1965 Topps Baseball #5, AL RBI leaders

The 1964 AL league leaders include a range of players and teams, all skilled with the bat. (Most are known for more besides.)

• Ah yes, Mantle, Topps icon and regular run producer. He continued to light up the scoreboard, even as the late-1960s Yankees sank to the second division.
• Harmon Killebrew's towering shots equaled the Mick in force, if not in lasting fame. Like other tailing sluggers from the mid-70s, Killer dipped a toe in the new free agent market to finish his career in Kansas City. One year, 14 HR, .199 batting average.
• Dick Stuart, a.k.a “Dr. Strangeglove,” tallied more errors than round-trippers some seasons. Observers agree that every play at first felt like an adventure.
• Finally (and firstly), Brooks Robinson, who took advantage of his prime of life to pound out 118 RBIs in 1964 and set career highs in many offensive categories. “The Human Vacuum Cleaner” added an MVP to his credentials that year, beating out a second-place Mantle.

Card front

Topps debuted league leader cards in the 1960 set and they continue to this day. Multi-player cards stretch back significantly further, both post-war and pre-war. As baseball fell increasingly under the spell of statistics, the cachet of plating the most runners or striking out more hitters than the next guy also rose. Hence, I assume, the desire to add this kind of subset to the mix. Perhaps it's also an easy way to get less-than-the-best photos onto cardboard. This LL card shows alternate poses for each player, kind of like home-and-away jerseys. One particular player jumped around enough that we need the Internet just to keep track of things.

• The Mick's regular card shows him batting righty, kind of a cool switch from this lefty close-up.
• Killebrew's #400 moves the portrait to a different angle.
• Brooksie's smiling mug dominates his “regular” card, not far removed from 1957's rookie pose.
• Dick Stuart's card throws a bucket of cold water over the whole process. First, the picture's clearly a hatless Pirate uni, probably taken in 1962. Pittsburgh traded him to Boston prior to spring training 1963. He indeed finished runner-up in 1964 AL RBIs, but the Sox shipped him to Philadelphia around Thanksgiving. Topps slapped a PHILLIES flag on the old photo and voila, he appears for both American and National League teams in the same set.

1960 Bazooka Baseball #5, Milt Pappas

Once cigarette cards petered out in the early 20^th century, gum companies stepped in to pick up the mantle with their own sugary products. Post-WWII, Topps and Bowman took over the field with large-count sets, echoing Goudey Gum's pre-war success. In both cases, it was hard to tell which came first financially, the gum or the cards, but at least the players are still with us.

Card front (blank back)

Before long, the newly crowned Topps Goliath cast about for ways to expand the baseball market. Enter their subsidiary Bazooka, my childhood synonym for bubblegum. They printed cards directly on gum boxes for trimming with scissors, much like Post cereal sets from the same era.
The 1960 set featured 36 numbered cards and our #5 guest, Baltimore righty Milt Pappis. See this cool proof sheet for a good overview of the set itself, if divorced from the final, gum-protecting product. Relative to their over-sized 1959 set, the three-panel layout made for small individual cards and less impressive photos. Physical limits aside, Bazooka did capture some nice images, and Milt's one of the few that look stoic and static.

Although one of the 1960s' strongest starters, today's guest could've been even better in ideal career circumstances. For all his boyish good looks and pitching acumen, personality conflicts crowded Mr. Pappas like a hard-breaking slider. His Wikipedia entry mentions a number of issues with managers, fans, and umpires, even lingering to the present day. Of course, a greater man than I would be sore to miss out on a perfect game with a walk. At least make the batter work for it, ump!

1954 Topps #5, Ed Lopat

Junkballer Ed Lopat made the most of a career in the Yankees organization, winning 163 games in 12 pinstriped seasons. He hurled at least 20 games each season, completed almost as many as he won, and led the league in ERA and W/L% in 1953, the year prior to today's card. The Yanks beat the Bums in 6 games for another World Series win and “Steady Eddie” tossed all 9 innings in game 2, winning 4-2 on the strength of late inning homers by Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle.

Card front

Note the eccentric top border, an edge-bleed color that overlaps one side of the print row to those above. The printer laid out the 100-card sheet with flip-flopping rows to achieve this effect, something visible in the Topps Archives blog profile. The overall look resembles a mis-cut, though spacing on the other three edges can confirm the centering as good, bad, or ugly.

Card back

The 1954 design clearly bridges the early big-card efforts to the mid-50s. Black-and-white body photos accent a tinted portrait against a solid background. This multi-image presentation moved to a landscape in 1955 and included full-field action shots in 1956, but saved full-color for 1957.

1954 Red Man AL #5, Sherm Lollar

Sherm Lollar played catcher in the AL for 18 seasons and 4 different teams, starting with the Cleveland Indians in 1946 and finishing with 11 quality years on the (as pictured) Chicago White Sox. He made 7 All-Star teams and garnered MVP votes in six different years. Several skills stand out as even more valued now than then.

1. Walked more often than struck out in every full season
2. Batted at least 100 OPS+ in half his seasons, including 5 in a row from 1955-1959
3. Three Gold Gloves, including the combo AL/NL award for 1957
4. Took one for the team a lot, finishing in the top 10 HBP 11 times

Card front

Germane to the type collection, Mr. Lollar managed the Tucson Toros for a couple of years in the early 70s. Yes, the very same team of the worst uniform ever (and not just in Arizona). Viva Toros!

1953 Johnson Cookies Braves Baseball #5, Lew Burdette

Lew's the first player to appear in my type card profiles that I met personally. A couple years prior to Mr. Burdette's death from lung cancer in 2007, he toured New England area card shows, signing pictures and cards for $10 each. (My dad, a childhood Braves fan, received that Lew-modified 1961 Topps card.)

A few things stood out upon meeting the man himself. He must've been 78 at the time, but damn he still seemed tall, slim, and farmhand strong. Hands big enough to put a curve on a cantaloupe swallowed up my city boy fingers like combat boots eat shoelaces. Sharp eyes, exact facial features, and a rumbling voice completed the image of a former elite athlete in his golden years.

The only weakness on that championship frame seemed to be hearing, as a friend of Lew's did a lot of “translating” by repeating what you said into his right ear. Over a couple of minutes, I got across how important the Braves were to my 10 year-old dad and thanked him for making the trip north from sunnier Florida. Along with Eddie Mathews (by mail), former Milwaukee players make up the only two times I've paid for an autograph.

How about the cards themselves? As you can guess from the set title, they came with packs of cookies and profiled the local Milwaukee team. Manager Charlie Grimm led off the set and 24 players followed, including the HOFers Spahn and Mathews. See the full TCDB gallery for its portraits and these glossy collars on Braves undershirts!

Memorial to 19th Century player Frank Grant

I joined several friends at the summertime Williamstown Theatre Festival (aka W.T.F.) earlier this year. During a stroll through the main business area, we discovered this sturdy memorial to Frank Grant, one of the most prominent 19th Century players and a 2006 HOF inductee. (That's 103 years after the end of his career for those scoring at home.)

The memorial's stoic quality impressed me and I'm happy to learn a little more about this pioneer of the game, whether you think of him as an African-American player, or just a power-hitting second basemen. This rock-and-plaque sits in Williamstown, but Frank's hometown is nearby Pittsfield, MA. You can catch games featuring the Pittsfield American Defenders (formerly "Dukes") during the summer at its Wahconah Park, one of the last American parks to feature wooden grandstands.

1932-34 Orbit Baseball Pins (numbered, PR2) #5, Frank Grube

Orbin published two sets of baseball pinbacks in 1932, one with numbers (cataloged PR2) and one without (cataloged PR3). Their tiny presentation area doesn't allow for much expression, so Frank Grube looks kind of squinty and irritable, packed into that upper-third of old-school catching gear.

This set parallels two other Orbit Gum releases, as the company sought to make more with less effort. As mentioned, the PR3 pin issue re-used the same pictures and players, but left off the numbers. The images showed up yet again in 1933 on the R305 Tattoo Orbits, a set notable for bright colors in a black-and-white era. The full PR2 checklist includes both skip-numbering and a handful of variations.

The above scan is hard-to-find Near-Mint pin, currently on eBay for $50 BIN. Most Orbit pins look more the dinged and scratched Grube below; that's the one I actually own.

Value: Low grade commons cost $5-10. Many collectors grade and slab the nice ones just to keep them stored flat, since buttons don't fit well in binders next to cards.

Fakes / reprints: It would be tough to fake a pin, but the set does include several Hall of Famers, so I recommend buying a type "card" from dealers with vintage expertise.

1941 Double Play Baseball #5, Linus Frey

This interesting set from Gum, Inc. (also the producers of Play Ball) pictures two teammates on each card. Simple demographics and performance info (i.e., "batted .266") fill out the details and make for a very minimal appearance. At two each, 75 pieces of cardboard total 150 players, including a variety of well-known and forgotten players. See the complete checklist for all of the card combos.

Card front (blank back)

Mr. Frey's teammate, (and #6) Johnny Vander Meer, went missing at some point, making this card perfectly suitable for this type collection. Most of the pictures look like Linus, vertical portraits with decent lighting. A few (mostly in the middle of the set) capture them at distance or in action, including a nice double batting shot of Ted Williams and Joe Cronin.

Though some show up as "individual" cards (probably thanks to kids from the 40s), most modern collectors go for intact Double Plays. They're not particularly hard to find, but anything pre-war and in decent shape commands high prices these days. I had the good fortune to score a complete set that'd been trimmed into pairs (and later reassembled using tape) for $300 last year on eBay.

The composition quality varies quite a bit, so look for a nice pair of photos if you want a type card of your own. #77/78 shows one of the better choices; Bob Feller always takes a good picture and his fellow Indian Joe Krakauskas looked happy to be paired with him, even if he couldn't crack the Cleveland rotation itself.

1945-46 Caramelo Deportivo Baseball #5, Quico ("Kiko") Magrinat

I miss the classic cap-and-tie umpire fashion shown on today's card, since retired in favor of more utilitarian hats and polo shirts. While a good deal more comfortable and movement-friendly, it's nowhere near as natty.

Creasing and fading aside, Quico Magrinat presents well for mid-1940s camera and printing technology. He’s part of a 100-card set from Cuba's Caramelo Deportivo cigars dubbed Felices. They packaged each paper-thin player in packs of tobacco products and most collectors pasted them into an album (see below) directly over pictures of the cards themselves.

Even when cards didn’t end up glued in place, their fragile nature means that almost any example you find will be low-grade. My own copy is creased and stained, but otherwise legible.

American umpires occasionally made cameos in sets and their best showing's from the high series of 1955 Bowman. (Putting umps on cards helped the flagging company fill out their checklist at a time of fierce competition with Topps over "real" players.)

1955 Bowman #303, HOF umpire Jocko Conlan

My favorite contemporary card is of Bob Motley, the former Negro League umpire who appeared in 2008 Allen & Ginter.

2008 Allen & Ginter #261, Bob Motley

Caramelo Deportivo printed this colorful collector album for its 1945-46 set.

The album's opening page includes the league umpires, with #5 Magrinat at right.

This particular album's mentioned in The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, who calls it "a relic of an age about to end."

Google Books excerpt from The Pride of Havana

The "age about to end" was Cuba's first era of Cuban-run professional baseball, which re-aligned with USA leagues and owners for the decade prior to Castro's 1959 revolution. International tourism rose, American games started appearing on Cuban TV, and kids bought packs of Bowman or Topps in Havana candy stores. Domestic card production continued through 1958 (see CubanBall.com for examples), but never reached the quality seen stateside. Post-revolution Cuba broke diplomatic ties and disbanded their pro league, leaving these post-WWII sets as our readiest pictorial record of the teams and players.

Value: I picked up the pictured #5 for $15 from CubaCollectibles.com. Most cards on eBay are position players and former Negro Leaguers generate the highest prices.

Fakes / reprints: It'd be easy enough to counterfeit these black-and-white cards with modern equipment, but fakers might find limited interest from collectors, given the set's low profile (and pictured umpire).

1980 O-Pee-Chee Baseball #5, Ron Jackson

Many consider O-Pee-Chee (aka, OPC) a Topps hanger-on, or simply the Canadian version of an American classic. Surely the relationship's more nuanced, but it's easy to understand the impression. Collectors, focused as we are on cardboard, could assume as much from OPC's re-used designs and very similar checklists. Until the late 1970s, the two companies differed primarily in two things: paper stock and the inclusion of French.

1980's OPC set again mirrors the American design, but the checklist and overall set focus differs notably. Topps led off with 6 “Highlight” cards that celebrated 3000-hit plateaus and a handful of record breakers. (Their #5 is Garry Templeton cracking 100 hits from each side of the plate for the first time.) OPC, on the other hand, went right into “normal” players. Craig Swan received #1 after his excellent 1979 campaign. Twins outfielder Ron Jackson bats fifth, a more glamorous (to me) position than Topps #18.

With 28 active teams, the set should include about 26 players each. Does OPC's Canadian roots mean a greater share for Toronto and Montreal than more geographically distant teams?

• Montreal Expos: 28 cards
  
• San Diego Padres: 26
  
• Texas Rangers: 29
  
• Toronto Blue Jays: 27

Numbers say the answer is "no." Canadian sets (including OPC and Leaf) would later dedicate a larger share to their countrymen, but that's just not how they rolled in 1980.

Value: Only superstars cost more than a quarter or so for cards from the 1980s.

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