#57 1st Series Checklist 1-109 / Denny McLain

I took most of March and April off with this blog, having composed and scheduled enough posts to get me through both months.  I think I needed the time away, as when I came back to start creating posts for the massive haul of cards added in March (see below) I was excited to be doing this again.  I also don't have much of a backlog as I write this, and with a busy summer schedule looming, I'm OK with this blog falling behind a bit.  I don't think my tens of readers will mind too much.  I have a 200-count box of cards ready for the blog post treatment, and as I mention below these cards should keep me busy until well into 2024.

The biggest reason for the step away from this blog is that high school baseball consumed all of March and April.  Our oldest son Doug is a sophomore and he was good enough to earn a spot on the varsity team, but he was not quite ready for a starting role.  I was there for every single one of his games, not missing an at-bat or a pitch thrown.  I didn't play high school sports, so I had no idea how many games and practices were squeezed into a short period of time.  I was determined not to miss anything.  I'm the Dad who sits quietly along the left field fence, mostly keeping to myself and keeping clear of the Dads who readily criticize every play, every coach's decision and every umpire call.  Doug is on a brief baseball hiatus before his travel season starts.

Our youngest son Ben continues to excel at tennis and piano, and we're trying to convince him to start a running schedule so that he can improve his cross country times when that starts back up again in the fall.  But as a 7th grader, about to be going into 8th grade, I can appreciate a running schedule isn't exactly high on the list of summer priorities.  He continues to crack me up.  We're immensely proud of both of them.

It's Saturday afternoon, June 3rd, as I compose this post and it's one of the last remaining Saturdays of the summer with nowhere to be and nothing to do.  Seems like a good day to work on this blog and study a 54-year-old baseball card checklist.

Building the Set / Card #110
March 12, 2023 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards)

In mid-March, Doug and I attended the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, held within the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  My main focus for this show was accumulating as many 1969 Topps commons as possible, which I did by adding a grand total of 193 cards to our set.  That's almost 30% of the entire set added in one enjoyable afternoon.  I wrote a full summary of the show in a post over at The Phillies Room, found here.

This is the 33rd of the 193 commons and semi-stars purchased, pulled and stacked from the first two neon green binders housing 1969 Topps cards at the multi-table spread of Uncle Dick's Cards from Babylon, New York.  My method was simple - I pulled up a chair, found a card I needed, picked the best of the group from the binder page and set it aside.  After each 100 cards, I'd ask the dealer to tell me how much damage I had done so far.  With a budget in mind, I kept going twice, continuing after card #100 and card #200, and stopping at card #298.  The final amount due was 17% off the sticker price for the pile of 193 cards, with this card costing me around $3.  If I stick to composing posts five times a week, I should go through the stack and be caught up by the end of January.  But as the summer begins, that's becoming a bigger If.

The Card / Tigers Team Set / Checklists

Denny McLain (#150) was one of the biggest stories in baseball in 1968, so it's no surprise he graces the 1st series checklist card here.  I put forth a theory with the 5th series checklist (#412) that Topps uses a photo of the biggest player in the series featured on the checklist for the front of the card.  That theory is shattered here as McLain's base card doesn't appear until the set's 2nd series.  This is one of McLain's five appearances in the set, and his third appearance in the set's 1st series as he's already appeared on the 1968 A.L. Pitching Leaders (#9) and 1968 A.L. Strikeout Leaders (#11) cards.  In lieu of McLain, Topps could have featured the reigning National League Rookie of the Year, Johnny Bench (#95).  Henry Aaron (#100), Roberto Clemente (#50) or Ernie Banks (#20) would have been good choices as well.

There are two versions of this checklist available, featuring a slightly different crop of McLain's picture.  I have the "inset photo does not show collar at bottom right" version and then's there the "inset photo has collar showing at bottom right" version.  Honestly, who noticed this first?  I look at a lot of baseball cards, and I can't imagine ever picking up on this negligible difference unless I happened to be handling a stack of these checklist cards.

#56 Rich Reese - Minnesota Twins / #58 Fred Gladding - Houston Astros