Back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, if you collected baseball cards you knew the name Renata Galasso. If you didn’t know the name from the sets produced by Renata Galasso, Inc., then you knew the ads that were in national sports publications… Like this ad from a Street & Smith’s Baseball Yearbook in my collection:
…and in case you’re wondering why the ad says “1978 Topps Baseball” but clearly shows 1975 cards, it’s because the same basic ad was used every year, and they just updated the details.
Every year I looked longingly at the Renata Galasso ad, but I’d never actually ordered anything. Later in life, though, I did pick up a set produced by Renata Galasso, Inc. in 1982 to commemorate “20 Years Of Mets Baseball”. Despite the name, the set didn’t pay tribute to the entire 20 years, just the memorable first team that set a record for futility by going 40-120.
As you can see, the cards are pretty basic. The photos were black & white, and look like the official team portraits used for newspapers, magazines and the like.
The backs are simple, but appealing. FYI, 1962 would be Richie Ashburn’s last season in the Majors.
There were supposedly only 2,500 sets created, but there’s someone on eBay who’s regularly selling lots of 5 team sets, so it would seem that they’re not hard to come by. I got mine at a show up on Long Island years ago – late 80’s, early 90’s if I had to guess.
I scanned these cards a few months ago, and I remember having a reason for scanning Vinegar Bend Mizell instead of Roger Craig, Marv Throneberry, Choo-Choo Coleman or any of the other ’62 Mets… But damned if I can remember that reason now.
Was it to emphasize that the set includes even players who were only on the 1962 Mets for a couple of months? …Or to mention that Mizell served as a Congressman from North Carolina for 6 years?
I’m sure it’ll come to me sometime tomorrow, after we’ve moved on.
The Shlabotnik Report 
Hi! I bought this what I thought was a complete set of these cards about 30 years ago at a flea market. Unfortunately I was much later to discover that card #27 was missing. I’m assuming this was one of the coaches since it falls between Stengel and Hemus. Can you tell me what card # 27 is and does this set include a total of only 28 cards? Thanks!
I checked my set, and I checked it against my copy of the 2008 Standard Catalog, and although the set is numbered to #32, there are only 30 cards in the set. There is apparently no card #27 or #30… so the lack of #27 in your set isn’t a problem, but if you’ve only got 28 cards, then you might be shorted in a different way.
FYI, the last 4 cards in the set are:
28 – Hemus
29 – Hornsby
31 – Ruffing
32 – Weiss
Thanks for the info. Now yesterday I ran into a fellow on Ebay who says that he has cards #27 and #30. He’s supposed to be sending them to me. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
Thanks again!
Well it’s only taken me 2 years to fill you in on cards #27 and #30. As you indicated it appears that apparently this set was misnumbered during production and there are no cards with these numbers. I also noted that the stats on some of these cards don’t make any sense. Probably a formatting error. All in all this is is an interesting but poorly made set. Whoever was in charge of production should have been shot at sunrise after they came off the press. Anyway I now have the complete 30 card set.