Team card questions

jrdolan

Is 1956 the first year Topps printed team cards? Is there a point at which they stopped making them?

There don't seem to be any all-time team card sets in the registry, such as NY Yankees 1956 to whatever. There are team sets for each year but no sets just for team cards, that I can find. Has anyone ever tried to register such a set?

wolfbear

For football, Topps used the exact same team photo
for 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963 for most of the teams.

Same for baseball, or did they actually use a new picture every few years ?

ChrisStufflestreet

Topps' first team cards were printed in 1951, but they weren't part of Topps' regular set. In fact, the '51 Topps teams show only 9 of the 16 teams, and each team has two versions -- dated and undated.

Topps made team photo cards from 1956-1968 and 1970-1981. I have no idea why they skipped the team photos in 1969. In 1982, they began making "team leader " cards instead of showing the team photos.

Since we're on the subject...here's two more questions that have always puzzled me:

1. Why were the Cubs team cards from the 1970s always a collage of all the players' faces instead of one picture?

2. Why did Topps avoid calling any of the Houston NL players "Astros" from 1965's 2nd series through 1969? Look at all of your late '60s Astro cards. They all have their hats airbrushed and all cards go out of their way to call them "Houston" players. Always wondered about that.

phreakydancin

<< <i>

1. Why were the Cubs team cards from the 1970s always a collage of all the players' faces instead of one picture? >>


This came up recently, but I can't seem to find the thread. The answer is something along the lines of the team not bothering to take team photos, so the pics used were culled from the team's yearbooks. Anyone got the link to the thread I'm talking about?

Mantlefan

Great website and newsletter Chris. I enjoyed the article on the 1955 Bowman set. BTW, the Eddie Watkus shooting was the basis for the Redford baseball movie "The Natural".

ChrisStufflestreet

<< <i>Great website and newsletter Chris. I enjoyed the article on the 1955 Bowman set. BTW, the Eddie Watkus shooting was the basis for the Redford baseball movie "The Natural". >>



Thanks. If any other board members would like to read that article, here's a handy link.

I addressed the Waitkus question in another newsletter, and it's a subject for my next book...I'm writing a book about the '52 Topps set and one chapter features several of the cards with accompanying text, a la "The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book." Waitkus is one of the players featured.

CADILLACN97

i may not be correct, but i don't think they were called the "ASTROS" in the earlier years. i believe they were the Houston Colt 45s, but then again i might be wrong. still they should have had the team name, like the Reds or Cubs instead of the city.

qualitycards

Another odd thing about thw Astros cards in '65 - they are the only team not to have a team card, all other 19 teams are present & accounted for! ...jay

Stone193

<< <i>Another odd thing about thw Astros cards in '65 >>


Jay
Could that have anything to do with them moving into the astrodome and name change in 65 - perhaps topps wasn't on top of that and decided just to edit them out?
Mike

ChrisStufflestreet

I went back and looked at my '60s Topps cards after getting this ball rolling.

Cards 31, 48, 80 and 109 in the '65 set all have the Texas logo and the word "Houston", and the rest have the words "Houston Astros" inside the flag. Well, card #16 (Morgan/Jackson RC) doesn't have either -- it says simply "Houston", but that's true of all three "Rookie Stars" of Astros cards in the '65 set. The first Astro card is #164. There don't appear to be any variations of the Houston players anywhere in the set.

The Astros were known as the "Colt .45s" or "Colts" in 1964. The team changed its name to "Astros" before the 1965 season when it began playing in the Astrodome, but perhaps too early for Topps to put the name in its first series (110 cards or so). Since the pictures of Houston players were taken in '64 (or '62/'63 in some cases...this was Topps, after all), the players weren't wearing the then-current Astros caps. Of course, Topps seemed to enjoy putting its airbrush artists to work during this era, so the timing of the name change is what leads me to believe that the Topps braintrust had little time to do anything with the Houston players in the first series.

As for the fact that the Astros are the only team without a team card in the 1965 set...I'm guessing that the powers that were simply decided that it would be too much work to airbrush all 25 players plus the coaches and get around the fact that there was a name change...the '65 team cards all had the previous season's records on the back and perhaps Topps decided to hope that the kids who bought cards would simply overlook the fact that the Houston team card was missing.

By the way...Topps must have taken some type of heat for excluding the tam in '65...when the Braves moved to Atlanta the next year, they have a team card in the '66 set with the team info on the back referring to the "1965 Atlanta Braves"...despite the fact that they played in Milwaukee that year! The players in the team picture are so small it's hard to tell whether their hats have an "M" or an "A" so I really don't know why Topps even bothered with keeping the Astros team card out of the '65 set.

Clarification of my earlier comment: the Astros name is used in '66 and '67, but Topps went back to using the city name only for their '68 and '69 sets.

There was an interesting case of "too many artists" in 1968. Some Houston players (they weren't called the Astros regularly by Topps until '70) were pictured hatless. Other Houston players were shown wearing hats with the logos airbrushed off. Topps' airbrush artists probably rushed through their work, however...some player's logos were covered with a bluish color that matched the caps, while other players had their hats entirely painted black except for the bill. Card #300 of Rusty Staub shows how Topps may have wanted to do a better job of proofing their work. "Le Grand Orange" is wearing a batting helmet. The top has been blacked out, but the Astros "letter H inside an orange star" logo still shows up as a reflection on the visor.