1971 topps set experts

pmcollectour

It appears that a lot of the photos were taken in spring training.

I see a lot of the photos were taken at Shea Stadium. Makes sense because Topps was in Brooklyn, NY at the time.
I know Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson, and many others have shots from Shea.

The question is what other stadiums are represented in the 1971 topps set. I do not own the entire set, but I do have a few
cards with shots from spring training and Shea Stadium. I notice that the high numbers have shots from the players home stadium,
but the lower numbers have a lot from spring training.

I'd also like to know what stadium the Pete Rose card is shot from. It doesn't look like Shea, but I can't figure it out.

SDSportsFan

Well, if you want to get technical about it, I'd say all the stadiums (except Wrigley) are represented in the set, since all the photos used on the team cards were taken in that team's home stadium

To get at what you were asking though, I took a quick look at some of the cards, and the Bert Blyleven appears to be in Yankee Stadium, and the Rich Allen photo was taken in Dodger Stadium.

I imagine alot of the American Leaguers were photographed in Yankee Stadium, just as the National Leaguers were taken at Shea.

Steve

Probstein123

I just sold a psa 8 , psa 9 set...I have them all sitting in front of me....
to me, you can't tell on most of the photos...almost 90% you can't tell based on the background......

great question though...

SDSportsFan

I didn't see all the Pirates cards, but the Stargell, Clemente, Mazeroski and Bruce Dal Canton cards all appear to have been taken at Three Rivers Stadium.

Steve

70ToppsFanatic

Cant claim this as factual knowledge, but I have always thought that the business thinking was something along the following lines:


Back in those days, Topps tried to consolidate/concentrate the photo-taking in order to keep their travel costs down. It wasn't like they were
becoming mega millionaires selling bubble gum cards at $0.10 a pack (that took an IPO, pack price increases and a ultimately leveraged buyout
a few decades later...lol).

Anyway, the strategy seems to have been to take advantage of the large concentrations of teams that would be in Florida for spring training.
Not sure that there was as much going on out west (Arizona) in those days, but perhaps they staked out the western camps too.

Once spring training broke, I think their next priority was to catch as many of the shots they still needed as they could as teams came through the
NY stadiums (Shea and Yankee) during April and early May so that they could minimize the travel costs and get the rest of the pcitures they needed.
It would not surprise me if they chose a few other stadiums around the US to send someone to for a few weeks to try and get all the pictures taken
as early as possible in the season (e.g. Los Angeles).

Also, I think 1971 marked the first year when Topps started trying to get "game action" color shots in earnest into the set. It was probably
around then that they made a business decision to spend a little more on photographer travel in order to capture some of those shots of the key
players. Wouldn't surprise me if they based their deployment to non-NY stadiums (mentioned above) around some of the major stars of the day
so that they could get a double bang for their travel bucks (star action shots plus pictures of players that were missed in spring training).

As I said, can't claim this as fact but I have thought about this before and this always seemed to be a reasonable explanation.

ThoseBackPages

Pete Rose is absolutely Shea Stadium

EchoCanyon

<< <i>

I know Nolan Ryan, Bob Gibson, and many others have shots from Shea. >>



Ryan was with the Mets then, so it makes sense, no?

ThoseBackPages

ive not looked in some time, but its a safe bet that most of the Reds in the 71 set were pictured at Shea

WinPitcher

I was always under the impression team cards were taken during spring training
in Florida.

bbuckner22

Speaking of the Cubs, any idea why their team cards from 71 and 72 show head shots instead the actual team photo? About 25% of the players on that 1971 team card weren't even around at the end of the 1970 season, but they still showed up on next years card.