This set made use of the 1975 Topps Baseball design.  This was very common with the football releases.  Most Topps designs of the 1970s borrowed heavily from previously-released North-American sets, and A&BC, the UK company who released football cards prior to 1975, themselves licensed a number of famous baseball designs and made use of them for football.

Many of the shots in this set are posed, but there are a number of game action pictures which are interesting, to say the least.  I don’t think I could manage a kick like that without doing some serious internal damage. 

Like Roberts, I too was a defender when I played, but that was a result of having no skill whatsoever other than getting in the way of people who knew what they were doing.  My son’s soccer career is now two games old.  To me, he looks like a midfielder.

I’ve forgotten about the footballer cards for the past few months.  I have to pick this back up.  They’re such a change of pace and a real blast to collect.  Plus, I’m learning about a sport of which I know virtually nothing.  It’s great.

Again – I love the fact that these cards left space for kids to add in the prior year’s stats themselves.  I wonder how many actually did.

This is just a great-looking card.

It’s not a great hardship in the grand scheme of things, but one irritant of collecting vintage baseball is that my team is missing.  I finished the OPC sets after 1977 ages ago and at the moment I’m working on things from 1971 and earlier – sets in which the Blue Jays are not so surprisingly absent.

That’s not to say it’s not fun – if it weren’t, I’d abandon it.  Still, it’s always nice to have a bit of a chase team just so that the entire process isn’t entirely an academic exercise.  To that end, I try to make a bit of a point of finding guys who at some point in their careers would either play or manage here – either at the major or minor-league level.  Thankfully, even though the Jays didn’t play until 1977, the Leafs had a history dating back to the 1880s.  This leaves a fair number of options.

At top left is a young Roy Hartsfield.  Roy’s major league career was pretty short – he played parts of three seasons as a second-baseman with the Boston Braves from 1950-52, hitting a combined .273.  His baseball-reference page shows a respectable bat (albeit with limited pop) and decent range, but also a large number of errors.  He was traded in 1953 to the Dodgers for Andy Pafko, but he never played for them, heading instead to Montreal and various other minor-league stops.

By 1956, he’d turned to managing.  He moved about the Dodgers system through various minor leagues until 1972 and by 1976 was completing his fourth season as manager of the AAA Hawaii Islanders – not a bad gig if you can get it.

On a snowy day in April 1977, Hartsfield managed the first-ever game for the Toronto Blue Jays.  He’d guide them through three painful seasons of 100-plus losses before being replaced by Bobby Mattick.  Stephen Brunt described Hartsfield this way:

Peter Bavasi, the Jays’ first president, brought in Roy Hartsfield to manage the team out of the gate because he was an amiable guy who could spin a good story, because he had a southern accent that sounded suitably baseballish (a help in selling of the game in a foreign locale), because he was a minor-league lifer who would be forever grateful for the opportunity, and who could be easily discarded when the time came.

Cynical, I suppose, but none of that detracts from an absolutely gorgeous baseball card above.  I love 1952 Bowman.  I like all their early releases.  They’re undersized and clearly influenced early Parkhurst hockey (see the 1952-53 release below).

1952 Bowman and 1952-53 Parkhurst are clearly kindred spirits.

The early Bowmans take great poses and combine them with wonderful old ballparks to make something that really stands out.  I think they’re great, even if I have to cheat to find a Blue Jay.

Unfortunately for Roy, his crackerjack fielding couldn’t keep him in the majors. He was done by June, 1952.

I can read this, so clearly Adam needs to work on the signature.

I should trade more.  It’s not that I don’t like trading or that I’m naturally antisocial (well, not excessively antisocial, anyway), I just never get around to it.  There are currently four trade packages I have sitting around, waiting to be mailed.  Two are almost a year old.  Fortunately, the intended recipients have no idea they’re out there (which makes them more presents than trades, I guess), or I might be in trouble.

Another part of the problem is that I tend to like old stuff and most trading involves new stuff.  While there are clearly other people trying to finish, say, 1969 OPC baseball (I can tell because I keep losing on eBay), nobody writes about it.  Doubles accumulate in the basement and I have no idea what to do with them.

So when somebody casually mentions, “Gee, it might be nice to find old OPC baseball cards of my team,” alarm bells go off and I get all excited.  Over at  ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession, this mistake was made: “If you know a reasonable (cheap) source for mid-grade OPC cards from the 60s and 70s please let me know,” he said.

“I DO!! I DO!! IT’S MY BASEMENT!!!” I cried, though not too loud because the baby was finally sleeping.  In about 15 minutes I had maybe 25-odd Giants and a trade was proposed.

“What would you like in return?”

“Umm (realizing I know jack about modern releases), I dunno.  Jays?”

And that was enough.  I’d already forgotten about the whole thing when the package arrived.  There were a boatload of this year’s Heritage, which I liked, a bunch of shiny things, which I liked, a Gypsy Queen insert of R.A. Dickey, which I liked and most remarkably, not a single cringe-worthy player.  A lot of the past 20 years haven’t been that much fun.  I don’t want Esteban Loaiza’s autograph.  It wasn’t here.

What I liked best, though, was this card.  Scanner time has been limited, so I have only a lousy ill-lit picture, but this is simply neat.  If I’d been asked, “do you want an Adam Lind autograph,” I’d probably have said, “not particularly,” but I find this fascinating.  It helps that with all the new additions that have somehow added up to very little, it’s Adam Lind who has come right out of the woodwork and had a tremendous season.  The card-within-a-card aspect is something to which I’d raised a Spockian eyebrow when I’d seen them online, but in person, it works rather well.

The signature is even legible, which makes it all the better.

Thanks for a great trade!  I’ve since found 6 more that are going into the next pile.  I have no idea when I will send it. 

The inner card will slop around a bit in the outer one, as if to prove that yes indeed, this was made in two pieces – sort of like the early toonies were reputed to do.

Gerry Cheevers – by yours truly

Many moons ago, I used to draw things.  It was part hobby, part school – but I enjoyed it and it was fun.

Eventually, career and family took precedence and I didn’t so much quit as simply stop.  I just never had time to pour into a project.  I did keep my old drawing table in pieces in the basement for the day when there would once again be time, but I’m not convinced it will survive the next cleanup.

Anyhow, a number of years back, I was stuck at work overnight babysitting a very, very long-running batch process and at about 5:00 a.m. I decided that since I had nothing better to do, I’d see whether anything was left in the hands (that’s always been the biggest fear – that someday I’d reach for this and find it was gone).  On no sleep and lots (and lots) of coffee, I took one of my favourite pictures and drew it up.

I post it here to say that it’s OK, Bruins.  I forgive you.

Sort of.

And good luck.

Four guys back and none have Geoffrion.

I’ve recovered (sort of) from the Leafs’ traumatic collapse loss event that shall go unmentioned and I’m coping by paying attention to baseball through at least the end of this round.  Still, most of the stuff that has been appearing in the mail is hockey-oriented, including these two.

The Detroit Red Wings won the 1954 Stanley Cup and seem to have done so without understanding that leaving Bernie Geoffrion unattended right in front of your own goal is normally not conducive to winning.  Fortunately for them, they still had Terry Sawchuk v1.0 in goal.  Terry would finish the playoffs 8-4 with a 1.60 GAA that season, back it up by winning 40 games in 1954-55 and another Stanley Cup, then be unceremoniously dumped on the Boston Bruins (unfortunate souls, they) to make room for a kid named Glenn Hall.  Hall himself would be out in two years and it would cost the Wings a young John Bucyk to get Terry back.  Asset mismanagement like that would put the Wings into a 41-year Cup drought.

This year, though, they were riding high, besting Montreal in seven in the Final.  Montreal would lose the next Final, also in seven, before deciding enough was enough and winning the following five.

I’ve always liked the 1954-55 Parkhurst release, not least because it’s got a dozen of these action cards packed at the back of the set.  This includes a shot of a pre-rookie Jacques Plante, some Leafs/Wings tilts and this gem from the Final.  It would be nice if it were possible to determine which game it was.  Nice wordy writeup on the back, too.  This card isn’t perfect, but it’s the last card in the set and it goes for a crazy premium in NM, so it’ll do.

“Hound Dog” is stuck in my head as I post this.

Tom McCarthy’s NHL career was pretty short, spanning just 60 games over parts of four seasons between 1956-57 and 1960-61.  He had a lengthy career overall, though, playing in the East Coast, Western and American Leagues until his retirement in 1969-70.   At one point or other, he belonged to five of the Original 6 organizations, missing only Chicago for the full set.  He was also briefly the property of the Canucks (who picked up the AHL Rochester Americans), but retired before the first team took to the ice.

I also think he looks kind of like Elvis here.  I’m not sure anyone ever saw Tom and Elvis together, so maybe there’s a great secret the world has not yet been made aware of.

Tom had decent size for that era and scored well in the minors. Wonder what held him back.

A couple of hockey bloggers are taking part in charity runs and thus have fundraising efforts.  I’m trying to help them out and, as such, have devised a little contest.  I’ve gone through my boxes of stuff and have pulled 30-odd (haven’t actually counted) cards from between 1955 and 1979 to offer up as prizes.  The objective is to have a trivia contest – 30 questions, 1-2 questions per day.  First to a correct answer gets a point, most points at the end gets first pick from the prize lot.

Now, this isn’t an exercise to see whether one gets a card at all – everyone who enters gets to pick from the lot.  The last person, by virtue of being last, even gets two.  What we’re competing for is draft order.

It’s $5 to enter ($2.50 to each of the runners) and again, everyone gets a selection.  While only a handful of cards are in the $7-15 range, there should be something to everyone’s taste.  Moreover, if there’s someone you’d like to see who isn’t there, let me know and I’ll see what I have knocking around.

These are the donation links:

Laura/The Active Stick

Sarah Connors

Step one is to make a $2.50 donation to each of them.  Step two is to let me know you’ve done it.  Step three (and this is important) is to give me a mailing address because otherwise, your winnings wind up in my basement.

Most importantly, here are the prizes up for grabs.  I have some stuff coming via mail that I’ll post as soon as I can scan it.

You’ll note the the prize pack is slightly Hab/Bruin-centric.  This is somewhat by design as The Active Stick is a Hab blogger while Sarah Connors writes for the Bruins.  Still, there is a Gordie Howe, a couple Bobby Clarkes and some vintage Leafs, Seals et al for the rest of us.

Bruins

You’ll note (if you’re sharp-eyed) that the 1957-58 Don McKenney and the 1971-72 Pete Mahovlich both appear twice.  There is only one card of each.  Scanning isn’t always clean. 

Please wander over to Pension Plan Puppets, who has been nice enough to host the contest, to see the main thread.

This card was magic.

I missed the day for Bobby Orr last week, but I won’t miss this one.  Gordie Howe is 85 this weekend.  That doesn’t make me feel old as Gordie was always old (whereas Bobby Orr is perpetually young and the notion of Orr at 65 is kind of abhorrent).  I’m not going to try for a career look at Howe as there are so many cards that it’s unwieldy (also I’m missing the ’54 Topps), but these are a few of significance to me.

Like Orr, Gordie Howe is one of those players that has long captured my imagination.  From a collecting perspective, I missed him by this much, as I started in earnest the year after his last card.  I wrote about 18 months ago about the experience of seeing a real Gordie Howe card for the first time.  It was reverential.

Since WHA cards were mostly available in the early 1980s, I was able to get my hands on a number of different Howes.  They were all fun, but what I really wanted to find was something in a Red Wings uniform.  I had the Dad’s Cookies card, but the heart wanted OPC.

When the family left Calgary in 1983, one of the things that made it even a shred palatable to me was the availability of serious card shops.  We simply didn’t have them at that time and I knew that Ontario did.  Not long after we arrived, I got a chance to visit one – it was five minutes to closing and I was allowed to dash in.  It blew my mind.  Only once had I ever even seen a card older than 1971 and this place had them by the dozen, laid out in a cabinet.  I picked up my first ’51 and ’52 Parkies that night along with the Howe above.  It’s hokey to think of it now, but at the time it was all but indescribable.  It was like finding the Hope diamond in a shoebox.

I eventually upgraded it for my set, but this card still resides in the “special” box.

1975-76 OPC WHA

Another favourite is this one – it’s not the most expensive or the rarest, but I’ve always simply liked it.  I said that the WHA cards were largely available, but that’s really true for every set but one.  For whatever reason, 1975-76 is really hard to put together.  This card is posed, but I just like the look of it:

Bobby Hull was the straw that stirred the drink for the WHA, but I never find his WHA cards to be as cool as Gordie’s.

1959-60 Topps

This next one isn’t really all that significant, but it’s one that I have always liked and another that I remember where it came from.  The best shop I have ever seen was in downtown Barrie, Ontario.  It’s gone, sadly, but it was just unreal.  Boxes of old Parkies, the first ’52 wrappers I’ve seen (which were cut from leftover sheets of ’51-52), boxes of cards from the ’30s (of which I should have bought more but didn’t) – if I’d had about $300 there 25 -30 years ago, man….

This card came from that shop. Just one that I like:

A little surface wear, but pretty solid overall

1964-65 Topps

One of the great “ones that got away” stories was a complete set of Tall Boys (probably about EX-plus) for $300 at my Burlington shop in about 1988.  I wanted it, but that was a lot of coin back then.  One of the cards I did get from that shop was this Tall Boy of Gordie Howe.  This is such a cool picture – just the ultimate look of a warrior:

The scars really make it.  Those were earned.

1951-52 Parkhurst

The last one I’ll post will have me accused of burying the lede.  It was a flea market find and cost (I think) $66 around 1985.  I would miss out on a near-perfect one in Burlington for $135 that I’ve never forgiven myself for, but I’m glad I nailed this one down.  It’s one of the highlights of the collection:

It kind of boggles the mind to think that the Gretzky RC is about the same age now as this was when I bought it.

This card is the sort of thing that drew me to vintage in the first place and keeps me there despite all the new and nifty things that companies are doing.  There’s still a bit of that little kid from 30 years ago in me who will pick up an old hunk of cardboard and just be dumbstruck that ‘holy cow – that’s Gordie Freaking Howe!‘  I’ve picked up a modern Howe autograph and a swatch card and it’s not the same thing.  I just find these more real.

Happy Birthday Gordie! I didn’t see you play the first time around, but you gave me a ton of collecting fun.

Whenever I get a chance and there is an old Bruins game on LeafsTV, I watch it solely for the purpose of watching Orr.  It’s magic.

So of course, when Orr turned 65 last week (March 20), I was ready with a big tribute post, right?  Well, no.  Did I at least have all my cards scanned so I could make this great career retrospective?  Of course not.  I still haven’t done it.  Fortunately, there are old scans I’ve never posted, like this one.

This card is #92 from the ’67-68 Topps release.  It’s the last one produced under the Topps banner by OPC and is a bit of an odd set in that they decided against trying to deal with the six new expansion teams, so half the league is missing.  Still, it’s a set with a great design and bright colours that really display well.  Orr has three cards here – this one, his Calder-Trophy winner (that uses the same picture) and a Second-Team All-Star card (the image from which would appear in both 1968 and 1969).  It’s one you don’t see that often, most of the hobby love heading towards his RC.

More than just about any other retired player, Orr gets a ton of hobby love.  There seems to be a new base card in just about every release and some new autographs every year that never fail to draw at least $100.  I’ll pick up the odd one of the base cards if I happen to like the picture (and I’d love one of the autos) but I never consider these to be “the real thing.”  For me, to really be magic, it has to be one of the cards from his playing days.  The new stuff is fun, but a collection can be complete without it.

Happy birthday, Bobby.  I should have everything scanned in time for your 70th.

The one issue with ’67-68 (other than the absence of half the league from the set) was that they somehow managed to produce a back that was even more boring than ’66-67.

The condition looked good and I was more than happy to see the win.  What isn’t really apparent from the picture and was particularly surprising to me when they arrived a week later (mail from the UK is not only cheaper than mail from the US, it gets here in half the time – something is off there) was the size of these things.  They’re miniscule.  Even 1951 Parkhurst dwarfs these cards.

I put the three of them next to a standard-sized card (1978 Topps Footballer) for reference:

Where 1951-52 Parkhurst is exactly half the size of a modern card, these are somewhere between a quarter and a third.  I don’t think they make 2/5.  They also appear to have been printed on photo paper.  They remind me a lot of the pictures we used in high school to prepare yearbooks.  For all their tininess, though, they crammed a lot of text on the back:

Patterson refuses to line up straight on the scanner. I blame the fact that he’s a doctor.

They’re actually a touch difficult to read in person.  That’s a lot of text for something the size of a slightly-overlarge postage stamp.

I have no idea how to store these.  I’m thinking perhaps a sticker sheet or a cigarette card sheet.  Either way, these are too small and are going to slew around inside.  I don’t know whether I’ll chase these in earnest, but for less than a pound, they’re pretty cool.

Technically, this is two reasons as the ’73-74 is just a recrop of the ’72-73 with a dodgy airbrush job. Still…

Let me say up front that I’m sure Nick Beverley is a very nice man.  He even coached my team for a handful of weeks before disappearing back into the mists of the front office.  They went 9-6-2 before falling on their faces in the playoffs.

So I bear him no ill will.  It’s just that these cards creep me out.  Always have.

It’s the eyes.  They just burn right into you.  It’s like some evil hybrid of Charles Manson and the hypnotoad.  You need to look away before it eats your soul.

Nietzsche said that when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.  Nietzsche never saw a Nick Beverley hockey card.  But he should have.

Brrrr.

When I’d look at the ’76 Rangers, I’d have to skip past the defensemen.  Just too scary.  Makes one wonder just how opposing forwards dared bring the puck into his end.

There are lots of other Nick Beverley cards where he’s looking away and they’re just fine.

The safest way to look at these cards is from the back:

Phew! That’s MUCH better.

Honestly, though.  They knew these things were being sold to kids.  Should have known better than to put pictures like that.  Far better to put pictures like this:

Now, THIS is something I could look at all day.