The World's Champions (Part 2: Minis and non-Baseball)

The stage is set. 

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Black Border #149 Ian Anderson

For the 2021 World Series, the Atlanta Braves will be facing the Houston Astros, beginning Tuesday night. Former Astro (and Ray) Charlie Morton will be taking the mound for the Braves in Game 1, but we can expect that rookie Ian Anderson will toe the rubber at some point during this best-of-7 series.

We're all familiar with how Allen & Ginter has all the numbers written out on the card backs, but when it comes to a Rookie Card, like this one, it's not quite so eye-crossing. Games: Eighty. Wins: Seventeen. That's easy to digest at a glance, although Three Hundred Seventy Seven and Two Thirds career innings pitched still needs a second look to really understand. And when it comes to advanced stats, A&G must be the only place in history where a pitcher has a WHIP of "One Point Twenty Three".

Anderson's Black Bordered Mini parallel leads off Part 2 of this Allen & Ginter blaster, a card I had once set aside for its parallel-ness but not necessarily for any expectation it would be relevant for the World Series.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini #316 Yu Darvish

In fact, even as late as the All-Star Break, it certainly looked like the San Diego Padres would be well on their way to a Postseason berth. They experienced quite an epic collapse, and will have to try again next year, although they did finally get their first no-hitter in franchise history. Yu Darvish is in a good place, teammates with veteran talent and one of the most exciting young players in the game, but he remains in a tough division. Time will tell whether he'll ever get to play in the World Series again, or if he'll fall just millimeters short like his two near-perfect games.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #30 Rickey Henderson

Throughout his long career, Rickey Henderson managed to get much closer to those elusive milestones. Of course, he became the career leader by a tremendous margin in Stolen Bases, and also got to hoist the Commissioner's Trophy twice. That first one, as pictured on this A&G parallel, came with the Oakland Athletics in 1989, and then again in 1993 with the Blue Jays.

We're long past the days of Rickey Henderson swiping bases left and right, but it's been good to see the Stolen Base (or Caught Stealing) make an occasional clutch appearance throughout this year's Postseason.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #30 Rickey Henderson (Reverse)

It may not look like a parallel, but longtime A&G collectors know that back variations can come into play. Because, you know, there aren't enough ways to turn the front into a parallel.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini A&G Back #110 Daulton Varsho

Daulton Varsho's rookie card has the same back variation, although his Diamondbacks finished tied for the worst record in the league. There's definitely no postseason magic in the forecast for Arizona's near future. The RC logo blends into the overall brownish-gold design, and it looks a little busy on this narrow-cut mini. These tobacco-style cards measure a very precise 2 11/16" by 1 1/2".

Daulton Varsho is part of the current crop of second-generation Major Leaguers along with Tatis, Guerrero, Bichette, and so on. He's the son of former National Leaguer Gary Varsho, whom I mainly remember as a Pirate. Gary signed with the Phillies for his final season in 1995, teaming up with catcher Darren Daulton. You'd be correct in assuming that his late former teammate is his son's namesake.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Rookie Design Variations #MRD-1 Casey Mize

It doesn't seem like that long, but Allen & Ginter has been with us since 2006. Not counting the original 19th century product, of course. But that's long enough for Topps to bring back the original 2006 design as a 20-card insert set. Casey Mize of the Tigers led it off with card #1, reminding us of how minimal this brand used to look. And more colorful, somehow, at least as far as the Rookie Card logo goes. 

For the most part, this was a rookie-heavy batch of Minis. Several appearances of the Rookie Card logo are going to be scattered across the page once I get these in a binder. And I'm sure we can expect to see at least some of these guys in the league for a long time to come.

But compared to the last Mini I found, they're all younger. So much younger.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Far Far Away #FFA-2 Caldwell 5

Eleven million years younger, to be approximate.

We keep coming back to A&G for all the fun non-baseball topics, and this blaster delivered as promised. Here's an image of the spiral galaxy Caldwell 5, discovered in 1892, not long after the original release of the Allen & Ginter set in 1887.

Part of the Far Far Away insert set available only in the mini size, this is one of fifteen cards that are cut far too small to truly display these wondrous celestial objects. This particular galaxy, as we're told on the card back, is known as "The Hidden Galaxy" due to all the cosmic dust obscuring its view. Fortunately, we have a new space telescope scheduled to launch before the end of the year, and its capabilities should help reveal Caldwell 5 a bit more thanks to its infrared-sensitive instruments.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #206 Sarah Spain

Returning back to the familiar 3.5" x 2.5" size, I did find a couple of non-baseball full-size cards. First is Sarah Spain, an ESPN host and reporter. I don't watch a whole lot of ESPN's news shows, so I can't say I'm familiar with her. I still watch a good deal of their other programming (such as Monday Night Football when I wrote most of this), along with their excellent 30 for 30 series. But for sports news, I get that mostly from The Athletic and now Joe Posnanski's Substack page, since he's no longer writing for them.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter #249 Rose Lavelle

The other non-baseball but still sports-related card is of Rose Lavelle, a member of Team USA women's soccer, as well as an athlete in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). She helped the national team to its 2019 Women's World Cup championship, and earned a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. 

A&G has included a few other members of the dominant US Women's Soccer team over the years, including early stars Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers, along with more recent members like Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd.

Our final few cards are from a variety of nature and wildlife-heavy insert sets, something that is right up my alley these days.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Birds of a Feather #BOF-8 Green-Wing Macaw

Birds of a Feather is a ten-card insert set of birds. Beautiful, feathery, colorful, mostly tropical birds. And anyone who knows me well knows that I love birds. These are far from your backyard sparrows and wrens; you'd quite literally have to travel to the other side of the world to see them in the wild. Fortunately, Topps brought them a little closer with this insert set, and it's certainly a set where I'd consider chasing down the other nine.

This one is a Green-wing Macaw, also known as a Red-and-Green Macaw. It's a parrot native to South America, and is among the most intelligent birds found in the world. Lego enthusiasts will probably recognize this as the Parrot part, although that could possibly be a similar-looking Scarlet Macaw (also found in this insert set).

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Rallying Back #RB-7 White Rhino

Ten more animals are found in the Rallying Back insert set, a collection of endangered or threatened species. The White Rhino is featured on card #7, or more specifically the Southern White Rhino subspecies. Poaching and hunting decimated its population last century, but protections put in place have allowed the species to recover to around 20,000 individuals. 

No mention is made of the much unluckier Northern White Rhino subspecies, which is down to a mere two female individuals left in captivity. None are known in the wild. Not doing much better is the more distantly-related Black Rhino, which has a few thousand individuals remaining among several subspecies.

There are success stories in this insert set, like the bald eagle which has rebounded to well over 100,000 individuals, and humpback whales, which currently number around 80,000. But sadly, the state of the animal kingdom is far from secure.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Deep Sea Shiver #DSS-15 Silvertip Shark

Sixteen more cards dive into the shadowy world of sharks, and near the end of the checklist is this fearsome-looking Silvertip Shark. Maxing out at about ten feet long, they generally live in shallow waters along continental or island shelves. They're apex predators and are clearly not to be trifled with. Unless, of course, you're a confident little Remora fish that likes to hitch a ride, which we can see on the shark's left pectoral fin.

Like most sharks, this is a species that is viviparous, meaning it gives live birth. Most other fish and a few shark species lay eggs, scientifically known as oviparous.

2021 Topps Allen and Ginter Arboreal Appreciation #AA-13 Holly

Moving over to a different kingdom on the tree of life, we'll wrap up this blaster with the alliteratively named Arboreal Appreciation. It's fifteen cards depicting various trees, something I'm quite a bit less familiar with than birds. I'm learning, though. 

We all know the Holly plant from its festive association with Christmas, thought that's just one or two species among hundreds. The bright red berries you're accustomed to seeing in Christmas wreaths are actually known to be rather toxic, perhaps fatally so for children and pets. Contrast this with another Christmastime plant, the poinsettia, whose alleged toxicity is merely an urban myth.

A&G may have given us a fairly similar-looking set every year for a decade and a half, but the variety found in the non-baseball topics is truly limitless. Next year I hope to see a set showcasing the great variety of crustaceans in the ocean.

It's also worth noting in light of the Fanatics deal that Topps could very much keep the spirit of this set going after their MLB license expires.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy the World Series!

Hammerin' Hank

When Al Kaline died in April 2020, I wrote these words: "Given the current state of the world, these kinds of posts might sadly become a bit more common in the months ahead." 

Sadly, that prediction has continued to prove all too true, and far too many times since then. The number of baseball greats who have passed on since Don Larsen died on New Year's Day 2020 is truly staggering. Kaline, Seaver, Brock, Gibson, Ford, Morgan, Niekro. And those are just the Hall-of-Famers. Jimmy Wynn, Dick Allen, Larsen, Johnny Antonelli, fan favorites at least, and maybe even borderline Hall-of-Famers.

Hell of a lineup, though.

2021 has given us no reprieve, as we've lost Dodger greats Tommy Lasorda and Don Sutton, and it's only the third full week of January.

And today, I woke up to the news that Henry Aaron died at 86.

1994 Topps #715 Hank Aaron 715 HR

We know him for much more than his most famous moment, when he hit his 715th home run on April 8th, 1974 off of Al Downing, breaking Babe Ruth's home run record. Vin Scully had the call that day. His 4th inning shot was the culmination of a long marathon of chasing Ruth's record, a period in his career when he both guaranteed his place as an all-time baseball great and suffered awful hatred and racism for doing so.

For the occasion of the 20th anniversary of this feat, Topps gave him card #715 in the 1994 set, which is easily one of my favorite cards released that year. As I've mentioned before, it was the first complete set I ever bought, twenty-seven years ago. And what's really interesting to think about is that only twenty-seven years separated Jackie Robinson's debut and Hank Aaron's record-breaking home run. It really isn't that much time.

Aaron went on to wrap up his career with the Brewers a couple years after this, finishing with 2,297 RBI which remains the best in history, 6,856 total bases which remains the best in history, 755 home runs, and 3,771 hits. A Reddit user today pointed out that even if Aaron never hit a single home run, he'd still have over 3,000 hits, practically guaranteeing a spot in the Hall of Fame. 

A stat like that puts him right up there with an all-time hockey great, Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky had so many assists in his career that even if he never scored a single goal, he'd still be the all-time NHL points leader. Sure enough, Aaron finds himself as #5 all-time in position player bWAR, with an incredible 143.1.

He truly was a legend.

And he's a legend in my baseball card collection, too.

Let's go back to 1994, shall we? I was ten years old, and frequently found myself in the card aisle at my local Wal-Mart. I had been collecting for a little over a year, and had kind of had my fill of the 1991 Topps, 1992 Fleer, and 1993 Fleer Ultra that seemed to perpetually be available. I had a year of collecting under my belt, plus that fancy 1994 Topps Factory set. Right around then, Topps released the 1994 Archives '54 set, one of my dad's favorites since it took him back to his own childhood. Wal-Mart had this product for sale, and I had enough money from my weekly allowance to buy a pack or two. 

Pack selection was a very important thing when buying a whole box was entirely out of the question. I must admit that I wasn't above the strategy of pressing the translucent cellophane against the top card to try to see what was inside. To this day, I've never tried bending, weighing, or otherwise manhandling a pack, cardinal sins in the card aisle. But I do realize the cellophane trick does stray somewhere into the neighborhood of pack searching.

Judge ten-year-old me as you will, but I was able to discern a card inside one particular pack of Archives '54.

1994 Topps Archives '54 #62 Eddie Robinson

That was this card. Eddie Robinson, a New York Yankee. I didn't really know him, but I could see he was a Yankee, and being the son of a Yankee fan, this was the pack I picked. 

Eddie Robinson, by the way, has outlived all these guys, as he recently celebrated his 100th birthday. He's the oldest living MLB player. A four-time All-Star, he won a World Series with the 1948 Cleveland Indians. He was on site to watch Cleveland play in the 2016 World Series.

I don't remember which other cards were inside this pack, but I did find something special. Really special.

1994 Topps Archives '54 Gold #128 Hank Aaron (AU)

A gold foil parallel of Hank Aaron's 1994 Archives '54 card, signed on-card in the lower right.

It is the crown jewel of my collection.

I've never shown this card on the blog before, but I did share it many years ago as part of Nachos Grande's Better Know a Blogger series, so longtime followers might have seen it once or twice.

I can unequivocally say that this Hank Aaron autograph is the greatest pull of my life. It will never be topped. Pulling a card like this from a pack you bought at Wal-Mart at the age of ten is an amazing experience. This was a Golden Ticket, and I felt just like Charlie Bucket. I can't imagine anything I could realistically pull out of a pack ever again that would dethrone the Home Run King.

A Hank Aaron autograph!

I still have the pack wrapper. 1:1,263 odds.

RIP, Henry Aaron. You'll always be #1 in my collection.

 

Problems on the Back

Black Lives Matter.

I said in my previous post that I'd be keeping this blog's focus on baseball. And I am. But we need to talk about how racism applies to baseball cards. Systemic racism is a real thing, and the baseball card industry isn't immune. Nothing really is in America, which is what makes it systemic.

1988 Topps Big #110 Ken Griffey Sr.

There's always plenty of debate about where sets rank among all-time favorites. 1993 Upper Deck comes up a lot. Some like 1965 Topps, others think that 1975 Topps was the high-water mark. 1973 Topps is underappreciated outside this community. Some can enjoy 1991 Fleer despite its retina-searing yellow borders. There are even some 1995 Fleer fans out there. Me, I'm a Stadium Club guy.

But no one ever seems to wax poetic about Topps Big.

It existed for three years, from 1988-1990. Topps cut it to the same dimensions as their early-'50s sets, 3 3/4" x 2 5/8". Non-vintage collectors can find their 1989 Bowman to get an idea of the size. It is too big for 9-pocket pages, so most of us just threw them in a box somewhere until Ultra Pro got around to manufacturing specially-sized 8-pocket pages.

That's Ken Griffey, Sr. on this card from the inaugural Topps Big set. This was a year before his son appeared in the first Upper Deck set and changed the hobby forever. Note that his nameplate just says "Ken Griffey", as his son had yet to surpass his dad's own excellent career, let alone even make his Major League debut.

Please also note that Ken Griffey is Black.

1988 Topps Big #110 Ken Griffey Sr. (Reverse)

I call attention to that because when you look at the card back, none of the cartoons show him as Black. Not Ken pinch hitting in the first panel, not Ken reminding us that he's from the same Pennsylvania town as Stan Musial, and definitely not his son Ken, Jr. holding a trident, although they did get Junior's handedness correct.

It's not an oversight on this one card, nor even an oversight in the 1988 Topps Big set as a whole. It was this way for all three years of Topps Big, the entire run. Everyone is a white guy on the card back. Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar, everyone. Which is, at the very least, inaccurate.

I mentioned this to my girlfriend earlier this week, and she asked, "Was it like that in the 1950s?" I'm not a vintage expert, so I had to think for a moment, but no, it wasn't.

1954 Topps #3 Monte Irvin (Reverse)

This is the back of a 1954 Topps Monte Irvin card, the same card I got at a card show a few years ago from one of my favorite vintage dealers. The dimensions are the same as Topps Big, but even though printing technology was decades behind what was available in the late-'80s, Topps clearly made the effort to show Monte Irvin as a Black man on the back of his own baseball card. It's most obvious in the first and third panels of the Inside Baseball cartoon, and it's clear in the first panel which of these characters is meant to be Irvin and which is meant to be the Indians' third baseman, likely Al Rosen.

Incidentally, the exhibition game in which Monte Irvin injured his ankle as shown in this cartoon was a Spring Training game in Denver. It might have even taken place at Bears Stadium, later known as Mile High Stadium. Spring Training stats from the early 1950s are tricky to come by.

But there he is, right there on the back of a 1954 Topps card. Monte Irvin was just the tenth Black man to play Major League Baseball, and numerous teams had still yet to integrate. Yet 1954 Topps, ten years before the Civil Rights Act, got it right, much more right (infinitely more right?) than the whole run of Topps Big.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there.

I had been aware of the racial insensitivity associated with Topps Big for a few years, but it wasn't until I saw a tweet the other day that I was made aware of a pretty glaring problem with 1993 Leaf.

1993 Leaf #387 Terry Pendleton

1993 Leaf is another well-liked set from later in the overproduction era. It was the first Leaf set to include Rockies and Marlins, had a nice amount of gold foil, full-bleed printing, and a design that could reasonably be confused with both 1992 and 1993 Fleer Ultra, now that I think about it. Here's a good photo of another Brave, Terry Pendleton in Wrigley Field, with just the tiniest sliver of a catcher's mitt on the left side.

The card backs on '93 Leaf take a unique approach, including a photo of the player in front of a landmark that's relevant to the team's city. Usually it's the skyline, but there are some alternate backdrops for each team. Bridges, piers, beaches, that sort of thing. The Rockies have a glorious mountain range. The Astros got an oil well. The alternate photo on the Braves' card backs is, well, take a look.

1993 Leaf #387 Terry Pendleton (Reverse)

All these years I never really knew what I was looking at, but this photo behind Pendleton is Stone Mountain in Georgia. As briefly as possible, it's basically a Confederate version of Mount Rushmore, which officially opened 100 years to the day after Lincoln's assassination. Think for a moment about what message that sends. And it also happens to be the backdrop for a Black player's baseball card.

It's not just Pendleton; it's also on Otis Nixon's card, and likely a few others throughout Series 1 and Update, which I haven't completed. I assume no one at Leaf thought much of it, since it's also on Tom Glavine's card. They likely just decided that this was what the Atlanta area had going for it other than the skyline, and peppered it throughout the Braves checklist at random.

But that's the whole problem. It's unlikely that either of these design choices were done maliciously, but that doesn't really matter. They were made nonetheless, whether out of malice or neglect or ignorance. That's the distinction we need to learn to make, between individual acts of bigotry such as John Rocker opening his mouth, and deeper, more systemic instances of racism, such as a Confederate monument on display in Georgia for all to see appearing on a baseball card in the same fashion as a cluster of office buildings or a bridge.

That's how deep it goes. Racism is just so woven into the fabric of the USA that it's literally a backdrop. A landmark. A tourist attraction. And it's so easy to just, not pick up on it. I certainly didn't all these years until it was brought to my attention. The designers at Topps or Leaf certainly didn't. And that's telling, because for far too long we've gotten away with thinking that as long as we're not acting like John Rocker, we're doing OK. We're not. Bigotry and systemic racism are not the same thing, but we've been taught that they are. Thinking they are is what leads to racially insensitive blunders like these cards, and far worse.

It's a lot to take in, I know. I will share a resource that's helped me navigate these waters in recent weeks, and that's season 2 of the Scene on Radio podcast, titled Seeing White. I hope you find it useful.

In any case, maybe think twice before mailing this card off to Terry Pendleton for an autograph.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Braves

My trip to the Brass Armadillo Antique Mall in Denver happened almost a year ago. I got lots of good material out of it, so much that I'm still doing posts a year later. Including this one, there are three left, and we'll continue this long-running series with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves.

First off, a little trivia question. Who is the only player to play as a Boston Brave, Milwaukee Brave, and Atlanta Brave?

1994 Topps Archives 1954 #141 Joe Jay

I'll let you mull that one over for a while, but first, how about some 1954 Archives? This is easily my favorite Archives set, but I've yet to add anything from the actual '54 set to my collection. Joe Jay (who usually goes by Joey) was just a rookie in 1953, and had just a single start. It was a gem, though, a three-hit shutout against the Reds. He did most of his work out of the bullpen for his first four seasons, and didn't get much playing time until 1958.

Besides that excellent first start, Jay holds another claim to fame. He's the first Little Leaguer to make it to the major leagues, and "he shows amazing skill!" He was not actually in the Little League World Series, so he didn't make Night Owl's recent post, but he gave hope to millions of little kids across America, myself included.

1994 Topps Archives 1954 #176 Bob Keely

Coaches got cards in 1954 Topps, and Robert William Keely (full names on the back decades before Donruss did it) served as a coach and bullpen catcher for the Braves for twelve seasons. His Major League experience consisted of two lone games, one each in 1944 and 1945, when a lot of the league was away at war.

Coaches in those days wore a lot of hats, but he'd probably be considered a bullpen coach by today's definition. He served on the coaching staff in 1957 (his final year), which is the only time a World Series trophy has been brought home to Milwaukee. The Brewers haven't done it yet.

Last chance for guesses on that trivia question!

2003 Fleer Tradition #76 Eddie Mathews ML SP

Eddie Mathews, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978, was the only player to call Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta home as a Brave.

This is a quasi-reprint card, which is based on Fleer's 1963 set. It commemorates the 40th anniversary of that iconic set, just like 1954 Archives did in 1994. Mathews didn't actually appear in that set, getting this "Missing Link" subset card forty years later. I wonder if Upper Deck will manage to pull anything off in 2029. Unlikely. Also, 40 years really isn't that long, is it?

Mathews was part of that 1957 Championship team, beating, well, I'll give you one guess on who they beat. And the card refers to him as a nine-time All Star, which was as correct in 1963 as it is today. His last appearance in the Midsummer Classic was in 1962.

You might think Mathews was a career Brave, seeing as he stuck with them long enough to call three cities home. But his production trailed off in the mid-1960s, and the Braves traded him to Houston in 1966, along with a guy named Arnold Umbach, plus Sandy Alomar, Sr., who was the Player To Be Named Later in that particular transaction. Both players the Braves got in return were out of the Majors by the end of 1967.

Mathews may have been past his prime, but he still had some baseball left in him. He passed the 500 home run milestone as an Astro in 1967 (hitting #500 off of Juan Marichal), then wrapped up his career in Detroit with his second World Series ring in 1968.

1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature #142 Greg Maddux STL

The Braves have consistently fielded some truly amazing players, from Mathews and Aaron, to Maddux and Chipper. But the championships have always been hard to come by. The franchise has three, one in each city they called home. But despite dominating their division fourteen straight times from 1991-2005 (except for 1994, sorry Expos), they only had one World Series win to show for it.

Greg Maddux had a lot do to with that dominance. He was such an efficient pitcher that he now has an unofficial baseball stat named after him. When you pitch a complete game shutout with less than 100 pitches, you have thrown a Maddux.

Flip this Silver Signature parallel over and see for yourself. In the strike-shortened 1994 season, the best pitchers in baseball had an ERA of about 2.70. Bret Saberhagen was slightly above that, Steve Ontiveros a little below. Maddux blew them all out of the water with a 1.56 ERA, earning his third of four straight Cy Young awards in the process. Only Randy Johnson has matched that streak.

This was one of my favorite parallel sets in my early collecting days. I was always chasing a Gold Signature parallel, but didn't find one until many years later. I was also quite the fan of Topps Gold.

1994 Topps Gold #735 Terry Pendleton

Speaking of Topps Gold, I found one of those too! Like the Yankees pack, most of these Braves were actually in a binder page where I knew what I was getting. 1994s are a little tough to find (and even to see, if the light isn't right), but I have an eagle eye for these things.

Terry Pendleton, who appeared in one of my earliest posts, wasn't quite as dominant as Greg Maddux, but he did win the batting title and the NL MVP award in 1991, the first year of the Braves long run of division wins. And winning an NL batting title in the era of Tony Gwynn is no small feat.

1962 Topps #58 NL Win Leaders Warren Spahn / Joe Jay / Jim O'Toole

Finally, I'm still very, very slowly adding to my 1962 Topps collection. Warren Spahn, another Hall of Famer, tied for the NL lead in wins in 1961. As much as the game has changed since then, 20 wins in a season is still darn good. No Rockie has ever done it, but Ubaldo Jimenez missed the mark by just one in 2010.

Spahn gets the largest head on the front of this League Leaders card, even though Joe Jay is just as deserving. Yes, that's the same Joe(y) Jay we saw at the top of this post. He was traded to the Reds in 1960, a year before the Reds faced the Yankees (who else?) in the 1961 World Series. That Series was Jay's only appearance in the postseason, but perhaps as some consolation to losing to the Yankees and having a smaller head on this card than Spahn, Jay got listed first as a league leader on the card back.

The card looks a lot like a checklist, listing about fifty guys all the way down to just six wins. A lot of familiar names are on it, like Drysdale, Burdette, Podres, Koufax, Haddix, and Marichal. Even some lesser known players like Roy Face and Tony Cloninger appear in the second column.

The corners are a little beat up, but the printing itself is fine, front and back. It looks no worse than some of my 1987 Topps cards, and only set me back a couple dollars, if I'm remembering correctly. Not bad at all for my favorite vintage set.

Oh, and one last note on that trivia question. Warren Spahn came pretty close to being a correct answer, but his contract was sold to the Mets after the 1964 season. He retired in 1965 as a Giant, just a year before the Braves moved to Atlanta.

Good guess, though.