skip pitlock - 19

Another horrible card. Who saw this and said, "Wow, this would make a great baseball card!!"

norm miller - 18

Well, that's more like it.  Finally another decent 1971 card.  So this looks like Shea Stadium again. 

I am not a big fan of the tight cropping of action cards that you see so frequently nowadays.  This cropping was more of a rarity in 1971.  For some reason, this does not bother me.  I think it is because most of todays cards are the same.  They are tightly cropped action shots, and that does get boring after a while.

This is the best Norm Miller card.  He looks like a freak in his 1974 card on the Braves.  His 72 and 73 are dull poses.  I do not recall any of his pre-1971 cards.

All in all a good card.

billy sorrell - 17

Billy Sorrell never played a game after 1970.  This is a horrible card. 

ken singleton - 16

Here we have yet another dull pose.  I hate these cards where the bat is coming at you like some freakish missle.  If this card were in 3-D, perhaps it would be interesting.

There are many shots of Shea Stadium in this set and despite the cool looking light tower in the backgroung, this is not a great shot.  There seems to be a guy in the background.  What is he doing?  Maybe having long toss?  Kind of looks like a dance move.

Singleton was a good player and had his best years in Baltimore toward the end of the decade.

Singleton was not in too many great cards over the years.  I believe the 1978 was the best - the 1983 was OK as well.  The 1975 was also good considering it was a head shot.

andy messersmith - 15

In the past, Topps used an interesting numbering convention for their cards.  The major stars would get the really round numbers (100, 200, 300, etc). Other big stars would get the 50's - 50, 150, etc.  Then the minor stars and semi-stars would get 5, 10, 15, etc.

So far, we've seen Thurman Munson at 5 and Claude Osteen at 10.  So at 15 we have Andy Messersmith in a boring posed picture in an empty and cavernous Yankee Stadium.

Not much else to say about this card.  This appears to be pre-game. 

I am having difficulty recalling any good Mesersmith cards.  The 1979 in a Yankees uniform comes to mind.  The cool thing about that card is that it is a Yankees road uniform - a rarity in the Topps baseball card world.  I remember 74, 75 & 76 are all head shots.  1977 too I think. The 1970 was OK - good background of Yankee Stadium in that one as opposed to this.

Another yawn.

dave concepcion - 14

Dave Concepcion was never one of my favorite players.  So a dull shot in Shea Stadium is another dull card in a set that is probably 90% dull.

Concepcion was in a few decent cards (see 1974 and 1976 in particular - 1973 is pretty good too) but this is one of the worst. 

In an earlier post I started questioning myself as to whether I should continue this blog on the '71 set.  Now that I think about it, the '73 set is probably better, but oh well.

A return

I think I may pick this one up as well as my main page.  See you soon!

On hold for a week or so

Tax Season - life ends.

1971 ROOKIE STARS (White Sox) - 13

So, I am not a fan of "rookie" cards. I say, either make the guy in a card or don't, but this half a card, or quarter of a card is nonsense. Both of these guys are goons anway.

johnny callison - 12

Here we have yet another dull card. Callison was a star in the 1960's, but does not have much of a legacy to non-baseball fans.

This looks like Shea Stadium. Sometime later in the 1970's Topps took more pictures on the west coast (Oakland and San Francisco) but in the '71 set, many of the shots are at Yankee Staduim and Shea Stadium.

His bat looks too small.

I liked the Cubs road uniforms in those days. They had some bad road uniforms in the 70's and 80's. Reverse pin-stripes, blue T-shirts, etc.

elliott maddox - 11

This reminds me of the 1975 Oakland Raiders.

Not even a blurry Yankee Stadium background could save this disaster. I mean could they find a worse picture?

Maddox was never really in a gread card. I used the 1981 on the Mets, but that was really nothing special.

I am starting to wonder why I like this set.

claude osteen - 10

So here is the ninth player card, and again this card is lame. Osteen’s only good card is the 1974. Dodger Town looks good in this shot, but nothing special.

Skip it.

george scott - 9

George Scott was in a few cool cards. This is not one of them. 1973, 1974 and 1975 are all great cards of Boomer. This is a typical dull, posed spring training shot, although I like the look on Boomers face.

As if to say, I am about to have some big years. Of course he had those big years with Milwaukee. Scott was a typical story of Boston’s futility and stupidity (I miss those days). I know they won the pennant in ’75, but their front office was completely inept with respect to Scott.

The Sox traded Scott in a deal that included about 200 players, most of who were on the tail end of their career. He went on to have the 5 best years of his career with the Brewers. So the Sox got him back for Cecil Cooper. Cooper became a star for a few years with Milwaukee and Scott’s skills eroded.

So while the Yankees have had their share of Bob Sykes and Dale Murray acquisitions, the mishandling of Scott’s career by the Sox always makes me smile.

mike mc queen - 8

Are those orange trees in the background? Spring training shots from the early 70’s look so bucolic. It is like they trained in an open field and put up chain link fences. Of course that is quite different from today’s facilities.

McQueen only appeared in a 71 and 72 card, both having the same orange tree in the background. The pictures may have been taken at the same time for all I know. The 72 is a better card. This one is too close up.

Anyway, another dud. Of the 7 player cards so far, only one good one.

jim holt - 7

Did Jim Holt have a lazy eye?

This card is dull. I like the 1972 Holt; it is a semi-high number, so that makes it automatically cool.

Holt was never in an action card. How many players were in cards in 1971 through 1977 and never in an action card? Ken Henderson comes to mind, but that’s about it.

Anyway, there is really nothing at all interesting here. Holt does have a nice signature though...

ed spiezio- 6

What a dull card!!! Spiezio looks constipated or something here. Too bad the background isn’t a bit clearer, because it looks like it could be interesting. Far more interesting than Ed. Are those telephone poles off in the distance? Houses too? Also, there is some structure in the bottom left corner. It is probably a grandstand or something.

Anyway, like I stated in the Munson post, I did not use the 1973 Spiezio in my league (he was not in a 73 card). I used the 1972. The 1968 is the coolest of all Ed Spiezio cards. Not a great card, but not bad for 1968.

thurman munson - 5

Finally, we have a good action shot. Ironically, this is not my favorite Munson. The 1978 is cool, but for my money, the 1973 is one of the coolest cards out there. So that’s 4 in a row where I used the 1973 in my league. I believe that trend ends tomorrow, but I am not sure.

So here we have a great action shot, but Munson without the moustache doesn’t look right. I can’t tell who the other player is. It has been theorized elsewhere on the net that it is Chuck Dobson. I am OK with that. In any case, if not for the 1973, this would be my favorite Munson, even without the tough guy look.

Also, landscape oriented cards bug me a little. Don’t get me wrong, who does not love the 1973 Luis Alvarado, but all things being equal, I prefer the portrait card, so when thumbing through a team in my league, they are all facing the same direction. Yeah – I know. I’m a nut.

Incidentally, Thurman appears on many other people’s cards. Fran Healy in 1974, Terry Crowley in 1973 and probably a few others. I think that it is interesting.

vic davalillo – 4

This card is another snooze fest. I guess this was taken at Shea Stadium, but I can’t be sure. I think almost all of the Cardinals (excuse me Cards) are taken in Shea in this set. Some of them are good cards (Dal Maxvill for example) and some are not.

Like this one.

I do not recall which card is the coolest card of Davalillo. My guess is the 1979, but using a card from the late 70’s is lame when he has been in cards since 1964. The 1970 is not too bad, and the 1972 is cool, but only because it is a high number. I think I used the 1973 because I had it accessible. I have the 1970, but it is in rough shape, and I do not have the 1972, so the 1973 was the one I used. So what does this mean?

I have had a solitaire draft league in one incarnation or another since I was a kid. The most recent and currently operating league started using the 1950 season. I am currently on hiatus and stalled prior to the opening of the 1986 season. To keep track of the teams and the players, I use baseball cards in flip boxes, so I can look at a given team during the season. So every player needs a card in the league. Once the player retires, the card goes back in the book or wherever else it is stored. So Davalillo was in my league from 1963 or so until 1980. It probably took me three or four years to play that many seasons, so Davalillo was in my league for a long time.

dick mc auliffe - 3

Dick McAuliffe was a solid player for the Tigers for most of his career. He was a left-handed hitting second baseman. In 1968 he came in 7th in league MVP voting, leading the AL in runs scored with 95. He was a three time all-star.

This card is a dull pose in what looks like old Yankee Stadium. McAuliffe has a really goofy face in this pose. Topps gave him a high number in 1972 and an action card in 1973. The 1973 is the card of Dick McAuliffe to be used in a draft league.

Last night I opened my 1971 binder and realized that probably 90% of the cards in this set are pretty dull. Also I realized that of the last 200 or so cards in this set, none of them are action shots. There are some great subjects in those last two high series; too bad all of the cards are so dull.

dock ellis - 2

The first player card is Dock Ellis. There is a ton of biographical information out there about Ellis, so I have nothing to add. The card itself is pretty weak. It has a decent background of what appears to be Three Rivers Stadium in its infancy. Other than that, this is a dud.

The backs of the 1971 cards were a bit different than in recent years. They were landscape, which I like, but the dark green was tough on the eye (like '74 and '76), as opposed to the 1970 bright blue and yellow. No cartoons, which is disappointing, and a black and white photo of the player. The photo is usually pretty dull. Also, there is a paragraph or so written about the player.

Of course the 1973 Dock Ellis is the best of his cards, the one to be used in any league situation (more on that in future posts). I received this, and most of my 1971 cards in a large lot I purchased to complete the set, so nothing at all special to add here.

Overall, this card is a yawn.