#427 Tony Oliva AS - Minnesota Twins

All-Star cards returned to Topps sets in 1968 under The Sporting News banner for a three-year run between 1968 and 1970.  Topps included 20 All-Star cards in its 1969 set, featuring 10 All-Stars from each league and one player from each position, including both a right-handed and left-handed pitcher.  

Building the Set / Card #629

September 21, 2025 from The Philly Show (Niagara Sports Cards)

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.  My third stop was a smaller table with the impossible to pass up offer of 1969 Topps commons that were only $1, unless marked.  The binder was right at the end of the table, making it an even easier sell.  The prices on some of the cards were stunningly low, so I was even more surprised when the dealer, Niagara Sports Cards, gave me an even deeper discount upon tallying up my total.

I found 12 cards needed from Niagara Sports Cards, and this was the seventh of those 12, and the 70th of 91 cards for the set added overall on the day.  I paid less than a dollar for it after the bulk dealer discount was applied. 

The Card / Twins Team Set / Pete Rose Puzzle

Tony Oliva (#600) was an eight-time All-Star between 1964 and 1971, although he did not appear in the 1969 All-Star Game.  He had made previous starts in 1964 and 1966 (right field), and in 1967 (center field).  The starting American League outfield for the 1969 All-Star Game was Frank Howard (#170), Reggie Jackson (#260) and Frank Robinson (#250), with Carl Yastrzemski (#130), Oliva and Willie Horton (#180) getting the nod as the starting outfielders in this Topps subset.

The black and white photo behind Oliva is 1963 Topps #147, featuring Game 6 of the 1962 World Series.  Giants pitcher Billy Pierce is on the mound, and he had appeared behind Jerry Koosman on his All-Star card (#434).  At-bat is one of three Yankee lefties - Tony Kubek, Roger Maris (#164) or Whitey Ford.  The backs of these All-Star cards contain a puzzle piece of either Pete Rose (#120) or Yastrzemski.  The back of Oliva's card features half of Rose's head.

Topps All-Star Card Appearances (2):  1968-69

1963 Topps #147

1968 Topps #371

Sources:  
Baseball Reference

Sports Collectors Daily - Mistaken Identities

#426 Curt Flood AS - St. Louis Cardinals / #428 Lou Brock AS - St. Louis Cardinals

#582 7th Series Checklist 589-664 / Tony Oliva

I'm composing this post on October 13th, and tomorrow it will be 14 years since my Dad passed away, a day I've gotten much better at navigating as the years go on.

When I started my 1965 Topps blog in November 2019, and upon reaching the first checklist card in the set, I had no idea how to fill a blog post with anything remotely interesting about a card with baseball players' names next to check boxes.  So I started to use these checklist posts as a state of the blog/my collecting/my world address.  It's therapeutic in a way, even if it's a bit self-serving.

I'm writing this before I start the work day with a full house at home.  Our oldest son is home on fall break from Villanova, where he's had a wonderful first few months, despite some campus-wide trauma at the outset.  Out youngest son is a sophomore in high school (!) and focused on meeting or exceeding his older brother's GPA and class ranking when he graduates in a few years.  Our dog is a lovable but cranky old man at 11 years old.  My wife and I have unofficial countdowns going for our planned retirements.  The Phillies broke our hearts with another early exit from the postseason.  We're doing the best we can in a country that seems continually crueler and consistently dumber.  (Be kind, help when and where you can, vote, keep moving forward.)

From a baseball card collecting standpoint, we're 16 cards away from a complete 1969 Topps set, my 1956 Topps blog is set to post its final post, and I've been working on the design of my 1955 Bowman blog.  My 1934-36 Diamond Stars set build has stalled out with four (maybe three) cards remaining including the two (maybe one) version of the uber-expensive Hank Greenberg card(s).  I have over a hundred cards in a box for our not-yet-officially collecting 1959 Topps set, and I'm starting to get itchy about collecting the 1966 Topps set, especially since I had bought a nice-looking 1966 Topps Mickey Mantle card in the early 1990s.

I still enjoy the daily or semi-daily routine of picking up an old baseball card, spending some time writing about it, and then sliding it into its home in my set binders.  I don't plan on letting up.

September 28, 2025 - with Greg Luzinski at Citizens Bank Park

Building the Set / Card #580
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 21st of 36 total cards bought from America's Pastime, and the 21st of 91 cards for set added overall on the day, and it cost a little under $5 after the dealer discount.

The Card / Twins Team Set / Checklists

With the exception of maybe Bobby Bonds (#630), Fergie Jenkins (#640) and the retired Ted Williams (#650), Tony Oliva (#600) is the biggest name featured in the set's seventh series, so he gets featured on the 7th Series checklist.  Denny McLain (#150) on the 1st Series checklist (#57) is the one exception to the rule so far in the set, as the 2nd (#107), 4th (#314), 5th (#412) and now the 7th Series checklists feature the biggest name making a cameo from each series.  I've not gotten to the 6th Series checklist (#504) yet, and the 3rd Series checklist (#214) is nothing but names with nobody featured.

Oliva appears four times in the set - on the first card, as an American League batting leader (#1), on an All-Star card (#427), this checklist and on his base card.

#581 Gary Nolan - Cincinnati Reds / #583 Clyde Wright - California Angels

#1 1968 A.L. Batting Leaders - Carl Yastrzemski / Danny Cater / Tony Oliva

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 #33
December 3, 2022 from The Philly Show (Huggins & Scott Auctions)

At the outset of The Philly Show, more formally known as the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, held within the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania, we needed just four cards to complete our 1965 Topps set.  I wrote a full summary of the show in this post over at The Phillies Room.

The show so far had been an all-timer.  Major purchases were made (1965 and 1969 Topps Mickey Mantle, 1969 Topps Reggie Jackson rookie card, Diamond Stars Rogers Hornsby), our 1965 Topps set was completed and I admittedly wasn't ready to leave just yet.  With a little more cash in hand, I decided to find a few more cards for our now newly-collecting 1969 Topps set.  

I found a box of vintage semi-star cards at the table of Higgins & Scott Auctions from Silver Spring, Maryland, with a "50% Off" sign attached to it.  It was truly a hodge podge of minor stars, checklists, multi-player Rookie Stars cards and other assorted randomness.  After confirming the cards were indeed 50% off the sticker prices, I found eight interesting cards needed for our set and parted with my final $50 of the day.  This League Leaders card, the first card of the set, was $7.50.

The Card / Red Sox Team Set / Athletics Team Set / Twins Team Set

Carl Yastrzemski (#130) won his third and final batting title in 1968 with a .301 mark, adding to the titles he had previously won in 1963 and his Triple Crown year of 1967.  That's a low mark for a batting title, but 1968 has become universally known as the Year of the Pitcher.  Danny Cater (#44) makes a somewhat surprising appearance here, as his .290 average was good enough for the runner-up spot behind Yastrzemski.  Cater had joined the Athletics via a trade with the White Sox on May 27, 1966, and he's still shown wearing a White Sox uniform and hat here.  His base cards from the 1968 and 1969 Topps sets show him hatless, but at least wearing the green vested uniform of the Kansas City Athletics.  Cater would bat .301 in 1970, which was only good enough for 10th place in the batting race that season.

Finally, Tony Oliva (#600) and his .289 mark resulted in a third place finish.  Oliva would win three batting titles in his career, in 1964, 1965 and 1971.  For the record, the Orioles' Paul Blair (#506) and his .211 average wasn't the worst in the league in 1968.  His teammates Mark Belanger (#299) and Curt Blefary (#458) had worse marks with .208 and .200, respectively.  The Tigers' Don Wert (#443) had a .200 average and the Yankees' Tom Tresh (#212) rounds out the official list with a sub-Mendoza line average of .195 for the year.

I wanted to take a quick look back at the #1 card of each Topps flagship set released in the 1960s.

1960 Topps #1 Early Wynn - Chicago White Sox (1959 A.L. Cy Young)

1961 Topps #1 Dick Groat - Pittsburgh Pirates (1960 N.L. MVP)

1962 Topps #1 Roger Maris - New York Yankeees (1961 A.L. MVP)

1963 Topps #1 1962 N.L. Batting Leaders - T. Davis, F. Robinson, Musial, B. White, Aaron

1964 Topps #1 1963 N.L. ERA Leaders - Koufax, Ellsworth, Friend

1965 Topps #1 1964 A.L. Batting Leaders - Oliva, B. Robinson, E. Howard

1966 Topps #1 Willie Mays - San Francisco Giants (1965 N.L. MVP)

1967 Topps #1 The Champs - F. Robinson, Bauer, B. Robinson

1968 Topps #1 1967 N.L. Batting Leaders - Clemente, Gonzalez, M. Alou

1969 Topps #1 1968 A.L. Batting Leaders - Yastrzemski, Cater, Olivia

It's interesting to me that when Topps decided to open its set with League Leaders cards in 1960s, there was no set formula.  It was a different category or different league each time.

#664 Ron Hunt - San Francisco Giants / #2 1968 N.L. Batting Leaders