When showing my 2011 Heritage Cubs, I pointed out the white rookie star on Casey Coleman's card. It mimmics the white star on Ken Hubbs card in the 1962 set.
That got me wondering if there were any other white stars in the '62 set. There were 53 cards with rookie stars on them, and it turns out that three other players had white instead of yellow stars on their cards.
#204 Johnny Weekly, Houston Colts....played in 13 games for the 1962 Colts and he hit, well, he hit very weakly! His average was .192. He also had a cup of coffee with Houston in '63 and '64.
#224 Don Rudolph, Indians....you know your career is not going too well when you are 30 years old and have a rookie star on your card. That was the case with Rudolph, who had been playing professional ball since 1950. He didn't last very long in Cleveland, as the Indians traded him to the Senators on May 3. He started 23 games for Washington and was 8-10.
#321 Lee Stange, Twins...he had the longest career of the white stars, spending a total of 10 seasons in the majors. In 1962 he made 44 appearances for the Twins and was 4-3.
What I haven't been able to find out is if there is any special reason that these four players had white stars instead of yellow. Is there a reason or was it just a production error? Anyone know??
I've been wondering the same thing about the white/yellow stars. Google seems to be no help to me in this instance. Another thing I was curious about was the Angels cards in Heritage just list the team as 'Angels', as opposed to 'L.A. Angels', which is what's on all the '62 Angels I've seen.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that Topps didn't want to get involved in the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" thing and just went with plain ol' "Angels."
ReplyDeleteThe reason may be Topps didn't want a yellow star against a yellow background so they chose white so the star would stick out.
ReplyDeleteAlvin...that makes sense...but we're talking Topps here. Lou Brocks card (yellow star) and Ken Hubbs (white star) have nearly the exact same background color. And look at Casey Coleman's Heritage card....white star on white background.
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