This series touches on those events of 50 years ago to which would directly or indirectly affect 1974 Topps Baseball. Since there wasn’t a lot of activity between the post-World Series trading flurry of October and the beginning of the 1973 Winter Meetings in December, I decided to make this single post about all of the November transactions, most of which would affect the base 1974 Topps set.
November 7, 1973
The Chicago Cubs traded Glenn Beckert and Bobby Fenwick (not in 1974 Topps) to the San Diego Padres for Jerry Morales.
This is a notable update in that the players are shown in the unaltered uniforms of their prior teams. A possibly related fact is that the original versions of both cards were included on the wax boxes. Also of interest — On the Morales card Topps neglected to change the colored frame around the photo from yellow (Padres) to blue (Cubs).
November 9, 1973
The Cincinnati Reds traded Bobby Tolan and Dave Tomlin to the San Diego Padres for Clay Kirby. This trade would be the last to be reflected in 1974 Topps. FYI, Dave Tomlin’s rookie card came in 1974 Topps.
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That’s a pretty decent airbrushing for Kirby.
Why are Tolan and Kirby airbrushed when Beckert and Morales are not? It could be that the dates on the trades might be off a bit, or maybe the Tolan/Kirby trade was known to Topps before the Beckert/Morales deal.
November 14, 1973
This next transaction comes with a backstory; On August 31st, the Rangers traded pitcher Mike Paul to the Cubs for a Player To Be Named Later.
On November 14th, the Cubs sent Larry Gura to Texas to complete the trade. This would also be the first transaction which is reflected in the 1974 Topps Traded set.
Baseball Reference lists the trade as November 14 but the back of the traded card lists the transaction as November 15. Pick a date, any date.
Gura would not pitch for the Texas Rangers during the regular season. He made 7 appearances for the Triple-A Spokane Indians (the Rangers’ top farm team) and on May 7th he’d be traded to the Yankees for catcher Duke Sims. Gura would continue to pitch in Triple-A and make his Yankees debut at the end of August, 1974.
Although there aren’t any more transactions until December, I have plans for the next couple of posts in this series, including a mystery which I’ll investigate in the next post.
The Shlabotnik Report 
I doubt I would’ve even noticed that Kirby was airbrushed had you not mentioned it.