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If you’ve picked any of the biggie Maris issues, like his 1958 Topps rookie cards or his 1962 Topps classic follow-through, your mood has just dropped down a couple of notches.

Maris is notorious for looking despondent at best and sometimes flat-out miserable throughout his career, and most of his baseball cards reflect that idea.

Heck, he seems to have aged 20 years and contracted a nasty stomach bug on his 1965 Topps card.

Believe it or not, though Maris did smile during his baseball career, and that twinkle very occasionally made it to a pasteboard.

It almost, but not quite happened on his 1967 Topps card, for instance.

So where can you find a grinning Maris for your plastic sheet collection?

You need look no further than your (metaphorical) cupboard.

Breakfast of the (Home Run) Champions!

While Topps was busy doing whatever the heck they wanted as the mothership of the hobby and monopoly-holder extraordinaire during the 1950s and 1960s, other companies were nibbling around the collecting edges.

Fleer wooed Ted Williams into an exclusive deal and issued sets of old-time baseball greats (Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, etc.), for example.

But kids had to convince their parents to pony up for packs of Topps or Fleer, or find a way to earn their own money. Closer to home, there was a more economical alternative — food cards.

In particular, Post Cereal issued cards of active players on boxes of their breakfast goodies from 1961-63. The cards themselves were not artistic masterpieces, featuring a small player photo, some biographical information, and a block of stats.

The Post cards were blank-backed because the backs were inside the cereal boxes and the fronts were on the outside of the boxes. As you might imagine, plenty of the pasteboards arrived on breakfast tables scuffed, creased, and even torn.

It was tough to get Mom to fish through all the boxes at the store to find the player you wanted and to make sure he was in prime condition.

What wasn’t so tough, though, was finding new images of your favorite stars, and the sheer variety must have made Post cards a favorite for Little Leaguers across the nation.

I mean, where else could you find Roger Maris smiling?

Certainly not on his 1961 Topps card … or his 1962 Topps card … or his 1963 Topps card.

But take a gander at his 1961 Post card, and you see a Yankee-clad Roger with a genuine grin.

The 1962 Post Roger Maris card featured the same photo. You’d think the new home run king would have warranted a new image, but at least Maris was still smiling.

And then, in 1963, Roger was more or less beaming. More teeth, squintier eyes — a happier man, by all appearances.

Collectors accustomed to Maris’s far-off gaze and flat expression may not have even recognized the slugger when they sat down at the breakfast table during that three-year run!

There’s Always Room for S-M-I-L-E-S?

But Smiling Roger wasn’t confined to just breakfast tables in the United States.

For one thing, General Foods also included the cards on boxes of their Post cereal in Canada during the summer of 1962, complete with both French and English text.

For another, they also included their cards on boxes of Jell-O pudding in both 1962 and 1963. There were slight differences in card design between the two brands, as the 1962 Jell-O cards lacked the prominent “Post” logo and the 1963 Jell-Os were slightly smaller than their Post counterparts.

These days, the main difference lies in the scarcity and pricing of the cards on the secondary market. You can see the first hints in the PSA Population Report, which shows that, while more than 6000 Post cards from 1962 have been submitted for grading, fewer than 300 Jell-O and 800 Post Canadian pasteboards have been slabbed.

The numbers are a bit more even for 1963, where PSA has graded about 3600 Post specimens, compared to around 1900 Jell-O cards.

These relative populations are more or less reflected in prices for the Roger Maris cards from the respective sets.

Browsing sales prices on eBay paint the picture:

• 1961 Post Roger Maris — $10-20 for raw, hand-cut copies; $80-100 for PSA 6 or PSA 7
• 1962 Post Roger Maris — $10-15 raw; up to $300 for PSA 10
• 1962 Post Canadian Roger Maris — under $10 raw; up to $200 for PSA 10
• 1962 Jell-O Roger Maris — close to $100 for PSA 6, with very few copies available in any shape
• 1963 Post Roger Maris — $10-50 raw; around $100 for PSA Authentic
• 1963 Jell-O Roger Maris — $5-20 raw; up to $100 for even low-grade PSA slabs

So you can drop a pretty dime on these oddball Maris cards if you’re into high-end, investment-grade collectibles.

Or you can opt for a more affordable version for just a few bucks.

Either way, if you’ve been longing to  see the happy face of our long-time single-season home run king on a slab of cardboard, these Roger Maris baseball cards are sure to make you smile.

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The first time I ever heard of Herb Washington was at the exact moment I “discovered” the 1975 Topps Mini set.

It was at a dank but sprawling junk shop (the owners called it an “antique shop”) in one of the towns near where I grew up.  The owner’s son had commandeered a dark corner and set up a couple of display cases full of baseball cards he was selling from his personal collection.

This was about 1983, and the guy was a good 10 years older than me. He had been hitting the hobby hard for most of his life, and his wares stretched all the way back into the 1950s.

As you might imagine, there was plenty of eye candy to make a young kid drool, including vintage cards of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Boog Powell (that name!), Sandy Koufax, and dozens more.

It was dizzying, and so were the prices.

The Colors!

Among all the golden era cardboard, though, I kept coming back to the two rookie cards with multi-colored borders … the 1975 Topps Robin Young and George Brett issues.

Yount had just won the 1982 AL MVP award, and Brett was a legend for his fiery attitude, status as the likely next .400 hitter, pine tar, and … well … hemorrhoids.

It was the cards themselves that kept pulling me in, though. The design was gaudy but pure 70s in its flamboyance, and I loved that 1975 set from the moment I laid eyes on it.

Those borders always made me crave Chiclets, too

After several minutes ogling the cards in the display cases, I turned my focus to the cards in plastic sleeves and slotted into boxes on the counter top. These carried much lower price tags and were thus more realistic targets for me at the time.

As I flipped carefully through the cards, I was thrilled to see that there were several 1975s among the more reasonable offerings. On of them was Hall of Fame slugger Harmon Killebrew, who never quite got the baseball card respect he deserved. I eventually bought that card, but not on this particular day.

That’s because, a few cards later, another 1975 Topps caught my eye.

What Position Do You Play?

It featured a lanky young man leading off first base in a runner’s crouch, ready to make a break for second at any moment. He was Herb Washington of the Oakland A’s.

Even among the wild 1975 Topps cards, this one’s color scheme stood out. The yellow type face added extra pop to purple and pink borders, and the yellow and green Oakland uniform ramped up the craziness.

Something else blared at me from the front of his card, too: Washington’s position, which was listed as “Pinch Run.”

I knew that players could pinch run for other players, but could players actually be pinch runners as their only position? The card back told me that maybe they could:

Signed by Oakland Owner Chalres Finley strictly for pinch-running duties last season, Herb was personally responsible for sinning 9 games for A’s in 1974 with his speed.

Hmmm.

Maybe Mike Trout should just focus on his running game and forget about all that pesky hitting and fielding that he does?

Anyway, I knew the Washington card was going to be my purchase for the day. I think it cost a dollar, which seemed like a bargain just for curiosity’s sake.

Something’s Not Right Here …

So I set the card on the counter beside me and looked through the rest of one of the boxes. When I turned my attention back to the speedster, I caught a glimpse of the Brett rookie lurking in the glass case underneath, and something clicked in my mind.

The two cards weren’t the same size — the Washington issue was noticeably smaller, in fact.

It was then that I remembered reading in my Beckett price guide something about a “mini” set issued in 1975. It was rare, I recalled correctly.

Jackpot!

I scooped up my Washington and we paid for our baubles and then headed home where I could research my find.

What I could find was that the minis were an exact parallel of the regular 1975 Topps set, except each mini card measured 2-1/4″ by 3-1/8″ rather than the standard 2-1/2″ by 3-1/2″.

The cards were a test issue sold only in (reportedly) California and Michigan.

And, as I thought, they were considered scarce. I saw various price multipliers over the years, ranging from 1.5-2 times the value of a corresponding base card.

The value mattered to me, of course, but not nearly as much as the novelty. While 1975 Topps cards were already cool beyond belief, the minis were mind-blowing to me. I mean, they were like baby baseball cards, for goodness sake!

They were the MG Midget next to the MGB.

They were Gold Mine gum next to Chiclets.

They were an Apple computer next to a mainframe.

They were — and still are — my favorite parallel issue of all time, and the Herb Washington card is a perfect exemplar of the set’s quirkiness.

Even though the values of the minis and most cards from my youth have softened over time, my Herb Washington rookie card is still priceless to me.

Any time old-school baseball card collectors gather, online or in real life — IRL, as the kids say (maybe) —  it doesn’t take long until one of us decries the current state of the hobby …

The cards now are all glossy and glitzy, and I don’t understand them.

There are too many cards to keep track of.

There aren’t enough choices anymore.

I wish cards were still mushy and brown like they were before Fleer came along

Our bemoanings might go on for hours, and many of us can identify a specific culprit that started the downfall of the hobby …

Upper Deck ruined everything when they ditched wax packs and made cards high-tech.

Fleer ruined everything when they decided to exist.

Donruss ruined everything when they pretended to be scarce just as Don Mattingly got hot, thus creating the rookie card craze.

Topps ruined everything because they didn’t crush Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck soon enough.

We could go on, and once again, we usually do.

But if I had to bet my stash of Kurt Stillwell rookie cards on one villain that is fingered by at least one out of 10,000 “old” collectors in the crime of wrecking our hobby, it would be the emergence of the chase card. (Yes, I know one in 10,000 is not much of a risk, but this is Kurt Stillwell we’re talking about here — must protect the inheritance).

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In case you’re not familiar with the term, a chase card is a card that a card company (card card card card card card) inserts into their normal packs. The chase card is special, though — there is something different about it, something that makes collectors (and investors/speculators/dark spirits) want it, crave it.

In modern parlance, a chase card might have an autograph or a sliver of game-used bat or a swatch of game-used jersey or hunk of bruised fingernail that fell off the player who jammed it sliding into a base.

You know, irresistible stuff.

And limited. You don’t pull a chase card out of every pack. It’s a random, lottery sort of thing.

Now, when the subject turns to the origins of chase cards, credit most commonly falls to Upper Deck and the “Find the Reggie” promotion in their 1990 high-number series. That year, UD produced a special Reggie Jackson subset they named “Baseball Heroes” and had Reggie sign a certain number of the cards. Then they inserted said signed cards randomly into packs of said high-number series.

Collectors loved chasing after Reggie, and the high numbers sold well as a result.

Mission accomplished. Chase cards, born.

But I’m here to tell you that Reggie and Upper Deck were latecomers. They were riding on Fleer’s coattails.

Because the real first chase cards were those found in the 1986 Fleer All Star Team inserts.

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I know what you’re going to say …

Those cards were just inserts.

That’s not true, though. The Fleer team logo stickers — those were just inserts. You got one in every pack, and no one cared. They ended up jammed at the back of your monster box or stuck to your locker or (if you had no soul) in the trash can.

But the Fleer All-Stars (as they’re known colloquially) were different.

You got them in wax and cello packs, sure, but not in EVERY pack. As Fleer themselves put it on the back of their wax packs, the All-Star cards were “randomly inserted in wax wraps and value packs.”

Because what collector doesn’t love wax wraps?

Anyway …

The point is that you had to buy some packs and take some chances if you wanted to “win” an All Star Team card.

And those cards were prizes worth having, I’ll tell you what.

Thick, creamy, white cardstock made the cards feel premium. Card fronts looked an awful like souped-up versions of 1954 or 1958 Topps cards thanks to a full-color player photo cut out against a solid background — blue for National League All-Stars and red for American Leaguers — and a couple of yellow (surprise) stars. A color-complementary band at the bottom of the card presented the league logo, the player name and position, and his team.

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Card backs featured a huge red field with a white-text narrative of the player’s merit and a blue bar at the bottom with his name, team, and position.

About the only questionable thing about the All Star Team set was its composition.

Here, take a look at the checklist:

1 Don Mattingly

2 Tom Herr

3 George Brett

4 Gary Carter

5 Cal Ripken, Jr.

6 Dave Parker

7 Rickey Henderson

8 Pedro Guerrero

9 Dan Quisenberry

10 Dwight Gooden

11 Gorman Thomas

12 John Tudor

Some of those names may look specious today, but all of them were pretty big stars in 1985, and, again according to Fleer: “Selection based on 1985 performance.”

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Still, you kinda have to wonder how Gorman Thomas made the cut over someone like 1985 American League home run champ Darrell Evans.

*shrug*

The makeup of the set didn’t hurt demand, though. You could go to any card show in the land that summer, and dealers would be pulling the All-Stars and selling them for a buck or so — more for Mattingly and Gooden — with relative ease.

And as a 14-year-old kid but a fairly sophisticated collector (all things considered) by that point, it was an easy pick if I had the choice between packs of Donruss, Fleer, or Topps that season.

I’d take Fleer — and the chase — every time.

(Fleer didn’t leave their rack packs out of the chase-card fun, either. Instead, they spun up a special set of six Future Hall of Famers to include in those big strips of cards. Sounds like good fodder for a future post!)

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Of course, you could make the argument that Topps did pretty much the same thing with some of their quirky inserts from the 1960s and early 1970s.

Functionally, that may be true, but the hobby was too young and too sparsely populated for it to have mattered much.

And the Topps Glossy All-Stars that they included in every post-1982 rack pack? Blech. They were ugly, common as dirt, and just plain unpopular.

But the Fleer All Star Team cards were the opposite of all that.

They were beautiful.

They were (relatively) scarce.

Collectors loved them.

Fleer repeated the promotion over the next couple of years with predictably lesser impact.

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They set the mold for what a productive chase card promotion could be, though, and they planted the idea in collectors’ minds that it was fun and cool to hunt down that little something extra.

And, when Upper Deck burst into the market a few years later, they found the ember that Fleer left behind and poured the Reggie gas all over it.

The rest, as us old-timers say, is #@#@%!!%@#$ history.

(Check out our other posts about oddball baseball cards here.)

If you began collecting baseball cards in 1981 or after, it might seem almost impossible to imagine a world where there was only one choice at the checkout counter.

I know it would have been rough for me  — when I picked up the hobby in 1983, I could choose from Topps, Fleer, or Donruss nearly anytime I talked Mom and Dad into buying a pack or two.

We latecomers were spoiled.

But just because we didn’t live through the (first) Topps monopoly years doesn’t mean we were immune to its aftereffects.

For one thing, there was a price gap that separated the pre-1981 cards from all that came after them throughout most of the 190s. In particular, common cards issued in 1981 and after “booked” for three cents each throughout the decade while the 1980 Topps versions listed at five cents each. That sum went up as you traversed backward through the Topps library, too.

That may not seem like much of a difference, but when you multiply those two cents by several hundred cards and propagate the age premium to stars and superstars, building pre-1980 sets became a bit tougher and more expensive.

My Kingdom for a New Joe Rudi

An even bigger consequence of the quarter century of Topps dominance was the lack of variety, especially for collectors of particular players or teams.

If you were the world’s biggest fan of, say, Fred Lynn, you were mostly at the mercy of good old T.C.G.

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Some years, you might get a league leader or highlight card, or maybe a separate All-Star issue, but often there was just the base card, and that was it.

Oh, sure, for fairly big names like Lynn, you might luck into an O-Pee-Chee card if you visited Canada or had a friend from the Great White North willing to do you a favor. Even if you did score an OPC, though, it usually didn’t look much different than the Topps version.

No, if you wanted something new for your collection beyond the same old same old, you had to really dig for food issues or regional sets. Kellogg’s might have been able to help you out, or maybe local law enforcement would issue one of those black-and-white “safety” cards of your guy.

It was a real coup, then, anytime you could land a second full-size, full-color card outside of the base Topps set that featured a photo different from that Topps image.

Have It Your (Different) Way

Luckily, in 1980, observant card collectors got just such a chance when Burger King issued their “Pitch, Hit, and Run” cards during the week of July 7-13. During that run, a large order of fries also netted you a cello pack of three player cards plus a checklist, which meant you’d have had to slug down a lot of grease over seven days to complete the 34-card set.

It just might have been worth the effort and the heartburn, though, because the BK cards added a bit of color to the base Topps design in the form of the classic burger logo and a bright green “COLLECTOR’S SERIES” label on the top of the cards.

Sorta ugly, but different.

But what’s really cool about the Burger King offering — which was of course produced by Topps — is that a whopping 15 of the cards feature a completely new photo.

And, voila!, you’ve doubled your player-collection target for the year.

Since our goal here is to find the best card issued in 1980, this news should make your ears perk up, because there is little better when you’re talking about pre-1981 baseball cards than choice.

So which is the best card?

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I’m going with the same guy who started this discussion: good old Fred Lynn.

At one time — 1975 to be exact — he was the best player in the game and among the youngest. He looked like the next Willie Mantle, for gosh sakes.

By 1980, Lynn was still an All-Star, but it was pretty clear he would not end up as an all-time great.

He did have a pretty cool base Topps card that year, one of my favorites in the set.

And then, in July, Burger King issued a colorful card of Lynn in a classic batting stance with a beautiful blue sky behind him inviting us all out to the ballpark to see that the once-phenom still had plenty to offer.

For the combined goodness of his two Topps-ish cards and for the very fact that he had two different cards, Fred Lynn is our guy.

His 1980 Burger King card was the best of 1980.

(Read all about this 30-day challenge — and jump in on the fun — right here.)

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When we were kids, after we got through the initial stages of awe, we thought baseball cards were going to be big, serious business.

And sometimes, baseball cards are serious business.

But other times, like on a Friday afternoon … well, you just want to have a little fun.

And what better way to have fun than with some silly old baseball cards?

Here are 10 goofy pasteboards that can make every day feel like Friday after work if you’ll only let yourself go a little.

1951 Bowman Willard Nixon

Willard Nixon is standing outside the club on Friday night on his 1951 Bowman card, ready to unwind after another hard week in the Red Sox clubhouse with Ted Williams. Looks like he may have a head start on the happy juice, too.

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1952 Topps Earl Torgeson

Unfortunately for the diminutive Topps photographer, Earl Torgeson just got a new prescription for his glasses. The Boston Braves slugger is also sick of varmints running onto the field and is intent on ending the problem once and for all.

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1966 Topps Claude Raymond

Topps was a stickler for deadlines when it came to snapping pictures for their baseball cards on the 1960s. It didn’t matter if you were in the middle of a bathroom break when your appointment came up — you would pose for the cardboard cameras. Claude Raymond must have had a leaky memory, because Topps caught him with his fly down in both 1966 and 1967.

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1968 Topps Dan Schneider

Dan Schneider had just broken off a piece of his Jolly Rancher Cherry Stix and got it wedged in the roof of his mouth when the Topps photographer approached for this shot. Alas, Schneider was subject to the same punctuality rules that snagged Raymond above — but you have to wonder if Topps realized the success Schneider would eventually have on Head of the Class and with the Washington Redskins.

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1977 Topps Brian Downing

Brian Downing always loved Friday nights, and he would get gussied up for an evening of baseball, Disco, and high fashion. Though he hated to leave the ChiSox, in retrospective moments, he admits that he’s very grateful for not having been in Comiskey to watch it all crash down around him in 1979.

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1981 Topps Mario Mendoza

Mario Mendoza was at first flattered when the Topps photographer told him that he was being honored with the christening of a new baseball milestone — the “Mendoza Line.” Glee turned to flabbergast as Mendoza learned the particulars, and you can see the nascent moments of his justified protest … his lifetime batting average entering 1981 sat at a robust .213, well above his eponymous distinction.

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1982 Topps Tim Stoddard

Tim Stoddard is normally a shy and unassuming young man, but it’s Friday night and someone in the stands has caught his eye. If he plays his cards right, he might finagle a date to the malt shop after the Orioles game.

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1983 Topps Mike Armstrong

Mike Armstrong subscribed to the Mo Berg theory of baseball success — never tip your hand, always keep your eyes and ears open, and hold your cards close to your vest at all times. You never know when (another) spy is trying to steal your intel — or at least your signs.

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1988 Topps Devon White

Devon White fell asleep reading Gulliver’s Travels in the Angels’ dugout and woke up to find himself hopelessly stranded at the end of a monster basketball dunk in Brobdingnag. Also, his back itches.

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1991 Jimmy Dean Ken Griffey, Jr.

Ken Griffey, Jr., has a fun evening planned after his nameless-team-because-Jimmy-Dean-didn’t-want-to-pay-the-MLB-licensing-fees finishes their game.

His plans include you.

Ken Griffey, Jr., will treat you right — just gaze into his eyes.

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BONUS!!!

1985 Topps Oscar Gamble

As we’ve said before, you can’t have one of these types of lists without an Oscar Gamble entry, so here is us, satisfying that requirement. And, when it comes to Oscar Gamble cards, they don’t come much sillier than the 1985 Topps offering, right? I mean, Oscar Gamble without his ‘fro is like Claude Raymond without his fly open or a band without their signature song.

Come on, Oscar, sing “Come on Eileen” just one more time!

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They say that you can’t choose who you love and that art is subjective.

While that’s an oversimplification of two complex areas of human emotion, the basic sentiment seems to play out in many areas of life.

And maybe nowhere do love and art and subjectivity come together more clearly than in our baseball card collections.

Why do some people love the 1962 woodies but hate the 1987 Topps set?

Why does the 1951 Bowman Larry Doby get me so excited for baseball but is just a piece of paper for others?

And the 1990 Donruss and 1991 Fleer base sets — just, why?

You can’t really answer those questions with any reasonable certainty, but it usually comes down to personal experiences and how a card makes you feel.

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Favorite is Not Always Best

I’ve written in gory detail, both in the original 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge and on the Topps blog, about how and why the 1964 Topps Pete Rose pasteboard became and remains my favorite card of all time.

Part of my infatuation with that hunk of cardboard is based on aesthetics — I think the card looks good, with a young Rose and colors that blend really well together.

But most of the card’s allure was built through a series of personal events that are tightly intertwined with my family and my childhood memories. To be dramatic and corny about it, the card is part of my soul and can never, ever be extracted.

No amount of bad design could dissever that sort of bond.

But if I look at that card objectively, I can admit it’s not the greatest one ever issued. In fact, the rest of the 1964 Topps set leaves me cold.

The design is both sort of boring and overpowering at the same time — the huge block letters of the team name eat up valuable real estate that could have been used for bigger pictures instead.

It’s the same problem I have with the 1986 Topps set, though I find the ’64s to be slightly more stylish thanks to player photos that protrude slightly above their upper borders for a slight 3-D effect.

In general, though, I can do without the 1964 set other than as an indispensable piece of baseball card history. You may not agree with my assessment of the issue, and many don’t, but that is my evaluation.

So, when it came time to pick the best card issued in 1964, I had two basic choices.

I could wheel out the Topps second-year Rose card again, which I sort of did above.

Or I could look outside the bounds of the base Topps set to remind myself what else was available to collectors that summer.

Cardboard Memories

It’s been awhile since I poked around the edges of the mid-1960s hobbyscape, but it didn’t take long for the memories to come flooding back:

Bazooka …

Crane Team Pins …

Meadowgold Dairy …

Topps Giants …

Topps Stand-Ups …

Topps Venezuelan …

I would welcome any and all of these cards into my collection with open binders.

But when it comes to beautiful cards that also strike an emotional chord for me, there is no beating the 1964 Kahn’s Wieners set.

The Cards the World Awaited

Kahn’s was established in Cincinnati, so it’s not surprising that their initial black-and-white baseball card issue, in 1955, focused solely on the Reds. That debut issue came sans hot dogs, distributed instead at a promotional event.

By 1956, though, the cards were packaged with wieners, and I remember reading about Kahn’s cards very early in my collecting life.

I was amazed that any of them could have survived and only slightly sickened by the unsightly stains that decorated the few examples I could find at local card shows.

By 1964, the Kahn’s offering had been colorized and expanded to include players from other teams. What’s more, card fronts had been stripped of all design elements except for the large (3″ x 3-1/2″), nearly square photo overlaid with a facsimile autograph.

Card backs were pretty raw, showcasing player biographical information plus a block of text atop the Kahn’s motto: “The Wiener the World Awaited.” All of it was rendered in a font you might have found on a typewriter in your dad’s (or granddad’s) high school typing class.

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Those choppy backs lent a campy quality to the cards that made them feel very “vintage” and admittedly encouraged you to turn back to the card fronts.

That’s OK, though, because all the magic happens in those blue-sky images of young men in the primes of their lives, doing what they love. Heck, they’re doing what we all love — playing ball.

And of all the happy fellas captured by Kahn’s shutters, none will make you happier than Tommy Harper on card #11.

In 1964, Harper was just 23 years old and coming off the first season in which he saw regular playing time. Most of his starts came in right field during 1963, and he’d flip to left for 1964.

The results were just OK, but by 1965, Harper was the Reds’ starting left fielder, no questions asked.

On that 1964 Kahns’ card, though, he’s mock-fielding a ground ball at third base, stopping to pose and smile for the camera on his way up into his throw to first. His Reds’ pinstriped vest, pants, and hat are perfectly accentuated by his red T-shirt.

The stands are empty behind him, but the sky has just the right amount of puffed little white clouds to make you think that maybe you’re dreaming the whole thing.

Could this baseball paradise really exist?

Could a young man really get to spend his days on the ball field rather than in an office or a factory or a classroom?

Tommy Harper’s big, gleeful grin tells you he’s had the same moment of doubt but has already pinched himself.

In that instant, he’s wide awake and living all our dreams.

And Kahn’s caught it all on the best baseball card of 1964.

(Read all about this 30-day challenge — and jump in on the fun — right here.)

Everybody knows that Topps celebrated their 40th anniversary in 1991.with a special “40 Years of Baseball” logo on each card front as well a contest that gave collectors the chance to win vintage cards

Heck, they plastered their special “40 Years of Baseball” logo on each card front and also gave collectors the chance to win vintage cards and other fabulous prizes with each wax pack purchased.

You also know that Topps has issued plenty of Archive and Heritage cards over the last couple of decades, paying homage to their classic designs of yesteryear.

And if you’ve been around the hobby for awhile, you may remember that the first time Topps reprinted one of their sets was in 1983. That’s the year they reissued their classic 1952 Topps set.

But only hobbyists who have really been paying attention know that it’s not true — that 1952 Topps redo was not Topps’ first foray into issuing reproductions of their own creations.

And their original choice for that honor just might tell us something about how the company itself viewed its early sets.

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Teacher’s Pet?

The 1951 Topps sets were not all that inspiring when compared to their competition.

While Bowman was busy cranking out a full issue of hand-painted current players, Topps showed up to the game with two decks of cards — Red Backs and Blue Backs — and two sets of stand-ups — Current All-Stars and Connie Mack All-Stars.

Even though the stand-up issues are scarce and command a lot of attention when they come up for sale, Topps would have been in trouble if their 1952 offerings were a repeat of the ’51s.

Luckily for the company and the collecting public, though, T.C.G. rolled out their legendary behemoth led by the Mickey Mantle “rookie card” that has fueled the hobby for 65 years.

From an aesthetic standpoint, the ’52s were good but not necessarily better than the Bowman issues of the era.

Bigger, for sure, but not an artistic breakthrough.

The 1953 Topps set, though … now that baby was a work of art.

Like, each card was literally a work of art by painter Gary Dvorak. Whether or not boys ripping packs in the moment appreciated the ’53 Topps cards, collectors have certainly developed a loved for them over the decades.

And, apparently, the set hit a sweet spot for Topps themselves.

How can we know that?

Well, for one thing, the ’53 set was the subject of the very first Topps Archives set in 1991.

But more telling was that Topps broke the seal on their reprinting machinery to reprint part of the set way back on 1973, on the 2oth anniversary of Dvorak’s masterpieces.

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Obscure but Beautiful

Information surrounding these cards is sketchy, but at least a couple of forums have tackled the “set” in recent years — here and here, for example.

What we do know is that there were eight cards issued, and the design had been pared down from the originals to include just the player painting and the player’s name.

Card backs looked a lot like an early Bowman creation, with a large block of text followed by biographical information at the bottom. At the very top is “BASEBALL STARS” and the card number.

Sources seem to differ on the exact year of issue, with some listing 1972 and others 1973.

Whichever of the two is correct, everyone agrees that Topps got three of the player’s names wrong:

• Vic Janowicz was mislabeled as Clyde McCullough
• Jim Fridley was mislabeled as Al Rosen
• Bill Antonello was mislabeled as Carl Furillo

Those missteps seem to lead credence to the idea that maybe this was a test issue, with some veteran collectors (see forums above) speculating that several hundred of each card was issued.

Simply the Best … 20 Years Later

All the while Topps was semi-celebrating their glorious 1953 set, they were pumping out a so-so 1973 issue.

Given the mundane design of that base issue and some drab photography, it’s a fairly easy call to peg one of the reprints as the best baeball card of 1973.

But which one to choose?

It’s hard to go wrong with any of them, but the winner here is the Hal Newhouser card.

The left-handed follow-through, the old-time advertising on the short outfield wall, the forestry beyond the outfield wall, the high-noon shadowing on the mound.

What a gorgeous card!

Easily worth of the title, “Best of 1973” … even if it was issued in 1972.

If I’m being completely honest, most pre-War baseball cards leave me colder than Municipal Stadium on Opening Day.

I think I know why, too — the players have no life in my memory.

Most of the guys who appeared on cards after World War II were at least alive at some point since I was born, and I’ve seen a good hunk of them play either in person or on television. At the very least, I’ve probably read an interview with them or heard a second-hand story about them.

But, man, those players who hung up their spikes before 1941 might as well be Plato or Ben Franklin. I know some of them were awesome and others were true characters, but I don’t have any personal evidence of that.

Don’t get me wrong — I’d love to own a T206 Honus Wagner or a box full of Goudey beauties, but none of those make my blood thrill like a glimpsed corner of a 1976 Topps Mike Schmidt or a 1963 Maury Wills.

Those guys are part of my sports story.

In the Mood for History

That said, I do find that I can warm up to the “old” vintage cards given the proper mood lighting and setting. In particular, when I read a great old book like The Glory of Their Times, or when I’ve been hitting the antique shop circuit, the dusty cardboard from 70-120 years ago starts to pull at me.

Because, even though I don’t know that much about all the players, I do know plenty about the big names in the game. And it’s getting easier all the time to find information on the Internet about most players who have ever trod a Major League field.

So, yeah, there is a certain mystique to holding a 1909 tobacco card in your greasy little fingers, even if it’s slathered in Lucite and does not depict the honorable Honus.

And the gum cards that checked in before World War II are some of the most colorful in the history of the hobby. Who wouldn’t want to add some nice Goudeys and Play Balls to his collection?

One century-old set that always calls to me whenever it’s near is the 1911 T3 Turkey Red cabinet series.

A Big Turkey

Another tobacco issue, the Turkey Reds were larger than their T206 cousins, checking in at a huge 5-3/4” x 8” and printed on heavy cardboard stock. Each card showcases a hand-painted print of the player in question, surrounded by a thick gray-brown border. The player’s name is included on a gold “plaque” along the bottom border.

These are some of the most gorgeous cards ever produced, and many of the images are downright iconic. That shot of Ty Cobb standing with his bat just off his shoulder and staring at you with a misty Bennett Park (?) looming in the background is one of the best baseball images of all time.

But the Turkey Red set wasn’t just about individual baseball players, as it also featured a handful of more generic action shots.

Among my favorite baseball cards of all time is card #46, “Safe at Third.”

This landscape masterpiece shows a New York Giants player sliding into the shins of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ third baseman, both enveloped by a cloud of dust which appears to be carrying the ball along with it.

Who Are They? What Did They Do?

I don’t know who these players are, thought the Pittsburgh third basemen during that era was Bobby Byrne, so there’s a good chance he’s manning the hot corner on this card.

What really intrigues me is the background.

Not far behind the two players is a light brown band that may be a fence of some sort, but honestly looks more like an open field or a dirt road. Beyond that is dark and gritty skyline, replete with smokestacks, blurry city dwellings, and even the hint of a crucifix emerging from the shadows.

My first impression is that we’re looking at the hard-life neighborhoods near Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, and there are some photos from the time that might fit that idea. The uniforms of the players, however, suggest that the game is in New York. Maybe what we’re seeing, then, is Manhattan around one of the old Polo Grounds.

Whichever park it is, there are tens of thousands of personal stories lurking just behind the men playing baseball in the colorful foreground of card #46.

What did they do for a living? Where did they come from? Did any of the boys in those obscured homes go on to craft their own Major League careers?

That uncertainty and sense of wonder makes this card irresistible — once you warm up to its charms.

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I’ve mentioned a few times in this series that my collecting “juice” pretty much ran out in the early 1990s and didn’t really return until a couple years ago.

While that means I haven’t collected many base cards over the last quarter century, the area of my collection that really took a hit were the oddballs.

I mean, so many of the funky cards I loved as a kid came with food products — 1987 Kraft, 1984 Nestle, 1970-1983 Kellogg’s.

But with my collecting jets turned off, I felt no need to chase after food products that I wouldn’t eat just to snag a few baseball cards.

The upside to that gap is that I got to peruse the oddball offerings of the last 25 years when I set out to tackle this assignment, Day 27 of the 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge, which invited me to write about “a favorite oddball card from 1990 or later.”

Given my previous penchant for food issues, it’s little wonder that I landed on the 1995 Stouffer’s Legends of Baseball Gary Carter card.

Here are just a few of the things that lights me up about this issue which, like all good baseball cards, makes me feel like a kid again.

Stouffer’s cards came with pizza. For kids of the 1970s, baseball cards and food products go together like Sonny and Cher, like “Love” and “American Style.”  And for kids of the 1980s, baseball cards and food products go together like Joanne and Chachi, like legs and warmers. I consider myself a product of both decades, and I’m a sucker for nostalgia. That makes the Stouffer’s set a winner.

The cards pop up. So, not only did these card come with pizza, but there is also a perforated line tracing the player himself, which allows you to pop him up for a 3-D effect. This scores on all sorts of levels. First, perforated cards and cardboard remind me of the old kid-focused TV dinners — and also the awesome Burger Chef discs from 1977. Second, they pop up, so you have Gary Carter standing on your tabletop like a cardboard R2-D2 hologram.

It’s Gary Carter … The Kid! Can you ever remember Gary Carter on the baseball diamond without a smile on his face? I’m sure he had his down moments just like every other human, but Carter sure did seem to enjoy playing the game. He was never my favorite player and always played for teams I just didn’t like very much — Expos, Mets, Giants — but, gosh darn it, I was always happy to pull a Gary Carter card from a wax pack.

Full-bleed color photos … on the card backs! It’s like someone blew up the 1957 Topps cards, enhanced the color, and shoved them in pizza boxes. Woot!

Pull tabs. How many cards do you own with pull tabs? Not many, I’d wager, but Stouffer’s has you covered on this one, too. Stand up Mr. Carter, pull the tab, and you can take in his powerful swing, full career stats, and biographical sketch all in one fell swoop. Genius!

Maybe best of all is that you can occasionally find these cards on eBay for about a buck each.

Not a bad deal at all for a cool card of the guy who — sorry, Ken Griffey, Jr. — will always be “The Kid” to me.

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(This is Day 25 of our response to Tony L.’s 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge. See all our posts in this series here.)

Everyone knows about McDonald’s Happy Meals and how they changed the fast food dining experience for children — and parents — forever when they debuted in 1979.

But children of the 1970s and baseball cards collectors from that era know the truth: the Happy Meal is little more than a knockoff of the Funmeal that the now dearly departed Burger Chef introduced in 1973.

What’s more, the Funmeal was arguably a lot more “Fun” than the Happy Meal is “Happy,” and it was certainly more innovative.

How Fun Was the Funmeal?

The Funmeal consisted of a hamburger, french fries, soft drink, and dessert all served in a tray made from thin cardboard. That’s where the fun began, because Burger Chef made parts of their tray — often the tops of food “holes” — interactive.

The disc covering the drink holder, for instance, would often feature a company character like “Jeff.” Kids could remove the disc and play with it or pocket it as a keepsake of their visit.

Other pieces were similarly removable, and there was usually a backdrop that would stand up behind the tray so that the thing looked like a colorful laptop before we even knew what those were.

Burger Chef used all that real estate to treat kids to magic shows, monster lineups, Star Wars oragami-ish toys, and … wait for it … baseball cards.

Hidden Hobby Origins

Until I started researching this piece, I was under the general impression that I acquired my first baseball card in 1981 when my mom brought some home from the store.

But this is Day 25 of the 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge, which meant that I’d be writing about “A favorite oddball card from the 1970s.”

There were a few fitting choices in that category, including 1971 Topps coins, 1977 Topps Cloth Stickers, and 1979 Burger King, but the whole exercise brought childhood memories flooding back.

The choice was clear.

My favorite oddball set from the 1970s is the series of discs issued by Burger Chef on their boxes in 1977.

Burger Chef was the best …

They had these funny little hats that my dad or grandmother would fit over my head.

They had hamburgers wrapped in shiny, transparent cellophane that would make the buns soft and steamy. Yummmmm!

And, of course, they had those irresistible and undeniably fun Funmeals.

Back in those days, if my parents gave me a choice between McDonald’s and Burger Chef, the BC would win every time. Eating out was a treat, so I had to make my limited opportunities count.

And I can clearly remember sitting at a Burger Chef in Indianapolis with my parents on a hot summer day, Mom laying my food out in front of me. I could hardly contain my excitement as I struggled to see what kind of shenanigans awaited me on the Funmeal tray.

Define Baseball

“What are those?” I said, or something like it.

My dad craned his neck and turned the box to get a better look.

“They look like baseball cards,” he said, and kept eating.

“What’s baseball?” I wanted to know.

I don’t remember exactly what Dad said, but it was probably something to divert my attention. Baseball was a froufrou sport, and not worthy of much discussion. Would have been a different story had I uncovered a tray full of football cards.

It didn’t matter much to me, though, because I had some good food to pound down and some colorful new “toys” to explore.

I remember that Jeff and his friends made an appearance here and there on the discs and on the box. And I remember that the “cards” featured black-and-white photographs inside a baseball shape that was mostly white but had two colored panels: pink, orange, blue, green.

I know now that the cards were produced by MSA, who didn’t have an MLB license and so had to airbrush out team logos.

Nevertheless, the cards were issued by team, so there were boxes for the Cincinnati Reds, the Detroit Tigers, the California Angels, etc.

How many of the baseball Funmeals I ate that summer, I couldn’t say. I’m sure it was just a handful, so I didn’t have many of the cards.

And they may have gotten thrown away before we even left the restaurant. The thin stock and diversionary nature of the Funmeal boxes made them trash once the meal was over in the eyes of most parents.

I do know that I added several of these cards through proper hobby channels later on, probably a flea market buy. I had some discs that were in pretty rough shape, and those could well have been held over from my summer culinary adventures in 1977.

Early Hero

Among these cards, Dan Driessen is one of my favorites because he was one of my favorite players when I picked up the game and the hobby in 1983.

He’s also the first player I remember seeing in person when my parents took me to a game at Riverfront Stadium in 1984. Driessen was taking fielding practice at first base when we arrived, and the sound of the ball hitting his glove is one that will stay with me forever.

The ease with which he tossed the ball across the field and his joyful demeanor also struck me and sucked me into the experience all the deeper. The fact that he went 1-for-4 that night did little to dampen my enthusiasm.

Did I really pull a Driessen disc on one of my 1977 Funmeal boxes? The odds say it’s unlikely, but it’s fun to imagine.

Fun … that’s what Funmeals and the 1977 Burger Chef baseball discs were all about.