The Most Awesome Soccer Cards In The History Of Forever!!!

I got these cards at a show back in 2009, and my jaw nearly hit the ground when I saw them.

To be fair, these aren’t technically soccer cards, but rather 1975/76 Topps Footballer cards, specifically from the Scottish (blue back) set. For crass Americans like myself, they’re soccer cards… and completely incredible!

I can’t assume that every reader is from North America, so I’ll point out that these cards are incredible to me and other baseball card collectors because the design is the same as the one Topps used for 1975 Baseball, a set I grew up with and have images of all 660 cards permanently embedded in my brain cells.

…Well, the designs are nearly the same except for the back… and the soccer ball and little footballer drawing… and the fact that instead of teams like “Yankees” or “Dodgers”, we’ve got “Partick Thistle”.  For most American and Canadian collectors, these cards might as well be from an alternate universe.

According to Nigel’s Web Space, which seems like a very informative site devoted to English and Scottish Football cards, this was Topps’ first entry into the Footballer market after taking over A&BC Gum in 1975.  There are 88 cards in the 1975 Scottish set, and 220 cards in the 1975 English set.  Both sets have identical designs, other than the English set having red backs instead of blue.

This was not the last time that Topps would use one of their American designs for UK Footballers… The 1977/78 Footballers set uses the 1976 baseball design, the 1978/79 set uses the 1977 Football (as in American Football) design, and the 1979/80 set uses the 1978 Football design.  I’d like to get some of those cards next;  It’d be fun to put a 1978/79 Footballer card next to a 1977 Topps Football card and a 1977 Topps Mexican card.

This card amuses my tiny, little mind because it looks sort of like Pat Gardner could be an extra from Star Trek.  “Phasers locked on target, captain…”

These two cards above are interesting because there isn’t a purple/red combination in 1975 baseball… In that set, purple got combined with pink and green, but never red.

For a full-on Scottish Footballer experience, here’s the front of Ian Sneddon’s card:

…and here’s the back:

Ian Sneddon weighs 11 stone and likes nothing better than overlapping down the wing with his great speed and ability to cross accurately!  I can only guess what any of that means (well, other than knowing that 11 stone = 154 pounds).

This Is What People Did Before Computers And Photoshop

…or more to the point, this is what I did in 1991 when I was bored and had an excessive amount of Vince Coleman doubles… I decided to create my own update card using Wite-Out and a blue ball point pen.

The Mets had signed Coleman as a free agent after the 1990 season, but he wouldn’t appear as a Met on a baseball card until later in the year when sets like Stadium Club, Leaf and Studio came out.

I’m obviously biased, but considering what I was working with, this custom didn’t come out half bad.

Oversized Load: 1984 Donruss Champions

In recent weeks, I’ve been featuring cards from the oversized Donruss Action All-Star sets of the early 1980′s. Today I’m going to highlight a little side trip Donruss made in 1984, the 1984 Donruss Champions set.

This set, which is the same 3.5″ x 5″ size as the Action All-Stars, featured a subset of “Grand Champions” painted by Dick Perez. The “Grand Champions” were Hall of Famers who held either a season or career record in certain statistical categories. The remainder of the 60 card set was made up of current players who were supposedly in a chase to surpass that “Grand Champion”.

Chase… chase… where have I heard that recently?

I decided to go ahead and share all the Mets cards from the set. There were a good number of Mets in the set, probably because of the number of older players with healthy numbers. Keith Hernandez, at 30, was the “kid” of the bunch.

Tom Seaver was no longer a Met by the time this set came out; he’d been drafted by the White Sox in the free agent compensation draft in place at the time.

Dave Kingman was also gone in 1984; he signed with the A’s as a free agent.

George Foster was with the Mets and manning left field in Shea.

Rusty Staub was also with the Mets in 1984, but in a part-time role. His games and plate appearances are nearly identical.

These cards were sold in cello packs of 5 cards with the legally obligatory Donruss puzzle pieces, this time picturing Duke Snider.

The SSPC set: 1975 or 1976?

One thing that’s bugged me for a long time, and especially since I bought my haul of SSPC cards, is what to call the main 630-card set. Is it 1975 SSPC or 1976 SSPC? As Shawn Spencer on “Psych” would say, “I’ve heard it both ways”.

I think a lot of people use the 1975 copyright on the back as the basis for calling it “1975 SSPC”. In addition, the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards refers to it as “1975 SSPC”, and I’ve run across prominent auction houses selling the cards as “1975 SSPC”.

On the other side of the debate are COMC and BaseballCardPedia, which both list it as a 1976 set. Everything I’ve seen regarding the selling of the set indicates that it went on the market in 1976. The card backs reference the past 1975 season, the upcoming 1976 season and in some cases had been updated to reflect offseason player movement. Wouldn’t that indicate that it’s a 1976 set?

As I was sorting through my cards, my interest was further piqued when I ran across this Joe Lovitto card:

I noticed that it listed him as a New York Met, something which caught my attention for two reasons…

First off, I didn’t remember him being with the Mets… and as it turns out, the Mets traded for him in December, 1975 and released him towards the end of Spring Training, so he never played in a regular season game for them.

The second reason it caught my attention was because card back included something else of interest:

It starts right off by saying he was traded on 12/12/75.  That’s a much later update than you’d see in the Topps set, but right in line with some of the 1976 Topps Traded cards.

As I kept going through my cards I tried to find later transactions, but most of what I found was from December 9th through the 12th.  Some online thingamajiggery revealed that 12/12/75 was a Friday… A bunch of transactions all at once and concluding on a Friday?  Sounds like that was the week of the Winter Meetings.

Then I had another idea; I’d go to baseball-reference.com, look up transactions starting in December, 1975 and see how far the transactions go before one fails to be acknowledged on an SSPC card back.

After December 12th, there’s a bit of a gap, which is understandable. Back to business, preparing for the Holidays and all that.

Then I found this deal…
December 22, 1975: The St. Louis Cardinals traded Mick Kelleher to the Chicago Cubs for Vic Harris.

I found that I have a Vic Harris card…

…and this is very notable in that,  unlike the other cards, the trade is acknowledged with an O-Pee-Chee-like line at the top:

Verrrry interesting.  Looks pretty last-minute to me.

Finally, I ran across this deal…
January 9, 1976: The New York Mets traded Jerry Cram to the Kansas City Royals

I’d started looking for Mets as soon as I started going through my cards, so I knew I had Jerry Cram.

…and the back of that card doesn’t acknowledge his Kansas City Royalty.

Just to review… (he said, as he looked pensively out the window) … A trade on 12/22/75 was mentioned, but a trade on 1/9/76 was not… Clearly, this set was “put to bed” very late in 1975, if not actually in 1976. The cards may have been printed in 1975, but there would’ve been very little time to ship any out before the end of 1975.

At this point what really started to bother me is why anyone would think that the people selling SSPC would have called it a 1975 set.  Calling a set “1975″ and selling it in 1976 is not just poor marketing, that’s plain ol’ stupid. If I introduced a 2012 set now, would you buy it?  The only way I can see “1975″ happening is if it was intended all along to be a document of the just-passed season… but if you were doing that, you wouldn’t update it for offseason trades.

At this point I’d convinced myself that it was a 1976 set… but I had to do my due diligence, I’ve been burned on things like that before.

So I kept flipping through books for this, Googling for that, when I had a small epiphany; there were several smaller sets generated before the main set came out, and one of those was a promo set. If a small set of cards were made to promote an upcoming set, wouldn’t those promos include the set year on them?

Well, DUH.

I don’t have any of the promos, but I borrowed an image from COMC.

1976 SSPC Promos #6 – Tom Seaver – Courtesy of COMC.com

…and there you go. A promotional card for the set says that it’s a 1976 set. Wish I thought of that up front.

But that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that from this point on, this set shall be referred to on this blog as the 1976 SSPC set.

SHLABOTNIK HAS SPOKEN!

Mets Monday: 1993 Jimmy Dean Eddie Murray

Even though they did a pretty nice job of removing the Mets script from the front of the jersey, this lovely oddball is nothing exceptional as far as these Junk Wax Era oddballs go…

…until you get to the back.

And that’s when I did the proverbial LOL when I saw the “drawing” of Eddie Murray.

Is that really Eddie Murray, or is it Detective Harris from the TV show “Barney Miller”?

Nah, Det. Harris would never mess his hair up by wearing a cap. To be fair, I don’t think Eddie’s HOF plaque looks much like him, either.

And as long as I’m making 1970′s references, I can’t look at this card, or anything related to Jimmy Dean sausages, without thinking of the David Essex song, “Rock On”.

See her shake on the movie screen
Jimmy Dean.

Jimmy Dean.

Rock on.

Enjoy your Memorial Day, everybody! I’m off to mow the lawn. Woo hoo.

Sometimes You Just Gotta Go With What’s Easiest (1966 Ken Boyer)

I have a couple of “Mets Monday” posts in the works, but nothing ready for posting. I went to see if any Mets were born on this date, and came up with Ken Boyer.

Ken Boyer was the NL MVP in 1964, a 7-time All-Star and 5-time Gold Glove winner, but those days were behind him when he was traded to the Mets after the 1965 season. He was the starting 3rd baseman for the 1966 Mets, leading the team with 61 RBI, hitting 14 homers and batting .266.

The following July, he was traded to the White Sox in a deal that also saw Sandy Alomar Sr. going to the Chisox and J.C. Martin heading for Shea.

Boyer passed away in 1982.

Have You Seen Me?

Does anybody know what happened to this guy?

Specifically, what happened to Philip Humber, the Mets 1st round draft pick, 3rd overall, in 2004.

The guy who was part of a package of highly-regarded prospects the Mets sent to the Twins for former Cy Young winner Johan Santana.

The guy who threw a perfect game against the Mariners, as I commemorated on one of my customs.

One would think that a former first-round draft pick who pitched a perfect game within the last year or two would at least have decent stats… but last year with the White Sox he was 5-5 with a 6.44 ERA and 1.539 WHIP.

This year with the Astros – where all they ask of a pitcher is that he have a pulse, keep the team within 5 runs and hey, 4 or 5 innings would be really nice – he has gone 0-8 with a 9.59 ERA and a 2.019 WHIP.

This weekend, Philip Humber was designated for assignment by the Astros after giving up 5 runs in 2/3 of an inning.

DFA’ed by the worst-in-the-Majors Houston Astros.

Just to add insult to injury to Mets fans (not to mention the Mets organization), he’s the second former top Mets prospect to get DFA’ed by the Astros this year…

Fernando Martinez, who was at or near the top of the Mets Top 10 several years running, was DFA’ed by the Astros last week.

Lastings Milledge was another “can’t miss” top prospect. Baseball America rated him the #9 prospect overall before the 2006 season.

After playing with the Mets, Nats, Bucs and Chisox (for two games), he’s now playing in Japan.

Yes, this is an exercise in wallowing in Mets fan self-pity while showing off some recent (and reasonably-priced) acquisitions. But you also have to ask “What the heck is going on here?”

I don’t have any answers, so I’m going to fall back on Standard Mets Fan Protocol 13A: Blame former GM Omar Minaya while hoping that the current front office has a clue.

Oversized Load: Mets from Donruss Action All-Stars, Part 1

As I’ve mentioned before, I prefer oversized cards to minis. While they can be a little awkward to handle and store, I like big cards because the photos are bigger and you can see more detail… and they’re just cool.

BTW, this is the second post in a series covering oversized Mets card…. You can see the first post here.

In 1983, Donruss introduced “Action All-Stars”, an oversized (3.5″ x 5″) 60 card set that came in cello packs of six cards along with pieces of a Mickey Mantle puzzle.  The complete set of puzzle pieces is worth more than the base set, but neither one is going to put your kid through college… or even buy a latte at the college’s student center.

Here’s the very, very Donruss back of the card.  Nobody bought these cards for the back.

Come to think of it, nobody bought these cards at all… well, other than me.

For those of you wondering just who John Stearns was, he was the Mets starting catcher in the late 1970′s and early 80′s, and a four-time All-Star.

Mookie Wilson was the other Met featured in the 1983 set.

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For 1984, Donruss switched to a vertical format and moved the portrait to the back of the card.  These packs came with a Ted Williams puzzle, and certain online sources say that this is the toughest Donruss puzzle ever (Mantle be damned).  I’m not sure why anybody even cares, it’s like arguing whether the Gremlin or the Pacer was the greatest car ever produced by AMC.

1984 packs sold for 35 cents, up from 30 cents the prior year — a 16.67% increase!  Cue the video clip of some 19th century upper-class British guys muttering “Shame!  Shame!”

Here’s the back, where they oddly refer to Mr. Seaver by his given first name.  Sharp-eyed young enthusiasts will notice that the photo background on the back of the 1984 cards is the same as the background from the front of the 1983 cards.

The other Met in this set is Keith Hernandez.

Donruss had another oversized set in 1984, Donruss Champions… But I’ll save that for another day.

Scott Rice: My Favorite Story Of The Year So Far

Scott Rice is a pitcher in the Mets bullpen this year, and made his Major League debut on Opening Day by throwing a perfect 9th inning with 2 strikeouts.  As of this post, he’s pitched 10.1 innings in 11 games, with a 0.87 ERA, a 1.16 WHIP and a .182 opponent batting average.

What makes his story a good one is the fact that he’s a 31 years old rookie who has pitched 14 years in the minors, played with 6 different organizations and 2 independent teams before making it to The Show.  The Mets had signed him to a minor league contract over the winter, he’d pitched well enough in spring training to win the job, and so far he’s pitched more than well enough to hang on to the job.

Scott Rice was the 44th overall pick in the 1999 draft, taken by the Orioles out of high school.

Just to put things into perspective, other players taken in the same draft include Josh Hamilton, Josh Beckett, Barry Zito and Ben Sheets.  The Orioles had 7 of the top 50 picks that year, as compensation for losing Eric Davis, Rafael Palmiero and Roberto Alomar as free agents.  Brian Roberts came to be the biggest name of the 7, Larry Bigbie had been the only other one to make it to the majors until Rice made his debut.  For what it’s worth, the remaining four are Mike Paradis (13th), Richard Stahl (18th), Keith Reed (23rd) and Joshua Cenate (34th).

I wasn’t terribly surprised to find out that I had a card of Scott Rice from his time in the Orioles farm system… I may have seen  him pitch in Aberdeen, but I’m not sure where my 2002 scorebooks are, so you’ll just have to suffer in silence without knowing.

Fun At The Ballpark

It certainly seems like the Mets are having fun at the ballpark this year; while it’s early yet, they’re exceeding expectations with their 7-4 record, second in the NL East only to the red-hot Braves. There was also a lot of fun at the ballpark this past Saturday when rookie Matt Harvey no-hit the Twins through 7.2 innings.

…And all of this is meant as a lead in for my apology to Mets fans everywhere: I jinxed Matt Harvey.

On Saturday I had the TV on MLB Network, but I wasn’t paying much attention to it until I saw a crawl on the screen saying that Harvey had a no-hitter through six. I thought “Wow, wouldn’t it be something if the Mets went 50 years without a no-hitter, then have two less than 12 months apart?”

I had to take care of some things in another room, but when I got back to the TV I was happy to see that MLB Network had live coverage. Naturally, the very first pitch that I saw was hit out of the park by Justin Morneau.

Goodbye no-hitter, goodbye shutout.

Sorry. It’s all my fault.

It’s just like the bowling league I’m in; any time someone tells me to check out another bowler with a perfect game in the works, as soon as I start watching they leave a pin standing.

Just call me “Death To Perfect Things”.