BY MARK A. LARSON
Editor & Publisher

Over the years, baseball card checklists have usually been the most dull, boring, unimaginative and unexciting cards found in a set … in other words, just plain “Blah.”

In the late 1950s, Topps tried to make checklists at least a little bit more interesting by placing them on the back of team cards. Then in 1961, Topps revamped team cards and added club statistics instead of checklists. That same year, the company placed a generic action photo at the top of checklist cards, but they still weren’t very thrilling. Starting in 1962, the front and back of checklist cards were just a list of of those included in the set.

Then someone got the idea to place a photo of a star player on the front side of checklists. Now, there was at least something to see besides a list of names … albeit the picture was rather small. For three years, from 1967-69, Topps issued 21 checklists (one for each series) and 20 of them included star photos. Unfortunately, the 1970 set signaled a return to blah checklist cards for many years to come. Here’s a view of those three years of checklists from the late ’60s.

In Topps’ first year of adding star players to checklist cards in 1967, the company made seven deserving choices … all future Hall-of-Famers.

Frank Robinson won the Triple Crown in 1966 – leading the American League in home runs, RBIs and batting average – and was the league’s Most Valuable Player. … Even though Mickey Mantle was already in the twilight of his career and posting subpar numbers, he was, after all, Mickey Mantle, an all-time great. … Superstar Willie Mays had his last season topping 30 homers and 100 RBIs in 1966 and was also a natural choice.

Lefthander Jim Kaat won a career-high 25 games the year before and Roberto Clemente was coming off his best season. … Like Kaat, Juan Marichal won 25 games and had a superb 2.23 ERA. … Finally, Brooks Robinson was second in the A.L. in MVP voting, won a Gold Glove and was an integral part of the Orioles’ World championship season in 1966.

For the 1968 set, Topps included some curious choices. … In 1967, Jim Kaat, who had a decent follow-up campaign to his stellar performance in 1966, was chosen over Cy Young Award winners Jim Lonborg and Mike McCormick – both 22-game winners. … The Cubs’ Ken Holtzman only appeared in 12 games the year before (although he went 9-0). Like Kaat, kind of a dubious choice. … Juan Marichal missed about 10 starts and so his numbers weren’t quite as good as the previous year. … Clete Boyer had his best season ever in ’67, but there still were several players who had better years, including Harmon Killebrew and Hank Aaron.

The remaining three players who appeared on checklists were truly deserving. … Carl Yastrzemski – A.L. MVP – won the Triple Crown in 1967, while leading the Boston Red Sox to the pennant. … Orlando Cepeda took home the MVP Award in the National League enroute to a World Series victory with the St. Louis Cardinals. Both were worthy of being placed on checklists. … Frank Robinson had a respectable year following his great season in 1966, although it was marred by an injury and his stats were down.

No one could argue with Topps’ choices for the first half of its 1969 checklist cards. … In the “Year of the Pitcher,” the Tigers’ Denny McLain won 31 games in 1968, while Cardinal Bob Gibson posted an amazing 1.12 ERA. Both were Cy Young Award winners and both took their teams to the World Series. … Due to space restraints, the 3rd Series checklist did not contain a player photo. The extra room was taken up by an additonal 33-card checklist of what is now known as the “Deckle Edge” inserts. … Dodgers’ pitcher Don Drysdale was a great choice for the next checklist card as he had set a new record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched the year before.

As a tribute, Mickey Mantle appears on the 5th Series checklist. He retired a few months earlier after a stellar career with the Yankees, which included 536 lifetime homers. … Future Hall-of-Famers Brooks Robinson and Tony Oliva round out the 1969 Topps checklist lineup. Although good, interestingly, neither had close to their greatest years in ’68. Like some earlier choices, their appearances were a bit surprising.

What if … Topps Continued the
Photo-on-Checklist Style in 1970?

The 1970 Topps checklists returned more or less to the basic list of ballplayers format, with no photos. … However, just for fun, let’s do seven fantasy checklists with the best players from the prior season. (None of them appeared on a previous checklist card.) … The A.L. MVP, Harmon Killebrew had his best year in 1969, leading the league with 49 home runs and 145 RBIs. … Willie McCovey was the big man in the N.L. He took home MVP honors based on his 45 homers and 126 RBIs. … Hank Aaron was no slouch, putting 44 over the fence, along with 97 RBIs and a .300 average.

Reggie Jackson was the talk of baseball in the summer of ’69, with speculation for a while that he might best Roger Maris’ single season home run record of 61. Jackson tailed off, but still blasted 47 round-trippers, along with 118 RBIs. It remained the most homers “Mr. October” ever hit in one season. … Pete Rose posted the highest average of his career (.348) while winning his second consecutive N.L. batting crown and leading the league in runs scored with 120.

Tom Seaver was the National League’s Cy Young Award winner, with 25 wins and a 2.21 ERA. He led the “Miracle Mets” to the World Championship the previous year. … Meanwhile, in the American League, Denny McLain and Baltimore’s Mike Cuellar were co-Cy Young Award recipients – both having excellent years. The nod goes to Cuellar here since he had never appeared on a checklist card and his team made it to the World Series. The Orioles’ southpaw posted a 2.38 ERA to go along with 23 victories.

Two Photo Variations

Of course, it was not uncommon for Topps to have some variations in its sets, including checklist cards. During the 1967-69 period, this was most notable with two of the checklists issued as part of the 1967 set.

Fellow San Francisco Giants Willie Mays and Juan Marichal each had two variations of their photos on the 3rd and 6th series checklists respectively. Mays is shown with his necked cropped out of his photo and also with his neck left intact. Similarily, Marichal is featured on a card with just one ear showing and on the other with both ears visible. … Photo variations are fun to collect, but for both of these players, there’s little difference – if any – between the value of one card vs. the other.