I hope you all have been enjoying these looks into the final series of Topps cards as we've worked out way back the past few years. This one will cover the final 1957 series which I've always wondered about.
One of the reasons I've always wondered about this series was when I got serious in the hobby one of my good friends always talked about getting tons of the last series 1957s as a young man. He said more than wax packs were available on these cards and what caused Topps to issue another series after their 4th series. And not only issue them but also issue them in such quantity,
What makes 1957 so interesting is the toughest series is considered the middle series and cards numbered 265-352 were issued in the lowest quantity of any of these series. This is very unusual in Topps history and in my opinion the only other year where a middle series could be the toughest is of all years 1965. If I remember the price guide points correctly, all series from the fourth on in 1965 are all priced about the same. In fact, we had when I was growing up in the hobby many more 1965 last series cards then we had any series other than the first two. 1957 is even more pronounced
So let's start with the 4th series. This series is noted not because it is difficult but also because there are some rookie cards/early cards of future HOFers and other popular players. Obviously at the time not all of them had yet become names.
The biggest name of the rookie cards is, of course, Brooks Robinson. And frankly this is a difficult card to acquire yesterday or today.
Such a pretty card of a great player and a nice signer as well.
We also have the third year card of Sandy Koufax.
Other cards which today could be considered key card in this series are Jim Bunning and Tony Kubek. Kubek was a Yankees star and then was an announcer for years.
There are also a decent amount of established players in this series. Mel Parnell, who was at it turned out at the end of his career. Is a good example of an established player.
Mel would go and announce Red Sox games for many years.
There are also some cards in that series which appear to be printed in higher quantity so they are noted as double prints.
But now we're ready for the fifth series. And similar to what occurred in 1958, there does seem to be no shortage of these cards issued. And also similar to 1958 there is a high percentage of rookie cards and young players. A quick count shows 28 cards noted as "rookie cards' in just 55 cards. That's more than 1/2 the series.
I'm putting the words Rookie cards in parentheses as a couple of these rookie cards were established players or a bit older
When I saw Cal McLish was listed a Rookie Card I did a double take. I remembered how hold he was at the time and looking at the back of the card you see why he was missed previously. Maybe he could have had a 1952 card but wow no cards of him till he was on the other side of 30.
Yes the other rookies were at least on the younger side of 30. Here are just some examples of some of the people Topps put in. And note that unlike the fourth series none of them would ever be more than semi-stars in terms of the card market.
One of my favorite people in this series is Earl Battey. Battey retired after the 1967 season and would get hired by Con Ed in New York to sit with young poorer kids at Yankee Stadium to talk about baseball in a special section of the Ball Ball Orchard in the Bronx. As noted in the SABR Bio project bio of Battey
"In April of 1968, Battey “accepted a job as baseball consultant to Consolidated Edison … to help run the [NYC] power company’s part of a baseball-community relations program.”13 It was known as the Con-Ed Answer Man program. Con-Ed would buy Yankees tickets and give them free to inner-city kids. The youngsters attended the game with Battey, “combination chaperone and the Con-Ed Answer Man (He answered their baseball questions)"
In those days of course, the Yankees were looking for any way to get more people into Yankee Stadium. And if this got more people in, the more the merrier.
Battey was part of the 1959 Chicago White sox which is a team I've always wanted to a deep dive on. Well not because how they became the "go go" sox but because they were a team in retrospect which was one part yesterday's team, one part today's team and one part tomorrow's team. If you could only have combined the best years of all three parts....
But Battey was a pretty good player and good enough where Topps featured him on a 1963 multi-player card with Elston Howard.
Remember in 1958 when we talked about the seemingly endless Bob Smith's running around baseball at the time. Well here is Bobby Gene Smith. Al least he had courtesy of adding a middle name to make it easier to keep him straight from the other Bob Smith's
Not all players did as well in the majors as these two. I present to you Casey Wise as our final rookie to feature. I could do a ton more cards but these are just fun examples for this set.
Pay Close Attention to the sentences in the informational blurb about Mr. Wise.
"he should be spending a lot of time on the Major League basepaths". Well maybe in the
department of wishful thinking that is true but not in real life. Wise would finish the season with an on base percentage barely above .250 and have no stolen bases or even attempts. Oh and this was the best season he had in the majors. Two years later he became part of the second base carousel for the Milwaukee Braves and if they had a competent second baseman that year they probably would have won the pennant.
We don't have a 1961 career capper card for Mr. Wise but the stats on the back of his 1960 Topps card tell his story pretty well
But I'm saving the best for last. And yes it's another thing Topps really did for the first time in this final series as they would do in 1958 with the All-Star cards. This time it's the debut of the multi-player cards. The only other multi-player card Topps had in their first few years of what we now call the flagship or base set was the 1954 O'Brien Brothers card.
This series features two multi-player cards both of which featured superstars of the day and both featured New York teams. Cards #400 and #407 were these two cards
Cards #400 one can even say is the final Brooklyn Dodgers card issued.
Not bad, three future Hall of Famers and a NL Batting champ on this card.
And the final card of the 1957 set was even better. Mickey Charles Mantle and Lawrence Peter 'Yogi" Berra
Nice card to send the set with. And for Topps the next dozen years would have plenty of these multi-player cards before going into a rest period. I'm personally glad these types of cards are back in the modern flagship sets even if they are the front of checklist cards.
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