More 1969 Issues...The Old Teams

I was mentioning earlier about how Topps handled the four expansion teams in 1969, but they had some issues with some of the other teams, as well. One had moved, while the other was problematic for a few years.

The first team was the Oakland A's. 1968 was the first year they played in Kansas City, but due to the ongoing issue that Topps was having with the players' union, many of the cards still showed them in 1967, which meant that the "KC" logo was still on their hats and needed to be airbrushed.

Here's an example of a hat that was altered, even when a coach in the background didn't get the same treatment:

Card #217 -- John Donaldson, Oakland A's

The hats were either given a black block or had green to cover the newer insignia with an "A" on it. This one shows the "ghost" of that logo:

Card #68 -- Dave Duncan, Oakland A's

However, by the end of the year, the legal issues with the union were resolved and the logo was used on the cards for all to see:

Card #655 -- Mike Hershberger, Oakland A's

This issue presented itself on the leaders card as well, as Danny Cater has a picture showing him in an obvious White Sox uniform even though he'd been with the A's since 1966:

Card #1 -- American League Batting Leaders

Other teams were bothered as well. Here's Ken Harrelson, listed as a Red Sox player but clearly wearing a Washington Senators uniform:

Card #5 -- American League Home Run Leaders

Now for the team that had been presenting Topps with problems...the Houston Astros. Originally called the Colt .45s, they were simply called the Colts on their early cards. When they changed the team name to Astros before the '65 season, Topps referred to the team as simply "Houston" in the early series and changing things up later; they were called Astros but all the cap were airbrushed, except for the one rookie card. In '66 and '67, there seems to have been some trouble with the name, as they were once again called "Houston."

In 1968 and '69, the team was still referred to as "Houston" but all the traces of the cap logo were eliminated from the photos. The blogs 1968 Topps and The Fleer Sticker Project delve a little deeper here.

So this was continued in 1969:

Card #76 -- Norm Miller, Houston Astros

The logo returned late in the season, but the name "Astros" would have to wait until 1970 before it was back for good:

Card #656 -- Dan Schneider, Houston Astros

By the time the 1969 season came to a close, things returned to normal...Topps was back to making its own mistakes on cards, such as using a picture of a 14-year old batboy of the card of a legitimate major leaguer:

Card #653 -- "Aurelio Rodriguez," California Angels

And only blacking out the logos of traded players:

Card #565 -- Hoyt Wilhelm, California Angels

More 1969 Issues...The New Teams

I've been focusing on 1969 lately, and since today's a travel day for me, I'll simply feature some more cards from the set. There were 4 new teams in the 1969 season.

The American League added the:

Seattle Pilots and the:

Kansas City Royals. Over in the National League, they brought the Montreal Expos:

As well as the San Diego Padres:

This continued the expansion of baseball outside the relatively condensed region that existed prior to 1958. For the first time, baseball expanded into Canada and (temporarily) the Pacific Northwest. Another team was added to California and the Midwest, to replace a departed team. The Southeast benefited from an earlier expansion (Houston) and the move of the Braves to Atlanta in 1966.

The new teams presented a problem for Topps at the time, because the players weren't in their new uniforms. However, Topps did what they did in the 1961-'62 expansion: they simply used "hatless" photos that made players look more like your Uncle Phil or the family tax preparer than an athlete, or they simply airbrushed the hat to remove the logo.

Adding some complexity to the problem, many players refused to sign new Topps contracts on the advice of the player's union. In many cases, the photos used were from 1967 or earlier.

However, a deal was struck before the season was over, so players in the last series of 1969 were able to be featured in their uniforms. 

The Seattle Pilots altered their uniforms after the preseason...but this photo beats one with a "hatless" pose.

The Royals weren't much early on (and aren't today), but there was a 15-year stretch where they were one of the roughest teams in baseball.

I'll say it here: the Montreal Expos may have been the first major league team in Canada, but the red, white and blue uniforms were more American that any U.S. team had.

Finally, I had to include this card even though I had others to illustrate my point. Who better to have on a team called The Padres that a man whose last name was the similar-sounding Podres? As Wile E. Coyote would put it: "Genius."

I'm catching a plane...see you on Wednesday.

1969 Retreads, Part 2

Last month, I featured a card from 1969 that featured a six-year old photo, and here's another one that recycles a photo:

Card #209 -- Larry Haney, Seattle Pilots

Since the Seattle Pilots were a new team in 1969, Topps was forced to use older pictures for the players because there wasn't any way to get the newer photos ready for the set. They may have printed in series, but there was no way they were going to deliberately short teams (and fans in those team's areas) by skipping over them until later. For Haney, a catching pose is great, especially since it can be used again without airbrushing. The cap is on backwards, the chest protector covers up his team's markings, and all is well.

Except...he's catching left-handed. There aren't a lot of left-handed catchers, and Haney isn't one of them. And a quick look at the Orioles coach in the background (who I'm fairly certain is Billy Hunter) confirms that the negative was flipped.

The same pose appears correctly in 1968:

Card #42 -- Larry Haney, Baltimore Orioles

Interestingly, this card shows that an unknown Oriole running in the background was covered up by the circle in the 1969 design.

Although an error was made, it was never corrected...so there's no extra value to the 1969 card other than its oddity.

1969 Retreads, Part 1

I recently picked up some 1969 Topps cards for my collection and was reminded about the pictures used in the set. Thanks to expansion and a possible fight with the players' union, Topps used photos from the past and pretty much avoided anything that was taken in 1968 at all.

Here's one of the cards:

Tommie Aaron should be the subject of his own post. He was the younger brother of his teammate Hank Aaron, whose presence in the Braves' outfield was one of the reasons he didn't get more playing time. There's quite a family resemblance; I often wonder how many pulled this card out of the pack in 1969 and mistakenly thought they got Hank Aaron's card instead.

As it turned out, the image was several years old:

 It was used in 1963 as well.

Outfield Advertisments

A couple of weeks ago, fellow blogger 1967ers showed his 1969 O-Pee-Chee Johnny Bench card. Here's a Topps counterpart showing the exact same photo:

Since this was a posed shot during Spring Training, I look past the fact that he's appearing to pose as a catcher near the outfield foul line. With a catcher's mitt but no other protective gear. However, there would be better (and worse) pictures of Bench to come, so no use getting on him for his first solo appearance on a Topps card.   

However...being the observant person I am, my eye focused on this billboard above Bench's head:

It says "Village Inn Pancake House, We Never Close."

The Reds trained at Al Lopez Field in Tampa at the time, at the site of today's Raymond James Stadium. Although Al Lopez Field is no longer there -- like much of Florida, it's been bulldozed and rebuilt into something newer -- Village Inns are still all over the area. In fact, I ate at one in St. Petersburg just a few weeks ago.

There's no phone number or address given, so there's no way of knowing which location was being advertised or if it's still around. But it's nice to see something in a vintage card that is a link to something in my present.

A Tale of Two Managers

In its 1969 set, Topps featured two managers for the Washington Senators in its set.

First, there was this guy:

Card #294 -- Jim Lemon

Unfortunately for him, Jim Lemon was relieved of his position before the season began and replaced by this legend:

Card #650 -- Ted Williams

Manager changes happen. That's a part of baseball. In fact, the season just began last week and I'm sure there's somebody placing bets right now on which skipper will be the first one fired this year.

Since Topps was issued in series back then and unable to know what was going to happen in the season, this sometimes happened. But it's all good, because...

Wait, a minute...somebody is whispering to me...Do what? Turn Lemon's card over?

Oh, that's just wrong on so many levels.

Q&A -- "Looks Like a Regular Picture"

 Here's an email I received last week from a lady named Patty:

Q:

"(I have) 3 cards. They are  #2 of 33 Boog Powell; Willie Horton #9 of 33; Maury Wills #24 of 33.

They look like regular pictures with signed names in blue ink. 

They just have a name and # on back with the words T.C.G. PRTD.IN U.S.A."

A:

Fortunately, having the numbers is a big help here...and yes, I can identify your cards. What you have are 1969 Topps Deckle Edge cards. Here's an example:

As you can see from Roberto Clemente's card from the set, they're black & white pictures that have been given a "scalloped" effect on their edges (or, as Patty says above, they "look like regular pictures," as that style was popular among snapshots taken in the era. A facsimile autograph in blue ink has been added to the front of the card.

The backs are mostly plank, except for a little bit of info along the bottom:

Inside a box, there is a name and a card number, along with the manufacturer's info Patty mentioned in her email.

These cards were included as inserts inside wax packs in 1969, which makes them fairly common. While they're not overly expensive, they are pretty easy to build a base set out of and represent the first complete set from before my birth that I was able to put together.

There are actually 35 cards in the set, however. With 33 total cards, there was at least one player from each of the 24 teams in the league at that point, even though the team itself isn't specifically named in the design. When two of the players were traded, Topps substituted them for former teammates (albeit it by switching the numbers) in order to keep the balance.

As a result, card 11 either shows Hoyt Wilhelm or Jim Wynn and card #22 has either Rusty Staub or Joe Foy. Wilhelm and Foy were both Royals, and Staub and Wynn were both shown as Astros. The later additions -- Foy and Wynn -- are the scarcer versions, but aren't too hard to find.

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.

A Nice Surprise...

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Jeff, who's a reader of this blog. While looking through my wantlist, he was surprised to find that he had 10 of the cards I needed for my 1978 Burger King Yankees and decided to ask if I'd like to trade for them.

Well, the cards arrived over the weekend and they looked great! One thing I like about BKs is the way Topps was able to go back and fix a few blatant issues. For instance, there's this card:

(Before the facial hair grew out...Burger King card on the left, Regular Topps card on the right)

Rich Gossage spent the 1977 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates before being picked up in free agency by the Yankees after the season was finished. Topps had no way to get a picture of him in pinstripes, so they just did a quick airbrush job, as you can see above. For the BK set, they were able to use a picture of him in the correct uniform.

The Yankees Jeff sent me included Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson, and they were great additions to one of my few sorely needed 1970s cards. In fact, those ten cards put me only three cards away from completing the entire Yankees team set. All I need now are Cliff Johnson, Bucky Dent and Chris Chambliss.

Well, I need to specify...I need a loose Chris Chambliss, since he's already in my collection here:

It's an unopened pack, which contains three player cards and a checklist card. As much as I'm tempted to open it up and see who's inside, I keep forcing myself to stop thinking about it.

I've already done entries here for the 1979 BK Yankees as well as the same year's Phillies set. A complete set will not only keep me from wanting to see what's inside the cellophane surrounding Chambliss, but will invariably lead to another installment in the series.

Jeff didn't stop at those BK cards, though. He added more than 50 cards from last year's Topps set (I do have modern needs, which helps me to trade with others whose collections aren't as old as most of mine) and this great card:

A 1969 Met is always a great addition to my collection. I now am only 41 cards away from completing that set as well.

Thanks a lot, Jeff!

"Mini" Football

In only its second year after regaining its rights to print NFL cards, Topps released a football set in 1969 that featured a player photo against a brightly-colored background:

(Remember this photo...you'll be seeing it again)

The cards featured great full-bleed borders, but for some reason they gave Topps some trouble. When they came out with their second and final series, the cards were given white borders and some of the background colors were toned down:

By the way, it's funny to see Ken Kortas as a Steeler in the second series, since he played in Chicago during the 1969 season. By the time this card was distributed through wax packs, uniform #75 was being worn by a rookie named Joe Greene, who kept that number through his retirement after the 1981 season.

The 1969 Topps football cards came in packs that looked like this:

The pack mentions a "mini-card album." One of those is also a part of my Steelers collection:

Notice the team logo has no color in it and appears to have been drawn by a high school student. At the same time, the "game action" photo appears to have been airbrushed to remove the receiver's logo, yet the blurriness really doesn't obscure the Giant defender's helmet enough to mask his team's identity. That's Kyle Rote, in what appears to be an old picture. Each team had a different photo, but few actually showed the team featured in the booklet.

The back looks like this:

Again, the logo has no color and appears to be a slightly larger version of the one used on the front. There were 26 books, one for each team then playing in the NFL.

Inside, there were spots where small cards could be affixed:

The cards were also placed into wax packs along with the booklets, as a perforated sheet of four cards:

(Yep, the same Roy Jefferson photo shown above)

No, I didn't rip the Roy Jefferson card away, I just happen to have the card as a panel as well as singly. There were 66 panels (264 cards in all, with some players appearing in variations), and 19 players in the set who didn't also appear in the regular 1969 Topps set.

Now THAT'S Provenace!

In 1969, Topps included insert cards in a few series of its wax packs. The cards looked like old photographs from a family album, with scalloped edges. Known as Deckle Edges, the cards look like this:

There were 33 numbered cards in the set. However, trades forced two players to be dropped and replaced with others to keep at least one player per team in the set...even though the team wasn't actually listed on the card. Card #11 is either Hoyt Wilhelm or Jim Wynn, and card #22 is either Rusty Staub or Joe Foy. As a result, there are 35 different players in a complete 1969 Deckle Edge set. As of right now, it's also the only set from before my birth I've managed to complete.

The two cards above once belonged to a young collector named Tony Havens. I've never met Tony nor have any idea where he lived. Tony didn't trade me these cards...so how do I know they were his?

The cards told me.

Practical Jokes on Baseball Cards

Baseball players have sometimes been known to enjoy a laugh, especially at another's expense. Books are filled with stories of practical jokers in the clubhouse, the bullpen, the dugout and on the field. It's conceivable that some of the fun will spill over to baseball cards.

While hobby legend likes to mention how Lew Burdette posed as a left-handed pitcher for the Topps photographer, they're forgetting the best part of the story. It wasn't Burdette's idea to pull the stunt; rather, one of the guys in his starting rotation put him up to it.

Warren Spahn was known to be a practical joker. When the Topps photographer showed up to take pictures in 1958 for the next year's set of cards, Spahn talked Burdette into switching gloves and seeing how long it would take for anybody to notice. So, Spahn posed as a righty and Burdette used Spahn's left-handed mitt.

When the 1959 Topps cards came out, Spahn's picture on card #40 was a close-up of his face (perhaps the Topps proofer noticed that he wasn't supposed to be throwing righty and cropped it out, but we'll never know for sure). However, card #440 has Lew -- misspelled "Lou" on the card -- posing as a lefty.

Ten years later, it was Aurelio Rodriguez's turn to fool the photographer. In '68 he was a rookie and virtually unknown, so he asked Angels batboy Leonard Garcia to pose in his place.So while his rookie card says it's Rodriguez, the picture is really Garcia's.

This is one of the cards featured in the great 1973 book The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book by Brendan Boyd and Fred Harris.  Most of the book is a pictorial gallery of cards with an accompanying comment about each.  Under the 1969 Rodriguez card is the following (which still makes me chuckle):

"The 1969 baseball card of Aurelio Rodriguez is not Aurelio Rodriguez at all but the Pittsburgh Pirate bat boy.  This is in the nature of a little joke by Aurelio who could very easily be mistaken for a batboy, except that most batboys could easily outhit him. 


"And were considerably more mature in the bargain."

No, the Pittsburgh Pirates mention wasn't an error on my part; the author screwed it up and the editor never caught the error. The card above the written passage clearly shows the name "Angels" on it. Talk about your egregious errors...

And while I'm on the topic...he may not have been a batter who could hit for average, but Rodriguez sure could throw from third to first in a big hurry. Some players have said he'd play with them by waiting to throw and still getting them out easily.

Since that's long been one of my favorite hobby books, here's a link to pick it up on Amazon. It can sometimes be picked up used for a great bargain. I've written a review of this book and will share it on this blog eventually. If you don't have it yet, do yourself a favor...click the link below and get a copy. You'll thank me later.