Best thing about cards from the '60s: the league leader cards are cheap as hell and stacked with stars. The '60s also has a particular fondness for disembodied floaty heads. ESPECIALLY the 1963 Topps set. Check out this beauty:
Frank, Stan and Hank of the same freaking card. Tommy Davis and Bill White weren't slouches either. There's about 14,000 hits on this card. Serious, serious star power right here.
AND IT AIN'T NOTHIN COMPARED TO THIS MONSTER:
HANK. FRANK. ERNIE. CHA-CHA. AND WILLIE-FREAKING-MAYS. ALL ON THE SAME CARD. Ain't even estimating on this one. There are Two Thousand Eight Hundred And Ninety Two career home runs on this card. All without Biogenesis. Think about this: On this card, ORLANDO CEPEDA IS THE SCRUB. Holy crap I love this card. It also allowed me to do this:
'63 Topps Team set complete page. So many bright colors. The third League Leader card ain't too shabby either. Gibby, Drysdale and Sandy-Frickkin-Koufax? And Bob Shaw too boot! If only the high numbers were this fun to collect...
The last '63 card I picked up for my 1st series set was this American League Victory Leaders card. Floaty heads for the win! Literally. At first glance this may not seem like a super-star-studded specimen but these were some fine pitchers in the early '60s. Let's go down the list, shall we?
Ralph Terry won 23 games for the Yankees in '62, easily his career year. No Cy Young award for Terry that year since the award had not been split into one for each league yet and Don Drysdale owned all other pitchers that year. Terry did get his only all star nods and a World Series MVP so he did pretty well for himself. Not only that, he was a helluva golfer. The thing he's most known for though is coughing up a phone run in 1960 to some dude named Mazeroski.
Ray Herbert also had a career year in 1962 with his only 20-win season. In his defense, he played for the crummy Kansas City A's and not the mighty Yankees. Ray had the season winning percentage crown in '62 and also was the winning pitcher in the second All Star Game that year. You say you need more trivia? He gave up Carl Yastrzemski's first hit.
Camilo Pascual is one of the best pitchers from the '60s that you've never heard of. From 1959 to 1964 he won 100 games for the Senators and Twins. He also had 7 all star appearances and lead the league in strikeouts three times and complete games three times during that period. Dude could pitch.
Dick Donovan was originally signed by the Braves, but was out of the bigs in '63. He won 18 games for the Atlanta Crackers in '64 and the White Sox picked him up. He had his career year for the Sox in '57, going 16-6 and coming in second to Warren Spahn in the Cy Young voting. After being picked up in the expansion draft by Washington, he was traded to the Indians for the '62 season and came up with a 20-win season for the Tribe. As far as I know, he has no cards as a Brave which irritates me.
Jim Bunning is a Hall of Famer and a Senator, but he only won 19 games in '62 so I'm not even gonna talk about him.
If you wanna know the next five on the list, here ya go:
Jim Kaat - 18 wins (should be a Hall of Famer)
Whitey Ford - 17 wins (is a Hall of Famer)
Hank Aguirre - 16 wins (yes I typed Mark the first time)
Gene Conley - 15 wins (Screwball Hall of Famer)
Bill Monbouquette - 15 wins (Red Sox Hall of Famer)
AAAAH. Now I have Blogger's Block! To go along with all the other blocks I have. Time to lean on the trade posts. I got a small pile of '65 Topps from reader James. They were inside a small snap case with a Red Sox Nation logo on it. Also: Duct Tape "Vintage Cards" label. I like James already. These '65s are basically in exchange for a '56 Jackie Jenson and a Tony Conigliaro sketch card. One that I haven't started yet because I'm allergic to Acrylic Paint right now. Every time I get near them I look at ponies online for 7 hours straight. I am not entirely unhappy with this malady. I really need to get the ol' easel out again though so I'm going to post '65s non-stop until I finish up some paintings. Or until I run out of '65s and feel shame. Wait, I have Pinkie Pie at the top of my blog. I have no shame. Here's card #1 from the 1965 Topps set courtesy James for you to look at while I figure out how I'm supposed to feel.
Should be a Hall of Famer, Is a Hall of Famer, and I'd put him in the Hall of Fame. Elston integrated the Yankees for Pete's sake. In fact put everyone who integrated a team in the Hall! Yes, this means I am officially pushing for Pumpsie Green's candidacy. No more ridiculous than having Bowie Kuhn in and Marvin Miller out... Pumpsie in the Hall!!!
Another good thing about Elston, if it weren't for him Mickey Mantle would be on this card and it would cost $50 in this condition. My favorite thing about these old League Leader cards is that they fo fifty players deep! Yeah, there's some Hall of Famers in there (HOWARD!) but you also see the Boog Powells and Tony Conigliaros and Moose Skowrons and Jim Fregosis and Rocky Colavitos and Vic Davalillos and Zoillo Versalles and Don Werts and Norm Cashes and Doogie Howsers and Jerry Lumpes and Joe Pepitomes and Jim Gentiles and Tom Treshes. If Topps did leader cards like this today (Which they might, I haven't really looked at one from this year yet) #50 on the list would be Brett Gardner at .259 which is one point over the league average. Hmmmm... Baseball-Reference.com is our baseball cards now isn't it? Needs more creases.
