Dissecting the 1968 Set

Well, my recent post about the 1967 set was so much fun to do, that I'm doing the same here for the 1968 set. I will also have similar posts for the '66, '69, '70, (and maybe '65) sets, but not this week.

The 1968 Topps set had 598 cards, 11 fewer than in 1967. This included 13 team cards, 20 managers, 30 rookie stars cards, 12 league leaders cards, 8 World Series cards, 20 All-Star cards, 7 checklists, and 3 multi-player cards. This leaves 485 cards of individual players.

Topps issued 20 All-Star cards which they didn't do in the previous year. How did they add 20 cards and still have a smaller set than the previous year? They short-changed other areas:
 - Only 30 Rookie Stars cards (43 in 1967)
 - Only 3 multi-player cards (13 in 1967)
 - Inexplicably, only 13 team cards (19 in 1967)
All that corner-cutting, and there were still 5 fewer player cards (485) than in the previous set.

Here is the position breakdown of the 485 player cards:

205 cards for "PITCHER"
50 cards for "CATCHER"
24 cards for "1st BASE"
19 cards for "2nd BASE"
22 cards for "SHORTSTOP" or "SS"
18 cards for "3rd BASE"
12 cards for "INFIELD"
95 cards for "OUTFIELD"

That's a total of 451 cards. The remaining 34 cards featured players at more than 1 position. Below is a sample of each position:

These are the only 2 players having a C-1B or 1B-C position.

Once again, Tom Satriano is the only C-3B in the set.  Teammate Ed Kirkpatrick is the only OF-CATCHER.  (There are no 3B-C or C-OF in the set.)

Felipe Alou appears again as a 1B-OF (along with Lee Thomas, Clarence Jones, and Mike Hegan).  His teammate Tito Francona has the opposite position, as does Chuck Hinton.

Chico Salmon is one of two 2B-OF in the set (along with Bob Savarine).  I wonder why Topps chose not to abbreviate Salmon's and Alou's positions, like they did with the others?  Jim Hart and Danny Cater are the only two with 3B-OF.

In the 1967 set, Topps botched Orioles' shortstop Luis Aparicio's position, naming him as "INFIELD".  This year, they did it again to the Orioles' shortstop.  Mark Belanger was the starting shortstop all season (with Aparicio having been traded), yet they have him as 2B-SS.  (No other Orioles' player was designated as 'SS'.)

In the last set, there was only one player with this position, but now there are 6 (Belanger, Phil Gagliano, Nate Oliver, Tim Cullen, Frank Quilici, Wayne Causey). As in the previous set, Dick Tracewski is the only SS-2B.

Like Alou and Francona, teammates share the opposing positions here.  Jerry Adair, Don Buford, and Bernie Allen have a 2B-3B position, while Dalton Jones, Jim Lefebvre, and Chuck Hiller have 3B-2B.

These are the only two players in the set with these positions.

And now the miscellaneous grouping.  In the '67 set, there was only 1 player with 1B-3B (Harmon Killebrew)  and none with 3B-1B.  Now, there are no 1B-3B cards, but 2 (Ed Mathews, Pete Ward) for 3B-1B.

There are 3 players having the dreaded INF-OF position (Gary Sutherland, Woodie Held, and Frank Kostro.)  Topps missed the boat here.  Sutherland was a semi-regular at both shortstop and left field in 1967, and played no other positions.  Topps could have had a rare "SS-OF" position if they were paying attention.



I noticed a few other things about this set while I was gathering the above information.  I have already railed about the uneven distribution of cards among the teams in this set, as well as the absence of a Giants Rookie Stars card.

I found that there is no card for an Indians' 1st baseman (because Topps refused to make any cards for Tony Horton), and also no 2nd baseman for the Giants (nor anyone remotely close, like an infielder or a combined position).  Tito Fuentes seems like a candidate for that card, but he is missing from the set.

I also found that the Astros have FOURTEEN pitchers, while most other teams have 9 to 11. Topps also went overboard with FOUR catchers for the Athletics, while everyone else has 2 or 3.

Who didn't get a card, but shoulda...

Today, I'm continuing to pick at the shortcomings my analysis of the 1968 set.

As I posted earlier with the 1966 and 1967 sets, here is a list of some of the players who didn't appear on a regular or rookie card in this set, along with the number of games played in 1968:


Most of these are rookies who made their debut in 1968. Reggie Jackson is a different case. He made his debut with the Athletics in June 1967, but in 118 at-bats in 35 games, he only hit 1 home run. Maybe this caused Topps to write him off as a non-factor. Fortunately for us, our fellow blogger Steve at White Sox Cards has filled the gap.

Bobby Bonds wasn't called up until late June, but he had been tearing up the minor leagues for over a year. Other rookies who grabbed a starting job at the start of the season included Del Unser and Bobby Cox (who both made the Topps 1968 all-rookie team).

Non-rookies without a card were Indians' 1st baseman Tony Horton (who never had a card in his 6-year career), Roberto Pena (a journeyman shortstop who joined the Phillies in late April and took over the starting job in May for the injured Bobby Wine), and Red Sox pitcher Sparky Lyle.

I can't imagine how Topps could have overlooked Reggie Jackson and Bobby Bonds for their teams' rookie cards, but almost all of these players could have been added to the 7th series, which was months away. (Did we really need all those extra Mets cards?)


5-15-2011 edit:
Yesterday, I learned that relief pitcher Dick Radatz didn't have a card in the 1968 set. Radatz (nicknamed "The Monster") broke in with the Red Sox in 1962 and finished 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting. He led the AL in (what would have been) saves in 1962 and 1964. In June 1966 he was traded to the Indians, and in April 1967 he moved on to the Cubs.

From 1962 to 1967, Dick appeared in 62, 66, 79, 63, 55, and 23 games. His last major-league appearance in 1967 was on July 7th. No doubt that was the reason he was left out of the 1968 set. Still, the Braves' Tommie Aaron was afforded a card in 1968 after not having played since the 1965 season, so why didn't Radatz get similar treatment? Dick spent the entire 1968 season in the minors, before resurfacing for 1 final season in 1969 with the Tigers and Expos. His final card was in the 1969 set.


12-27-2011 edit:
In addition to Dick Radatz, these players also had cards in 1967 and 1969, but not in 1968:
Johnny Podres - P (was retired during 1968)
Jesse Gonder - C (1967 was last year in majors)
Bob Chance - 1B
Dave Nicholson - OF
Gary Geiger - OF
Tommie Reynolds - OF
Galen Cisco - P
Fred Newman - P
Tom Egan - C
Chuck Harrison - 1B
Jim Beauchamp - OF
John Kennedy - 3B

Distribution of teams within the 1968 set

Yesterday, I revisited my earlier post about the lack of a Giants Rookies card.

There were 25 cards for the Giants in 1968. However, in the 598 card set, the last Giant appears on card #545. This means that in the last 53 cards, there were no Giants. Was a planned Giants Rookies card pulled and replaced with someone else? Although the set starts off with each team being represented every 20 cards or so, in those final 53 cards, we have:

5 Mets (!?!)
4 Astros, Red Sox, Senators, and Yankees
3 Angels, Athletics, Indians, and Pirates
2 Braves, Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Orioles, Reds, Twins, White Sox
1 Tigers and Phillies

The Phillies were really cut short, having only ONE card among the last EIGHTY-SIX cards!


A further analysis of the entire set shows that some teams had as many as 5 more cards than other teams:

30 Orioles, Reds, Red Sox
29 Astros, Cubs, Mets, Senators
28 Athletics
27 Cardinals, Dodgers, Pirates, Twins, White Sox
26 Angels, Yankees
25 Braves, Giants, Phillies, Indians, Tigers

20 All stars
12 Leaders
8 World Series
7 Checklists
5 Other


So, my long-time suspicion that the Phillies were short-changed in the 1968 set turns out to be correct. (Trades were not the reason, as the only significant off-season Phillies' trades were Jim Bunning for Woodie Fryman, and Dick Ellsworth and Gene Oliver for Mike Ryan, which gives an imbalance of 1 card.)

Topps' late-series push of excessive Mets, Astros, Red Sox, and Senators cards sent the totals for those teams soaring above the team average.

Giants Rookies?

Well, today my 2 virtual spinners came up "card type = rookies" and "team = Giants", but for some reason Topps didn't issue a Giants Rookies card in 1968. Was it laziness? Short-sightedness? Let's see if Topps even had anyone to pick from that year.


According to Baseball-Reference.com, there were 4 rookies who got some playing time with the 1968 Giants. Even if they were only cups of coffee, they could still qualify under Topps' loose interpretation of "Rookie Stars". (After all, how many times did we see George Lauzerique on a Reds or Athletics "Rookie Stars" card?)

Rich Robertson's stats aren't overly impressive, but they are at least as good as George Korince, the Tigers' farmhand that Topps wasted TWO rookie cards on in 1967:

Some other candidates:





Wait, I think there was one more rookie on the 1968 Giants. Oh yes, it was:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Topps couldn't find two players worthy of their "Rookie Stars" interpretation, to slap onto a card in 1968?

Instead, we are treated to a Bobby Etheridge card, with a bright, shiny trophy indicating that he was Topps' selection as the 3rd baseman on the 1967 all-rookie team. In 1967, Etheridge batted a stellar .226 in 40 games, struck out 12 times, and didn't even make the team in 1968!

Houston, we have a problem...

In a strange move, the word "Astros" was not to be found on any Houston Astros card in 1968 or 1969. As far as Topps was concerned, the team name was known as "Houston" on the front and back of every card (including text on the back). Also, the Astros "star" logo was removed from all hats. This was done in three ways.

1. There was the standard airbrushing jobs (here you can see the mess that remains after a poor airbrushing job):




2. Besides the usual airbrushing, Topps replaced the front of the hat with a black space (It looks like they simply cut a hole in the film.) This was also done extensively with the Oakland Athletics' cards. (This was the first year following the move from Kansas City, so all the Athletics' cards were given the no-hat-logo treatment - more on that in another post):


In the mid-1960s, the Astros seemed to have more than their share of sub-par catchers. First there was John Bateman and Ron Brand. In 1967, Brand was left out of the Topps set while the non-descript Bill Heath was given a card. In 1968, Heath was out, Brand was back, and we were also treated to a third-string catcher named Dave Adlesh. They were all gone before 1969 (Bateman and Brand were scooped up by Montreal in the 1969 expansion draft, and Adlesh landed in St. Louis).


3. And then there was the old fall-back of going hatless (same Morgan photo used in 1969). Here it looks like Joe is thinking "If only I could go to a better place - like Cincinnati".




10/29/2009 edit:
Thanks to Fleerfan for his take on the 1968/1969 Astros issue.

11/26/2009 edit:
Here's another angle that I just found today.