46 Years Ago, These Were Some Guys

The 1975 SSPC set is one that really feels "vintage" to me, as it's full of guys who either retired right before I was old enough to pay close attention to baseball, or who were in the process of flaming out. 1975, man. We still had Hank Aaron and Brooks Robinson playing baseball. Bob Gibson. Claude Osteen. Harmon Killebrew. Vada Pinson. Juan Marichal. That's amazing to me. They're not all in the '75 SSPC set, which actually came out in 1976, but some of them are. Mr. Brooks Robinson, who hit .201 that year, is pictured to your left. He's card #392.

I often tack on a few SSPCs to build my set into various online orders that I do, and it's starting to get pretty hefty in the card box, which I love. I picked up another 20 or so last week, and these are some of them. Every time I order them from Card Barrel they're like they were just made last month. Did kids ever actually own these cards? Seriously, I've yet to see a beat-up 1975 SSPC - mine would all be "PSA 9" or "PSA 10" if anyone cared enough to grade them. So here are some dudes that were some guys 46 years ago, starting with Jim "Catfish" Hunter:

Or how about Jim Palmer?

Or his Orioles teammate Tommy Davis - a guy I associate with Dodgers teams of the early/mid 60s?

Or Dick Allen, who'd been AL MVP in 1972 but was tailing off by this point?

This is just a really fun set to cobble together, and listen, if any of you actually know the answer to the question about how these were sold to youngsters back in the day, I'd love to hear it. Gracias!

Pecking Away at 1975 SSPC

Completion of the 630-card 1975 SSPC set - a set I hadn't even heard about a year ago - is now something that's within reach. I mean, nah, I'm not even halfway there yet, but I'm almost halfway there. It's a pretty achievable set if you use CardBarrel and SportLots and are cool with paying 30 cents to a buck a card. I'll get there someday; this past week I picked up another 60 or so, including a few of these fellas.

I love this set because they're so DIY and yet so nice at the same time; great full-color photos (always posed), and a ton of information on the back. Check out the Pirates' Richie Hebner here. Just a pinch between the cheek & the gum, right Richie? There are no stat lines for any of the players, but a full paragraph of information that often contains some opinion; Hebner, for instance, "had an off year in '75", which he definitely did, hitting .246 with only 15 HR and 57 RBI. (At the time, those were the three numbers we most cared about. RBIs! Seriously!). I can't remember if Hebner ever got good again, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Now this swashbuckling Pirate got good again for sure. Willie Stargell! Pops. Loved Pops. Everybody loved pops. I still remember the end of the 1979 World Series and "We Are Family" playing in the stadium. That's how old I am.

A couple of my recent SSPC cards cost as much as - gasp! - three dollars, owing to the fact that superstars are on 'em. Here's Rod Carew and Tom Seaver, respectively. 

Apologies for the crooked Carew scan, but that ridiculous photo is all him. Here's the Boston Red Sox' Carlton Fisk, who went to the World Series that year and who hit a home run you may have seen:

And then finally, I picked this dude to show you, because he's the only 1975 SSPC card I have - I think - where there's zero indication which team he's on. He's Ed Goodson of the Los Angeles Dodgers - a team who by the way won the 2020 World Series a mere twenty minutes before I typed this blog post. Goodson was a utility guy. I have him on a couple of early 70s SF Giants cards. He's card #588 in a series of #630. He has curly 1970s locks. And here's his SSPC card.

SSPC Cards Enter the Card Hemorrhage Collection

You guys and gals all remember what it was like to be a collecting "noob", don't you? I'm not talking about your initial pack-ripping buzz from childhood, but what it was like to, say, return to the hobby in the internet age. (I recognize that not everyone's path is non-linear, and that some of you have been on top of your card-collecting game from day one). I'll tell you what's it like for me - a guy who left the hobby in his teens in the early 80s, as the market started flooding with Donruss, Fleer and more - and then who only tangentially kept tabs on what was going on in the card world until 2016 or so, when I started dipping a toe in again.

Every day amongst the various card blogs, I'm learning about sets and things I had no idea about. My most recent revelation - aside from the 1983 Renato Galasso Seattle Pilots set, about which more later in the week - are the 1976 SSPC cards. These gems were produced for the 1975 season, but not released until the year afterward. I'd never heard of 'em until a couple of weeks ago. 630 cards in all, filled with stars, legends and workday players alike, and each with a color photo on the front and a paragraph of information on the back (no stat lines, unless it's embedded in the paragraph).

How could I not jump all over these? I'm getting these rushes of card-collecting dopamine several times a week now, and it's all I can do to keep from jumping on eBay and various card-seller sites and not blow my savings account. Thankfully this can be a rewarding hobby even at low dollar amounts, and all the folks who've been so kind to trade with this 2020 noob have helped me build up my desired collection a great deal as well.

So I placed two orders on eBay for batches of these 1975/1975 SSPC cards, and I'm pretty psyched about what came back. First - because it was there - I ordered an entire an entire San Francisco Giants team set. Well, that was easy. Now I've got them all, in one fell swoop. Here are a few of them:

If you're wondering who some of these fellas are - because, you know, their names aren't on the front of the cards - the top row is Gary Matthews, Bobby Murcer and 1975 National League Rookie of the Year John "The Count" Montefusco. Just below Matthews is a phenomenal photo of pitcher Jim Barr. Why the long face, Jim??

My other SSPC batch was a custom mix of cards - mostly stars and hall of famers. Nice way to start the whole thing off. I'm really impressed with how great these look.

In the final row of the picture you see above you, you'll find Jim Fregosi, 1975 AL Rookie of the Year runner-up Jim Rice, and a young Dave "The Cobra" Parker. SSPCs, man. I'm delighted you guys told me these existed.