#639

Back to dull again. Boy - there were a lot of dull cards in the 1970's! I like this because it looks like it was shot at Ridell High. I expect to see Travolta prancing around in the background with that guy from Taxi.

#640

July 24, 1976. Mickey Rivers bunted and Randolph scored on the play. This is a shot of that incident. This is my all time favorite Carlton Fisk card (he has been in some good ones). This may be the best card from 1977. The Spencer (648) was good, and there are a few other neat ones, but this is probably the best.

#641

Orioles hat, Tigers uniform. A head. Skip it.

#642

Jose (Coco) Laboy is somewhat of a novelty. Many fans of the late sixties remember him. He was a rookie of the year contender, then he faded away. Kind of like Joe Charboneau. I think he hit the first HR in Expos history on opening day in 1969 against the Mets. Anyway, to me he was one of those players who was already retired when I got into baseball, but I always remember this was one of the many neat cards that my brother had in his collection.

644 & 643

Back to dullsville. This project makes it clear that a neat card back in the day was something special. Now, most of the cards are action shots, but they are cropped so close that you could see the boogers in the player's nose.

Here Bradley's shades are what made me chose 644 (reminiscent of Lowell Palmer). as for 643, Gibson reminds me of someone who could have been Kevin Costner's stand in when he was shooting Bull Durham.

#645

April 15, 1972. That appears to be the date of this shot. Again, another paint over job. I love the ridiculously disproportionately large "C" on Bobby Brooks' shirt in the background. I think the batter here is Cesar Tovar, but I cannot be sure.

#647 & #646

A couple of heads. I hate heads, the only thing worse is a no-hat (see 1975 Bruce Ellingsen). Anyway, these heads win because both of these cards look like guys from the Gramercy Riffs. Especially Floyd.

#648

This is a pretty neat card, and one of the better ones from the 1977 set. The White Sox uniforms of the day were horrible. The picture was take on Sunday, May 30, 1976. How do I know? Well, I know the picture was taken in Oakland on a Sunday, most likely in 1976. Chicago was at Oakland on that day. Also, the box score shows that Bill North ran wild that day. He stole a base and was caught stealing.

Bill North was on the all time "cool" team so having him in the shot is a definite bonus.

#649

I like this shot of Lyle is a Sox uniform. This is about a year before he was traded to the Yankees for Danny Cater. Another reminder of the good old days.

#650

OK - I know this is a controversial pick, because there are a couple of neat 650's, but there is something special about this card. Dick Allen spent little time with the Dodgers, so that in itself is cool. I also like the background of an empty Dodger Stadium. The really cool thing about this card can be found at the bottom left corner. I think that is the photographer's leg! I guess Topps had some real Kwal-i-T photographers in those days. No Felix Unger for sure!

652 & 651

These are a couple of dull cards, but they win their numbers. The backgrounds look so bucolic. I don't think today's cards ever look like they are taken in an open field.

#653

1974 Bob Stinson. A journeyman catcher. I always preferred his 1975 card for some reason, but this is the best 653. Be forewarned, the 652 and 651 are not so great either.

#654

I like this card. It reminds me of my childhood. In 1977, I had a soft spot for the Indians. They were lovable losers, but had a lot of cool young players like Rick Manning. Duane Kuiper and Ron Pruitt. Unfortunately for the tribe, other than Eckersley who they gave to the Red Sox for a pack of goons, they had zero pitching. The other thing about this card is it looks like it was taken with a great (for the time) zoom lens. Good stuff.

#655

Another neat card for sure. I wish I had this one when I was a kid because I would have used it in my teams, but I didn't really have access to the 1973 high numbers. I probably had to use the 75. Not a terrible card, but kind of dull.

You see, the only way to collect cards is the traded way and not the say way. I remember looking through the newspaper for the transactions and every spring training buying a magazine with rosters. Ahhh - the good old days. Now, current rosters are available on the Internet, but in the 70's, rosters were printed once a year.

#656

Finally, a neat card. This is a famous Topps paint over. When I was a kid, I hated these, but now I like it. It is great that there is no letters on his uniform at all. It would have looked cheesy if they did (look at the 1973 Graig Nettles). The 1973 set gets a fair amount of criticism from the hobby. What I think makes a good card is not what Dr. Beckett and his minions think makes a good card.

This is one of the only cards I can think of that shows a player arguing with an umpire. A very cool card indeed.

#657

Since many of these higher number cards are not neat, it is difficult to choose certain cards. Here is another strange card. Again, look at the background. I see people sitting in little league style bleachers, and some guy that looks like Huggy Bear walking in front. They are all behind a chain fence like the one in my backyard.

Where did the Expos have their spring training, at a local high school? Personally, I like it. I guess today's ball player requires a modern facility like the Yankees have in Tampa today. God forbid they had to train this close to spectators!

#658

Again, a card chosen more for its background than for the card itself. My apologies to Steve Dunning fans. This is a great shot of the Old Yankee Stadium, where you could see the old façade and the left field bleachers. As I look through old cards, I notice that so many were shot at Yankee stadium. In the coming days, we will see some of these great shots.

It is reminiscent of an era gone by in world of baseball and the hobby of card collecting.

#659

This card looks strange doesn't it? It is like a strange perspective piece. Where is he looking anyway?

I chose this one for two reasons. First, there was no better 659 and second to go on a rant. This card is what is known in the hobby as a short print. You see, back in the days when card collecting was actually supposed to be fun and not profitable, Topps printed the cards on a huge sheet, and then cut them to put in the packs. Since the sheet was a big rectangle, only so many cards could be on a sheet, so sometimes to make the numbers work, a particular card would be on the same sheet twice. This was known as a double printing because there were twice as many of these cards.

However, in certain years, instead of double printing, they would print some cards only on every other sheet, so there were half as many of these cards printed. These are known as short prints. They did it because they had to, not because they wanted to artificially inflate the value of certain cards like the cretin who buy and sell cards today.

Today, in the Wall Street climate of card collecting, card companies no longer need to print big sheets and cut them. So, there is no need for short prints right? Wrong.

Now, they do it on purpose. They purposely short print rookies and other desired cards, so that collectors need to buy more of what they don't want to get what they want. Due to this forced scarcity, the value of the cards on the secondary market is higher (which is what most collectors want anyway). However, the card manufacturers have to be laughing at these idiots who fork over $2.99 per pack at a chance to get an Evan Longoria short print, only to get their fourth Chone Figgins.

My New Project - The Ultimate 660 - #660

OK - I stole this idea from another blog, but here goes. I will be posting pictures and commentary on the best 660 of the 1970s baseball cards. Here is how I will do it, I will look at one card number and pick the best card that bears that number from 1970-1979. So which is the best #660 from the 1970's? For me it is the 1970 Johnny Bench. Now let me add that I am not all about card value, and what it is worth, etc. But, card 660 was not that great during the 1970s. (Just look at the horrible 1978 Jason Thompson if you don't believe me). Anyway, the best thing about this card is the background. It looks like the Reds used to train on a farm or near a barn. Ahh - the good old days.