#572 Giants Heroes - Willie McCovey / Juan Marichal CPC

In the set's sixth series, Topps made the decision to include four (and only four) combo cards featuring members of the Orioles, Senators, Athletics and Giants.  A staple throughout the prior decade-plus of Topps sets, the combo cards would make a brief, final appearance with these four cards and then disappear again.  Various checklists also denote these as "CPC" for combo player cards.

Building the Set / Card #579
September 21, 2025 from The Philly Show (America's Pastime)

On Sunday morning, September 21st, I made the hour-long drive to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania for the latest installment of the Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show, known to its friends as The Philly Show.  The show has a legitimate official sponsor (eBay) and the advertisement for the event notes the show is in its 50th year.  I hadn't attended a baseball card show since the last Philly Show in December, and I was flying solo to this one as our oldest son is in his first month of college at Villanova.  I posted a full summary of the show over at The Phillies Room.

I made stops at six tables at the show, all yielding needed cards for our 1969 Topps set, and I left the show with just 16 more cards to go for my version of a complete set.  The first place I stopped was a table with well-organized and well-marked binders of commons and semi-stars with 20% Off notes across the front of each binder.  

I took my time and found 32 commons and semi-stars needed before asking to see the dealer's star cards from the set.  It turned out this first purchase was also my biggest, as I spent over half my allotted budget here, America's Pastime from Fair Lawn, New Jersey, before moving on to my second stop.  This was the 20th of 36 total cards bought from America's Pastime, and the 20th of 91 cards for set added overall on the day, and it cost a little under $10 after the dealer discount.

Marichal and McCovey in 2013

The Card / Giants Team Set

I have to wonder if Topps intended to create one of these combo player cards for each of the 24 teams in the league and just ran out of steam (or good photos), ditching the idea after only four cards.  While Willie McCovey (#440) and Juan Marichal (#370) are unquestionably Giant Heroes, room could have been made on the card for the two other future Hall of Famers from the Giants' roster - Willie Mays (#190) and Gaylord Perry (#485).  Perry hadn't yet solidified his Hall of Fame credentials, but Mays certainly had, although Mays was 37 years old at the time, seven years older than either McCovey or Marichal.  Maybe Topps wanted to highlight the younger stars on the Giants, or maybe they only had the ability to get a picture of McCovey and Marichal together.

In case collectors needed reminding, the back of the card does a great job summing up why both players are worthy to be called Giant Heroes, and the copy writer for Topps even throws in a pun at the end with, "These two offensive and defensive stars are truly Giants of the game today."  This is McCovey's fifth appearance in the set.  He shows up on two league leaders card, an All-Star card, his base card and this combo card.

1969 Season

McCovey and Marichal were first and second on the Giants in terms of bWAR with marks of 8.1 and 7.6, respectively, in 1969.  McCovey won league MVP honors, batting .320 and leading the league in both home runs (45) and RBIs (126).  Marichal was 21-11 with a league-leading 2.10 ERA in 37 games, while also leading the league with eight shutouts.  The Giants finished three games behind the Braves in the National League West pennant race.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / Wikipedia

#571 Cap Peterson - Cleveland Indians / #573 Jim Palmer - Baltimore Orioles

#370 Juan Marichal - San Francisco Giants

Juan Antonio Marichal
San Francisco Giants
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  185
Born:  October 20, 1937, Laguna Verde, Dominican Republic
Signed:  Signed by the New York Giants as an amateur free agent before 1957 season
Major League Teams:  San Francisco Giants 1960-73; Boston Red Sox 1974; Los Angeles Dodgers 1975

World Series Appearances:  San Francisco Giants 1962
Hall of Fame Induction:  1983

Juan Marichal won more games than any other major league pitcher in the 1960s, dominating the league with a high leg kick and pinpoint control.  A mainstay in the Giants' pitching rotation, Marichal was a 20-game winner in six seasons, and a 25-game winner in three seasons.  He threw a no-hitter against the Colt .45s on June 15, 1963, and a few weeks later on July 2nd he matched up against the Braves and Warren Spahn, pitching a complete game, 16-inning shutout.  He topped the league with shutouts in 1965 with 10 and had the best ERA in the league at 2.10 in 1969.  Marichal never won a Cy Young Award and was frequently overshadowed by his contemporaries Sandy Koufax and Bob Gibson (#200).

Reaching the postseason only twice (in 1962 and 1971), Marichal used the All-Star Game as his national stage.  In eight All-Star games, Marichal went 2-0 pitching 18 innings while striking out 12 and pitching to an ERA of 0.50.  He won All-Star Game MVP honors in 1965, pitching three shutout innings.  Marichal's many pitching accomplishments are somewhat overshadowed by an incident that took place on August 22, 1965.  At bat against Koufax and the rival Dodgers, Marichal incited a 14-minute brawl that started when he hit Dodgers' catcher John Roseboro (#218) over the head with his bat.  Roseboro and Marichal would reconcile in later years, making public appearances together.

Marichal's career numbers are staggering - 243-142, 2.89 ERA, 244 complete games and 52 shutouts, and 2,303 strikeouts.  The Giants' retired Marichal's #27 in 1975 and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1983, his third year on the ballot.  He became the first Dominican born player enshrined in the Hall, paving the way for his fellow countrymen Pedro Martinez in 2015 and Vladimir Guerrero in 2018.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1965 Topps blog.

Building the Set / Card #345
December 3, 2023 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards)

Doug and I returned to The Philly Show in early December, once again held inside the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  eBay has taken over sponsorship of the show, with the quaint, bubble-lettered Philly Show logo that had been in place since the 1980s replaced with a more modern logo, keeping with the times.  I wrote about the show in a post over at The Phillies Room.

Similar to my strategy from March, I wanted to focus on accumulating commons and having found success with Uncle Dick's Cards before, I didn't mess around and headed right for the neon green binders.  I pulled 145 cards from the binder containing cards 301 to the end of the set, stopping when I reached 500.  This card was the 53rd of 145 cards purchased for our set, and after the dealer discount due to my bulk purchase, it cost me a little over $4.  Honestly, I was a bit shocked to find this Marichal card included in the common/semi-star binder, initially thinking the dealer had made a mistake.

The Card / Giants Team Set / Accuracy Index +5

This is one of three appearances by Marichal in the set, as he appeared earlier on the National League Pitching Leaders card (#10), and he'd appear later with teammate Willie McCovey (#440) on a Giants Heroes card (#572).  Topps does its best to cram in as many highlights on the back as possible, but Marichal's line after line of impressive statistics do the job just fine.

Accuracy Index:  Marichal's card scores a solid +5 as collectors hadn't seen this photo before.

Inserts:  Marichal is included in the 35 card Topps Deckle Edge insert set, one of 11 Hall of Famers in the set.

1969 Season
Marichal was again one of the best pitchers in the league, going 21-11 with a league-leading 2.10 ERA in 37 appearances.  He just missed the 300-inning plateau, finishing with 299 2/3 innings pitched for the season.  Marichal threw 27 complete games and led the league with eight shutouts.  For the eighth year in a row, he was named a National League All-Star.

1961 Topps #417

1963 Topps #440

1968 Topps #205

1972 Topps #568

1974 Topps Traded #330T

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1961 Topps #417
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (15):  1961-74, 2001
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2024 Topps Heritage Real One Autographs #ROA-JMA
Total Non-Parallel Baseball Cards:  1,118 in the Beckett online database as of 8/10/24.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference / SABR / Wikipedia

National Baseball Hall of Fame
Beckett Database / The Trading Card Database
1965 Topps Blog

#369 Bob Skinner MG - Philadelphia Phillies / #371 Sal Bando - Oakland Athletics

#10 1968 N.L. Pitching Leaders - Juan Marichal / Bob Gibson / Fergie Jenkins

Beginning in 1961, Topps started including league leader cards in its sets and there are 12 league leaders cards kicking off the 1969 Topps set.  League leader cards can be found at the beginning of each Topps set issued in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969.

Building the Set / Card #286
November 18, 2023 from The TWP Card Show - Sicklerville, NJ (Sal's Sports Cards & Memorabilia)

I wrote about this show back in December at The Phillies Room.  My wife Jenna found an announcement on Faceback for a baseball card show to be held at St. Charles Borromeo Hall in Sicklerville, New Jersey on November 18th.  That Saturday, I gathered my lists and we made the short drive to what the organizers called the "First Ever Sports Card Show" in Washington Township, which I find hard to believe given the number of baseball card stores in the area back in the 1980s and 1990s.  Potential mislabeling aside, it was a decent-sized show with mostly modern stuff and slabbed Pokemon cards.  

I found the one dealer selling vintage cards, and cleaned him out of every 1969 Topps card I needed for our set, along with a few 1959 Topps cards for our next set build.  This League Leaders card was one of seven cards added to our 1969 Topps set, and the priciest of the bunch.  Credit to Jenna for finding the show, and if it happens again, I'll gladly make the 10 minute drive over there.

The Card / Giants Team Set / Cardinals Team Set / Cubs Team Set

Three future Hall of Famers grace this card.  I've mentioned it somewhere before, but it's always baffled me why Topps didn't call this card Victory Leaders or Win Leaders instead of the nebulous Pitching Leaders.  In any event, Juan Marichal (#370) led the way with 26 wins, which would be his career high. 

Eventual Cy Young Award winner Bob Gibson (#200) had 22 wins to go along with his league leading 1.12 ERA.  No other pitcher received consideration for the Cy Young Award in 1968, as Gibson won unanimously.  Fergie Jenkins (#640) squeaked onto the card with his 20 wins, earning his 20th win on the final day of the season with a complete game victory over the Pirates.  If not for Jenkins' win, this card would have been a lot more crowded as there were three 19-game winners in 1968 - Nelson Briles (#60), Jerry Koosman (#90) and Chris Short (#395).

The four pitchers with seven wins each and just missing being listed on the back of this card were Don Cardwell (#193), Clay Carroll (#26), Rich Nye (#88) and George Stone (#627).

#9 1968 A.L. Pitching Leaders / #11 1968 A.L. Strikeout Leaders