1973/1974 TOPPS MANAGERS AND COACHES
Topps went back to 1960 for their 1973 and 1974 sets, and for the first time since that year of Nixon vs Kennedy, produced manager cards that included each teams’ primary coaching staff.
The 1973 set being the generally sloppy affair that it was, the background colors for the coaches photos in many of these cards vary from a sickly orange to a sickly brown. In addition, some of the brown-background photos contain elements that are absent from the orange-background versions, such as trees and light stanchions. The Ralph Houk card is a prime example:
One of the happy side benefits of these manager/coach cards was the almost-incidental inclusion of some prominent old-timers in the 1973 and 1974 sets. Johnny Podres, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard, Eddie Mathews, Ted Kluszewski, Johnny Sain, Larry Doby, John Roseboro, Rocky Colavito, Warren Spahn, and Bill Mazeroski all found their way back to Topps via these subsets.
And here’s a bar bet you can win against friends with even a semi-strong knowledge of Mets baseball-card history: In what year did Roy McMillan last appear on a Topps card as a Met?
It will take a real trainspotter not to shout out “1966!” with confidence and surety, but the correct answer is actually 1974:
So, the ’74 managerial cards used the floating heads of the ’63 Rookie Stars. Can you think of any other examples where Topps looked to the past (after a 10 or more year hiatus) for inspiration before the debut of the Heritage cards?
Interesting question, Brian. The first thing that comes to mind is the use of “in-action” photos on regular cards. These were a design feature in the 1956 set, and were not used again on non-subset (eg, World Series highlights, etc) cards until 1971…
You guys continually blow my mind with this detailed knowledge of baseball cards and the tools used to create them. I have zero baseball card knowledge. Zero.