1973 TOPPS ALL TIME HOME RUN LEADERS
Topps started off the 1973 set emphatically, with this all-time home run leaders card.
Here at #1 on the checklist was the pyramid of power: Ruth, Aaron, and Mays.
Sure, the capstone would shift a year later, when Aaron’s home run 715 landed in the waiting hands of mop-up man Tom House in the Braves bullpen, and Fulton County Stadium erupted in celebration.
And yes, it’s a little weird to see the numbers 673 and 654 attached to Aaron and Mays, respectively. Their final totals of 755 and 660 seem frozen in amber by now, so it’s interesting to look back to a time when those numbers were still fluid and evolving.
But viewed today, this card has a disequilibrating effect.
Intellectually, I know that Barry Bonds now sits at the top of this pyramid, and that his godfather Mays has been displaced.
But in my heart I acknowledge none of this, and the Aaron/Ruth/Mays pyramid still stands strong, unabraded by time and troubling events…
What about Willie and the “Red Juice” that John Milner said he gave him?
I tend to think of the ’73 set as sort of a weak sister effort, especially after what Topps put out in ’72. But you make a good point in the opening and there are some excellent action shots, too (along with some lame ones). I may need to go back and reexamine with an open mind.
Kind of weird though seeing Mays as a Met on this card. Also a little disappointing that he doesn’t appear in the 1974 set.
Well, at least Mays appears in the ’74 set on a World Series highlight card.
Which is an example of one of my favorite subsets of vintage Topps cards: players who don’t have a regular card in the set, but appear on “special” cards. Other prominent examples are the various ’67 pitching leader cards that featured Sandy Koufax, and the ’75 highlights card picturing Al Kaline…