Baseball Cards...10 unconnected or, at best, semi-connected observations

1. 1952 Topps - This set of cards is held in such reverential esteem by so many collectors that Topps has used the format for other sports. This is based only on their relative rarity, and specifically the iconic Mickey Mantle rookie card that appears during the final (and most obscure) series of the set. As a collector myself, this bothers me because the aesthetic quality of the 1952 Topps set pales in comparison to the four following Topps' sets, '53-'56. Only in baseball cards would this hold ture - would you rather own the only known work of a mediocre but perhaps influential artist that preceded Van Gogh, or a gorgeous but not-as-rare painting by Van Gogh himself? The valuation of the 1952 Topps set makes no sense to me. Maybe it's the presence of the Mantle rookie in that final, rare series but, if anything, that just exemplifies how an NY-centric view of the world influences everything, even when there's no justification for that influence.



2. The 1956 Topps set is the most beautiful ever produced. For most of the cards, the action sequences are so well-rendered, the best representations of men actually playing baseball until actual photographs of players in action began to appear between '72 and '74. The only caveat is that certain "plays" are duplicated several times...in other words, Topps used the same still photograph for the background action on the cards of multiple players. Two good examples of that are the just-after-a-close-play-at-the-plate pose and the runner-safe-on-a-close-play-at-first, the former being used for several different catchers.



3. One of the above links is for the 1956 Topps Harvey Haddix, a card that I like because it shows a pitcher running the bases rather than pitching. While there's very little to like about the initial Donruss set from 1981 (flimsy stock, bad photography, even the stats on the back are shit), it does contain a great card of Pete Vuckovich. Vuckovich was a pitcher, and a good one at that, but this particular card shows him in the traditional hitter's pose - following through and following the flight of the ball off his bat.



4. My favorite '56 Topps card is that of Jim Greengrass, an obscure outfielder for the Phillies. The action shot is, his right hand bracing against the outfield wall as he makes a running catch in deep center with his back to the camera (the illustrated image is obviously drawn from a photograph). The odd aspect of the card, the omission, is that Greengrass doesn't have a number on the back of his uniform. Eventually, I realized that the base photo was probably a picture of Richie Ashburn and not Greengrass himself, thus explaining why the number was white-washed away. Moreover, it's probably Ashburn because his back is turned so directly to the camera that the player depicted is almost certainly the centerfielder and Ashburn played center almost exclusively for the Phillies. So you have an image that is not just aesthetically beautiful but also a secret image of a great defensive player and, not just that, it's the only baseball card that shows Ashburn doing what he did best - play center with reckless abandon.



5. In the discussion of doctored photographs, nothing holds a candle to the 1973 Graig Nettles. Traded from the Indians to the Yankees during the '72-'73 off-season, Topps airbrushed a Yankees uniform onto Nettles. But the airbrushing job is so atrocious. He seems to be wearing a gray road uniform, but a badly-rendered, outsized depiction of the interlocking "NY" logo appears on his left breast...and that logo is only on the Yankees' home uniforms (both then and today). The end result is that Nettles appears to be wearing Yankees' pajamas.



6. Why is the '65 so hard to find? Sure it's a beloved figure, a high number card, in a funny pose but is that obscure? The joke is that Uecker is posing in a left-handed batting stance, whereas he actually hit right-handed. A fun card, but it's not (a/t the book prices) very valuable, so why doesn't anyone have it in stock? Or, conversely, if it's so hard to find, why isn't it more valuable?



7. For seemingly mundane sets, the 1983 and '84 Fleers have some absolute gems. Jay Johnstone and Vance Law ("Oh crap, I broke my glasses") to cite two examples. Should anyone else ever read this, are there any other funny cards from those sets?



8. Speaking of funny cards, one of my all-time favorites is Greg Luzinski's 1982 Topps "In Action" card. The image captures why baseball jerseys should always be tucked in as well as epitomizing the White Sox uniform follies from that era better than any other card except the 1977 team card, where they're decked out in shorts.



9. Another good one is the 1983 Topps Mike Armstrong, which I call "double vision." The head shot and the main shot aren't exactly the same (his head is cocked slight to the right in the main frame) but putting two such similar photographs side by side so neatly defeats the goal of a head shot and an action shot.



10. Throughout this post, I've linked extensively to "Beckett Marketplace" which I believe is the best place, online or in person, to hunt for baseball cards. I do so not to use their images for my own personal gain but, rather, to encourage you, dear imaginery reader, to re-discover the lost childhood art of collecting baseball cards.