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The Best of Times: Baseball, Bowman, and Topps
By Richard Leech
     Boy, what a tough decision for a kid back in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  Should I trade a few of my metal and plastic toy soldiers to Floyd and Ted for some baseball cards?  I didn't have any baseball cards, in fact I didn't know anything about them.  The ones Floyd and Ted had looked really neat though, small color pictures on cardboard of players that I heard about on the Cardinals' radio broadcasts and on the Mutual Radio Game of the Day.
     What if I made the trade and then the Commie hoards attacked and overran my forces due to my reduced strength?  There was more than a little risk involved, since the two friends proposing the trade were my two primary battle opponents in the toy soldier wars.  Well, I would be trading only some "second string" soldiers, and there would always be another day to build the forts and fight again.  And, the number of cards offered per soldier was really tempting.  But, perhaps most important, I liked baseball more than anything, even war and soldiering.
     So the deal was made and I entered the world of baseball cards, never imagining the great effect this would have on me for the rest of my life.
     Those first cards were 1951 Bowmans, with a few 1949 and 1950 Bowmans, and 1948 Leafs thrown in.  Portraits, action poses, some great pictures and some unusual ones; Paul Richards really looked weird, like a cartoon!  You could turn a card over and read about the player, often finding interesting information and sometimes, even to my young mind, silly and unimportant things.
     Baseball cards fit right in with our growing interest in baseball.  The nationally chartered Little League was in its first year in Pine Bluff, and by playing in it we would wear real baseball uniforms for the first time.  The city had a professional team, the Judges, in the class C Cotton States League, and we listened to many major league radio broadcasts.
     The first baseball card bubblegum packs that I definitely remember buying were 1952 Bowmans.  They had the essential feature for any boy in Cardinal country, none other than Stan "The Man" Musial pictured in a nearly perfect batting stance.  What a beautiful Cardinal uniform, what a wonderful card!  The only bad thing about the 1952 Bowmans was the one card I never got to complete the set, George Schmees of the Browns, until about 25 years later!
     My memory of buying 1952 Topps packs is not as strong, although we liked them too, and I did eventually accumulate a "complete set" of 310 cards.  We never knew until later that there were 97 more "high number" cards in the set that were not available in Pine Bluff.  I spent hours studying each player's lifetime and previous year's statistics on the card backs, a feature the Bowman cards did not have.  Today the 1952 Topps set of 407 cards is considered a "classic," probably the most important card set of the post-WWII era, and the most valuable primarily because of those 97 scarce, high-numbered cards.
     Many kids collected players from their favorite teams or only star players.  Floyd, Ted, and I seemed to be natural "set" collectors, meaning each of us wanted one of every card made in a set.  Collecting complete sets was fairly unusual back then.  You couldn't buy a complete set all at once in its own neat box.  You had to painstakingly put it together card by card.  It took many packs of gum and several trades to even come close to a complete set.  Ken and Paul were other close collector friends and many trades were made with them, but I don't recall anyone in town with the urge for complete sets we three had.  This could be explained partially, in my case, by a very strong, rapidly growing interest in professional baseball and the desire to know more about the major leaguers I had never seen play.
     Each of us selected an all-star team in each card set and kept our all-stars separate from the remainder of the set.  Our all-stars consisted of the major stars of the day, but also leaned heavily toward Cardinals and other National Leaguers.  Del Rice, Gerry Staley, Peanuts Lowrey, and many other Cardinals made our all-star teams often through the years, probably without true merit.  Sometimes we selected cards that were especially appealing artistically, even if the players didn't have the credentials to deserve all-star status.
     We played many games with our all-star teams but none that caused damage to the cards.  I learned much later of kids in other cities who "flipped" cards (similar to tossing coins) and put cards in bicycle spokes to make noise, both practices that caused horrible, fatal damage.  We never did either of these, thank goodness.  We even realized that the top card on a stack, such as #1 when kept in numerical order, would receive extra wear and rubber band marks.  So, we took a duplicate card or piece of cardboard and used it on top of a stack to protect the main cards.  I still have a 1950 Bowman football card with a smoking cigarette drawn in the player's mouth and "COVER BOY" lettered above him, so his true purpose in life could not be missed.  (Yes, we collected football cards too, but that's another story.)
     The most common games we played were a form of wiffle ball before we heard of wiffle ball, played with a plastic, practice golf ball, and an indoor game played on a non-electric pinball machine.  Our outdoor game was a two man game, usually played in the lot next to Ted's house, with actual pitching and batting but no base running.  Base hits or outs depended on where the ball landed or if it was fielded cleanly by the pitcher/fielder.  With each player's batting line-up of cards spread on the grass, we batted right or left as the real player did, and imitated his stance as closely as we could from the cards, magazine photos, newsreels, and later from television viewing.
     The indoor pinball game wasn't that great, but we had to play somehow at night and on rainy days, didn't we?  We used tape to alter the value of the cups that the pinballs fell into, to make a triple really the toughest hit, a home run second toughest, and so on.  It was a happy day when I finally saved enough money to buy my own pinball game and decorated the wooden frame with Cardinal logos and the name of the Cardinals' home, "Sportsman's Park."  Through the years we tried many other tabletop baseball games but none really caught on with us.
     The spring of 1953 dawned with bright expectations.  Ted, Ken, Paul, and I expected to be all-stars in our final year of Little League ball (Ted and Ken already were stars; Floyd didn't play) and, almost as important, the new baseball cards should be out any day.  Our main checkpoint was the neighborhood grocery on the block next to Ted's house.  It had to be checked every day after school, but any grocery or drugstore in our paths was subject to hurried inspection and queries of "Got any baseball cards yet?"
     Finally, the cards arrived and it turned-out to be a truly banner year, in retrospect probably the best of all years.  Surprise!  Our wonderful little Bowmans, which had been much smaller than the Topps cards, were now almost the same size.  Although this was met initially with displeasure, the beautiful clear color pictures with no interfering printing quickly gained our complete approval.  With no player or team names on the card fronts, it was a challenge to identify all the players from their pictures alone, but more easily accomplished than the simplest schoolwork for me.  It was surprising that the set was so small, only 160 cards, and why were there two cards of Al Corwin?  (Al who?  Why not two of Musial?)  But, the quality of the cards made up for the lesser quantity, and a line of previous year's statistics was included on the backs, similar to the 1952 Topps.
     The 1953 Topps cards were also a fine set although done in a different style.  We recognized that the Topps' pictures appeared to be paintings, art work of the players reproduced as baseball cards.  Although we liked the cards we felt they suffered by comparison to the stunning Bowmans, and there was no Musial card, a devastating deficiency.  In its favor, Topps did have Jackie Robinson, new Cardinals Rip Repulski and Ray Jablonski (great names), Satchel Paige as a St. Louis Brown (the first Paige card we had seen), and also had 60 more cards than Bowman at 220 total.
     Anyone familiar today with the 1953 Topps set will recognize that the figure of 220 cards is incorrect.  But we didn't know that in 1953 because the high numbers (#221-280 with six not issued), as in 1952, did not appear in Pine Bluff.  However, those missing Topps high numbers made it possible to have a great Christmas present that year.
     My mother and aunt customarily drove to the big city of Little Rock on a Saturday in December for some serious Christmas shopping.  I would much rather have spent all day at the Pine Bluff Boys' Club playing basketball, as was my custom, but I was always dragged along.  My reluctance to go evaporated one year when I discovered that the Little Rock Boys' Club was conveniently located near the shopping area downtown, so I began smuggling a bag with my basketball clothes and shoes along to get in several hours of ball when I was supposed to be shopping. (Wonder if my mother ever knew what I had in that bag.)
     For some reason in 1953 they decided to take a longer, non-direct route to Little Rock on the highway across the Arkansas River.  We stopped for refreshments on the way at a country store and there on the counter were packs of Topps baseball cards, usually all gone by December.  I don't know why I decided to splurge and waste a nickel on a pack (for the delicious gum?), because I already had the complete 220 card set.  But I did, opened the pack, and all the cards were new ones I had never seen before!  What a discovery!  As I bought and opened more packs I found Willie Mays, and Cardinal Harvey "the Kitten" Haddix, and Arkansas native Preacher Roe, to name a few.  I bought as many packs as my limited Christmas shopping money would allow, augmented quickly by loans from my mother and aunt.  Loans were not readily given for frivolous things in those days so they must have recognized the importance of the find.  It could not have gone to a better cause, since I got enough cards to complete most of Floyd's and Ted's sets too.
     Oh yes, Ted, Ken, Paul, and I all made the Little League All-Star team the previous summer and played in the state tournament in Little Rock.  Altogether a really great year!
     After that super 1953 season, extended into December, 1954 would have to be some year to top it.  It would be our first year in the Babe Ruth League, wearing real metal cleats, playing on a regulation, full-sized baseball field that was too big for most 13 year old bodies.  Although looking forward greatly to playing real baseball, we tried manfully to hide our fears of having to try out for the new league and competing against 14 and 15 year olds.  It was exciting that we would play our games at Taylor Field where my dad took me to see the professional minor leaguers play.  But, just thinking about playing on the same field as the pros was intimidating, too.
     The new 1954 baseball cards had to be some letdown compared to the '53s, but I don't think it was really that drastic to us at the time.  We were happy to have new cards, new pictures and statistics, and new players to learn about.  But why couldn't Bowman have kept the same color quality?  We had no idea then, but I suppose the exquisite color process must have been too expensive.  At least the 1954 Bowman set was larger at 224 cards, and the pictures of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were superb.  Regrettably, there was no "Stan the Man" this year, and he would be missing for three more years.  Curiously, another player appeared with two cards, Jim Piersall, but unlike the different 1953 pictures of Al Corwin, these cards were exactly alike except for the card numbers (66 and 210).  We were baffled at the time, but I learned years later that #66 was originally issued as Ted Williams but quickly withdrawn because of conflicting rights with Topps.  The Williams card is quite scarce and valuable today, and we never saw anyone with the card in Pine Bluff.
     The '54 Bowmans were a mild disappointment, but the '54 Topps were worse.  We didn't find the design attractive at all.  A small black and white action picture, next to a larger color portrait, detracted from the overall color scheme.  The set did not even have Mickey Mantle, but did have Ted Williams, twice!  This was intentional as he was the first and last card in the set and was a major promotional feature for Topps that year.  Although not appreciated at the time, the first cards of Hank Aaron, Al Kaline, and Ernie Banks were included.  (It was not until almost 20 years later that any collector notice of "rookie" cards began to develop.)  Probably the worst feature though, certainly the most irritating, was the card backs: many were on upside down!  This made it difficult to go through a stack of cards checking the numbers or reading the backs because you had to keep turning the cards.
     The '54 card season would have to be called "undistinguished" and I think the same could be said for my first Babe Ruth League season, as I only have two definite memories of it now.  Due to the sudden illness of my team's star 15 year old pitcher, my manager called on the morning of our opening game to say I was going to pitch that night.  This caused a hasty practice session after I reminded him that I had never practiced pitching from a stretch to hold a runner on base, because runners can't take a lead in Little League.  Also, I had to go downtown to the Boys' Club for newspaper photos with my catcher, Ernie Kelly, and other batteries from other teams.  (I probably remember this only because I still have the clipping from the Pine Bluff Commercial.)  Wish I could remember how that first game turned out.  Oh, yes, the other memorable moment occurred later in the season when I was hit in the head by a pitch from possibly the biggest, fastest pitcher in the league.  I wasn't seriously injured but it was an unpleasant experience that was thankfully never repeated in all my years of playing baseball.
    The surprise discovery of the 1953 Topps high numbers was an unexpected delight that was of immediate benefit.  However, on another Christmas shopping trip, possibly 1954, I made another discovery that was important but did not have any direct effect for a while.
    While walking down the street in Little Rock on my way to the Boys' Club I stopped to look in a sporting goods store window.  Several boxes containing baseball gloves were part of the window display, and each box had a cellophane front panel so the glove could be seen.  In a matter of seconds my sharp eyes spotted three or four baseball cards in each box, carefully arranged so the cards could be seen but not obscure the glove.  I was seeing 1952 Topps cards that I had never seen before, and I thought that Ted, Floyd, and I had all 310 cards between us!  So, at least for the second time, I knew that Pine Bluff had been on the short end of the card distribution stick.  I didn't go in and question the store personnel about the cards, and I never discovered if the cards were actually distributed with that unknown brand of glove or if some store employee had the bright idea to use leftover cards in the display.  The latter possibility seems more likely, since it was definitely later than 1952 when this occurred, and I have asked but never found anyone from around the country who remembers seeing 1952 Topps cards in glove boxes.
    Well, what did this mean to us at the time?  Not much, other than the knowledge that there were more cards "out there" that we didn't have.
    An important development in 1955 drastically changed our card buying practices.  Twin brothers lived close to me and their father ran a wholesale candy business on the edge of town.  Somehow, I put two and two together and, instead of four, got a whole box of cards for less than a nickel a pack.  I asked and their father agreed to sell a box of cards at a time to me at the wholesale price.  Ted, Floyd, and I pooled our money periodically and I pedaled my bicycle out to the wholesale warehouse for the prearranged box.
    Since we could now buy a whole box of cards at a time containing many packs, and they belonged equally to all three of us, we had to establish a process to divide the cards.  If exactly three of one card came out of the first box, no problem, we each got one.  Any number less than or more than three went into the draft pool.  After all the packs were opened we held a draft, with each of us selecting a card in rotation until all the cards were distributed equally.  When the next box was purchased, we first filled-in each person's missing cards from the previous boxes before the draft began.
    The 1955 cards brought a startling format change.  Both Bowman and Topps switched to a "horizontal" card, so that the longer card edges were now the top and bottom instead of the sides.  Could it have been purely coincidental that both changed in the same year, or were corporate spies at work?  The actual card designs, though, were totally different.
     Bowman won the battle in Pine Bluff once again for "best cards."  We had never seen a color television, but now we could every time we looked at a '55 Bowman.  Each card's border simulated a wood-grained T.V. cabinet, with the player's color picture in the middle as the T.V. screen.  A small label at the bottom center said "Color T.V.," so there could be no doubt as to what the card represented.
     It was the second largest Bowman set ever at 320 cards, to 1951's 324, and contained umpire cards for the first time, which were not especially desirable but were, well... different.  One of the umpires in the set was even rumored to live in Pine Bluff.  Much later I confirmed this when I found his address in an official baseball publication.  We thought the color pictures were quite good and generally clear, although much of the available picture space was wasted on the T.V. set border.
     The large quantity of duplicate cards we obtained from our wholesale boxes led to two things:  major trading sessions at school with guys from all over town, and the only time we intentionally damaged a card with the exception of our "cover boys."  Ted and I had selected the first two Mickey Mantle cards from the Bowman boxes, but a third had not appeared.  We knew that Floyd wanted one badly.  Late one afternoon I went out and bought another box and went to Ted's house to divide the loot, but Floyd wasn't home.  So, we went ahead and opened the packs and found at least two Mantle cards.  We thought it would be hilarious to partly destroy one of the cards, put it where Floyd would find it when he came home, and wait for his cries of anguish before we gave him the other good, held-back card.  We tore one Mantle card in half, burned the edges, and stuck the ruined card in Floyd's front door screen.  After he came home, Ted and I were deeply disappointed by his cool, unconcerned demeanor and his total confidence that we had a good card waiting for him, despite our innocent denials.
     During these years there was no thought, no idea, of baseball cards having real value.  We paid less than a penny apiece for them in the gum packs.  There was no selling or buying cards "kid to kid," it was all trading.  No adults were involved with cards that we knew of, and there were no card shows.  We never imagined that one ruined Mantle card, in nice condition today, could be worth a couple of hundred dollars or more.
     The '55 Topps cards were nice, a full portrait with smaller action pose in color on a plain background, but suffered badly in comparison to the Bowmans by having only 160 cards and not containing Mantle or Mays, although Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson were there.  We did not appreciate the first cards of unknowns like Sandy Koufax or Harmon Killebrew, but new Cardinals' hero Ken Boyer was extremely popular.  Once again, the high numbered series, #161-210, did not find its way to Pine Bluff so did not exist for us.  In fairness looking back, this missing series did contain Mays, Snider, Berra, Hodges, Rizzuto, and a rookie named Bob Clemente, which would have made the set much more interesting.  But, even had they appeared, the number of cards was skimpy compared to 320.
    Perhaps the small number of cards in the set was affected by a second, entirely different set produced by Topps, unlike any cards we had ever seen.  This was the Double Header set of only 66 cards but 132 players, sold in one cent packs with one card per pack.  They were on much thinner card stock in an elongated size, one and one-half inch by four inches.  The color drawing of each player was a full length action pose.  By folding the smaller upper part of the card forward on a scored line, a second player appeared who shared the same feet and lower legs as the first player!  We thought the cards were innovative and interesting, if somewhat puzzling.  We didn't know that this innovative style was copied from the 1911 Mecca Cigarettes Double Folders set.  We collected the complete set but seldom used the cards in our games.  No new players were introduced because all 132 players in the set were in the regular Topps set.  I didn't like having to fold the cards to see the second player so, after completing a duplicate set, I glued the second set in the folded down position and used it to see those players.
    I again recall very little about our second Babe Ruth League season. I must have had at least one good game, though, because Ted's grandfather surprised me with a crisp $5 bill when he saw me after the game.  That was big money to me and really appreciated!  Then, a special opportunity came along near the end of the summer that I remember very well.  The Boys' Club organized a team to compete in the state Boys' Club tournament with a 14 year old age limit.  Ken, Paul, and I were selected but Ted was on the Babe Ruth all-stars so couldn't play.  For some reason we only had 10 players on the entire team, but we won the state championship anyway.  The last time I looked, years ago, our trophy was still in the Boys' Club trophy case with all our names and the inspiring inscription "10 Iron Men."
     The first cards to appear in the spring of 1956 were Topps and were very similar to the previous year's regular cards.  The major difference was a color ballpark scene as background instead of solid white, but the horizontal format, portrait, and small action picture reappeared.  The set was only slightly expanded to 180 cards from the previous 160 (again, there were cards from 161 to 340 that we didn't get), but at least included Mantle, Mays, and many other stars.  It did have a couple of new twists.  The first two cards in the set were the National and American League presidents (big deal, less popular than umpires), and the first team cards were included.  A team card was a picture of an entire team, 25 or so players plus manager, coaches, bat boys, etc.  Squeezed down to the size of a baseball card, most players' faces were not recognizable and the pictures were not generally very clear, either.
    This year the wait for the much anticipated Bowman cards was futile.  For the first time, Topps was the only game in town!  What happened to the Bowmans?  I'm not certain when we found out, although we may have read about it in a Sports Illustrated article.  The Topps company had bought-out Bowman during the winter and removed their only national competition.  Maybe this had something to do with the little-changed style of the '56 Topps cards.  Why spend money and time to improve the product (cards), stay ahead of or beat the competition, when you know there will be no competition?  Anyway, this was all over our heads.  We only had one set of cards for the year.  (In fairness today, I and many current collectors do like the 340 card 1956 set.)  We kept playing our games but used our older sets much more than the recent ones.
    Our final Babe Ruth League season ended with all four of us making the all-star team.  We went on a multi-day major road trip to Paragould for the state tournament, which we won.  Unfortunately, the regional tournament was held in Pine Bluff that year so we did not get to make an even longer trip out of state to some exotic locale.  We won the first game against Hobbs, New Mexico, but lost the second in a close game to eventual champion Oklahoma City, who went on to the national tournament at Portland, Oregon.  Boy, that could have been us with just a break or two.
    During 1956 or '57 we noticed small advertisements in the Sporting News or in sports magazines offering baseball cards for sale by mail.  I believe we placed our first order for cards missing from our sets, mostly the elusive high numbers, with Goodwin Goldfaden of Adco Sports Book Exchange in Hollywood, Cal.  Most cards were a penny or two apiece, but 1951 Bowman high numbers were 5 cents and 1952 Topps highs were an astronomical 50 cents each!  These were incredible prices to pay for individual baseball cards but, after much deliberation, we paid it for some although not large quantities.  And, we were pleased to get cards that had eluded us for so long, especially those that completed a set.
    Over 20 years later I met Mr. Goldfaden, now a legend in the sports collecting hobby, in his store in Hollywood.  I told him of the many cards missing for so long from our collections and of the pleasure his cards brought to our young lives way back in Arkansas.  He didn't seem to be at all interested.
     It seems logical that, without any competition, the 1957 Topps cards would be a model of unimaginative repetition.  ("Might as well buy 'em, kid, they're the only ones you'll get.")  Instead, Topps issued a beautiful set of generally bright, pure colors with only a minimum of complementary printing on the fronts.  The pictures were a pleasing mix of portraits and posed action, and returned to the vertical format.  The card size was reduced slightly to the standard size that has been used for most cards ever since.  Each player's complete year-by-year statistics were provided on the card backs, not just the previous year or lifetime totals, a baseball card first.  There was very little to complain about with this set; still no Musial but we were resigned to this by now.  Although our cards stopped at number 252 (there were actually 407), this was 72 more than we had seen the previous year and all the other major stars were included.  A very strong case can be presented that this was the best set Topps ever produced, at least artistically, and that it was among the best in baseball card history.
    That summer Ken, Paul, and I moved into the American Legion baseball program for 16 and 17 year olds, playing for the city's Post 32 team.  The solidarity of our group was somewhat eroded when Ted didn't play, but worked in a bank instead.  Our uniforms were extremely heavy, gray wool flannel, just right for an Arkansas River town with high humidity and 95 degree temperatures common.  But we had a good team.  We went into the final day of the state tournament at Ft. Smith undefeated, needing only one win from despised Coleman Dairy of Little Rock (any team from Little Rock in any sport was despised), or they had to beat us twice.  After some very unusual plays and bizarre twists, we did the unthinkable and lost both games.
    Also that summer, I and many of my teammates saw our first major league game as we ventured all the way to St. Louis to play the defending national champion Stockham Post team.  We saw the Cardinals play the Giants and I got my hand on a foul ball hit by Willie Mays but couldn't hold it in the tussle.  When Mays and Musial came to bat there was a different feel in the park, a different sound, an electricity in the air that I have not experienced since with any other players.  Surely it was just my perception and excitement at the time, but I sometimes wonder if any other spectators felt something similar.  I know I'll never forget it.
    As April of 1958 approached we were preparing for high school graduation and buying our usual allotment of baseball cards.  With all the school activities going on it was difficult to pay full attention to our number one collecting interest. Unfortunately the 1958 Topps cards didn't help.  They were awful in our opinion, as bad as the '57s had been great.  I don't feel I can describe them adequately: each player's picture looked as though it had been trimmed closely around his body or head, and pasted over a plain color background.  The player's position, team name, and logo intruded from a box at the bottom, and the player's name in large letters was superimposed at the top.  The only redeeming quality we could find was... you guessed it, "Stan the Man's" first appearance on a Topps card.  It wasn't a great card but there were plenty of them around.  He was included in the Sporting News All Star Team cards, the last 21 cards in the 494 card set.  This was a true all-star team, with 12 or more eventual Hall of Famers included, and at least six of the greatest players ever (Aaron, Mantle, Mays, Musial, Williams, and pitcher Warren Spahn).
    With high school graduation, summer work, preparations for college, and our last year of American Legion ball, our baseball card interests waned in the hot summer months.  For the first time Pine Bluff's American Legion team was not sponsored by the Legion post, but by the Fraternal Order of Police (we're FOPs?).  At least we had lighter weight, although unattractive, uniforms.  Unfortunately we again placed second in the state tournament held in Little Rock, losing only to eventual champion North Little Rock.  I came to bat in one of the early games with the bases loaded, no outs, and said to the catcher "Here's my chance to be a hero."  I hit a scorcher to third which was turned into a triple play, probably the first I had ever seen, much less participated in.  That is not a recommended way to see a triple play.  At least we won the game easily.
    Looking now at my comments about 1958 (second place again, triple play, unappreciated cards), the impression may be that it was a bad year, but it wasn't.  The priorities and interests in our lives were changing rapidly, faster than we could comprehend.  (I haven't even mentioned the varying effects that interests in cars and girls had on us!)  It was our last summer of collecting together, and we had to get on with our lives.  We didn't come close to completing the 1958 Topps baseball set.
    I never lost my love of baseball, and my interest in baseball cards and baseball memorabilia has increased through the years.
    To Ted Drake and Floyd Sanders, Ken Calvert and Paul Green, wherever you may be, I hope you saved a few of your favorite cards.

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