Ed Charles was a 5-year starter at 3B for Kansas City, then was traded to the Mets on 5/12/1967 for outfielder Larry Elliot (who never played another major-league game after 1966). He took over the Mets regular 3rd base job from Ken Boyer
(86 starts vs. Boyer's 43 starts) . Charles continued as the Mets' regular 3rd baseman in 1968, but lost his starting job in 1969 to Wayne Garrett. Twelve days after the Mets won the 1969 World Series, Charles was released.
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What caught my attention about this card is the large amount of blank space on the card back. Usually, Topps omitted the minor-league stats for long-time veterans, but they did it here also. When checking into Charles'
minor league statistics, I learned that he was originally signed in 1952 by the
Boston Braves.
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What caught my attention about this card is the large amount of blank space on the card back. Usually, Topps omitted the minor-league stats for long-time veterans, but they did it here also. When checking into Charles' minor league statistics, I learned that he was originally signed in 1952 by the Boston Braves.
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2 comments:
Now this is interesting. Topps had to have printed this card sometime after April 17, 1968... because Koosman's consecutive shutouts were April 11th & 17th. So now I'm really really curious... are there any '68 Ed Charles cards with a different trivia question on the back?
I've always thought that Topps started selling sets before the season began, but either Charles wasn't sold before Apr 18 or he had a different trivia question on his card early on.
Prior to about 1974, Topps printed and sold the cards in 7 different series (1 per month from March to September). This is card #563, so it was printed after the season started, and not sold until August or September. Some of these late-season cards have current notes about in-season trades, demotions, etc (for example, Jim Piersall in my 1967 blog).
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