A history of stats (on baseball cards)
Posted: November 21st, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball, Cleveland, Pop Culture | 50 Comments »
A couple of people emailed in to point out that I oversimplified the stats-on-baseball-cards story in my last post and that the Topps Baseball card company has, through the years, constantly adjusted and readjusted their baseball card backs. Fine, so for fun, I thought I would go through thirty years of baseball cards I have (1954-83). We’ll stick with offensive numbers to keep this thing reasonably streamlined … maybe we’ll do a pitching history later if this one works.
1954: All kinds of numbers on the back … Offensively there are games, at bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs and batting average. But there are also defensive numbers: Put-outs, assists, errors and fielding percentage. It’s like a numbers bonanza.
1955: Same as ‘54. There was also a fun cartoon — on the back of the Al Rosen card the cartoon is called “Daffy-nitions,†— I love how they used to use the word “Daffy.†I wish we could bring that word back. Anyway, I guess the “daffy-nition†is supposed to give you an obscure baseball definition. Questio: What is a goat in baseball? Answer: A player whose errors lose the game. Awesome — that’s fun stuff for the kids. Let’s teach them how to boo players early.
1956: Same stats again only now there is a series of cartoons on the back that tell you a little bit about the player. The Al Rosen card has this caption: “A top slugger, Al twice led the league in H.R.’s and R.B.I.†And there is a drawing of a batter getting ready to hit a baseball, and the baseball looks very frightened and holds his hands up in that “Please don’t hit me†pose that Marvis Frazier later perfected.
1957: The cards got smaller and were framed vertically instead of horizontally. With some of the space gone, the fielding stats were thrown out. But to make up for that, year-by-year statistics were put on the back. In the three previous years, there was only one season of stats on the back and then the career stats. It’s still the same nine offensive stats.
1958: Apparently people did not like 1957 year-by-year stats because Topps went back to the old way — just the previous year of statistics. They did include fielding statistics again. The cartoons returned too, including a classic cartoon on the back of the Herb Score card. The caption read: “The Indians won the race for Herb with a $60,000 bonus.†And the cartoon is of lots of brutish-looking men in comical hats charging the door with bags of cartoon money while a policeman (apparently there to protect the interests of the Cleveland Indians) holds them off.
1959: The defensive statistics are gone. The year-by-year statistics are back. It’s the same nine offensive statistics as every other year — games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, average — and there are some fun cartoons. Over time, you would find, that the cartoons changed — sometimes they were curious and fanciful, other times they took on a dark tone, other times they were minimalist. I should find an art critic to help me sort through the years.
This was a fun year, though, and on the back of the Hal Naragon card is the caption: “Hal is a good defensive backstop.†And to prove this, there is a very, very strange cartoon where a catcher stands on home plate and is in the boxing stance while a bewildered runner comes to a screeching halt and has the Marvis Frazier “Please don’t hit me†look on his face. The reason it’s very strange, though (as if having a catcher want to hit a runner is not strange enough), is that Hal Naragon appears to have three arms in the drawing. I’m not sure if he was known as Hal “The Three Armed Man†Naragon or what, but it’s very odd.
1960: The cards are horizontal again. The stats are the same. The back of the Carroll Hardy card points out that he attended the University of Colorado, and the cartoon shows him in full uniform, wearing tennis rackets on his feet, and apparently trudging to class through a snowstorm (I’m guessing he’s going to class because he appears to be carrying a book).
1961: Same stats, series of cartoons on the bottom. Rocky Colavito’s card had two cartoons — one pointing out that he hit four homers in one game in ‘59, the other pointing out that he pitched three scoreless innings in ‘58. Unfortunately, the cartoons are transposed and above the wrong caption — the home run caption features a happy Rock pitching a baseball, and the scoreless innings caption features four baseballs bouncing off a bat.*
*In other news, I still cannot believe the Indians traded Rocky Colavito after ‘59.
1962: Same stats, and each back featured a more stylized cartoon that really played up the players skills. These cartoons look more like something out of a Batman comic book. Even players with somewhat limited skills have bold cartoons — Mike De La Hoz had one titled “Minor League Batting Menace.â€
1963: Same stats and the return of the more fun and whimsical and politically insensitive cartoons. On the back of the Joe Adcock card it mentions that he was traded from the Braves to the Indians and there’s a little Joe Adcock with an Native American headdress on saying “I’ve changed Tribes!†Ron Nischwitz, who was traded from Detroit, has a cartoon of him parachuting into an happy Native American village with one shouting “Welcome to the Tribe, young Chief!†In another theme, Jerry Kindall is caricatured as a baby signing a contract because he was, of course, a, yeah, bonus baby.
1964: Same stats, and now the Topps gurus decided to put a little scratcher game on the bottom of each card — you know, to prepare the kids for their future lottery compulsions. Who led the 1963 Angels in home runs? They ask the back of the Vic Davalillo card … “Rub a nickel or dime over black box for magic answer.†You know what? I’m not gonna. I don’t really care that much who led the 1963 Angels in homers. And why not use a quarter? Would a quarter not work?
1965: Same stats — it wasn’t until my childhood, apparently, that the Topps people decided to top giving us runs. There’s a simple and multi-use cartoon on top of each one. For instance, a prominent 1965 baseball card cartoon is of someone putting a star on a player. This could be used for ANY player who was an All-Star, who won any sort of award at any point in his life, who accomplished anything good ever. Then there’s a plain cartoon of a guy hitting a giant baseball — again, could be used for more or less anything. Topps kind of mailed it in in 1965.
1966: Same nine stats — and there’s little cartoon in upper right hand corner. These are a little more specific, but it’s still pretty stripped down . The Sam McDowell cartoon is captioned: “Sam hurled an 8-0 no-hitter in the PCL in 1964.†And the cartoon is of a man in a baseball uniform standing behind a machine gun of some sort firing baseball after baseball.
1967: OK, here we go, this is the year I was born. And runs are gone. Just gone. So are games. I’m not sure if there was some big meeting at Topps where they decided to go with a larger font or if they said, “Runs, meh, who cares?†I’m very curious about the decision process involved here. I mean this had to be involve the very top people in the Topps company, right?
There are two cartoons about each player … this time the caption on Sam McDowell’s card reads: “In May 1964, Sam pitched a no-hitter against Salt Lake City.“ Only the cartoon is much more involved. It features a slightly embarrassed Sam McDowell standing there while a pretty young woman sidles up to him and (I am guessing) bats her eyes. I guess no-hitters against Salt Lake really impressed the ladies. The goofiest part of the comic is not even the powerful love spark that Pacific Coast League no-hitters ignite. No, it’s that in the same drawing, there is a baseball player in the background pointing at Sam and LAUGHING. He’s laughing like: â€Check out the silly pitcher pitcher who threw the no-hitter and is now being approached by hot women. Ha ha. Joke’s on him! What a maroon. What a nincowpoop. What a gullabull.“ Well, hey, that was the summer of love I guess.
1968: Runs and games are still gone. The cartoon on the bottom is more of a riddle — What does Lee Maye do in the offseason? The answer (written upside down so to throw off the reader, I guess) is â€He’s a pop singer.“ Useful information. Sometimes the riddle is about the player on the front of the card, but sometimes not. On the back of Kenny Suarez’s card, the riddle was â€Who topped the Indians in RBIs in 1967?“ The answer: Max Alvis. Apparently the could not come up with a usable Ken Suarez riddle.
1969: Hey! Runs and games are back, baby! I would like to believe that one Topps statistician broke into the meeting, and shouted, â€I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I WILL BE HEARD. We must put runs back on the back of the cards. Runs are every bit as valuable as RBIs. Don’t you see? Can’t you see?“
The Lee Maye cartoon this time pointed out that he led the National League in doubles in 1964 — and it illustrated this by showing Lee Maye (I guess — it doesn’t really look like him being that it’s a plain looking white guy) putting a â€2“ in his closet. But here’s where it gets fun: The close is ALREADY overflowing with lots of 2s! From all the doubles!
Luis Tiant’s cartoon points out that he topped the A.L in shutouts in ‘68, and there’s a drawing of a pitcher with a paintbrush and he’s holding a paint can that says â€White wash“ on it. And a hitter, not wanting to be white washed, is running away. I’m telling you, the MOMA needs to have an exhibit of these cartoon.
1970: We had all nine Topps stats on the back — games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, homers, RBI, average. And, after a year off, they started to put minor league stats on the back too. Topps had a weird and, as far as I can tell, inscrutable policy about minor league stats. Most of the time they included minor league stats, you know, except for the times they didn’t.
There are cartoons on the back of many 1970 cards — it seemed to depend on if there was enough room. The Vada Pinson card, for instance, did not have enough room. There is room for a cartoon on the back of the Richie Scheinblum card, and it points out that Richie’s first career homer was a 13th inning grand slam. There is a drawing of an umpire on the bottom and, oddly, he is saying â€If that stays fair, we all go home!“ It’s the explanation point that gets me. Is the umpire ROOTING for the ball to stay fair? It does seem that way, yes.
1971: We are back to the one-year statistic, and there are no cartoons now. There is, instead, a second photo of the player on the back, a listing of each players first year in pro ball and first year in the majors, and a few little tidbits. Definitely a subdued year for the Topps company.
1972: But they made up for it in ‘72, when the front of the cards had this sort of hippy-dippy psychedelic look, and the back has fun trivia questions, cartoons, tidbits, the nine Topps stats, all sorts of zany things. I learned this trivia question from the back of the 1972 Ray Fosse card — who was the only player to serve in both World Wars? It was Hank Gowdy, a pretty decent hitting catcher for the Boston Braves and New York Baseball Giants. The cartoon is of Gowdy swinging a rifle at a baseball.
1973: This is the first year I remember collecting baseball cards — I was 6 — and Topps once again decided to take runs and games off the back of the card. Topps was clearly a house divided against itself. In my last post, I had clearly underestimated the raging war between the â€Yeah, put runs on the back“ camp and the â€No, make ‘em look it up in Who’s Who“ camp.
Either way, the individual comics are back — apparently Chris Chambliss collected phonograph records, and he did so by standing at first base and catching flying phonograph records that were being thrown at him. Jack Brohamer, improbably, builds engines for oil well pumps.
1974: Still no games or runs on the back. The individual cartoons are on the side now — Buddy Bell sits behind a â€Help Wanted“ desk with the caption â€Buddy works for an employment agency.“ Frank Duffy likes to play guitar — so there’s the guy in full uniform playing guitar. Walt Williams hobby is drawing, so they show him drawing … a baseball.
And I’m sorry to do this … but you know Walt Williams nickname, I’m sure. If you don’t, look at this card. You should be able to guess:
1975: This was my first full year as a baseball fan — did I mention I’m writing a book about a team from that year? — and there were no runs or games on the back of my baseball cards. The trivia questions are back though. â€Who once hit five homers in a minor-league game?“ is on the back of the Gaylord Perry card. There’s a drawing of an outfielder watch five baseballs fly over his head at once. The answer, incidentally, is Al Rosen.
1976: Runs and games are back on the back! The good guys win. The individual cartoons are gone, though, and now they have rather sparse looking drawings that represent great and fascinating tidbits from baseball history such as the tidbit that Ty Cobb stole home 32 times (back of the Jim Bibby card) and the tidbit that Mike Vail had the longest hitting streak of 1975 (back of the Tom Buskey card). I used to love reading these tidbits for some reason. I don’t think it had any long-term effect on me, though.
1977: You have the original nine offensive stats, and now there were rather stately cartoons drawn on the side to depict some more important moments in baseball history. On the back of Charlie Spikes we learn that in 1893, a game between Oakland and San Francisco was played in 47 minutes. On the back of Buddy Bell we learn that Kurt Bevacqua won the 1975 bubble-gum blowing championship.*
*More on this in an upcoming book … now officially due in bookstores on Sept. 9, 2009. Yes, we have a pub date.
1978: Same nine stats, but now instead of the cartoons the Topps people rashly decided to put some sort of â€Play Ball“ game on the back. I never played this game, but I guess you were supposed to make your lineup and then flip cards to see what your player did. For instance, on the back of the John Lowenstein card it says â€Single.“ So I guess that would represent a single. I don’t think you can get more descriptive than that. Where is the single hit? Does the runner score from second? Does the runner go first to third? I think the best way to answer that is to say â€Single.“
Here’s a surprise: On the back of the Duane Kuiper card, the action is: â€Strikeout.“ That’s just not nice.
1979: Same stats, no game, no cartoon, now we have the worst Topps idea ever — something called â€Baseball Dates.“ In this, the Topps folks ask what happened on a certain date, and we are, I suspect, supposed to guess.
For instance — on the back of Kuiper they ask: â€What happened on June 17, 1876?“ Now, I have to stop here and say … really? Is that supposed to be a trivia question? Did they really think there are kids out there, collecting cards, who will know what the heck happened on June 17, 1876? Is this supposed to foster some sort of camaraderie and maybe create a fun little trivia baseball game for 9-year-olds? Really?
Do you want the answer? Naw, I mean, who doesn’t know what happened on June 17, 1876 — it would be an insult to your baseball intelligence to even tell you.*
*I will tell you this: On the back of Wayne Cage’s card, they ask, â€What happened on July 13, 1973?“ I’m sure you already know — I mean who DOESN’T remember July 13, 1973, that crazy day — but the answer is: â€Three Montreal Expos pinch-hitters hit home runs … in a doubleheader.†No, really, that’s it. I mean ONE OF THOSE PINCH HITTERS would not be able to get that answer. I have to think that Baseball Dates was some kind of inside joke, or that each of these dates actually sent a serious and important message to the mafia.
1980: Same stats and the individual cartoons are back too. On the back of Duane Kuiper’s card we find that Duane’s second cousin is Dick Bosman, a former big league pitcher. And there’s a drawing of Bosman in street clothes throwing the ball to Duane. I don’t know, do you often go out and play catch with your second cousin?
On the back of David Clyde’s card there’s a caption that says “David posted an 18-0 record as a high school senior.†And the drawing is of David Clyde (in full uniform — these guys ALWAYS wore their uniforms) looking at a newspaper with the headline: “High School Senior Posts 18-0 Record.†Seems to me someone got pretty lazy there.
1981: Yes … it’s a new age of baseball card statistics. Not only do we have the original nine, but now we also get slugging percentage, stolen bases, walks and strikeouts. I’m not sure if the Topps people came up with some kind of new technology that allowed them to put more stats on the back — sort of the way the Oreo people were able to double stuff their cookies — but this was huge, it was almost like too much information, like the villain Icy Harris who tried to siphon all of Superman’s powers but found that no mere mortal can handle all that strength. I was really just looking for a way to link to “The Pernicious Parasite†cartoon.
And there are cartoons on the back of the 1981 cards too — here you can learn that Kuiper was the recipient of the Indians “Good Guy†award in 1978, and in the drawing he’s obviously very proud of it as he holds it up and blushes.*
*I don’t want to go all political here, but I’m somewhat peeved that Duane only won the Good Guy Award once. I mean in 1981, the Indians gave it to the traveling secretary. Come on. This is a travesty, and I believe someone should retroactively go back and give Duane Kuiper the Cleveland Indians good guy award every year from 1976-1981, when the Indians traded him for Ed Whitson. And they should give it to him AGAIN in 1982 for taking the trade so well.
1982: The new stats are here to stay, but there no individual cartoon. This time around they have rather odd tidbits — on the back of the Kuiper card it says, “Ben Oglivie hit at a .353 pace on the road in 1980.†Good to know. On the back of the Mike Hargrove card, the news is that Bruce Bochte was credited with 20 go-ahead RBIs for the Mariners in 1980.
1983: This was my last full year of really collecting cards — well, that’s not true, I collected them for a while longer but it SHOULD have been my last year since I was 16 years old and, really, it was time to move on.
Anyway, we’ll stop in ‘83 … that year we had the new-and-improved Topps stats which are, one more time, games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, homers, RBI, stolen bases, slugging percentage, walks, strikeouts and batting average. But there are no more cartoons. Sigh. There were no cartoons in ‘84 or ‘85 either. In ‘86, they came back with something called “Talkin’ Baseball,†and there was, you know, a talkin’ baseball giving us pointless tidbits. It was a nice effort. But it wasn’t the same at all.
*No, I’m not going to leave you hanging. OK, on June 17, 1876 — according to the card — Philadelphia’s George Hall became the first player to hit two homers in a nine-inning game. It is not a national holiday. Yet.
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A quarter was a lot of money back then.
This post allows me to launch into my favorite rant.
Back when I was a kid collecting baseball cards (1982-1988, mostly), a pack of 17 Topps cards cost 35 cents. I’m just about positive: 2 cents per card.
Today, they’re $2 for a pack of 10: 20 cents per card.
This is a travesty.
Have you seen this Poz?
http://www.glyphjockey.com/punkbb.htm
This is a travesty.
I think most people would simply call it inflation
Wow…that guy really has “no neck”.
1983 is my favorite Topps design. Some people like the 1985 model, but those people are idiots.
I used to use tracing paper to draw the baseball team logos (I seem to remember having cards — checklists? — that were just the team logos). The Mariners’ M was my favorite: http://www.sportslogos.net/logo.php?id=2277
I’ve been going through my old cards lately to give away anything without actual or sentimental value to friends who rooted for a particular team. Good way to thin out the collection and it’s been one of my most successful gifts ever.
Spending time with the cards and finding things like Ben Oglivee’s road batting average in 1980, noted utterly at random on the back of a card, helped me explain to my wife why I know certain things.
“I don’t think it had any long-term effect on me, though.” made me laugh out load.
loud
Walt Williams actually had a neck, and a long one. But those enormous aviator glasses weighed him down.
A fun player to watch, though.
No neck! (Yes, I had to google that)
Thats some crazy inflation. I remember being able to buy an entire box of baseball cards once a year when I was a kid. No way my kids would ever be able to buy that many cards. It would cost hundreds of dollars.
If I guy like that showed up now with a middle name starting with w, he’d be called the internet.
1000 percent inflation? Are we Venezuela?
If we were in Venezuela the gas might be cheaper.
I remember my godfather bought me a wax box of ‘89 Topps (1989 was my first full year as a baseball fan). I remember they were just sitting there on the table in my grandparents dining room. I was so afraid to ask if they were for me. I mean, I bought packs one at a time. Here were 36 packs. Unopened.
Naturally, my godfather took it as a good opportunity to bust his 7-year-old godson’s chops.
“You mean, you want these? I was gonna give them to your brother…” Mind you, my brother was three- THREE – at the time.
After ten minutes of needling, he handed them to me. I had to agree to let my bro open half of the packs. Even so…pure heaven, for a 7-year-old baseball fan.
No Neck Williams was one of my (and EVERY announcers’) favorite players. He was an OK personality when interviewed which was ANY time the White Sox played on TV, and I think the Go Go Sox got more air time than they probably deserved because it was just so much FUN to have a guy with No Neck on TV.
My favorite thing on the back of a baseball card was one of the early-90s sets (I want to say Topps, but I haven’t looked at my cards in a while) where they had a panaramic view of that player’s home ballpark.
I always liked looking at those.
Man, now I’m inspired to go through my baseball card drawer (yes, I still have one, even though I only open it once every year or so).
I’m 31 and I still collect cards. Yes I’m not too thrilled with the $2 a pack regular Topps cards either. But it won’t stop me from buying them for my son when I have kids.
My favourite cartoon was an early 1970’s Dick Duff OPC hockey card. Duff was my Dad’s favourite player as a kid and his cartoon that year showed a hockey player sitting in a rocking chair. The caption read “after the season Dick retired. It ended a career.” That’s it. Funny stuff.
By the way since Dick Duff was my Dad’s favourite player I have to give a brief bio to anyone who hasn’t heard of him. Dick Duff won 6 Stanley Cups with the Leafs and Habs from the late 50’s to the late 60’s. He’s considered one of the best clutch players of all time and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last year.
Keep up the good work Joe. I can’t stand Joe Morgan and hate Pete Rose but I’m planning on buying the book anyways.
Josh Wilker has a running back-of-the-card baseball game thing going on over at Cardboard Gods.
Love is currently beating Hate 5-4 in the bottom of the fifth and has runners on first and second with two outs.
And now we know: “The Machine” hits the stores 09/09/09… aside from the symmetry of the numbers, that also could be the 34th anniversary of the date the Reds clinched the NL West. Pretty close, anyway — they won the division by 20 games.
Something to look forward to in September even if your MLB team is hopelessly out of it and your fantasy teams are in the tank, too…
I also had to google No Neck Williams.
Speaking of No Neck, have you heard Greg Warren’s stand up routine “Flute Man”? He talks about a guy in his high school that used to call him Flute Man because he played the clarinet. That same guy called another friend of his “No Neck Nick”, cause he had, well, no neck. “The foot bone, connected to the leg bone, connected to the hip bone, connected directly to the head bone…cause there ain’t no neck bone.”
Google that, too. You won’t be disappointed.
[...] A history of stats (on baseball cards) [...]
i would like to be on the record as stating i picked Zoom as one of my shows but i was referring to the old, 70’s style stripped shirt Zoom, not the remake.
For your “Shows I liked as a kid” poll, how can you not have “The Jetsons” on the list?
I liked the 1962 Post Cereal cards that came on the back of cereal boxes. Of course, six year olds aren’t real handy with the scissors, so most of these cards look like they were trimmed with a hatchet. Very rare to find these cards neatly cut–most likely mom did it.
I hate to rain on your childhood, Joe, but apparently the Topps people were yanking your chain on some of those cartoon factoids. For instance, the Richie Scheinblum’s 13th-inning grand slam? Never happened, at least not as a major leaguer. He hit 13 career homers, and not one of them was a grand slam. His first career homer was a solo job on July 20, 1969 against Detroit. It came in the 7th inning of the second game of a doubleheader, off the legendary Tom Timmermann.
It was kind of memorable, though. He tied the game with that shot, which allowed the Tribe to win it in extra innings. And it was a pinch-hit homer no less. Richie was batting for Vern Fuller, who was in his final year as the Indians’ regular second baseman. A position he would hand off to Eddie Leon, who handed it off to Jack Brohamer, with all three of them merely keeping that spot warm for…..Duane Kuiper.
Ah, life is all one big mysterious circle, isn’t it?
In the 1978 Topps set, on the back of Texas Rangers’ shortstop Jim Mason’s baseball card, the game “Play Ball” reads Home Run.
I remembered this without having to look at his card.
Because I used to play this game.
By the by, Jim Mason hit all of 12 home runs in his nine seasons, none in 1978.
Brian the OC: A guy who does a great FC Barcelona blog made a first stab at doing some soccer sabermetrics for Barca yesterday:
http://barcelona.theoffside.com/statistics/soccer-prospectus-pt-1.html
I know Arsene Wenger has described himself as addicted to his data and printouts as well, but I don’t know what all he looks at.
I put this in the comments of the previous thread too, sorry for the repeat but I thought you might have been done with that one before I posted.
Joe, do you not have the 1976 card commemorating Bevacqua’s win in the bubble-blowing contest? Great card with a b/w pic of the winning bubble being measured and the back side has the bracket structure of the whole tournament.
Josh: I started in 1973. Wax packs were 10 cards for .15, cello hanging packs were 54(!) cards for .39. The wax price held until ‘78 or ‘79 when they went to 14 for .20. The cello packs changed every year. ‘74 was 49 for .42 and a year or two later the price topped a penny a card, never to return.
Or in other words: “I got your inflation *right here*!” B-)
When I started buying cards in the early 60s, it was 5 cards for a nickel. AND you got gum! The worst gum in the world, but still.(When did they stop with the gum?)
I also remember the 1962 Post cereal cards you (or your mom) had to cut out of the back of the box. The only stats they had, and they were on the front, were “last year” and “career.” I kept a Roger Maris card from that set for a long time, just because it was so cool to see his “last year” HR total.
Also Kahn’s wieners (“The wiener the world awaited”) put cards in their packages ca. ‘65-’66, just Reds and Braves for some reason, or at least that’s all I ever got (maybe they only sold the wieners in Cincy and Milwaukee). Unlike Topps cards, they were printed on slick, high-quality stock, and were quite large. I remember (i.e. I still have) great cards of Pete Rose, Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Joe Torre, and Hank Aaron from that set.
There are still few things better to do with your clothes on that bust open a pack of cards (be they baseball, football, hockey or other).
I have a complete set of 1978 Topps baseball cards and still love looking at the stats on the back. Wish they made cards as nice and as cheap as they did back then.
I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but check out the series of “Back on Topps” episodes on YouTube if you haven’t already.
“Leyland and Leif Topps, heirs to the Topps fortune get a rude awakening when their family business is sold and they must now figure out a way to navigate the murky corporate waters and a new boss, Gaylen Briggs, that wants to drop them like a bad habit. Watch as Leyland and Lief struggle to save the cards they love so much and get Back on Topps.”
http://au.youtube.com/user/BackOnTopps
Thanks for the great blog, Joe!
I believe that on June 17, 1876, that there was a high-scoring game between the Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Philadelphia Athletics. Thank you Baseball Almanac.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/schedule.php?y=1876&t=CN0
What an incredible article, Joe. Best one I think I’ve ever read from you. You’re the next Bill James.
“What a maroon. What a nincowpoop. What a gullabull.”
Props for the “Bully for Bugs” reference. The pinnacle of Chuck Jones’ career.
Someday we need a serious critical discussion of baseball references in animated cartoons.
This wouldn’t show up on his 1970 baseball card, but “I believe”* it is true that Richie Scheinblum is the only player to have played on an All-Star team as an outfielder and never to have stolen a major-league base (though he tried six times).
*I believe
Who remembers July 13, 1973? I do. It was my brother’s 15th birthday and I (age 19 at the time) took him to the Braves-Expos doubleheader at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. We went to a lot of doubleheaders in those days. We usually sat in lower deck outfield seats for $2 although on that day I think we sat between home and third. Anyway, what he and I have never forgotten about that day was that Hal Breeden of the Expos hit a pinch hit homer in each game, which had only been done once before in ML history. However, I did not remember that another Expo also hit a pinch HR. Joe – I love your blog as well as “The Soul of Baseball” and am looking forwared to 9/9/09.
Oh my god, no.
It didn’t work. I love ya, Joe, but it didn’t work.
(You should add a poll to this post: how far did you read before skimming or giving up entirely?)
I didn’t even make it to 1960.
That first Richie Scheinblum homer on July 20, 1969 was also the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. That was on the back of one of his cards.
1994, I was 12 years old, playing my last year of little league. I had my tonsils removed in May, early in the season, and a week later enjoyed a hemorrhage that left me alive but more than a little low on blood and unable to play baseball for several more weeks.
Then came, FINALLY, my grand comeback. I grabbed my glove and sprinted onto the field for warmups, tossing the ball with the hardest throwing kid on the team, Evan Rutherford. It felt indescribably great to be out there again–the smell of the grass, the feel of the breeze, the POP! of the ball in Evan’s glove, the dull THUD! of the ball breaking three bones just an inch under my left eye.
Oops.
Someone’s mother–none of my relatives were there yet, though my mother and grandmother arrived a few minutes later–drove me to the hospital while I snuck glances at the alien creature in the passenger-side mirror.
Well, it wasn’t THAT bad. The doctors decided surgery wouldn’t be necessary. In fact, I could go back to playing baseball.
After another three, maybe four weeks.
I was pretty sure that was the end of the world. Sure, I reasoned, I’d survived two brushes with death–one very close, one merely a brush–but what was the point in being alive if I couldn’t play baseball?
Then the Team Mother–did you guys have Team Mothers on your Little League team?–showed up at the door with a gift all the mothers had pitched together to buy for me. A fresh box of 36 packs of 1994 Topps baseball cards. And every pack had a ToppsGold card!!!
Weeks of bliss ensued. I carefully organized and catalogued every individual card as I pulled it out of the pack (I think taking note of just how many Luis Lopez cards were in these damned packs helped enhance the joy when I pulled a Barry Bonds.)
And on the third to last pack I pulled the big prize: The special “26 seasons” card Topps put out as their last Nolan Ryan card.
ToppsGold-style.
I still have that card and protect it as though the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Not because it’s valuable or ever will be, but because it’s a cheerful reminder of the strangest summer of my childhood.
Addendum: Sadly, not all was wonderful in the baseball card world of 1994, as that was the year Topps went glossy. Alas, poor Topps, I knew them well
Oh yeah, I remember Topps 1994. That was the set that really got me into card collecting. My sister received one of those 36-pack boxes on her birthday in 1994, and I was more excited about those cards than she was. I used to sneak a pack every once in a while and open them. It got so bad that my parents had to hide the box, but of course I found it again. I had one of those Topps Gold Nolan Ryan cards, but the real treasure I found was the Ken Griffey Jr, since he was the man back then. Unfortunately, it didn’t take me very long to lose the card. Ah well. Glossy card can be a pain, especially for autographs. I can remember trying to get Danny Jackson’s auto on a glossy card when he came to my school, but all I had was a pen…that didn’t work out too well.
Anyways, my oldest card was only from 1965, so it’s good to hear about what Topps cards were like before then. Anyways, since you ended at the time where most of my cards are from…might as well do an addendum.
Topps may have Talkin’ Baseball in 1986, but that was also the year they started doing italics for years when the player led the leagues, a practice that continues today. On the down side, each of the special information they had on the player are milestones. Now I know that Bret Saberhagen earned his 1st major league win on 4-19-84, his 1st major league save in 7-22-84, and his 1st major league shutout on 9-24-84.
In 1987, Topps had an “On This Date” special on certain cards similar to the things they had in 1979, only they tell you what happened rather than make you flip the card over to read it. They also use the opportunity to advertise for older Topps cards, so everything that happened is after 1950. For example, the back of Roger Clemens’s card says, “June 27, 1980: Jerry Reuss pitched no-hitter for Dodgers vs. Giants. Jerry’s 1980 Topps card was #318.”
In 1988, Topps added one more stat below the normal stat line, one that probably infuriated a lot of fans because they took it off a few years later: GW-RBI for the previous year and their career. I was too young to remember the obsession with GW-RBI, but I still hear noxious things about it. They also a detailed description of how the player was acquired.
The GW-RBI experiment continued into 1989, but Topps also included a Monthly Scoreboard, so collectors can find out the monthly breakdown of certain key stats like wins/strikeouts for pitchers and hits/RBI for hitters. I actually liked this addition, but Topps took it away a few years later.
GW-RBI was gone by 1990, although the Monthly scoreboard still remained through 1991. Topps went to the white-bordered card backs in 1992. It looks cleaner, but I suppose it loses some of its charm. If the stat lines on the players are too short, then Topps threw in a picture of the player’s home stadium. Also in 1992, league leading stats were printed in bold red as well as italics to make them more visible.
Topps hadn’t put pictures of players on cards since 1971, but they went back to them for 1993. It was a small picture, but it was a picture nonetheless. Some people probably hated the pictures on the back, but I actually liked it. Actually, I was a big fan of the back design for the 1993 Topps set. Topps also went with a vertical backside for the first time since 1975. No new stats though.
As Justin stated, cards became glossy in 1994, but no new stats. In 1995, Topps included two pictures of the player on the backside, an action shot as well as a portrait done on Diamond Vision. The player facts started becoming longer in 1996, and by 1997 they were practically essays. For example, Mike Mussina’s 1994 facts read, “Through their first 50 starts, Mike had more W’s than Roger Clemens and more SHO’s than Doc Gooden. On 8-31-93, he whiffed 6 straight Angels, 2 short of the AL record.” Pretty long, but this is what they said about Mussina in 1997:
“A top-five finisher in American League Cy Young Award voting in four of the last five years, Mike simply takes the ball and wins. Greg Maddux is the only pitcher with more victories (70 to 68) since 1993. In ‘96, Mussina added a new distinction to his lustrous resume: a Gold Glove. That award was, in part, a recognition of his ability to nullify the running game. In his career, despite never having teamed with a top-throwing catcher, he has permitted only one stolen base every 36 innings!”
Descriptions may never be as long as it was in 1997, but they never went back to the brevity of the 1960s and 1970s. There were nothing special in the 1998 set, although I really liked the design. I hated the 1999 Topps design because of its blandness, but they did have stars from when the years a player won one of the three major awards: Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, and MVP.
There were no new stats in the next few years, but they began shrinking back on the pictures. By 2003, the backside pictures were eliminated altogether. In 2004, Topps added a new stat for the first time since the ill-fated GW-RBI: OPS for hitters and WHIP for pitchers. I suppose it was a concession to the sabermetric revolution.
WHIP and OPS remained in 2005. In addition, Topps put a particular key stat to the side underneath the player’s picture. For example, for Greg Maddux, it said “Career Wins: 305.”
Topps brought back the old-school personalized cartoons from the 60s and 70s in the 2006 set. Some players were too new to merit anything special, so they had some standard facts. For example, Wang Chien-Ming’s Topps 2006 card said, “The Yankees hold the record for most World Series titles with 26.” Fellow countryman Kuo Hong-Chih’s card stated, “Yogi Berra is trhe only player to win 10 World Series.” Sometimes the cartoons and the captions don’t even match. The caption for Maddux read, “Greg recorded his 3000th strikeout in 2005.” However, the picture shows him admiring his four Cy Young awards.
A more inexplicable change for 2006 was the deletion of the Game Started stat for pitchers. I never really understood why they did it, but the stat was back in 2007. By 2008, the stats were G/AB/R/H/2B/3B/HR/RBI/SB/BB/SO/SLG/OPS/AVG for hitters, and G/IP/W/L/R/ER/SO/BB/GS/CG/SHO/SV/WHIP/ERA for hitters. Huzzah.
i think i remember getting gum from packs as recently as ‘89 topps . i could be wrong though
I was looking through some 1988 Topps cards yesterday. The All Star cards that year had the top ten in some category on the back. On the back of the card for (I think) Dwight Gooden, the top ten NL strikeout leaders for 1987 were listed. Mixed in with a bunch of pitchers who have been gone forever was Jamie Moyer. Jesus he’s old.
On their 1973 card of JC Martin, the nicest thing Topps could say about him is that he had 33 passed balls in 1965. They showed a little cartoon of JC holding up his glove which had a hole in the middle of it.
My brother and I use to take our .50 cent allowances down to the House of Hooch in Blue Springs and buy a pack of baseball cards and a Marathon candy bar. There was no feeling in the world like the anticipation we felt while opening the package of cards. After the package was open we’d pull the gum out and shove it our mouths – being careful to break it in half first- that stuff was rock hard. We’d then set about scanning each of our cards for Royals – announcing when we found one. “I got Veda Pinson” – “I got Tony Solita” etc. Solita and Pinson would be valued much higher than anybody from any other team.
[...] A history of stats (on baseball cards) … early. 1956: Same stats again only now there is a series of cartoons on the back that tell you a little bit about the player. The Al Rosen card has this caption: “A top slugger, Al twice led the league in H.R.’s and R.B.I.†And there is a drawing of a batter getting ready to hit a baseball … [...]
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