1973 Johnny Pro Orioles Baseball #5, Brooks Robinson (batting)

Johnny Pro Enterprises printed this 28-card Orioles set during Baltimore's amazing run of five AL East titles in six years (1969-1974), a great era for the hometown fans. Brooks Robinson anchored 3rd throughout, appeared in 15 straight All-Star games (1960-1974), captured 16 straight Gold Glove awards (1960-1975), and wore their (since-retired) #5, making him an ideal fit for the type collection.

Card front (blank back)

You can punch out both picture and stand to create an array of 5" tall players, but most cards still in the hobby remain like today's example, un-punched and flat.

This blog profiled Johnny Pro's other Brooks Robinson card, the "fielding" variation that better fits his reputation, in Feb 2010. Check it out at 1973 Johnny Pro Orioles #5.

Value: I found this card, autograph and all, on eBay for $10.

Fakes / reprints: Folks don't reprint over-sized cards very often, so the Brooks autograph's a bigger "risk" for fakery. (Fortunately, I picked this up for the card itself.)

1955 Topps Hocus Focus Baseball #5, Ted Williams

After more than 100 years of collecting, how many mysteries remain? Cards-as-investment frenzy peaked in the 1990s, coaxing forgotten treasures from attics and estates as folks hoped to score a big-money find. Tons of little-known ephemera entered the market, leaving experts to puzzle out authenticity and market values. Alan Alda and Matthew Broderick even personalized the hunt for cardboard gold in a 2008 movie.

Hobby knowledge grew by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years, leaving remaining unknowns in a realm of the completely obscure and dismissible. Imagine a kitschy photo paper that started blank, but revealed pictures if you rubbed water (or spit) on it and let it dry in the sun. Would you keep them around? That's the rare (and still mysterious) Topps Hocus Focus.

 Card panel front

Bob Lemke, editor of our hobby's annual Standard Catalog, recently wrote about two final Hocus Focus discoveries, #42 Hal Smith and #8 Mel Parnell, that turned up in a group lot with HOFer Jackie Robinson. Baseball players make up only a portion of this 120+ subject set and it took 55 years to verify that one 18-player checklist, so you can imagine how scarce these cards are. (The last one on Ted's strip reminds me of my favorite palindrome: "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.")

Card panel back

Hocus Focus collectors continue to publish their research into this ugly duckling set on forums like Net54Baseball.com, including this essential thread of scans and publishing schedules. It appears Topps developed (no pun intended) the "water and light" photo effect over several years, with 1955 as its apex--or at least their final set based on it.

Not sure if buyers would take to this photo technique in the 21st century, but Allen and Ginter's always full of surprises. Would you be interested in Topps bringing back their spit-developing cards as a gimmick?

Value: Complete, well-developed Hocus Focus strips cost several hundred dollars and up, with individual star players running somewhat less. (Due to scarcity, you're more likely to find baseball singles at auction than on eBay.)

Fakes / reprints: This set's valuable enough to fake, but relatively low-demand. Check out the Net54 thread for info on each set, so you know how to distinguish them.

1949 Smack-A-Roo Baseball #5, Scoring an uncaught throw

I've always been intrigued by the fluid nature of baseball's scoring. More than 90 percent of on-field plays are easily identified as hits, Ks, or fielding outs. Ghastly errors also stand out and make fans like me feel a little better about our limited skills. At the borderline between "clear hit" and "awful play" lives the official scorer...and controversy.

Card front (blank back)

Let's say this happened in a Yankee game. Who would YOU give the "no catch" error to, MVP candidate Robinson Cano or HOFer Derek Jeter?

Smack-A-Roo candy used an interesting package design and this numbered card's actually a back panel for the product itself, like 1970s Hostess snack cake boxes. The three perforated edges held it together and kids got to its candy by pulling on the "smooth" side.

Front of sealed box

Back of sealed box

Tearing apart a box to get at its contents means very few Smack-A-Roo panels survived initial purchase, let alone into the modern age. (More kids also would've saved real players over Q-and-A about scoring decisions.) They're unusual cards and little-known within the hobby.

Value: OldCardboard.com values VG commons about $35, but I found this panel on eBay for $20.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the market and it'd be tough to fake the weird shape.

1948 Bowman Basketball #5, Single Cut Off Post

Baseball fans fidget throughout January, waiting for pitchers and catchers to report. Clocks tick in slow-motion, gloves stiffen for lack of use, and team caps gather dust. This season can hit especially hard in New England, since a snowplow seeing its shadow means several more weeks of winter. Our collective test of endurance drips by so snail-like that a single-serving website measures it at SpringTrainingCountdown.com. (This Feb 14, send your favorite fan some candy hearts that say PLAY BALL--they'll love you for it.)

Card front

Of course, baseball isn't EVERYTHING to the sports world, since two of our "big 4" pro leagues hit their stride when flakes start falling. Today's #5 profile pictures one of those, basketball, and matched the NBA's third season tip-off in late 1948. It also coincided with an expansion from eight to twelve teams, reflecting the roundball's growing success and fan base. (Two of its founding franchises--Boston Celtics and New York Knicks--retain their original city and moniker.)

Bowman's hand-tinted coloring of black-and-white photos precedes their 1949 baseball issue, so is the first appearance of this love-it-or-hate-it design. The set also interspersed bird's eye diagrams (like this #5) with their player photos, probably to help new fans understand on-court strategy and action. Its 72-card checklist contains the Mona Lisa of basketball rookies, Hall-of-Famer George Mikan.

1948 Bowman Basketball #69, George Mikan

Compared to Mikan's detailed bio back and "famous make pencils" ad, the diagrams read like simple "INSERT TAB A IN SLOT B" instructions from high school shop class. Most of these plays remain basketball staples, despite the overall evolution and sophistication of modern offenses.

Card back

Value: Based on eBay searches, dealers charge $10-20 for low-grade 1948 diagram cards. Actual players cost more and stars (mostly Hall of Famers) jump much higher, given the rarity and demand.

Fakes / reprints: Bowman reprinted this set as an insert in 2009, so look for that date on card backs.

1977 O-Pee-Chee Baseball #5, Victory Leaders (Jim Palmer, Randy Jones)

Awesome, big, and crazy baseball hairstyles and loud uniforms remain my favorite features of 1970s cards. Oscar Gamble led the charge of caps perched on Afros and Cleveland fielded the most garish all-orange outfit, but today's example rates a solid 2-for-2, given Jim Palmer's feathered mop and Randy Jones' chocolate-dipped-banana Padres uni. (3-for-3, if you throw in the blond frizz.) There's zero doubt this card comes from the disco era.

Card front

Both pitchers dominate the photo foregrounds, but also check out their backgrounds and those rakish, left-slanted sidelines. Oh My O-Pee-Chee's recent post on Claudell Washington pointed out that 1977 Topps went a little overboard on these "action angles," enough so that OPC re-cropped a few photos to look more level. (#5 photos look the same in both sets.)

Card back

OPC took a more active role in 1977's set design than their card-for-card Topps reprints from previous years. The checklist itself stopped at #264 but also featured a new team in Toronto, so they reworked some multi-player cards into solo Blue Jays. Others got the aforementioned re-cropping and still more dropped distinctive features like the league All-Star banners and All-Star Rookie trophies. (See all these differences in Oh My OPC's 1977 articles.) League leaders cards add only a few French words on the back, along with the usual PRINTED IN CANADA tag line.

Two names on the leader lists caught my eye, Nolan Ryan (AL, 17 wins) and Jerry Koosman (NL, 21 wins). Card collectors know Ryan's rookie card well (and probably remember Koosman by association) as one of a handful of ungraded Topps to fetch above $1000 back in the market's glory days. It gave you quite a thrill just to pick one up! They still cost a few hundred now, but nowhere near that 4-digit peak.

1968 Topps #177, 546 wins between them

Koosman and Ryan stand remarkably similar by statistical and relative measure. They finished high in Cy Young and even MVP voting multiple times without taking home any hardware. Both struck out twice as many batters than they walked, pitched "above average" for their careers (Jerry at 110 OPS+, Nolan 112), and own nearly identical WHIPs. Outside of raw strikeouts and walks, any 5-season slice from their careers looks almost identical--but Ryan pitched 8 more years than Jerry, helping him win 102 more games and a Hall of Fame nod. Two great pitchers, but one showed extraordinary durability and reaped the honors that went with it.

Value: Most OPC cards cost a dollar or two, even with HOFers like Palmer on the front.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any OPC reprints in the market.

Type Site: Section 36

Wow, been a while since we've profiled a site follower in the Type Site series, so let's jump back in with Section 36, a Boston-area chap who authors a baseball blog by the same name.

Hmm, wonder who he writes about?

Section 36 blog burned up 2010 with 281 articles posted, a great total for even professional writers. Find everything from articles on baseball cards and memorabilia to personal stories and open questions (i.e., Are the Sox actually sending Julio Lugo paychecks?).

One my favorite Yankee-Red Sox digs came from the Blogs from Other Teams request, where he asked folks to nominate other fan writers to follow. Check out this pair of comments.

Adam_The_Yankee_Fan said...

"Here are two great blogs from the greatest team in the land!"

http://riveraveblues.com/
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/

Section 36 said...

"Adam, I think you gave me the wrong links. Those were Yankees blogs."

ZING! With apologies to Adam, that's quality comeback-ery.

Section 36 also runs off-season contests (for cards + other booty) and 2010's version remains OPEN until Feb 9, 2011! Check his 2010 Scavenger Hunt post for details and then go hunting for those photos.

1972-73 Venezuelan Winter League Baseball #5, Jose Lopez

I've long been fascinated with winter baseball, since many players follow warm temperatures south once America's regular season wraps up. Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic all own long league histories, with a vast number of Latino players starting their careers there. Since it's effectively another "minor league" that feeds talent into our big leagues, MLB history intersects in meaningful ways with each country that hosts a pro league.

Card front (blank back)

This isn't Jose Lopez, the former Seattle and Colorado infielder. Instead, it's Jose Angel Lopez, a Venezuelan native who spent 7 years in the Houston and St. Louis farm systems (minor stats at B-R.com). It was nigh-impossible for fans to track multi-country prospects in those days, but MLB.com news provides a steady stream of "winter league" player updates.

Aqua on yellow? Must be 1972 Topps

Venezuela capital-L loves baseball and locals printed cards as far back as 1916. Many post-war designs imitate Topps sets and their 1972 issue took a stab at its psychedelic arches, with high-contrast borders and player name on the bottom edge. Card numbers move to the front, since they're really blank-backed stamps destined for mounting in team albums. TCDB provides its 249-card checklist.

Value: Mr. Lopez cost $10 on eBay a few years ago. Venezuelan cards are affordable if you avoid the big league stars.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen many foreign fakes in the market and it'd be tough to make money reprinting 1970s Latin American sets.

1975 O-Pee-Chee Baseball #5, Nolan Ryan

This blog recently featured Tom Seaver breaking the record for consecutive 200-strikeout seasons, a record he later stretched to nine (1975 OPC #5 profile). Nolan Ryan would've tied this mark if not for 1975, when injuries limited him to 28 starts and 186 K's. The Express and his 100mph fastball otherwise dominated 1970s hitters, fanning 300+ five times and leading the AL seven seasons total.

Card front

After a few years off league leader boards in Houston, Nolan moved to Texas (Rangers) and captured four more AL strikeout titles, all after the age of 40. This durability also pushed Ryan well over 300 wins, despite playing for mostly mediocre teams. (He never led the league in victories or won a playoff series after 1969, thanks to top-notch competition like Jim Palmer / Catfish Hunter in the AL and Tom Seaver / Steve Carlton in the NL).

Card back

O-Pee-Chee matched Topps' 1975 checklist card-for-card, but printed backs in bilingual English-French and added the "O.P.C. PTD IN CANADA" tagline. Record breakers like Ryan (#1 to #6) frame their tilted "newspaper" against its red background--that's not a printing mis-cut, though plenty of cards also suffer that ignominy.

Just a few of 1975's many miscuts

Value: Ryan's one of the few superstars that retained decent value after the card market crash. This OPC #5 cost me $10 on eBay in 2007.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any OPC reprints in the market, though Topps likely reused this image for one of their throwback sets.

1979 O-Pee-Chee Baseball #5, Joe Morgan

1979 marked the 15th season that Montreal-based candy maker O-Pee-Chee licensed a baseball set design from Topps for their Canadian customers. It included "only" 374 cards, just half the 726 found in America's set, but otherwise matched its spirit and execution. Canada loves them some hockey, so I'm pretty sure OPC designed and printed baseball cards late in the NHL season (i.e., April) and sold them during the puck-free summer months. This brief selling window probably led to its shorter (and less expensive to print) set size.

Card front

In my opinion, Topps action photography really improved by 1979 and Morgan's just one example. Face shadows aside, that's great timing on a high shot to right field.

Following his HOF playing career, Joe moved on to announcing and ultimately occupied ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball color commentator chair for many years. That run ended after 2010, a move hailed by fans who consider Morgan a virtual statue in the press box, unwilling to allow for modern perspectives on statistics and players from past eras. (I see him as a classic storyteller and self-aggrandizer, something that worked 20 years ago, but that few fans in the current ESPN demographic find interesting.)

Card back

OPC started with the Topps template in 1979, but mixed things up a bit in both checklist and card design.

• All cards feature individual players--no league leaders or record breakers.
• Players who changed teams before opening day get "now with..." notes on the front.
• Many star players were double-printed to fill out the card sheets

See the annotated checklist at Super70s.com for more on these details and a comparison of each team change at Oh My O-Pee-Chee's 1979 card profiles.

Value: Like most 1970s-1980s stars, ungraded Morgan cards cost a couple dollars at most.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any OPC reprints in the market.

1976 O-Pee-Chee Baseball #5, Tom Seaver Record Breaker

Tom Terrific comes right to mind in any discussion of all-time pitchers, given his overpowering fastball and full award shelf, including 1967's Rookie of the Year, 1969's World Series title, a trio of NL Cy Young awards (1969, 1973, 1975), and 13 All-Star selections. While his career after age 32 slowly dropped to just "great," that first decade rates as "otherworldly."

Card front

Other than their required French translations, O-Pee-Chee's 1976 set matched Topps player-for-player, shot-for-shot, and (ugh) airbrush-for-airbrush. Check out the blurred "batter" that #5's art editor inserted, weird helmet and all. It's a baffling addition to that standing pose and Tom would be better served with a full windup. Why, Topps, why?

Card back

I picked this card in part to recognize 2011 Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven, another of a pitching handful to dominate batters one-on-one, year-after-year. Both Seaver and Blyleven ran active 200+ K streaks as of the card's printing and then extended them into 1976, totaling 9 and 6 seasons respectively (career stats at B-R.com). Congratulations, Bert!

Value: Hall of Famer or not, mid-70s cards don't cost much; 1976 Topps #5 is just 25 cents at Check Out My Cards. OPC versions are harder to find, but not much more valuable.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any OPC reprints in the market.