Odd Choice for a Picture

After years of boring, predictable pictures, Topps decided to use game-action photos on their baseball cards during the early 1970s. The change was good, since they allowed cards to show players doing their job. However, Topps did go through a learning curve regarding their photo choices.  Sometimes, the picture that actually shows up on the card can be interesting:

Card #213 -- Steve Garvey, Los Angeles Dodgers

In actuality, this card sows more of Wes Parker than it does of Steve Garvey. As Garvey is coming to the plate and scoring, Parker is reaching out to shake his hand before facing the pitcher. Unfortunately, Parker obscures Garvey and covers up part of his face. This picture could have been better at a different angle or a half-second later...but sometimes the man with the camera can only get so close to the action.

While we're on the subject of the picture, couldn't the umpire's arm and catcher's gear at the far left be cropped out?

Garvey spent eight years as one-fourth of the longest-lasting infield tandem in baseball history along with Ron Cey, Bill Russell and Davey Lopes. In 1974, he would win the National League MVP award. The next season, he started a streak of 1,207 consecutive games that was impressive until a youngster named Cal Ripken came along. As a photogenic player who lived in Los Angeles, Garvey would show up on TV and became one of the Dodgers' more popular players. He would spend his entire playing career in the National League West (and Southern California), playing his final five seasons with San Diego.

Lastly, Garvey carefully crafted an image as "Mr. Clean" and harbored political aspirations, only to have them fall apart after details of his personal life were made public. As somebody who came of age while Garvey's playing career was winding down, I didn't see the problem with those allegations: after all, a person who is tagged as a serial adulterer and illegitimate father is only doing what politicians routinely do to taxpayers.

Not Your Normal Background...

While 1970s style is often interesting in an unintentionally funny sort of way, some of the color schemes seen during the decade were flat-out hideous. I give you the following example:

Card # 461 -- Mike Corkins, San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres may have worn the ugliest major league uniforms of the early 1970s. Whoever thought that having jerseys match the colors of household appliances was likely sampling from a bad stash. On the other hand, they weren't using the other major 1970s stove/refrigerator/washer/dryer color, avocado...

By the way, this is definitely a 1972 road uniform, as the Padres adopted a cap in '73 that incorporated a gold/yellow color on the cap behind the "SD" logo. An example of the new cap can be seen below in a picture from Nate Colbert's '74 Topps card:

We know Corkins is wearing a road uniform, since their home jerseys said "Padres." I just want to know where the picture was taken. The brick wall in the background isn't something that often shows up in baseball cards, nor is the garbage can seem below Corkins's right elbow (i know it's on the left, but that is his right elbow).

Mike Corkins was both a starter and reliever for the Padres and played at least part of their first six seasons as a team, but the only two full seasons he spent with the club were 1972-'73. He never finished any season with a winning record. However, he'll be remembered by some fans for two reasons: his first major league game was mentioned in Jim Bouton's Ball Four and he threw the pitch that gave Willie Mays his 600th home run. And how timely is it for me to mention a 600th career homer?

Three New Yorkers and an Iowan...

While that sounds like the beginning of a joke, the coaching staff shown on this card consists of three native New Yorkers (Manhattan, Brooklyn and Buffalo) and one from Keokuk, Iowa:

Card #449 -- Ken Aspromonte, Cleveland Indians Manager

There are some familiar faces on the card. Aspromonte had been a player during the late 1950s and early 1960s, but Warren Spahn and Rocky Colavito were stars of the same era. The younger collectors of 1973 may not have known the names, but their older brothers and fathers were certainly familiar with them.

Brooklyn-born Ken Aspromonte played for seven different major league teams between 1957 and 1963. His younger brother Bob was a player during the same period. Among the teams was the Cleveland Indians, a team he would manage between 1972 and '74. After his third straight losing season, he was fired and never managed another team. Aspromonte's cap on this card is airbrushed, despite having managed the Tribe in '72. It appears the shirt in the picture is the Indians' 1971 home jersey, which means his cap would have been blue in the original photo.

New York City native Rocky Colavito played from 1955 and '68 and began his career with the Tribe, where he was a fan favorite. He was known to be a long ball threat, with eleven consecutive 20-homer seasons. After being traded to Detroit in 1960, he was popular enough to be brought back to Cleveland five years later.

While Colavito was very good, Warren Spahn was a Hall of Fame pitcher. One of the finest left-handers the game has known, he won more games (363) than any pitcher since 1930. His career began in Boston, where fans were known to chant, "Spahn and Sain, then pray for rain." Moving with the Braves to Milwaukee, he was perhaps the best overall pitcher of the 1950s and seemed to get better with time. He led the National League in victories each season from age 37 through 40 and tossed no-hitters at 39 and 40. Spahn finally retired at 44 and passed away in 2003.

The one coach many fans didn't recognize was Joe Lutz. Despite a short stint with the St. Louis Browns in 1951, he went on to become the first foreign-born manager in the Japanese professional baseball league in 1974. Lutz passed away in 2008.

Airborne!

All through these entries, I've mentioned a number of times how Topps could be ridiculed for the choice of some of the game-action shots they used for their 1973 baseball cards. Here's one that may not seem all that great at first but eventually grew on me:

Card #376 -- Frank Duffy, Cleveland Indians

Against a dark background, Tribe shortstop Frank Duffy is jumping out of the way of a sliding Oriole baserunner. To the left of the picture, a small part of an umpire -- or another fielder -- begs the question about why Topps couldn't crop the photo or airbrush that out. As for the sliding Oriole, the image of eating the infield dirt or the too-ample gluteus maximus might not be overly appealing, but with dust spreading and Duffy leaping, this is actually a great shot when you look at it again. The darkened background gives the image a great contrast.

Duffy's playing career spanned the decade. From 1970-'79 he played for four different teams and at every infield position but will be best remembered as the Indians' regular shortstop from 1972-'77. He was an excellent fielder, which made up for the fact that he only hit .233 during his Tribe tenure. 1973 would be his finest season with the glove, leading the American League with a .986 fielding average.

The title is "Airborne!" because of the photo on the card, but perhaps "Semper Fi" would be a more appropriate expression. The back of Duffy's card features a cartoon explaining that he was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. More specifically, it says he is a member of the U.S. Marines. Any leatherneck will tell you that there is no such thing as an ex-Marine.

One Shining Moment

There's nothing like looking at a picture and getting interested enough to do a little research. You never know what you might learn:

Card #564 -- Mike Thompson, Texas Rangers

The palm trees and signs in the background are obvious signs the picture was taken during spring training. While there are some spring training shots in the 1973 Topps baseball card set, most are regular season games from 1972 (and a small number from '71). However, the reason Topps used a posed spring training photo is spelled out on the back of Thompson's card: he spent the entire '72 season in Texas' AAA affiliate in Denver. His only major league experience had come in '71 when the Rangers were still known as the Washington Senators, so using a '71 photo would be impossible without giving more work to the airbrush artists.

Interestingly, Thompson never played a major league game in a Texas Rangers uniform. When this card was making its way into packs midway through the summer, he was playing in St. Louis after being sent there as the "player to be named later" from a deal made before the '73 season began. He would appear in two games for the Cardinals late that season but not getting any decisions. In the first game, he started but was pulled from the game without retiring a single batter.

On the back of the card, there's a short description of Thompson's first (and at that time, only) victory during his '71 tour with the Senators. Looking at Thompson's lifetime stats shows that it would remain his only win despite several tries through 1975. He ended up with a 1-16 lifetime record. This card would be Thompson's first appearance in a Topps set; he managed to appear on another in 1976 but had already played his final big league game by then.

The Big Train

Among the specialty subsets of the 1973 Topps baseball set was a run of All-Time record holders. While issuing cards of long-retired legends is rather commonplace with today's baseball sets, they were still a leap of faith in 1973 because the kids who collected cards then weren't exactly thrilled to pull a black-and-white card of some old player they couldn't see play.Still, it was a great chance for young fans to learn about the rich history of the game.

Card #478 -- Walter Johnson, All-Time Strikeout Leader

At the time this card appeared, Johnson had been out of baseball for 46 years and dead for 27. However, the record books still showed his stature as one of the game's best pitchers. While this card shows he was still the all-time strikeout king, he was the runner-up on the list of total victories and had the most shutouts. Walter Johnson was one of the five members of the first Hall of Fame induction class in 1936.

Johnson surpassed Cy Young as the all-time strikeout king in 1921, which meant that he had been the leader for more than half a century. The back of the card mentions the All-Time top 10 through '72. The only active player on the list was Bob Gibson, with 2,786. However, another decade would drastically rearrange that list. Johnson's record would fall when three pitchers surpassed him during the 1983 season. First, Steve Carlton surpassed his total, then Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry. After 62 years as the leader, Johnson was suddenly fourth. Today, he's ninth on the all-time list.

I've Got a Beef Here!

Sometimes, you can look at something and know exactly what it is without much effort. In that case, what you see here is definitely a Topps baseball card. The picture combines a game-action shot with airbrushing:

Card #656 -- John Ellis, Cleveland Indians

The look on Ellis's face just says, "Sir, I don't believe I completely concur with your assessment." Or something a lot more direct and less polite. The A's baserunner, on the other hand, is dusting himself off and remaining out of the discussion.

Although this is an awesome picture of the aftermath of an umpire's on-field ruling that wasn't exactly well-received by the fielder, a couple of things look odd in the picture. First, Ellis is in the infield, clearly not catching as the position icon shows. Secondly, he doesn't appear to be wearing a major league uniform. That's because Ellis had spent all of 1972 with the New York Yankees before being traded to Cleveland in the deal that sent Graig Nettles to The Bronx. The Yankees road uniform has had the "NEW YORK" airbrushed off, red, white and blue piping has been painted around the edges and his stirrup sock have been painted red. The teammate to his left (behind the umpire) has a small part of his hat and stirrups airbrushed the same red color. While it looks bad, it's actually a better job by Topps than how they showed Nettles in his own new uniform for '73.

While looking through Ellis's game logs on Baseball-Reference.com, it appears he didn't play against the Oakland A's on the road at all that season. However, in 1971 he played two August games at first base in Oakland. Therefore, it appears this picture was from that year. In 1973, he would become the very first designated hitter in the Indians' history. Remaining with the Tribe until the end of the 1975 season, he was traded to Texas where he would remain until 1981.