As some of you know, I have been associated with the error and variation world since I started at Beckett way back in 1990. I wrote columns and gathered data for our magazines and annual guides. One of the more interesting group of variations are the four cards issued in 1959 with or without a notation such as: "Traded to Washington" as noted on a Billy Loes card.
To digress for a moment, Billy Loes was known in baseball most famously for saying he lost a ground ball in the sun during a World Series game. He also later drove a cab in New York and apparently had an interesting life inside and outside of baseball. Those notices are just glimpses into why he was a fascinating figure. His cards are interesting as well and perhaps I'll do a deep dive one of these months into his card history
So I decided after card number #362 the highest of the four numbers involved, to do a count of how many cards had an updated notation added in red to the back text. This all began when I wrote about Billy Harrell recently and he had one of those notices. Well, I counted yesterday using the COMC site (for those who want to do similar projects there is nothing confidential about this sa I just went to COMC. com and looked up these cards), So, and I will stress I may have missed a card or two along the way, I counted 19 total cards between 363-549 which had notices. What is more interesting is 10 of these cards are in the final series.
We talk about how Topps wsa a living set during those days and this is a great example of that, So let's look at a few of those cards just so you can see the joy of this new subset.
We'll start with the biggest name involved and you may have heard of him. The player is Bob Gibson, yes the future HOFer but at this time was just a young prospect. And this is the Gibson rookie card to boot.
Many times this would just be a young prospect who may never be heard of again. This time not so much. And we are blessed to have a complete game of Gibson at his 1968 peak when he struck out 17 batters of game 1 of the 1968 World Series. If you have a couple of hours I'd recommend watching this game as I did when I was 8 years old.
1968 World Series Game 1 Tigers at Cardinals (youtube.com)
Note how quickly the game was played. While I and many fans want to scream at Rob Manfred for some of the things he does, speeding up games is a benefit to all. Having sat in enough games in Arlington that never seemed to end, faster games would have been great then and still good now although there is finally a roof on Globe Life Field.
Another noted player of the last series. And to note in a 43-card area where there could be these cards, nearly 25 percent of them have these notices. This one is also a rookie card of a pitcher who is not in the Hall of Fame but did win a Cy Young award during his career. This is Mike Cuellar who had his biggest success more than a decade later with the Baltimore Orioles. Mike also was a post-season
This is Cuellar pitching game 5 of the 1970 World Series which clinched the series for the Orioles.
1970 World Series Game 5 BALTIMORE 10/15/70 Original NBC & Kinescope (youtube.com)
Speaking of the Orioles, our next guest made his name as the pitching coach for the Orioles in the 1970's before going on to manage a couple of teams later in that decade and then in the early 1980's. George Bamberger who was well regarded as a person who helped to make pitchers better is also involved in this group of cards of players sent down. We will get to a position player but our first three were pitchers. Now Bamberger did not have the same success in the majors as a player but was a good coaach and manager later.
If you are a Red Sox fan, you will like our next person featured. Darrell Johnson did not have much of a major league career but was the manager of the 1975 Red Sox and while beating the Reds would have been difficult in any case, perhaps if Jim Ed Rice was not hurt before the series the final result may have been different. Baseball was considered to be in the doldrums before the 1975 World Series but the greatness of the series brought many people back to the sport. This You Tube post is not a full game but just some highlights
1975 World Series Highlights (youtube.com)
And we'll conclude our tour with one of my favorite baseball stat lines as to why. I do get he was a bit older for a rookie but look at his stats for a full season and tell me why he did not return for 1960
SUMMARY
Career
WAR AB H HR BA R RBI
1.0 280 69 17 .246 39 39
Granted he was over 30 during his rookie season but still, someone with 30 homer power should have had a place the following year in the majors. Looking him up to research this his first major league homer was against,... wait for it,,, Bob Gibson. Yep that same guy who began our tour. Perhaps Harry Chapin (who is a distant relative of fellow columnist John Newman) is right with all my life's a circle.
Harry Chapin - All My Life's a Circle (youtube.com)
Oh, and let's show to end this notice the actual card
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