1970 KELLOGG'S TOMMIE AGEE #11 PSA 8



So yeah, I don't usually post at 6:50 on a Saturday morning.

But it seems appropriate, since that is the time and place where I first met these cards.

The back of a box of Frosted Flakes was pretty much my bible when I was a kid. I'd prop an elbow on the breakfast table, dig a fist into my cheek, and read from top to bottom, doing my level best to divine secret meanings between sugar rushes.

Usually the text would be a description of the giveaway in the box. Wind this up, dip that in water, wear this around your neck, slip that onto your finger...

In the summer of 1970, the box made a wondrous claim: Free inside! Autographed “3-D” baseball cards.

There was probably fine print somewhere that explained that these were facsimile autographs, but the quotes around “3-D” seem gratuitous. The illusion of depth created by the blurred backgrounds and plastic overlays was really quite impressive.

The cards were produced by Xograph, the same company that had printed the wildly elusive 1968 Topps 3D test set, and they sat in the bottom of the box in an opaque paper wrapper.

The intent of the packaging was probably for kids to pour out the card with the last bowl of cereal in the box. But of course we pushed up our pajama sleeves and thrust our skinny arms into full boxes, scraping blindly along the bottom until we had our prize.

Kellogg's released a new “3-D” set each year through to the mid '80s (except for 1973, when they distributed a more traditional “flat” set), and some of those designs were quite strong. But I think the 1970 set might be my favorite.

Because you never really forget your first...

1970 TOPPS DUFFY DYER #692 SGC 88



Pitchers and catchers reported this week, and it's time to give some love to the catchers.

“Pitchers and catchers” is an evocative phrase. It has rhythm and meter. It's contrapuntal.

But without the catchers, it's just a word: pitchers.

And where's the poetry in that?

Plus, if the pitchers reported without the catchers, they'd be nowhere. A bunch of prima donnas throwing the ball back and forth, getting all petulant.

“Squat, dammit!”

“No, you squat!”

So I say: All hail the catcher.

Wait, better yet: All hail the backup catcher.

We loved Duffy Dyer when we were kids for that alliterative name, its syllables thumping along like a cartoon rabbit.

We loved him because, yes, we would call him Duffy Diarrhea and then convulse in laughter.

Sure, Duffy was a light hitter, but he was secure in his role backing up Jerry Grote. And like Grote, he was a fine defensive catcher with a strong and accurate arm.

All hail Duffy Dyer!

(Fun fact: In the spring of 1980, the Expos traded Duffy to the Tigers for... Jerry Manuel.)

1972 TOPPS ED KRANEPOOL #181 PSA 7, 8



Break out your stereopticons, boys and girls. It’s 3D time!

In order to get the full effect here, you need to follow these easy steps:

(1) Enlarge the picture at the top of this post.
(2) Press your nose gently against your monitor screen or mobile device.
(3) Stare at the center of the image for 7 seconds.
(4) Draw your face away from the screen slowly, until you’ve reached a distance of exactly 7”.
(5) Unfocus your eyes by staring through the picture.
(6) Chant “Loopenark” 7 times in slow succession.
(7) Steady Eddie should now jump off the screen in full, rapturous 3D!

If you can’t get this to work, there’s a good chance that you have a rare visual disorder known as an “astigmetism”…

1966 TOPPS LOU KLIMCHOCK #589 PSA 7.5



I own this card, but I'm still not convinced it exists.

I was quite fond of the 1966 set as a young collector, and a fair number of these high-number cards passed through my hands. I would have sworn that I knew my Choo Choo from my Chi Chi.

But then it happened one night several years back that I was trolling eBay for vintage Mets, and this popped up. It was the first one I'd ever seen, so I blinked a couple of times, and then examined the card closely.

I was struck immediately by the quality of the photo, and the layout of the card. Lou stoops into the frame from the border and gives us a nice view of the logo on his shoulder and the emblem on his hat.

Additional patches of radiant blue (his left sleeve, a snippet of uniform number on his back, and the rectangular Spalding emblem on his glove) pop against a flat background setting of brown dirt and browning grass.

The yellow and purple “METS” banner in the upper corner balances out Lou's pose, and the condensed font on his nameplate in the same color combination pulls the whole thing together.

How could I have never seen this card before? Maybe it was an elaborate hoax, a deft parody of a 1966 Topps high number.

I mean, even the name reads like a put-on: Lou Klimchock.

It's an anti-euphonious name. A Don Martin sound effect of a name.

But real or not, I'm keeping my copy just the same...

1967 TOPPS N. LEAGUE ROOKIES (HERNANDEZ/GIGON) #587 BVG 7.5



For the longest time I've coveted the 1967 high-number N. League Rookies card of Shaw/Sutherland, but the asking/ending price is always too dear.

So one day on a whim, I hatched an ingenious plan. I came across a newly listed copy of this N. League Rookies Hernandez/Gigon card at a reasonable buy-it-now price and I pulled the trigger.

Now, the plan was that the sheer ardency of my devotion to the Mets would have an alchemical effect on this card, and eventually transform it within its holder to a Shaw/Sutherland. I was even willing to see it step down a half grade during the transmutation.

Well I've had the card for almost a year, and much to my dismay it's still a Hernandez/Gigon.

I haven't given up on the whole alchemy thing just yet, but if anyone's willing to trade a PSA/SGC/BVG 7 Shaw/Sutherland for this card, the end result would be just as satisfying...

1971 TOPPS METS ROOKIE STARS #648 SGC 86



This card is walking like a panther.

It's so effing ineffably kool that I need to stop myself from buying it again whenever I see it for sale. Maybe one day I'll just liquidate the rest of my collection and pursue a stack of 200 or so of these babies.

What makes it such an amazing piece of cardboard? Well, the lineup of player photos helps.

Memory tells me that it's rare to see a vintage three-player rookie card where everyone is wearing actual big-league hats. This card looks like a winning pull on a Mets' slot machine.

Then there's the general mien of the players themselves. Matlack smirks like he knows he's going to win the 1972 ROY award. Teddy wields his pine-tarred bat, defying you to call him a light-hitting utility player.

And Rich Folkers? Well, he might look like a math teacher, but I'm pretty sure I got my young mouth washed out with soap for saying his name around the house.

Finally, there are the inks. The clear blue-sky background in each frame, the deeper blues of the aforementioned hats, and the orange/yellow player names all just dance off the black card.

And while the other Mets' cards in the 1971 set used orange for the team name, this one (and the low-number Bobb/Foli rookie) utilized a deep red ink. It's like Barnett Newman designed the damn thing.

Let everybody know...

1972 TOPPS JIM FREGOSI #755 PSA 7



This card represents layers of missed opportunities.

If you're a Mets' fan, the top layer is obviously the very fact of the trade. The team relinquished the eventual all-time strikeout king and author of 7 no-hitters for 364 Jim Fregosi at bats. 5 HRs, 43 RBI, and a .233 average later, Fregosi was sold to Texas.

The truly surreal thing about the trade is that Nolan Ryan was part of a package of four players that the Mets shipped to the Angels in the deal. Is it any wonder that Nolan put the no no-no hoodoo on the Mets in return?

Another key missed opportunity here is the Topps layer.

The 1972 Traded subset adds extra flavor to the high-number series. The removal of the team name from the marquee and the blocky “TRADED” stamp are great design elements, and the initial run of players is pretty unbeatable: Carlton, Morgan, McLain, Frank Robinson...

But then Fregosi breaks the spell, and things wind down with Wise and Cardenas.

And believe it or not, this is actually Fregosi's third card in the 1972 Topps set. He appears as an Angel on #115, then as a Metropolitan in a boyhood photo on #346, and finally on this Traded card.

Ryan, on the other hand appears once, as an airbrushed Angel on card #595.

In the 1972 set in my mind, there is a Mets' Ryan card in series 1 or 2, and a Traded card picturing him as an Angel in the last series...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Hope you have a PSA 10 holiday season!

I'll be back posting in early January.

1969 TOPPS AL JACKSON #647 PSA 7




The summer of ’69?

Well, I got my first real six string. Bought it at the five-and-dime.

OK, that wasn’t me. That was some Canadian dude.

My summer of ’69 was more about a dim awareness. Of moon landings and Mad magazine. Of hippies and Nixon and ‘Nam. Oh my…

And the Mets. I had a dim awareness of the Mets that began to sharpen that summer.

This is the final form it took: “It will always be this way.”

So the seeds of my romantically fatal baseball tendencies were planted at the very moment of my conception as a fan.

However, I didn't have even a dim awareness of baseball cards at this point. My brother was four years older, but he was not really into sports, so cards hadn’t made their way into my house.

And all apologies, but I don’t feel like I missed too much. The ‘69 card fronts are kind of a lazy amalgamation of the ’67 and ’68 sets, and expansion appears to have given the airbrushers a fit.

Further evidence of the essential torpor surrounding the set can be found there on Al Jackson's left sleeve. If you squint a bit, you'll see a World's Fair commemorative patch. Which the Mets wore in 1964 and 1965...

The reverses are actually kind of cool, with a bubblegum pink background and a comic, as space allows. Plus, I love the way the loop of the “t” in the Topps logo cradles the card number.

1965 TOPPS METS TEAM #551 PSA 7.5



The various indignities on display on 1960s Mets’ team cards are generally reserved for the back.

On the front is a shiny blue team-- no apparent bumps and bruises, no uniform tops rent in anguish.

Heck, in their mien and demeanor they could be the Yankees.

But then you flip the card over, and read the list of absurd won/loss records, puny batting averages, and feeble power numbers.

Well, in 1965 (and again in 1966) Topps decided to display the order of finish on the card fronts. So all the world could see it there plain as day, with no need to flip the card over:

10TH PLACE.

There's a good chance that we'll never again see numbers of the sort put up by Mets' pitchers from 1962 through 1965. It's worth basking in them a bit:

1962
Roger Craig: 10-24, 4.51
Al Jackson: 8-20, 4.40
Jay Hook: 8-19, 4.84
Bob Miller: 1-12, 4.89
Craig Anderson: 3-17, 5.35

1963
Roger Craig: 5-22, 3.78
Tracy Stallard: 6-17, 4.71
Jay Hook: 4-14, 5.48
Galen Cisco: 7-15, 4.34
Carl Willey: 9-14, 3.10
Al Jackson: 13-17, 3.96

1964
Jack Fisher: 10-17, 4.23
Tracy Stallard: 10-20, 3.79
Al Jackson: 11-16, 4.26
Galen Cisco: 6-19, 3.62

1965
Jack Fisher: 8-24, 3.94
Al Jackson: 8-20, 4.34
Warren Spahn: 4-12, 4.36
Tom Parsons: 1-10, 4.67

1973 TOPPS LEO DUROCHER #624 PSA 7



One of the joys of Topps high-number series up through 1973 is that they often reveal long-forgotten footnotes to baseball history.

They trace within their lines the trajectory of once-great figures playing out the strings of their careers, in far-flung outposts that defy our natural associations.

Take Leo the Lip here. You might think of Leo the player as a Cardinal and a Dodger. I know I think of Leo the manager as a Dodger and a Giant and a Cub. But seeing him with the Astros, even in this airbrushed form, just doesn’t seem right.

I imagine him getting dressed in the Astrodome locker room with his back turned to the mirror.

And around about the 6th inning, I see him gazing out through the plastic Houston night in search of just a little patch of ivy…

1972 TOPPS CLOTH STICKERS DANNY FRISELLA PSA 6



No Ahab am I, but I do have some proverbial white whales that I chase with no real hope of ever landing:

1967 Topps Stand Up Ron Swoboda
1967 Topps Discs Cleon Jones
1968 Topps 3D Ron Swoboda
1970 Topps Cloth Gary Gentry
1970 Topps Candy Lid Tom Seaver

I don’t think this 1972 Cloth Frisella qualifies as a white whale, because it’s not really that hard to find.

Somewhere I have a photo of my dog standing in front of my bedroom door, and the door is covered with crusty Wacky Packages and misshapen 1972 Cloth stickers. And if I had access to these Cloths back in the day, they could not have been too scarce.

However, I did spend a fair amount of time looking for a graded version of this Frisella with the backing intact, and it felt like a steal for the $15 or so I paid.

I suppose I’d sharpen my harpoon again for a Jim Fregosi BP…

WHO MADE THE GRADE

1972 TOPPS JIM BEAUCHAMP #594 PSA 8



Topps Rep: Jim? Jim? Can I grab you for a couple of minutes?

Jim Beauchamp: Whuh?

TR: I’m with Topps and we’re working on the upcoming 1972 set. I just wanted to take your picture and ask you some quick questions for the back of your card.

JB: Dude, you’re with tops? Can you spinnnnn? Like this? (Does a clumsy pirouette, stumbles) Aw, man, my pointy shoes made me less spinny. Damn pointy shoes.

TR: Er, OK. No. Topps. T-O-P-P-S.

JB: Huhuhuhuh.

TR: What?

JB: Nothing.

TR: No, what?

JB: (Whispers) Dude, you said “peepee.”

TR: (Sighs) I guess you’re right. Jim, can you tell me a little bit about what you like to do in the offseason?

JB: Well, this winter, me and my old lady followed Brewer and Shipley up and down the East Coast. (Sings) “Sitting downtown in a railway station…” And, plus, we made Zeke.

TR: Zeke?

JB: Zeke. He’s our scarecrow. He’s the grooviest scarecrow in Grove, Oklahoma. But he won’t scare the crows, man. He’ll love the crows. Zeke is a love crow! Dude.

TR: Right. Anything else you’d like…

JB: (Interrupting) Cards! Oh man, baseball cards! What is the set going to look like?

TR: Well, the team names will appear in an arc at top of the card, with a 3D effect and lots of different colors, some pastels and some neons.

JB: Whoa!

TR: And the player names will appear in a little oval tablet at the bottom of the card, in all caps.

JB: Little oval tablet? Far out!

TR: Yes, Jim. We think the kids will “dig” them. Now if you don’t mind, can I get a couple of quick pictures?

JB: Sure, dude. One thing though: (Whispering) I’m kind of stoned right now.

TR: Don’t worry, Jim. No one will ever notice…

1962 TOPPS ED BOUCHEE #497 PSA 6



Ed Bouchee looks forlorn.

It’s easy to imagine that the 1962 Mets would do that to a man. Sure, you’re in the big leagues, technically. But the road to 40-120 must be a hard one.

Chances are, though, that there’s something more behind Ed’s sad eyes.

He was runner-up for NL Rookie of the Year in 1957, and his professional future looked bright.

However, following that banner season, Ed was arrested for indecent exposure. He spent a few months in a mental institution before being allowed to return to the majors in the summer of 1958.

He is the reason that there is no card #145 in the 1958 Topps set. Ed is listed as #145 on the team checklist, but in the set he is just an unexplained gap.

1962 would turn out to be his last year in the bigs, and he went out with the honor of being one of only two players to model a full Mets uniform in that year’s Topps set.

But still in those eyes all I see is the unexplained gap…

1971 TOPPS SUPER DONN CLENDENON #4, PSA 8



In my small corner of the world, we went to Ha-Cha Stationery for the Sunday Times. On the off chance that they were out of papers, we’d head over to Park Island.

Park Island was a little more than a mile away from Ha-Cha, which in little-kid geography felt like light years. And it was exotic. Dark aisles of toys and greeting cards and colorful things to which I had not yet ascribed a practical use.

The counter at the front of the store was packed full of candy and rolls of red caps, and in the summer, space was cleared for Mexican jumping beans and baseball cards.

And not just any baseball cards. While Ha-Cha trafficked in the standard Topps sets, Park Island carried the 1970 and 1971 Topps Supers, Chemtoy superballs, Milk Duds player boxes, and Fleer World Series cards.

I made enough trips to Park Island in those years to put together a decent collection of these esoteric issues, but in time they fell prey to storage difficulties (Supers), the allure of splitting brittle rubber with a fingernail (superballs), inexact scissoring (Milk Duds), and general disinterest (the Fleers).

So when I saw this 1971 Super Clendenon on eBay, I jumped at it.

It's Park Island in optical-grade hard plastic...

1970 TOPPS WORLD CHAMPIONS #1 PSA 8



The 1970 Topps set is my Eden.

Now, I realize it’s just a gray, blighted garden to some. But hear me out.

First of all, let’s start with the gray itself. This is the first Topps baseball set with a gray border. They’d done wood-grain and burlap sack and white, sure. But never gray.

And gray was a perfect fit. It is both lunar and anti-psychedelic—the ideal 1970 color.

Next, we have the script player names on the card fronts, another first for a Topps baseball set.

Up until 1970 there had been nothing but a succession of blocky, mostly sans serif fonts used for player names. This script font makes it feel like baseball cards are growing up, which is both momentous and tremendously sad.

(A small quirk that I love about the 1970 set is that sometimes players from New York’s American League team are referred to on the fronts as Yankees and sometimes as Yanks. Because I appreciate a healthy disrespect for authority…)

The card backs are among the most readable that Topps ever produced, with blocks of blue and gold ink subdividing a creamy white field.

Oh, and finally there's this: Card #1. World Champions. New York Mets.

Paradise.

1964 TOPPS BOB KENNEDY #486 SGC 86



A cool subgenre of Manager cards is the “Manager Pantomiming Shouting by Raising Cupped Hand(s) to Mouth” card.

Here’s a nice example, genus 1964.

But wait, there’s something going on here that’s not quite right.

This is not actually a Manager card. It’s a “Head Coach” card.

That’s right, a Head Coach card. In a baseball set.

How did this happen? Well, back in the early 60s, things got a little weird in Chicago, and they instituted an experiment called the College of Coaches. You can read about it here.

And if there is no greater legacy of this doomed effort than an anomalous Head Coach card in the 1964 Topps set, I think that has to be considered in the ledger as a small measure of success…

1974 TOPPS DECKLE EDGE JON MATLACK #44 PSA 7



I’ll always remember when Jon Matlack was deckled by a Marty Perez line drive in 1973.

The ball caromed off his head, and he dropped as if he'd been shot. I felt it out in Plainview.

After all, Matlack was one of my main driveway pitchers.

This was the short roster of guys I would pretend to be as I toed the “rubber” on my driveway and hurled tennis balls at the garage door. If I could hit the same rectangle three straight times, Reggie Jackson could only grumble and head back to the bench. Sorry Reggie—this game 7 belongs to us.

Matlack was a lefty like me, and like most good lefties, he wore number 32. Plus his middle name was “Trumpbour,” which has to count for something.

These Deckle Edge cards were part of the last gasp of limited-run test issues to come out of Topps. And deep in the heart of the Technicolor 70s, I’d say it took some gumption for them to release a black and white set.

I have an ungraded Felix Millan in a box somewhere. The Seaver has eluded me.

But as much as I love Tom Terrific, every once in a while still I rock into that Matlack motion, raise the glove in front of my eyes, uncoil, deliver, and duck…

1964 TOPPS GIL HODGES #547 PSA 8



Manager cards have always been the licorice jelly beans of a Topps set.

They look as shiny and tasty as anything else in the pile. But you bite into one expecting sweetness, and instead get something exotic and slightly out of step.

Take this 1964 Gil Hodges card, for example. On the surface, it looks like pretty much any other player card in the set.

Then you flip it over and find that there’s no cartoon, no rub-a-nickel quiz rectangle, and no stats. Just a windy narrative about all things Gil.

But I have to say that I enjoy the occasional selection of artisanal licorice. And by the same token, I could see developing a specific enthusiasm for these old-school manager cards…