Monday, February 29, 2016

2016 Topps the Originals: Duos

Today we take a look at the rather random Dual Player cards of 1967 Heritage
 

1967 Topps #334 Twin Terrors Bob Allison and Harmon Killebrew
Four our cover card we picked this one because the Dual Player cards typically feature 2 players and it’s a Twins Card – get it?

However I am thinking Topps may dump the 'Terror' portion of “Twin Terror” for this cards Heritage counterpart.
 

Future Hall of Famer and 500 HR club member Harmon Killebrew was an obvious choice to represent the Twins. Bob Allison’s qualifications were a bit more wanting, he was coming off of a 70 game 1966 season in which he hit 8 Home Runs, well down from the 28 he averaged from 1959-65.

Flip

#334 Twin Terrors Allison Killebrew (b-side)

Nice bios of each players on the back of the cards. Although 2/3 of the text is dedicated to the lesser accomplished Allison. Regardless it is about twice as many words as I expected to see on the upcoming Heritage Card.
  
More Duos

 The Tigers card features a couple of mega prospects one of which is in the Hall of Fame. 

The White Sox came up with one of the weaker combos in the subset. Don Buford is acceptable but Pete Ward is coming off a 1966 season where he batted .219 with 3 dingers.



But for mre the Indians card is the worst of the 1967T Multi-Player subset. "Tribe Thumpers" is NOT alliterative!

Menke would spend some time as Hitting Coach for the Phillies, We probably should dedicate a post to him at some point.

Pretty strong one here - Donn Clendenon batted .299 with 28 Home Runs in 1966. He was just a step behind Willie Stargell (.315, 33 HR), but both were outpaced by teammate Roberto Clemente who won the MVP award in 1966.

We will Definitely be returning to this card in a future posting. 

Over at the 1967 Topps blog there is a write up on the #423 Giants Fence Busters Card that features Mays and McCovey.

Checklist
1967 is a decent edition of this subset, you may recall the 1966 duos were very random and consisted of just five cards. There is a great deal of Randomness in 1967 as well, but it's size (12 cards) and talent makes it a stronger set.

Team
1967 Topps 
2016 Heritage
Cardinals
#63 Card Clubbers Brock/Flood
#63 Stephen Piscotty - Matt Carpenter
Indians
#109 Tribe Thumpers Colavito Wagner
109 Francisco Lindor - Jason Kipnis
White Sox
#143 Sox Sockers Ward Buford
#143 Josh Reddick (Oakland Athletics)
Mets
#186 Mets Maulers - Kranepool Swoboda
#186 Curtis Granderson - Juan Lagares
Tigers
#216 Bengal Belters Cash Kaline
#216 Ian Kinsler - Miguel Cabrera
Pirates
#266 Pitt Power – Stargell Clendenon
#266 Starling Marte - Andrew McCutchen
Phillies
#309 Hurlers Beware Callison Allen
#309 Maikel Franco - Ryan Howard
Twins
#334 Twins Terrors Allison Killebrew
#334 Miguel Sano - Byron Buxton
Braves
#396 Altanta Aces Menke Cloninger
#396 Nick Markakis  (solo?)
Giants
#423 Fence Busters – Mays McCovey
#423 Brandon Belt (solo?)
Indians
#463 Hill Aces McDowell Siebert
#463 Josh Hamilton - Texas
Orioles
#521 Bird Bombers Powell Blefray 
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Orioles
#1 Robinson Bauer Robinson
#1 Moustakas Escobar Hosmer








Last week we got a glimpse at the 2016 Heritage Checker for comparison. We have added the list here for comparison. To me the originals win on almost every card - the exceptions are possibly #109 Indians, #216 Tigers (close call), and amazingly Phillies (2008 WSC puts Howard over Dick Allen). 

Quick note on the Mets card, Topps has a run of Rookie Pairs that run from 161-190 that they interrupted to match Granderson/Lagares with Kranepool/Swaboda. One may make the argument that the Heritage card should win the Met battle, for me the 1999 SI Greats of the Game card w/ Ed Kranepool eating the Fried Chicken Dinner gives the edge to 1967T.

Sources and Links
1967 Topps/2016 Heritage Index
Harmon Killebrew HoF Index
1967 Topps Blog
Cardboard Connection 
Terapeak
Baseball-ref
Pnilly Inquirer

7 comments:

Hackenbush said...

For me you just can't beat those cards. I would love to have seen a Bryant/Rizzo Cubs card this year even if there wasn't one in 1967. And why wasn't there? You had Banks, Santo and Williams to choose between. Sure beats Ward and Buford from the South Siders.

Fuji said...

Love these combo cards. One of my favorites is the Mays and McCovey... and I'm the furthest thing from being a Giants fan.

Jim from Downingtown said...

In the 1967 set, NINE of the 20 teams didn't have one of these combo cards, but the Orioles and Indians had two each.

Also, Bob Allison WAS a big deal for the Twins - just not in the year before this card was made.

deal said...

J from D: Which Orioles card am I missing? I only found #521 with Boog and Blefray?

Jim from Downingtown said...

Card #1 - "The Champs" (with the 2 Robinsons and manager Bauer).


Look at my 1966-70 blog index post (the big 'JD' icon on my sidebars), and scroll down near the bottom. I've posted a number of the 1966-69 combo cards already (many with multiple cards in the same post).

deal said...

Oh yeah, I didn't think of that one. Thanks! I will update my list as well.

Jim from Downingtown said...

Silly Topps: For the "Sox Sockers" card, they used the lettering color for the Red Sox (orange), not the White Sox (purple)!

Also, the "Twin Terrors" lettering should have been green, not purple.

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