#010 Juan Marichal / Bob Gibson / Fergie Jenkins 1968 NL Pitching Leaders

3 iconic Hall of Famers on one 41 year-old card! This is one of my favorite cards of the set.

These 3 all had a 20+ win season, Juan with a stunning 26! It was Bob's year though with winning the MVP trophy and his first of 2 Cy Youngs. You just can't ignore his 1968 stats like an ERA of 1.12, 268 K's, 13 shutouts, 28 complete games out of 35 games started, another of his 9 Gold Gloves and of course his 22-9 record. Incredible!

#388 Tom McGraw

The White Sox started wearing powder blue road unis in 1964 with the arrival of color television. The idea caught on well enough that seven more teams were wearing them by 1974.


Tommy moved on from Chicago to Washington for the final season of the Senators franchise in 1971 and was even their final offensive out when he was caught stealing on September 30th.

Merry Christmas to all in blogland today!

Poking Fun at '69 Topps

Over at the Dinged Corner blog, I spotted this amusing post poking fun at the little name circles on the front of the cards.Thought is was worth passing along.

Check it out here!

#389 Dan Coombs

Danny Coombs was a pitcher for the Colt .45s and Astros from 1963 to 1969 and for the Padres from 1970 to 1971. He had a career ERA of 4.08 and a record of 19-27 with 249 strikeouts. He was also a basketball star at Seton Hall measuring at 6 feet 5 inches.



Perhaps one of the most interesting moments in Danny's career was his MLB debut for the Colt. 45s during their sophomore year, two days before the end of the season and desperate for ticket sales. The Colts tried something that had never been done in the major leagues and has not been done since. They fielded the first all-rookie team with an average age of 19. Danny came in at the bottom of the 3rd and gave up 3 singles before closing the inning with a ground-out. For more on this day, follow this link for some great baseball history.

#436 Gene Alley

Gene Alley played his entire career for the Bucs from 1963 to 1973, helping beat out the Orioles in 1971 for the championship. Lingering shoulder and knee problems forced him into an early retirement in 1973 at the age of 33. Gene was best known for his 2 time Gold Glove winning fielding abilities, teaming up with Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski to create on of the best infield duos ever. The two set a MLB record for 161 double plays in a season in 1966 which still stands, also setting the Pirates up for a NL record with 215 double plays as a team. At one point in 1969 starting on August 13, Gene started a 21 game hitting streak during which he went 30 for 82 (.366) with 8 home runs, 21 RBI and 15 runs scored. He raised his batting average from .218 to .266 after that stretch.

Here's Gene wearing the number 22, not his normal number of 14 which I believe he wore every year except for 1968.

#419 Rod Carew Sporting News All -Star

Here's a young Sir Rodney on his Sporting News All-Star card #419. Only in his third season, he was on his way to win his first of 7 AL batting titles with an average of .332 that year! This was his 3rd All-Star selection in his, count em', 18 consecutive All-Star selections! He also stole home 9 times that year. Wow.

According to Beckett.com, there were 20 All-Star cards, all with puzzle pieces on the back. The first ten, including this one, featured a Carl Yaztremski puzzle. The other ten featured Pete Rose.

This card, along with another dozen, were sent over from Dean at Dean's Cards just because of his love for the 1969 Topps Baseball set! After Dean contacted me, I checked out his store and was really impressed by the sheer volume of singles listed, and the quality of the layout. They've pretty much got the last 100 years of sports trading cards covered, along with a large amount of non-sports cards, mostly from the 1930's through the 1960's. In most cases, you'll have a choice of which grade you want. This card, for instance, shows 5 EX/MT, 15 EX and 4 VG cards in stock! Check 'em out.

Here's the other cards sent over from Dean that will be shown on this blog in the near future:

# 1 AL Batting Leaders -Yaz / Cater / Oliva
# 120 Pete Rose
# 136 Cardinals Rookies - Huntz / Torrez
# 139 Andy Kosco
# 158 Joe Gibbon
# 334 Phil Roof
# 388 Tom McCraw
# 389 Dan Coombs
# 391 Ray Culp
# 436 Gene Alley
# 445 Bobby Knoop
# 553 Ron Davis

#556 A's Stars

The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this card is, why did Topps choose these 3 for this card? With my limited knowledge of A's stars and 1969 baseball, I would have gone with Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers. But, looking back at the timeline in all these player's careers helped me see better, for myself, the answer to my question.

Sal was the up-and-comer who had established himself well the year before and really hit his stride in 1969. He was selected to his first All-Star Game, hit 31 home runs and batted .281. Bert was an obvious choice. He was just scary on the base path, swiping 62 that year. His previous year he led the majors with another 62 steals, was 11th in MVP voting and was selected to his first All-Star Game. Danny fished 2nd to Yaz in the AL batting titled in 1968, "The Year of the Pitcher", hitting .290 to Yaz's .301.

As for Reggie, Vida and Rollie, they were all still fresh outa the minors from Iowa and Vancouver! And along with Catfish, they would go on to become legends a little later winning 3 championships in a row for Oakland.

I picked up this card on eBay last week for 25 cents, along with 5 more commons all for a quarter or two each. This was the first time I had seen the team stars format for this set, since I mostly only have lower numbered cards. I really love this card and can't wait to find more like it for the other teams!