Multi Multi-Player Rookie Cards

From 1962 through '82, Topps featured several multi-player rookie cards in its set. Sometimes the rookies were grouped by team or league, other times by position.  Sometimes, a rookie would take a little bit longer to develop and appeared on the "rookie" cards a couple of years in a row. For instance, Lou Piniella showed up on them in 1964, '68 and '69 (All with different teams). However, Piniella wasn't the record holder.

Meet Bill Davis.

1965 Topps #546

This late-series card came out near the end of the 1965 baseball season, which was when Davis got his first call to the bigs. He appeared at the plate ten times as a pinch-hitter and collected three hits. That .300 mark would be his best as a major league player.

1966 Topps #44

Unfortunately for Davis, the Indians already had a first baseman named Fred Whitfield, who -- though not a star-caliber player -- was performing solidly at that position for them, so Davis wasn't able to get a starting role. Rather than waste him as a part-timer, he was sent down to Portland where he could play regularly. Late in the season, he returned and won a game with a pinch homer.

Whitfield had struggled through injuries in '66, so Davis was in place to win a starting job for '67.

1967 Topps #253

Sadly, on January 21, 1967, Davis injured his Achilles tendon during a pick-up basketball game. He appeared in that year's Topps set, but sat on the DL for the season. That injury likely dropped him from the Indians' plans for the future.

1968 Topps #432

Davis did appear on a 1968 card as well (a more closely cropped version of his '67 picture). However, he spent the season in Portland. One short call-up as an emergency back-up on June 29th happened, but Davis never played in a game and was quickly sent back to the minors. When the rosters expanded in September, he never got called to the parent club. After the season, the Tribe traded him to the expansion Padres.

1969 Topps #304

As a member of an expansion team, Davis had the chance to prove himself. Originally slotted to platoon at first with Nate Colbert, he started slow and was soon relegated to pinch-hitting duty. That May, he was traded to St. Louis but never managed to play another big league game again.

After heading back down the minors, Davis was offered the chance to play in Japan but opted to keep his family stateside and went into the real estate business. Despite an overall .181 batting average, one home run and five RBIs in his career, Bill Davis is the all-time holder of the record for the most Topps multi-player rookie cards. He never appeared by himself on a card, though.

Players on the Tube

On Monday, I revisited an article I'd written several years ago. Today, I'll do it again.

In 2004, I wrote a newsletter article about the 1955 Bowman set and the then-new invention of color TV. The article appeared again in 2007 in the SMR magazine that PSA puts out. Click here to read it (in PDF format).

However, what many collectors don't realize is that the '55 Bowman set wasn't the first to use a television design. That honor goes to the 1950 Drake's set:

Card #22 -- Eddie Stanky

While many collectors remember Drake's for the cards they included on the packaging of their various snack boxes during the 1980s, in 1950 they were a smaller regional bakery and these cards were available in packages of oatmeal cookies or "Jumble" cookies. The cards aren't impossible to collect, but they weren't widely collected when they were new and the black borders make them tough in high condition.

For more about the 1950 Drake's set, here's a link to the set description in my main site.

After 1955, the TV-inspired design never went away. Topps would return to the concept in 1966, for both its football and hockey cards:

The football design used cherry-colored woodgrain, similar to the one used in the '55 Bowman set. However, they removed the "Color TV" faceplate and the knobs below the picture tube to place the player's name, team and position.

The used the exact same design for their hockey cards that year. I borrowed the image of this Mikita card; it very well may be an O-Pee-Chee, judging by the Canadian-styled spelling of "Centre." (Edited: the explanation appears in the Comments section.)

Too bad Topps didn't use the TV-design for its 1966 baseball set. The design they went with is often pointed out as one of the more unimaginative of the 1960s, and even a horizontal design may have been neat, since there hadn't been one of those since 1960.However, Topps didn't toss the TV out the window:

In fact, they used the design as part of the next two years' World Series recaps. That was a good use for the designs, since many fans watched the games on their own televisions.

They even revisited the concept a couple of years after that:

But of course, that was a TV show, so the design was perfectly suited for it.

Player's Been Traded! What To Do?

Say you collect baseball cards.And lets say -- hypothetically -- that one of the players in your collection has been traded to another team. If you're planning on using that player in your card-based baseball game, you have a few options:

1. You put him with his new team even though the card shows the old one.
2. You keep him on with his old team, even though you know he's no longer there.
3. You wait until next year when Topps will put out a new card of the player.

Thanks to something called good ol' American ingenuity, there's another option available. How does an 11 year-old make his own card showing a traded player with his new team?

It's no problem at all if you have a magic marker handy.