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The final page has some pretty impressive players on it; five of the eight are in Cooperstown.




#26 Richie Allen, he signed as "Rich," the back of the card says "Richie." and in a year or so he will be "Dick."



#27 Roberto Clemente, he signed as "Roberto," but this was the era when Topps was calling him "Bob."



#28 Curt Flood



#29 Bob Gibson This looks like it was taken at the Cardinals old home, Sportsmans Park, which they moved out of in 1966.



#30 Al Ferrara, The Padres representative sure go himself mixed into some pretty elite company!



#31 Willie McCovey The Giants were the other team in the set with three players, and all three are in the Hall of Fame.



#32 Juan Marichal



#33 Willie Mays

And with that, I am now completely finished with the 1969 set; really, I am.
(And yes, I know there are sticker inserts with this set, too, but I don't have any of them and I'm not planning to get any of them....I am done with 1969!!)

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The cards were numbered by team city name alphabetically. The American League was first, then the NL. We ended page two with Atlanta, so today its Chicago, Cincinnati, Houston (in the original set), Los Angeles, and Montreal.

We start with the best cards in the set...after all, this is Wrigley Wax, not Crosley Cards!



#18 Don Kessinger Yea! A Cub!



#19 Ron Santo Yea, another Cub.



And this time, Topps REALLY went into the archives. They are using the same picture that was on Santo's 1961 rookie card! Why on earth would they use a photo that was taken in 1960 on a card released in 1969?



#20 Tommy Helms



#21 Pete Rose Both of the Reds' players are shown in vests, which the Reds last wore in 1966...again, old photos.



#22A Rusty Staub, who was supposed to be the Astro in the set, but got bumped when he was traded to the Expos.




#22B Joe Foy, the replacement Royal for #11A Hoyt Wilhelm.



#23 Tom Haller, in a Giants uniform with an LA painted on the hat.



#24 Maury Wills, representing the Expos, though obviously in a Pirates uniform.



#25 Jerry Koosman, with a really strange look on his face. I wonder why they included Koosman instead of Seaver?

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#10 - Bill Freehan The Tigers were one of only two teams (the Giants were the other) with three players in the set. I guess you get the extra cards when you are world champs!



#11A - Hoyt Wilhelm Our first of the two repeated numbers. This was to be the Royals card, since they had taken him from the White Sox (whose uniform he's wearing) in the expansion draft. But when he was traded to the Angels in December, that left Topps with no Royals, and so this card was left out of later printings.



#11B Jim Wynn. The Toy Cannon was the replacement Astro when Rusty Staub (#22) was traded to the Expos. I wonder why Topps didn't put the replacement Royal as #11, but instead switched the Royals and Astros around? His hat is airbrushed because of the Topps/ Astros logo mess that wasn't cleared up until Series Four.



#12 Rod Carew Does this picture look familiar?





#13 Mel Stolllemyre The black and white of the Yankees' uniform looks nice on a black and white card.



#14 Rick Monday Like they did several times in the base set, Topps removed the KC from the helmet of this older photo.



#15 Tommy Davis A super-airbrushed card, with both the hat logo and uniform logo removed. Davis was the Pilots' representative in the set.



#16 Frank Howard He is wearing a Dodgers uniform with a curly W painted on his helmet. The Dodgers traded Howard to the Senators after the 1964 season, making this photo at least five years old.



#18 Felipe Alou Kind of odd that Alou was selected as the Brave in the set instead of Henry Aaron, who had hit his 500th career home run in 1968.

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I just couldn't stay away from 1969!

Actually, I wasn't finished yet. I'm not completely done with the 1969 set until I go through the deckle edge cards.

These are the inserts I was familiar with. No game used jerseys or autographs here, just slightly smaller, glossy black and white cards with a funky edge!

The insert set in numbered 1-33 though there are 35 cards in all. Number 11 and 22 has two different cards. Why two cards with the same number?

Topps planned to have at least one player from each of the 24 teams. The original #11 was Hoyt Wilhelm, who would be the Royals' one player, while the original #22 was Rusty Staub, the Astros' representative in the set. But in December Wilhelm was sent to the Angels and a month later Staub was traded to the Expos. That left Topps with two Angels, two Expos, and no Astros or Royals.

To fill the gaps, a new #11 was issued, Jim Wynn of the Astros. The new #22 was Joe Foy of the Royals. So now every team was again represented.

The cards are arranged alphabetically by city and league, starting with the American League and Baltimore and ending with the NL and San Francisco.

The backs are very plain, just listing the players name and card number. This is what the back of Ron Santo's card looks like.



A couple things about the pictures. Many are old, some very old. Topps really dug deep in the archives for some of them. Since these are the superstars, it seemed odd that Topps wouldn't have current photos to use. Many photos have airbrushing, like in the base set. But on a few, not only was the old hat logo airbrushed out, but a new logo was painted on. That is the first time I saw that. I'm guessing they did it on these since they are black and white and you didn't have to worry about matching colors like on the regular cards. When Topps did start adding logos to cards in 1973, some of the results were really bad looking.

For me, the best feature on the card was the autograph. It was in blue, like the player had actually signed the card with a blue pen (no Sharpies back then!). I thought that was a nice touch by Topps. It also had to add to the costs, since the cards were not strictly black and white.

Because of the deckled edge, it is not easy to find cards in mint condition. My set is OK, but then, condition wasn't a prime concern of mine.

Here are the nine cards from page one:



#1 Brooks Robinson The uniform that Brooks is wearing was last worn by the Orioles in 1965



#2 Boog Powell Boog's uniform could be even older than Brooks'. The patch on Powell's left sleeve disappeared after the 1963 season.



#3 Ken Harrelson Here is our first airbrushed card. Harrelson is obviously wearing an A's uniform, but a "B" was painted on his hat to make us believe that he is wearing a Red Sox uniform. I didn't quite believe it!



#4 Carl Yastzremski Finally, card with an accurate photo!



#5 Jim Fregosi A nice head shot of the Angels third baseman



#6 Luis Aparicio The Sox shortstop is shown in an Orioles uniform. Topps added the S-O-X to his helmet, but left the bill of the helmet the Orioles' orange.



#7 Luis Tiant



#8 Denny McLain MLB's last 30 game winner is shown at Yankee Stadium.



#9 Willie Horton pretending to take a cut at spring training, just like he did on the base card

Topps 1969: Reds At Wrigley

Many of the National League photos in the Topps 1969 set were taken at Shea Stadium. But for some unknown reason, there are eleven cards in the set that feature pictures taken at Wrigley Field of players who played for the Reds in 1967.

And even stranger, only one Cubs player in the entire set has a Wrigley Field photo.

So why did Topps not take pictures of the Reds at Shea? And if they were taking Reds at Wrigley, why not shoot the Cubs too?

Here are the eleven 1967 Reds at Wrigley. Of the eleven, six were still with Cincinnati in 1969. The others had moved on to other team, but Topps used hatless pictures of them from their Reds days for the cards.

#5, Tommy Harper: Look over his left shoulder and you can see a Waveland Avenue apartment building.



#81, Mel Queen: With the brick wall behind him, this one is pretty easy to identify as Wrigley.



#179, Don Pavletich, the grandstand roof, plus the Waveland apartment building identify this card as a Wrigley card.



#213, Gerry Arrigo, one of the easiest in the bunch, the scoreboard is a dead giveaway.



#265, Chico Cardenas, this is the one card I wouldn't swear to as Wrigley, but Cardenas did play for the Reds in 1967 and it looks like the Wrigley wall behind him.



#295, Tony Perez, another easy one, with a nice look at the third base grandstands.



#297, Derron Johnson, another, not as good look, at the Wrigley grandstands



#405, Lee May, you can see the ivy and bleachers behind him.



#469, Chico Ruiz, another easy one, with the brick wall giving it away.



#581, Gary Nolan, with the brick wall and Wrigley grandstands behind him.



#608, Dick Simpson, with the grandstands behind him.



And this is the only Cubs player at Wrigley in the set, Ken Holtzman, and it was from the same photo shoot that Topps used in 1967 and 1968 (these are the '68 and '69 cards).