We interrupt the CC lovefest for more '76 Topps

I've fallen way behind on posting highlights from the '76 Topps set and Bruce Kison is not amused. What's more he's a pitcher who's put on a batting helmet, so we know he means business. Seriously, have you ever seen a pitcher wearing a batting helmet look so menacing on a card? They usually look like someone put a dead fish in their hair. Kison looks like he's questioning your right to exist in his space.

Luis Tiant wrote in to say the earth is off its axis (link to project 1976). My lord, why didn't they make Dock Ellis's card look like this? Or even better, put Doc Ellis on this card and say he's Luis Tiant. I mean, if there's one pitcher I associate with the bending of space and time, aside from Charles Bender, it's Dock Ellis. If you don't already know, click the last "Dock Ellis" to find out. Say "hi" to Alice for me, and stay away from that rabbit.

And Dave Winfield is here to save us all. He's larger than life, and making sure the monsters off to the right stay where they are supposed to. See monsters? Dave has a bat and a mean homerun swing. He looks more Capt'n America than Mr. May. He's the only thing standing between us and a deep blue apocalypse. Thank you Dave! And if you go on to be a Yanki, well, I guess no one's perfect.

1976 Topps Goes Greek

I've been pretty negligent about keeping up with posting more of the great cards from the '76 Topps set, like the #98 Dennis Eckersley RC. It would be easy to favor this card because it's the RC of the first "closer" but I'm not too partial to Eck, and I honestly can't stand the man who made him the A's mulleted 9th inning madman, Tony LaRussa.

Rather, I love the font on the jersey and have no idea why the Indians would have ever gone away from it. It's the same one you see on the awning of every Greek restaurant in the world. For all we know he's pitching for Athens, as if the Indians have understood your need for retro and nostalgia and raised the stakes. "Cleveland, the original team of Western civilization." Of course, the idea that the "Indians" would sport a font with those kind of associations is an unending fount of irony. Makes me wish the Eck had taken the mound, in all his mulleted glory, for the Clevelanders against the Fighting Whites. Oh man, talk about vertigo.

Here is the definitive post in the '76 Eck at Project Baseball 1976.

And here is where you can get your official Fighting Whites gear.

1976 Topps Action

The photos on these two cards are awesome. The slight fuzziness only accentuates the the sense of motion.

First up: card #10, Lou Brock. Everyone knows Lou is one of the greatest base stealers ever, and this card feeds into everything we already know about his career. Lou's coming off the base (first or second?) and the positioning of his feet suggests this is the split second before he turns toward his destination and takes off in earnest. His arms hang loose and his shoulders are roughly square to the pitcher and the action at home plate but his right foot is already pivoting to the next base. Is he going? Faking? The contrast between Brock, the man trying to hold him on, and the outfielder with his hands on his knees in the background, really gives the card a keen sense of drama. (link to the post at Project Baseball 1976)

Up next, #90 Sal Bando. As with the fielders in the Brock card, here the immobile umpire at the foul line in the background contrasts sharply with Bando going to his left for the grounder. He doesn't have the ball yet, he's going toward the ground but has yet to dive. Again, the card suggests a lot more about the situation than it resolves, and things don't look good for Sal. He's playing in on the grass, so we can guess the hitter has a good bit of speed and was expected to bunt, but obviously that didn't happen. He may have been caught off guard, but Sal's making a somewhat awkward, diving stab at the ball to keep it from getting through the infield. Although we know there's a leftfielder somewhere off to the right, just out of the picture, there's nothing but the ump between the ball and the outfield wall, and the ball looks like it could roll on forever. (Link to Project 1976 Baseball)

1976 Want Lists

Current 1976 Topps needs are:

Done!

1976 Topps Awesomeness

I went through the near-complete '76 set last night to pull out some highlights. Once I get the owner's permission, I'll link these to their respective companions at Project Baseball 1976, which has great bios and other info. For the moment, enjoy.

First up is this Tom Seaver, at #4. Tom looks pretty angry, like he's in counseling for it angry, and this is heightened by the 1970's fuzzy Topps photography. What really does it is the horribly airbrushed helmet floating in the foreground. I mean, have you ever seen anything like it?

Next to the plate: Tito Fuentes. It's a Spring Training shot, but this guy needs to be made a fashion icon. Notice the headband? The headband even matches the team colors. Simply amazing.

Third in the order:  #18 Dale Murray and #83 Jim Spencer. They are both Spring Training shots (there are WAY too  many of those in this set), but the backgrounds are cool. You can see the adds on the outfield wall behind Murray like he's a time traveller from the 1950's. And Spencer, this thing has a very last minute feel to it. I mean, why take the photo for a Rangers' player at a Royals' ballpark. See the 70's scoreboard things in the back?

Up next are Sal Bando and Lou Brock, but they will have to wait. Have a good one. Peace!

1976 Topps Edition

It's taken several years, but I am in the final stages of completing my '76 Topps set. Via Dinged Corners, here's a link to a fabulous in-progress blog dedicated to the '76 set, Project Baseball 1976. In case you don't remember, the '76 includes one of every kid who grew up in the 1980's all-time favorite must have cards, the Oscar Gamble traded. For some reason I don't recall the airbrushing as being THAT obvious, but now that I see these cards with an adult's overly critical eyes I'm surprise that, even at 8, my friends and I never noticed that Gamble, Kaat, and the rest of the traded crew seemed strangely radioactive, their duds practically glowing.

Like everyone else we loved the hair, and we traded Oscar back and forth amongst ourselves without regard to the value Beckett placed on him. There was never more than one card shop at a time in the town where I grew up, so no one ever showed up to shatter our little informal economy in which, I kid you not, I remember Mr. Gamble always trading at $10 or more due to scarcity. Of course this was before '89 Upper Deck and the birth of high end, which quickly replaced Oscar as the "IT" card. Oh, we had always gone after the "stars," but for the most part we decided who they were. Oscar was one of our stars. Card companies and Beckett brought us hype and speculation and condition in the sort of month to month, week to week maelstrom we are now accustomed to. Result: I'm not sure who ended up with our copy of the Gamble traded card, but I do have a full page of late-90's Yankees megaprospect Hensely "Bam Bam" Muelens's 1989 Donruss RC. He's a can't miss prospect and the best 3b since Mike Schmidt, you know.

One of the last cards I need for the set was this one, the George Brett second year.

It's a nice enough card, and definitely the kind of cardboard that was way beyond my reach as a kid. I was never a huge Brett fan and remembering being stunned when a friend of mine obtained a copy for what seemed like an astronomical amount of money for a George Brett card in the mid-1980's, somewhere north of $50. I am not a "condition" guy but I decided I would plunk down a few extra Washingtons to get a cleaner copy of the Brett, and I won an auction and got it for under $5. I need about 32 cards for the set, and am in contact with someone who is going to sell me 28 of them. Cool stuff.

Strangely, even now I feel drawn to the Oscar over the George, if only because of the memories I have of trading that card back and forth and the memories of a bunch of 8 year-olds goofing over his incredible hair. If we could all be ourselves like Oscar Gamble you get the feeling that the world would be a much different place. Oscar was Oscar and we loved him for it.

The original plan was, after finishing the 1976 I would move on to thew '75 and so on, back in time. Unfortunately, and in the spirit of Oscar Gamble, I am jumping '75 and '74 (unless anyone can talk me out of it) to go after the 1973 Topps set. I find the photography a lot more interesting (even the blurred cards) and am looking forward to wading through it.

In the next few days I'll post my favorites from the '76 set and put up a few more Crawfords from the collection. Have a good one!