Thursday, July 23, 2009

196(9) At A Time - Page 24

One of Topps biggest uncorrected errors of 1969 is on this page.



#204 - Jack Hiatt - This would be a really nice looking card if it wasn't off-centered. Hiatt was the back-up catcher for the Giants. In 1970 he came to the Cubs to help replace the injured Randy Hundley. HIs .242 average wasn't much help.



#205 - RIch Reichardt
Another very happy young Angels outfielder in a batting helmet. He hit 13 home runs as the Angels starting left fielder in 1969.



#206 - Phillies Rookies
Hisle had a great rookie year for the Phillies in 1969, finishing 4th in the Rookie of the Year balloting. Lersch ended up with a six year career, including a really bad 1971, when he went 5-14 (though his ERA was 3.78).



#207 - Roy Face
Face was obtained by the Tigers from the Pirates to help with their pennant push in 1968. He appeared in two games with the Tigers in September. They released him at the end of spring training in 1969 and Face was signed by the Expos. He made 44 appearances and actually had a winning record of 4-2. But he was released by the Expos in August and at age 41, his career was over.





#208 - Donn Clendenon
Poor Topps tried to keep up with the bouncing Clendenon, but couldn't. In both cards he is pictured in a Pirates uniform, the only team he was with in the first eight years of his career. In October, 1968, he was drafted by the Expos in the expansion draft. In January, 1969 the Expos sent him to the Astros in the Rusty Staub trade. But Donn refused to report to the Astros. In April he was traded back to the Expos and played in 38 games before being traded to the Mets. He ended up hitting .357 for the Mets in the World Series.



#209 - Larry Haney
Here is the big uncorrected error, as the card shows Haney left-handed; the negative was flipped around. This was a collossal blunder for a couple reasons. First, the picture is the exact same one used by Topps in 1968 and it was shown correctly.



Secondly, how many left-handed catchers have there ever been in big league history. You can probably count them on your left hand. It anyone proofing the set had any baseball savy, they would have caught the error right away. But the card was never corrected.



#210 - Felix Millan
Scrappy Felix is shown at spring training. The one thing I remember about this guy was how far he choked up on his bat. He always seemed to have a good six inches of bat below his hand.



#211 - Galen Cisco
Cisco made it back to the majors in 1969 after spending all of 1968 in the minors. Thank you expansion. He made it into 15 games for the Royals and that brought his big league career to an end.



Overall Set Totals (player cards only)
Hall of Famers - 13
Hatless - 46
Airbrush - 42
Cubs (includes past, present, or future) - 36

3 comments:

  1. Oh, man, now I think I have to pick up both Haney cards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Regarding left handed catchers...

    There have actually been quite a few, depending on your games played criteria...

    Both the Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers and The Hardball Times have interesting views on this.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My criteria for left handed catchers would be the modern era. In the last 100 years, a total of 3 lefties have caught a game, and together they caught 7 games.

    ReplyDelete