Retro Fun.

       It is safe to say most of us reached retro card saturation sometime in the early to mid-aughts.  The Topps Archives and Topps Heritage sets in 2001 begat Upper Deck's Vintage and Decades series and opened up a floodgate of reprints, design reuse, and pseudo-retro sets.  Sometimes it is refreshing and neat but most of the time it is gratuitous and poorly executed.  And since Topps keeps pumping out their Heritage and revamped Archives sets over and and over, year after year, we get very little variation in the presentation of our nostalgia.

Enter Topps Super 70s Sports Baseball.  If you recognize the name and follow this dude on twitter, you know the whole tongue-in-cheek schtick this feed has.  It posts multiple retro photos a day with an amusing over-the-top caption to it to inflict an emotional response: sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes ridiculous.  When I saw they had teamed up with Topps to put out a card set, I couldn't resist.  Lemme tell you, they had me at the graphic on the box:

When I saw the design of the cards, I knew immediately that they were going for someone like me who wants the vibe of old school cards but not the horrible repetition the whole parade has become.  If you are as much of a card nerd as I am (and if you are reading this blog, I assume you are) you recognized the elements right away: The script team logo from 1978, the pennant flag from 1977, and the ribbon from 1979 (or 1974 perhaps?) all remixed and reorganized into something organic and new.  It's like hearing a perfect cover version of a popular overplayed song that makes the whole thing come alive again.

The "pack" was actually a plastic box sealed with tamper tape. Very interesting indeed.

 

 

I pre-ordered this stuff, which I NEVER do even for Ginter or Heritage, back in early November.  I got a late Christmas present when they arrived on Boxing Day.  And yup, I love them as much as I thought I would.

 

First and foremost, new photos!  One of the huge complains I and so many other collectors is when they put old guys on new cards, they use the same pictures over and over and over and over again.  I know I have written about it and I know other bloggers have too so when I see new shots from the no doubt bottomless pile Topps should have, it makes me very happy indeed.  The other thing I noticed right away is that they feel right.  The vintage cardboard is always a plus on these sets. I know shiny white glossy paper looks better but when you are doing this sort of thing, it really should be thick and pulpy and dull.  It makes the backs look right too:

 

I probably should have scanned more backs but the cartoons are wonderful and they look new though someone with more knowledge than me could probably figure out if they are reused.  Either way, they let a third of the back be the comic and I am more than okay with that.  The backs themselves are in the color scheme of 1977 or 1979 with the ribbon from '79 featured.  I was kind of expecting the humorous tone of the S70sS Twitter feed in the write-up but they are pretty straight forward.  I doubt Topps would want to alienate anyone with a Kevin Costner joke on the back of a Cal Ripken card (google it).

Lets look at all of these beauties.  I even got a nice little hit:

 

 

That's a Dave Parker autograph in the middle there.  I didn't have a Cobra signature in my collection so that one is going to stay.  The last two cards are themed parallels that add the colorful banners of 1975 to the mix.  I think it might have been too much to ask for the whole set to look like that so that is a nice addition and kinda what parallels should do in the first place.  I might need to look into making an entire page of the Magnificent Mustaches. 

They did modern players in the set too, which is fine I guess but certainly not what I came to see.  Scherzer and Turner certainly fit in with a 70s theme, Cole and Soto, not so much.  Full disclosure: I am easily old enough to be Juan Soto's dad.

 

 

You may count more than 20 cards, that's because I also pre-ordered my favorite players, the Gary Carter, the Frank Thomas, the Mike Piazza (amusingly shown in his Marlins uniform), and of course the Mets players there on the bottom.  A wise decision since I didn't get any of them in my 20-card box.  These cards are easily the collecting highlight of the dumpster fire that has been 2020.  If you were on the fence about getting any of this stuff because you don't like all the faux-vintage that gets churned out, I suggest it highly.  I hope Topps learns from this and does more fun sets like this rather than just reprinting all their old cards.

The All Star Orphans.

       Tonight would have been the 91st All Star Game, to have been played in Dodgers Stadium.  Not only does this one not count, it isn't being played at all because we currently live in the worst of all possible scenarios where nothing good will ever happen again.  Rather than wallowing in our pain, let's instead look at some old school Topps cards. 

       Some of the best design quirks in Topps sets are in the All Star cards.  For most years from 1958 until 1992, they gave some sort of shout out to the best players in the league - though not always to the all star starters or even all stars at all (but we'll get to that).  For the most part, they did either subsets or on-card graphics to the previous year's all stars and I decided to create some pages to illustrate those designs.  And instead of picking the best player in the set or even the best photo, I decided to pick the absolute worst player.  I mean, they can't be that terrible, they did get an all star card after all, but not every collection needs to be the best of the best of the best, it adds a little variety to the pages.  While I was accumulating these cards, I dubbed the list "The All Star Orphans" and the name stuck; my thinking was most of these players were only all stars once or only got the one all star card in their career. 

       So that was my basis for these choices, they had to be either one time all stars or if that didn't apply, just the worst player among the usual superstars who make the All Star squad.  It worked out nicely that there were 27 different designs for my nine-card criteria. There were multi-player All Star cards in 1993-1995 and the last dozen years or so, the Update Series has had all the All Star selections (and certainly could have given me some truly oddball choices) but I have to draw the line somewhere and it made sense to go 1958 (the first year of all star cards) and 1992 (the last year of a run of a separate all star subset that started in 1982).  Let's break them all down:

1992: Bryan Harvey (2x All Star) Led the league in saves in 1991, ended up on the expansion Marlins and kind of faded away.  He has kids in the Orioles and Pirates organizations.

1991: Bobby Thigpen (1x All Star) His one big claim to fame was saving a record 57 games that year - which was 11 more than the record - though the record is now 62 by K-Rod in 2008.  He never saved more than 34 in any other season.

1990: Joe Magrane (never made an All Star team) Here we have our first non-All Star all star card.  He did go 18-9 in 1989 and led the league in 1988 with a 2.18 ERA (with a 5-9 record!) but after 1990 his arm fell off and he was never effective again.  Why did Topps go with Joe here? Who the hell knows. 

1989: Kirk Gibson (never made an All Star team) Ah, 1988 Kirk Gibson, how I hate you.  The designation on the card is PH and this is obviously a nod to his famous game one homer in the World Series.  He is the only league MVP to never make an all star team (and he played 17 seasons).  Why not just make a card for his series heroics?  God, I hate this card almost as much as I hate Gibson.

1988: Shane Rawley (1x All Star...in 1986) Rawley made the All Star team the year before.  This card is for I guess the brilliant 2/3 of a season he had in 1987.  He won 17 games by August and finished the year with...17 wins.  He was out of the league by 1989.

1987: Tony Bernazard (never made an All Star team)  The only explanation I can come up with for why they gave Tony this card is because they were tired of making a card for Damaso Garcia.  Why not Lou Whitaker, who actually was the all star second baseman in 1986?  Plus, the less said about Tony's front office career, the better.

1986: Tom Herr (1x All Star) This page has two of my most hated players. I don't know why, but my brother and I took all of our anger at the mid-80s Cardinals out on Tom Herr.  Not Vince Coleman, not Willie McGee, not even Jack Clark...we hated Tommy Herr.  It also figures he eventually found his way to the early 90s Mets, where we could hate him every night.  He also drove in 100 runs while hitting less than 10 homers in 1985, which is pretty neat regardless of my opinion of him.

1985: Jeff Leonard (1x All Star...in 1987) He has one of the great nicknames of all time: Old Penitentiary Face.  He has two other cool nicknames as well, One Flap Down and Hac-Man (or Hack-Man).  He had a pretty decent 1984 season (21/86/.302) but I am at a loss as to why his happy mug is on this card.

1984: LaMarr Hoyt (2x All Star) Hoyt won the 1983 Cy Young award and was also an all star in 1982.  He also loved cocaine and ended up out of the league by 1986.  I am shocked he never played for the Yankees during this time.

Best design on the page: 1988 (might be my favorite subset design of all) runner up: 1987 (the league logos and red, white, and blue stars pop)

Worst design on the page: 1985 (they just threw a star where the team logo is on the base card, the tan color is also a loser) runner up 1986 (zzzzzzzzz I'm sorry, I fell asleep looking at this)

1983: Pete Vuckovich (never made an All Star team) Pete did win the Cy Young award in 1982 and led the league in wins in 1981, so it is not egregious that he's here.  Alas, his shoulder turned to mush and he was out of the league by 1986.  Also, he later led the league in nose hair and won the triple crown.

1982: Ken Singleton (3x All Star) Ken might be the best player of all on any these pages.  He was a good steady bat for a decade for the Orioles.  But the first subset in the expanded 1980s Topps sets was just loaded so he "won" the honor of being here.

1981: Jim Bibby (1x All Star) Jim is exactly the kind of player I wanted for these pages.  He had a pretty decent career and he made exactly one All Star game. Of course, he didn't start the 1980 All Star game, J.R. Richard did. Why didn't Richard get the designation instead? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1980: Roy Smalley (1x All Star) He was a second generation player who made his first and only all star game in 1979.  He had a pretty unspectacular career and 1979 was maybe his 3rd or 4th best year but he started the All Star game mostly because of the "one player from every team" rule.  His dad never made an all star team.

1979: Richie Zisk (2x All Star) Zisk is a forgotten player but he had a pretty good run in the 1970s.  He got his all star card in 1979 for 1978 though his 1977 year was better.  If he had his big years for the Dodgers or the Red Sox, rather than the Rangers and the Mariners, he'd be much better remembered.

1978: Rick Burleson (4x All Star)  The 1978 All Star cards were just loaded with hall of famers and superstars, so I had to go with our first time four timer.  Rooster was known as a bit of a red ass in his day and he hurt his arm and was done as a useful player after 1981. 

1977: Randy Jones (2x All Star) Jones got lost in Fidrych-mania in 1976 and even though he had a great year and won the Cy Young, but no one remembers that at all.  Much like Fidrych, he was never very good after his big year in 1976 either.  Since Jones and Fidrych both made two All Star teams, I went with Jones because he deserves some recognition somewhere.

1976: Joe Rudi (3x All Star) Rudi was a cog in the A's green machine in the 1970s but he was also one of the players Charlie Finley tried to sell off in 1976, deals the commissioner all killed.  So he gets to be mentioned with players like Rollie Fingers and Vida Blue in that respect.

1975: Jeff Burroughs (2x All Star) Jeff famously won the 1974 AL MVP because the A's had three players who all split the vote, including the aforementioned Joe Rudi. He's not the worst player to win an MVP award but he's easily one of the most forgettable.

Best design on the page: 1976 (I love the chubby star designation, '76 had the best icons) runner up: 1978 (that badge is great and reminds me of the US Interstate signs)

Worst design on the page: 1981 (just for the very boring little drop down) runner up: 1980 (same reason)

1974: Rick Wise (2x All Star) The only multi-player subset in the vintage era, Wise finds himself among a bunch of iconic players - including Catfish Hunter on his own card. He also made the huge mistake of being traded straight up for Steve Carlton.  Not very wise at all.

1970: Rico Petrocelli (2x All Star) Topps took three years off for All Star cards, which is a shame since they all could have used them, 1971 and 1972 because they were so good looking, 1973 because the set is so boring. If Rico had the years he had in 1969-1971 in the 1990s, people would have said he was on steroids.

1969: Ken Harrelson (1x All Star)  Known more for a bunch of things other than his playing days (announcer, golfer, protruding proboscis) The Hawk had his career year in 1968 during the Year of the Pitcher and made the All Star team.  He was then out of the league by 1971 and eventually tortured White Sox fans with his homerism and annoying calls for decades. 

1968: Joe Horlen (1x All Star) Joe is another great example of All Star Orphan-ness.  He led the league in ERA and shutouts in 1967 but was fiercely mediocre most of the other dozen years of his career.  Dean Chance started the game and Catfish Hunter lost it, but somehow, Joe Horlen got the card in the set. Topps made no All Star cards from 1963-1967.

1962: Chuck Schilling (never made an All Star team) Here in the early days of all star cards, Topps went with the Sporting News or Sport Magazine selections, which is why Chuck got on the card even though he never did make an All Star team on the field.  Chuck finished 3rd in the ROY voting and yet was out of the league in 5 years.

1961: Frank Herrera (never made an All Star team) Pancho is probably my favorite Orphan.  He qualifies for One Year Wonder status as he won the IL MVP in 1959, had a pretty decent 1960 year (finishing second for ROY even), and then was back to the minors for good by 1962.  Heck, he never had a regular 'base' Topps card, he had two rookie card designs (1959 and 1960) and this high numbered all star beauty. Alas, Topps also went all Bob Clemente on him by anglicizing his name.

1960: Joe Cunningham (1x All Star) Joe finds himself in a high number series among a lot of hall of famers, but he had his career year in 1959 and wandered onto the All Star roster.  Willie Mays! Hank Aaron! Joe Cunningham!

1959: Wes Covington (never made an All Star team) I am kind of at a loss to say something about Wes, he was that average a ballplayer. He had good 90 game runs in 1957 and 1958 but never got more than 400 PA in any season.  He helped the Braves win the Series in '57 but then bounced around the league afterward.  Hey, he was once traded for Don Larson...just like dozens of other players.  Wow, he really is bland.  Um, his 1961 Topps card is pretty sweet, so he's got that going for him, which is nice.

1958: Frank Malzone (6x All Star) Topps first foray into All Star cards finds us with the player here with the most selections.  But so stacked was this subset, I had to go with Malzone over Johnny Temple simply because, well, I owned the Malzone and not the Temple.  This subset famously includes the first Topps Stan Musial card and Bob Costas' favorite Mickey Mantle card.  I should probably get the Temple card to better fit in with the spirit of the project, but hey, these are my pages.

Best design on the page: 1961 (it was so good, they basically copied it in 1970) runner up: 1960 (very of its time)

Worst design on the page: 1974 (it fits the set, but man is it boring) runner up: 1968 (half the card is the year and an advertisement for The Sporting News)

Never made an All Star team: 7
1x All Star: 9
2x All Star: 7
3+ All Star: 4

       I hope this little rundown will help fill the void of no baseball tonight.  I know the league is suppose to start up again on the 23rd, but I will believe it when I see it.  So much stuff is going on so rapidly and so many players seem to not be into putting their lives literally on the line, I wouldn't want anyone to become a real orphan just so we can watch sports.