The Original 1961 Topps - All Star Cards

Similar to the new Topps Heritage cards, the All-Star cards for 1961 Topps were found among the High Numbers. Consequently they hard pretty hard to find. In my opinion they are more scarce then the cards issued in the previous three sets (58-60).

There is only one Phillies cards among the 1961 All-Star set and that is card #569 of Frank Herrera. Unfortunately I do not have that card in the Phungo Collection. However, I do have this very nice 1961 All-Star card:



1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays All-Star


The 2010 Heritage cards mimic the 61 design well:
2010 Topps Heritage #498 Johan Santana

The cutout is the same right down to the headlines on the paper. "The Sporting News" has been replaced by "Topps News"


2010 Topps Heritage #498 Johan Santana (b-side)
1961 Topps #579 Willie Mays All-Star(b-side)
click to enlarge

The Flip sides of the 1961 and 2010 Heritage All-Star cards are similar and feature a good paragraph on the featured player. I am particularly impressed with the Heritage cards as most of today's cards are relatively short on copy. One note on the Heritage cards, the All-Star cards have the backs reversed - similar to the base cards which were mentioned previously.

Clones
1970 Topps #461 Carl Yastrzemski All-Star

Topps re-used the paper shredding design for their 1970 All-Star Cards. It is a design I like and I wouldn't mind seeing them bring it back every 10 years or so.

For a look back at some previous Phungo articles on the original 1961 Topps check out these links:

The Phillies
Topps Inserts

Sloppy Topps - 2010 Heritage

This may have been discussed elsewhere - but I don't recall seeing it, so I am bringing it up here.


2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco
1961 Topps #433 Art Mahaffey

Are friend Placido Polanco is back from earlier in the week to help out with this demonstration. The Polanco card appears pretty close to the 61 Original of Phils Pitcher art Mahaffey. The only real discrepancy between the cards (other then the blatant photoshopping discussed previously) is the Topps Heritage logo. The color scheme for the boxes at the bottom rotate throughout the set and I really have no issue with this. however.....

Take a 1961 original and a 2010 Heritage card.

Now take both cards and flip them over.


2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco (b-side)
1961 Topps #433 Art Mahaffey (b-side)

The Card backs are reversed in 2010 Heritage.

This seems to be a pretty hard detail to miss.

Heritage is popular with collectors because it mimics the Topps classic designs well. The one thing that Topps has on the other companies is their history. If Topps does not honor their history properly, they risk making a mockery of an asset.

Phungo 5 with a Giant Blog

The Phils are out on the west coast for a couple of late night games with the San Francisco Giants, and we visit with Matt who hosts A Giant Blog, as well as a few other blogs that follow the 1976 season.

Your a Giants Fan in Arizona, do you get to see the Giants play in Phoenix often?
I try to get down to Phoenix to see the Giants at least once a year. I live about 180 miles northeast of Phoenix so it's kind of hard to see more than 1-2 games a year. When I grew up in the Phoenix area I saw the Giants' AAA team (Phoenix Giants/Firebirds) about 5-10 times a year. The Giants also train in Arizona so I was able to see a few of their spring training games

One of your blog projects covers the 1976 Baseball Season via Strat-o-Matic. Have you been disappointed by the Giants performance? and how the heck are the Mets 5 games in front of the Phils as you near the end of July?
Right now the Giants are a game ahead of their actual pace in my strat replay so far (I'm in late July right now). I didn't expect much out of the Giants in this replay. They were about five games below pace in mid-May but they've been playing better lately. The mid-1970s were the low point for the Giants in San Francisco. It seems like every year they were rumored to be moving to Toronto or St. Petersburg or something like that. They got rid of so many good outfielders -- Bobby Bonds, Gary Matthews, Garry Maddox, George Foster, even Dave Kingman.

The Mets are doing it with great pitching. Jon Matlack is pitching so well that he may end up taking the Cy Young Award away from Tom Seaver. Jerry Koosman is being overshadowed by the other two, but he's pitching great too. Right now the Mets are 8 games ahead of their actual pace and the Phillies are 4 games behind their actual pace. I keep waiting for the Mets to drop but so far they've hung in there. The closest the Phillies have come is 2 games behind in late June.

3) What are the top 3 reasons the Giants have not won a World Series since moving to the Bay area?
The Giants really should have won at least one WS in the sixties, but they always seemed to be one or two players away. They had middle infielders who didn't hit much and they didn't have very good on-base guys at the top of the order.

They had a great shot in 1987 but fell short (&*%#!! Jim Lindeman!).

I never lived in the area, but I have to think that the coming of the Oakland A's in the late sixties had to have been a detriment to the Giants' fortunes. I'm not convinced that the Bay Area can support two teams.

The Giants got overdependent on Barry Bonds and his departure left a huge hole in their offense.

What number should the Giants Retired that has not been?
Monte Irvin #20
Will Clark #22

1992 Donruss Leaf Spirit of the Game #SG8 Will Clark


As a history fan, Do you have a favorite History related card or insert set?
There are a lot of history-related inserts that I like. I like the Conlon sets, but I wish they would have changed up the design from year to year. Topps did some great subsets like the MVP subset in 1975 and the Sporting News All Star subset in 1976. I would like to see Topps do a team history 132-card set every year. They could do some cards about the history of the franchise, some cards depicting the all-time best players on the team, and some cards that show the most interesting / best cards that Topps made of each team over the years.

Phungo 5 Box Score

Thanks to Matt for helping us out with the Giants. I am a bit shocked that Monte Irvin's number is not retired by the Giants. Granted he played for them in New York rather than San Francisco - but he is a member of the Hall of Fame, and was also on the Giants 1954 World Championship team.

I am going to give a 5 out of 5 here, Nice Call on both Irvin and the Thrill, Also good to see the 1975 MVP set get some love. However, I may have to withdraw one of those points if the Mets beat out the Phils for that 1976 division title.

Looking Back

If you want to look back at a prior Phungo 5 with Cardboard Junkie click here.

Sloppy Topps - 2010 Heritage Placido Polanco

2010 Topps Heritage #368 Placido Polanco

In general this is one of the poorer jobs of photoshopping done in the 2010 Topps products. In A lot of the cards I have seen the uniforms look pretty close and flow with the picture quite well. This one of Polanco looks like classic 70s airbrushing. The colors are a mess. This is supposed to be the Phils Home Day game uniform, I think, which are really a cream color not this bleached white they have dressed Placido in.

But what really caught my attention was the knob on the bat handle. While this card will surely not get as much attention as another bat knob, it does contain a rather irksome error.

If you look closer you can see that the handle contains a number.




It is a little hard to make out, but the number is #14. Once again the good folks in the Topps Art department have made it look like a current player is wearing a retired number. Yep #14 is retired, but not for the player you may think it is. It is retired for Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning, not Pete Rose. Rose is banned from the sport and I suppose this keeps his number from being officially retired.




As can be seen from his Baseball-Reference page Polanco wore #14 with the Tigers. Since returning to the Phils, he has reclaimed the #27 which he wore in his previous sting with the Phils.

Robin Roberts is at APTBNL

1989 Topps Baseball Talk Collection #40 Robin Roberts

In one of my earlier Granite Run Card Show posts, I alluded to some Giant cards. To find out more check out the latest Phungo entry over at A Pack to be Name Later.

Phungo 5 with Cardboard Junkie

Today we have the always enjoyable DayF of Cardboard Junkie at the plate to discuss all things Braves and beyond.

DayF, Comissioner of the 2010 Heritage Blaster Fantasy League, has once again provided us with a variety of insights and reminds us of why he is one of the more informative and funny card bloggers out there.

1) Jason Heyward, 21 Homers - Over or Under?
Twenty-one sounds about right, actually. He can get three and a half a month I think. I don't even care if he doesn't break twenty, he can do what he's doing right now and I'll be happy. I'll I'm really looking for from J-Hey this season is to be patient, draw walks, get on base and to get through the inevitable rookie slumps he's going to hit once pitchers start adjusting. He already had one with his streak of strikeouts including a Golden Sombrero against the Giants. He bounced back, made adjustments, started being more patient and now he's a legend again. The dude isn't old enough to legally drink, he's not going devastate the league quite yet. He's a hell of a lot better than the slabs of rotting meat that the Braves threw out there last April,that's for damn sure.One reason why I have absolutely no doubts that Heyward is the next big star in the league is because I got to see Jason play first hand in a Triple-A game at Gwinnett last year. Jason had played maybe one or two games in Triple-A after his call up and he already owned the place. He had a booming hit, made a great catch and throw in right field, was patient at the plate, stole a base and generally looked like he needed to be called up to the Show right then and there. The most ridiculous thing I saw was when he scored from second on a ground ball out! I know pretty much the entire country is completely sick of J-Hey-Hype but trust me when I say that Jason is the best prospect to come up since Pujols. I'm wishing I hoarded every Heyward card I could find instead of just being happy with finding one of each now.I never answered the question, did I? I'll be optimistic. He'll hit 22. I take the over.



2) Should Sandy Koufax cards be more expensive then the cards of Warren Spahn?
Should James Dean movies be more expensive than Humphrey Bogart movies? They're both leading men, they both have a sexy, dangerous edge to them, the main difference is that James burned brightly for a short period of time while Humphrey was rock solid for decades.They're both good, they're both legends and if people want to buy up all the copies of Rebel Without a Cause for $50 a pop and leave The Maltese Falcon in the $10 bin for me, I don't really mind all that much.The fact is there are a a lot more Dodger collectors out there than Braves collectors, and Koufax also has the true star quality going for him. Spahn is the best Lefty ever, but he was more workman about it. I certainly don't mind picking up vintage Spahnnies for under 10 bucks.

3) Topps has now released 10 years of Heritage - looking back are there any inserts/subsets they have dropped you would like to see return and are there any inserts that you believe need replaced.
Topps has remained very consistent with their Heritage insert sets.The Chrome Parallels, Then and Now, New Age Performers, Real One Autographs and Clubhouse Performers inserts have been in every single set if I'm not mistaken. They had an insert called Classic Renditions with modern players in classic unis in 2001 and 2002, but in 2003 they're placed it with Flashbacks which is still in the 2010 set. There have been some weird stuff like a Mantle Home Run countdown in 2008 and2010's Ruth Chase and the somewhat useless News Flashbacks, but other than that the set is the same as it's always been.Something I'd like to see return are the variation cards that fall at the same rate as the short prints. I hate the super short prints with a passion mainly because I used to be able to get a Rafael Furcal card with a night background or a Johan Santana card with a Washington hat variation as easily as anything else. That has sort of come back this year with the 1:72 Dice Back variation. They are tough, but I've already pulled two and it's a real cool concept. Something that can go away is the news flashbacks. there's maybe one good one a year (space monkey!) and they are mostly a bummer to pull. One thing I'd like to see in 2011 Heritage is a one per pack "Baseball Bucks" insert set. Topps inserted paper play money with players' pictures on them in 1962and it would be nice to have that set be easy to collect unlike the cool but scarce Stamps from this year.

4) who is your Favorite Jones not named Chipper

MY FIVE FAVORITE JONESESES AFTER CHIPPAH(and no, Andruw ain't one of 'em)

#5 Cyrano Jones - Tribbles! Old School Trek, baybee!

#4 Spike Jones - Beautiful music, just like momma used to make.

#3 John Paul Jones - I got the Led Zep box set back when it first came out.

#2 Carolyn Jones - Tish! You spoke French!!

AND THE GREATEEST JONES OTHER THAN CHIPPAH IS:

#1 Terry Jones - Terry might actually beat Larry to be honest.

Lenny's Diner Clearwater FL 2002ish?

5) As Commissioner of the 2010 Heritage Blaster Baseball League, I ask you to Defend Grits.
Defend grits? As in the southern type breakfast mush that you get with your eggs, bacon and scattered covered and smothered at the Waffle House? Those kind of grits? Well, I don't see them as being any weirder than any other sort of odd regional delicacy like lutefisk in Minnesota, or fried brain sandwiches in Indiana, or poutine up in the Frozen north or *ahem* scrapple... It's just redneck polenta, nothing more, nothing less.It's a porridge like oatmeal or cream of wheat, really, just made out of corn. While oatmeal is hearty, and cream of wheat is smooth, grits are just sort of gritty, hence the name. They're good though and while oatmeal and cream of wheat are good with sweet stuff like syrup and cinnamon and fruit and cream, grits are good with more savory flavors.I love mine with any combination of butter, cheese, bacon bits or black pepper. If you're ever on the South Carolina coast find a place that has real low country shrimp and grits with fresh local shrimp,slow cooked grits and a spicy tomato sauce... pure heaven.If you're talking about gritz76, the guy who runs Project '62, well, I can't. There's no way I can defend a Cubs fan.


Phungo 5 Box Score

Cardboard Junkie Goes 4 for 4 with the J-Hey Question remaining open. And despite what Heyward did to the Phils last night we will toss in an extra point for going the extra mile and hooking us up with the Morticia video. Cardboard Junkie 5 points with one pending.

Looking Back

To check out a previous Phungo 5 with Brian from 30-Year old Cardboard click here

Card Show Report - 2010 04 18 Look who is hanging out in the Dollar Bin

1964 Topps #460 Bob Gibson

This card is in not in anywhere near perfect condition. It generally looks good, the corners are soft and it is dimpled throughout, but there aren't any real creases, and it is not written on. The color is tsill go and it is a fine looking card of Bob Gibson.

So why the hell is it in the dollar bin? I have no clue - I can think of a bunch of reason it has to be rescued from that squalid neighborhood.

#1) It's Bob Gibson!
#2) 1964 Topps - 45+ years old card of a Hall of Famer
#3) It's a Semi-High Number in the '64 High Series
#4) Try and find this baby for under $5 on an auction site.
#5) I have to say it again - It's Bob Gibson!



1964 Topps #280 Juan Marichal

Another 64 HoF for a dollar.
1965 Topps #399 Ray Herbert

Typically I wouldn't pick a 1965 card out of the dollar bin, but the Herbert card is a High Number and those are a bit scarcer in the topps 65 set. I think I crossed 3 Phils off my Topps Want lists over the weekend. The other two were 80s cards out of a dime box.

1962 Topps #575 Red Shoendienst
1989 Topps #81 Frank Viola

One more Hi-Number Vintage HoF - unfortunately poor Red has been sent to the bargain bin for having his position shifted from 2b to Manager. This may be Shoendienst's last card as a player.

And what the heck is with this Giant Frank Viola Card? Stay tuned for more info later in the week.