I've got a new habit of ordering five 1972 Topps baseball cards -
and no more than five - as a way of padding out any CardBarrel and SportLots orders I make. Chipping away at a complete set goal, five cards at a time.
I'm not even close. I tend to order from those two sites a combined 3 times a month or so. I like the whole "
$30 a Week Habit" mantra, and try to live by it. I order the stuff I came there for, and then, to close out the order: five '72s. Seems to be working for me. In a few years, at this pace, I'll be done.
So let's take a look at the new five that came in this week! I'm pretty excited about this Billy Martin in Action card (#34). I mean, really excited. What other sort of action would Detroit manager Martin be engaging in during the 1971 season? Arguing with an ump, of course. Total legend. In my youth, this was the Billy Martin I knew - of course as manager of the New York Yankees, and later of the A's. Actually I barely remember him as Texas' manager a little before all of that, but I was a wee lad during his Detroit days. Just a nice bit of trolling on the part of the Topps organization here, twenty years before the internet surfaced in anyone's lives.
And speaking of cool 1972 cards - check out these rogues! That's a pretty good set of heavy hitters on a single card. Was surprised to flip it over and see that Killebrew was the only one with over 100 RBIs (he had 119).
Also picked up the Oakland A's rookie card - another surprise here; this was right when the A's had started becoming the dominant team in baseball. Naturally one might expect their '72 rookies to be dudes we'd see all over those 3 World Championships, right? Dwaine Anderson got 7 at-bats for the A's in 1972 and hit .000. Chris Floethe never made the majors at all. Rookie Stars!
Rounding out my 5 are the Braves team card and a fella named Steve Mingori on the Indians, a reliever who actually managed a 1.42 ERA in 1971, pitching in 54 games. He continued on through 1979, pitching for the Royals in relief from 1973-79. There you have it!
I love the '72 set so much! It would be near perfection if they had only added field positions to the card fronts. Also I often wonder how this set would look if each team's cards would look using team colors instead of random colors like hot pink and lime green. Congrats on getting closer to completing the '72 set!
ReplyDeleteFive nice pick-ups there, I agree that Martin is just awesome!
ReplyDeleteI love the Billy in action card. That's how I'll always remember him (getting fired up at the umpires).
ReplyDeleteIf I were still collecting sets, I might steal this idea from you, as it seems like a good way to always be adding a little bit, without spending too much at any one given time.
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