The history of Topps baseball card sets
BY MARK A. LARSON
For Sandy Koufax, 1965 was a fabulous year. It was also the year of a fine Topps baseball card set.
Koufax was nothing short of magnificent in 1965. The Dodgers’ southpaw led the majors in victories (26), complete games (27), innings pitched (336), ERA (2.04) and strikeouts (382). His strikeout total set a new major league single-season record. (It has since been broken by Nolan Ryan.)
Koufax was also the winning pitcher in the All-Star Game and was named MVP of the ’65 World Series. He threw a perfect game on Sept. 9 against the Cubs (the fourth no-hitter of his career) and won his second Cy Young Award.
Needless to say, Koufax – along with Don Drysdale, who was 23-12 with a 2.77 ERA – was instrumental in leading Los Angeles to the National League pennant. The Dodgers were a relatively weak-hitting team that edged out the San Francisco Giants by two games.
The Giants’ top hurler was Juan Marichal who posted a 22-13 record, with a 2.13 ERA and a league-leading 10 shutouts. In addition, San Francisco boasted two of the game’s top sluggers: the two Willies, Mays and McCovey. The “Say-Hey Kid” hit a career-high 52 home runs, to go along with 112 RBIs and a .317 average. He was named N.L. MVP. McCovey belted 39 homers and drove in 92 runs.
Other National League leaders included Pittsburgh’s Roberto Clemente (.329 average), the Reds’ Deron Johnson (130 RBIs) and the Dodgers’ Maury Wills (94 steals).
In the American League, the Minnesota Twins finished seven games ahead of their nearest rival, the Chicago White Sox. Twins’ pitcher Jim “Mudcat” Grant led the A.L. with 21 wins and six shutouts. Minnesota’s Tony Oliva won his second-straight batting title in his first two seasons by hitting .321. Meanwhile, Zoilo Versalles, the Twins’ shortstop, was named MVP in the American League.
Twenty-year-old Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro led the A.L. with 32 home runs. Cleveland’s Rocky Colavito was the top RBI man with 108, while Kansas City A’s shortstop Bert Campaneris topped the junior circuit with 51 steals. The Indians’ “Sudden” Sam McDowell led the league with 325 whiffs and a 2.18 ERA.
The 1965 World Series went seven games, with the home team winning the first six. Los Angeles broke the string by besting the Twins in game seven at Minnesota. As mentioned earlier, Koufax was named the Fall Classic’s MVP. All he did was go 2-1, with a 0.38 ERA. The lefty struck out 29 batters in 24 innings.
Topps’ 598-card set featured a clean, crisp design – front and back. Fronts included a pennant that incorporated the team’s name and logo. Although team logos were used on many of its earlier sets, the ’65s would be the last Topps set to utilize them on the front until 1985. A smaller version of the pennant would turn up on Topps’ 1977 cards.
Card backs had a blue and white color combination … the only time Topps used blue as the single color on white cardboard stock. (Blue and yellow on white was used in 1970.) Backs featured the usual year-by-year statistics, a biographical write-up and a cartoon.
As with most Topps sets of this era, sixth series cards (#447-522) are less plentiful than the first five series. However, the most scarce cards are in the seventh series (#523-598) and some of these are even more difficult to find than others. Of the 76 cards which make up the seventh series, 44 were single-printed – produced in lesser quantities than the remaining 32.
Surprisingly, the 1965 set is the first Topps set in many years not to feature multi-player star cards, such as “Tops In NL” with Aaron and Mays in the 1964 offering.
However, the set does include the usual League Leader cards (#1-12), World Series subset (#132-139), multi-player rookie cards and team cards. For some unknown reason, Topps did the World Series cards portrait-style … actual photos that are touched up to look like paintings.
Key rookie cards in the ’65 set include Houston’s Joe Morgan (#16), St. Louis’ Steve Carlton (#477), Kansas City’s Jim “Catfish” Hunter (#526) and Cincinnati’s Tony Perez (#581). Carlton tops the list in value at $450, while Hunter is $170, Morgan is $165 and Perez is $125.
Other $100-plus cards are: Pete Rose (#150), Willie Mays (#250), Sandy Koufax (#300) and Mickey Mantle (#350).
The 1965 set also features the last cards of several prominent people. Casey Stengel retired as manager of the Mets in mid-1965. His card (#187) shows the “Old Perfessor” explaining the finer points of the game – probably in “Stengelese,” Casey’s own curious version of the English language.
Warren Spahn, the 363-game winner who was closing out his career with the Mets, appears without cap on his final card (#205). Don Zimmer made his farewell card appearance (#233) as a player with the Senators, but “Popeye” was to turn up in many more Topps sets as a big league manager.
Nellie Fox (#485) ended his career with the Astros, as did Don Larsen (#389). Yogi Berra’s final card (#470) as a player with the Mets included the unique designation on the front of “Catcher-Coach.”
Two other cards stand out in the 1965 Topps set. Jim Kaat’s card (#62) had his last name spelled Katt. No correction was made, so no special value is assigned to this error.
Masanori Murakami, one of the few Japanese to play in the major leagues, had his only card (#282) in the
’65 set. Born in Otsuki, Japan, he appeared in his first big league game in 1964. In 54 games over two seasons with San Francisco, the lefthander went 5-1, with a 3.43 ERA and nine saves. He struck out 100 and walked only 23 in 89 in innings. At $3, his rookie card is valued at twice the common card price.
Finally, the 1965 set was the last to show regular cards with players wearing caps with the familiar Milwaukee Braves “M”, Houston Colt “.45s”, and Los Angeles Angels “LA”. Milwaukee moved to Atlanta after the ’65 season. Houston changed the team’s nickname to Astros when they moved indoors to the Astrodome for 1965. And the Los Angeles Angels became the California Angels when they moved down the freeway into their new stadium in Anaheim in 1965.
Curiously, the Milwaukee Braves “M” and Los Angeles Angels “LA” did pop up after 1965, but only on special cards. In the 1966 set, Topps included photos on its League Leader cards of Hank Aaron and Tony Cloninger wearing the old “M” caps.
As late as 1967, Bill Kelso appeared on an “Angels Rookies” card sporting an old “LA” cap. Yet the same year Topps airbrushed the old Los Angeles logo off catcher Tom Egan’s cap. Apparently Kelso slipped by Topps’ proofreaders, which just adds to the fun of looking at old Topps sets.
• • • • • •
• Originally Published in Feb. 1992 “Baseball Hobby News” •
THIS ARTICLE FROM “BASEBALL HOBBY NEWS” MAGAZINE IS REPRINTED WITH THE PERMISSION OF BOTH THE EDITOR/PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR. IT HAS BEEN RETYPED, BUT NO CONTENT HAS BEEN CHANGED (EXCEPT FOR VERY MINOR ADJUSTMENTS, CORRECTIONS TO TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND CHANGES TO GRAPHICS). COMMENTS OR INFORMATION IN THE ARTICLE MAY BE OUT-OF-DATE.
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