sometimes appear in my hands however, usually from repacks. And, I have several saved from my youth in my "Players" box also, on the way to 9 nifty ones, eventually. He may have been a flawed Human Being, but man, that guy could Baseball.

That someday future page of Pete Rose cards isn't why I bought this one however. Amidst card after card of posed Spring Training and Yankee Stadium sideline shots, this must have been an eye popper, in the wax. As I gazed upon it, I had to wonder - is this the first "Bunt Card" ever made? Seems possible. Some day I will scroll through 71-74 Topps and find out.

I do however deliberately collect Tommy John cards, so this was a nice +1 to that still barely-off-the-ground effort. A 71 Topps fits any Player Collection perfectly, for one, and that was of course the year Action! finally appeared on the Baseball Cards, though in still very limited amounts of course.

Upon further review (well after purchase) I am quite pleased to see that he signed his name as "Thomas John" here, although his actually autographed cards produced well after his career read 'Tommy John' on them I believe.

Now this - is one of my All-Time Favorite Baseball Cards.

Though not the GOAT, mentioned because every Internet discussion must end in a declaration of GOAT-ness, by someone.

I love this card so much I own a "Topps Wall Art" version though I have been unable to frame and display it yet, in the 'man-cave'. My Man Cave is a crew-cab Pickup Truck, which is a terrible place for Baseball Cards.

And I own that piece of Art even though I am not a Dodgers fan, although they were protagonists on my first ever cards from the World Series, man, back in 1975. Those cards were incredible, to me. And of course their cards always had stars all over them, like the Reds cards, due to all the All-Stars they always had on their team, so you couldn't just put them in the bicycle spokes like you could with Bucky Dent cards. And I'm also not a fan of Steve Garvey, at all.

But this card is positively haunting; I've written about all this before, but hey. It looks a heck of a lot like Steve just Struck Out. In front of thousands and thousands of people, possibly millions more on live Television. Pretty heavy thing to play a sport with all those people watching. The blurred crowd just adds to the pathos, just exactly perfectly.

And it is the game of "base" and "ball," neither which of appear on the card. But you can't play Baseball without The Bat. Another eerie component of this card, given its prominence.

Sometimes, heck, 7 out of 10 times for the best players ever, The Bat doesn't get it done, and you shrink a little, and get stuck looking at the ground for a moment, while all those other human beings look directly at: You.

So although I already own this card, I figure a slightly worn, diamond-cut version will look just fine while a couple thumb-tacks can't really hurt it when I stick it up on a wall in an RV or something, someday. No way I could let it just sit there in the Vintage Box, priced as marked. Three bucks, in this case. Worth every penny at three times the price.

Now this one, just doesn't fit really fit in any of my collections at all, for the most part. I have zero personal connection to the Mets and have not a lot of interest in 66 Topps either. The only names I could recognize on the back were "McGraw" and "Spahn" - what? Really?

I do have an ever growing affinity for horizontal cards at least. But full floating team cards don't really appeal to me, either. I am seriously considering starting to collect all the horizontal cards from the glorious 71 Munson onwards - what fun that would be - and know full well that 55, 56, and 60 sets will never fit my financial abilities, in completion.

So why this card? I doubt I will ever see another Baseball Card that points out "10th Place" right on the front of the card. How would you like another reminder of -that- the next year when you opened a pack of cards?

Where will I put this card? I have no idea. Will it make me figure out who finished in 10th place in the A.L. in 1965? Oh, dear.

A big reason pawing through a box of 1,000+ Baseball Cards is a little slow for me is because I don't do it by looking for just certain last names, or a certain team. (The Tigers have their own big ole box at my LCS, anyway). So I can't just skip names really fast like many people would approach boxes of singles.

Even though I generally find 69 Topps on the uninteresting side, this card has a bunch of great elements, starting of course with other Baseball people (Manager?), Yankee Stadium (most likely; the Angels didn't play at Shea) again. and a not-common-at-all frontal view of the batting helmet, an unusual card element that has been popping into my 87¢ and 43¢ box scores, too, lately. The original California Angels logo is not particularly common on cards. This 1969 Topps Baseball Card absolutely destroys most of 2018 Topps Heritage.

All of those deets might have rescued this card from the Vintage, Priced As Marked box, anyway. But what really moved this one over to the little Buy pile was that ... undershirt? A future What IS That? post is very, very slowly being constructed. Was it a wind-breaker? Did anyone besides Baseball players wear these .... What IS That?, anyway?

But now, we have arrived at the station, alas. Family, is more important than Baseball Cards and my time at the LCS couldn't be stretched today. But not before one final SCORE!

 

I may not ever be able to hit a Grand Slam with 56 Topps.

But I can poke out some singles, sometimes.

Happy 250th!