“High” There
BY MARK A. LARSON
Editor & Publisher
Marty Kutyna is not a name many baseball fans or collectors would remember today. But he had a decent – albeit brief – major league career from 1959-62.
After toiling in the minors for seven years, the righthanded hurler made his major league debut for the Kansas City A’s in 1959. In four relief appearances, Marty pitched seven innings, allowing zero runs.
It was enough to secure a spot on the 1960 A’s roster and earn a place in that year’s Topps set.
Marty was called in from the bullpen 51 times in ’60, posting a 3-2 record and 3.94 ERA. After the season, he was dealt to the new Washington Senators expansion club.
Kutyna spent two full seasons with Washington, appearing in 104 games … all but six in relief. Just like in 1960, his ERA hovered around 4.00 in both 1961-62. However, 1963 saw a return to the minors and the end of his professional mound career.
Marty made three appearances on Topps cards between 1960-62. But a lot of guys were only included in a few card sets – so what’s significant about Kutyna and his cards?
All three of his cards were part of the 7th – and last – series in the 1960, 1961 and 1962 sets. Quite unusual. And it makes Marty Kutyna cards harder to find.
Cards in the final series were produced in far fewer numbers than earlier series. In fact, back in those years, early series cards were probably at least 5-10 times more plentiful than final series cards.
As I explained in an Oct. 1992 article about card series in “Baseball Hobby News” magazine … Topps would typically start releasing their first series cards around the end of spring training. Then, approximately every 3-4 weeks the company would issue a new series, culminating in the final 7th series in late summer.
By that time, boys’ interest in baseball was beginning to wane. Little League was over, plus school and football were fast approaching. Therefore, sales of baseball cards began to plummet. (Retailers may also still have had cards on hand to try and sell from the early and mid-series.)
Consequently, orders for later series cards were much lower and Topps followed suit by reducing production and distribution. (These elusive final series cards are commonly referred to as “high numbers” by collectors today, as they contained the highest card numbers in the set … usually #500 and up.)
To appear in the 7th series three years in a row would have been unusual enough. But for those three to be the only Topps cards issued for a player made it a rare occurrence indeed.
Since acquiring the high numbers is always a challenge for set collectors, who would have ever thought Marty Kutyna cards might be in higher demand?
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See related article on BaseballCardFun.com entitled:
“BASEBALL HOBBY NEWS — Topps Issued its Cards in Series, 1952-73″
Click Link Here
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