What was Topps thinking?

When Peter, from Baseball Every Night, announced his Ugly Sweater contest, one card immediately came to mind, but it wasn't a baseball card, and not knowing if would be acceptable or not, I held off my entry and set forth to try and find an "ugly" baseball card.

After trying, and failing, to find an appropriate card -- as well as seeing Billy use a non-baseball card for his entry -- I am just going to go ahead and use the card that I originally thought of:

Vintage baseball collectors often bemoan Topps' use of airbrushed caps, a complaint which is warranted to a certain degree, but in the grand scheme of things, it's nowhere near as bad as an airbrushed face!

I had thought for the longest time that my copy of Ticky Burden's 1976-77 Topps card had been arted up by some kid in a previous decade, imagine my surprise when I eventually got a second copy and found that it was identical to my original card.

As you can see, there was nothing wrong with Luther Burden's appearance, so one can only wonder why Topps did what they did to his card -- which by the way, was the only card that was ever produced of him.

Mr. Burden passed away a few years ago, so there's no way to ask him how he felt about it, but I can imagine that he was too keen on it... and to think of all the times that he had to have been asked to sign that monstrosity!

The '76-77 set is full of wonderful images, some of the best from that decade in fact, which makes the atrociousness of Ticky's card even more perplexing.

And for the record, there was one more "what was Topps thinking?" card in this set:

Part of me has always thought that Topps attempted to colorize b/w photos for both Dave and Ticky, why I don't know, especially once you see the final results.While Topps' attempt to turn Dave into a ghoul was bad, he would at least have a few more normal cards produced in the proceeding years, it's too bad that the same couldn't be said for Ticky.


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Another one bites the dust

It was just a couple of weeks ago that I was celebrating the completion of my 1973-74 Topps basketball set, well, it's time to celebrate another completed set, this time it's of the 1976-77 Topps basketball variety.

Heading into the COMC Black Friday sale, I was three cards away from completing the set, two of which I was able to get during the sale (an badly needed upgrade was gotten as well), and the final card was... well, you'll find out about that a little further down. For now, I just want to get to the cards:

In case you've forgotten, Rich is here to remind you just how cool the old ABA red, white, and blue balls (no jokes please) were... and still are.

Having had six (I'm not counting the '69-70 season) very successful seasons in the ABA, it's a bit of a mystery to me as to why Rich only ended up playing for one year in the NBA following the merger of the two leagues in 1976. Since that particular info hasn't been, and still isn't, available online, I'm thinking that the only way to find out about his "one and done" in the NBA... will simply be to write to him and ask.

This is a great in-game shot featuring Phil getting off his patented "zenhook" over the great Wes Unseld.

You might be surprised (sarcasm) to learn that, to date, Phil Jackson is still the only NBA player to have been born in Deer Lodge, MT. This card had been eluding me for quite some time  now, so it was very nice to finally be able to cross it off the checklist.

This was a badly needed upgrade, as my other one looks like someone had spilled coffee on it at some point in time. As you can see in the scan, this card came with a wax stain, said stain has since been removed.

Unfortunately, Gail no longer holds the Lakers consecutive free throws made record, that honor belongs to Kobe Bryant (boooo!), with 62.

After being left just one card away from completing the set, I decided that I wasn't going to wait any longer for a cheap copy to be added to the site, so I turned to eBay. After a few short weeks, I was able to plunk down a virtual five spot and officially wrap this one up!

Hondo is shown guarding Dave Bing, one season later they would be playing together after Dave joined the Celtics. That next year would also be the last for the two of them, as both of the future hall of famers would retire after the 1977-78 season.

The card does have a wax stain on the back, but that doesn't really bother me, as I'm just happy to have finally completed the set. I would still like to upgrade two cards (Sam Lacey and Charlie Scott) at some point, but for now, I'm content just basking in the glow of this most recent accomplishment.


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