G.O.A.T., the '70s, 40-30

My apologies for a slight delay in uploading a new episode of the Greatest 100 Cards of the '70s Countdown. My busy schedule of late has delayed a variety of fun activities, and for me, there is nothing quite as fun as reviewing the most memorable cards of the '70s.

I'm finding that the deeper I go into the countdown, the easier it is for me to select which cards belong where. To me that means maybe a countdown of the greatest 50 cards would improve my accuracy, but if Kasey Kaseem could do 100 songs at the end of the year then I can categorize 100 cards.

Believe me, there are lot more than 100 great cards from the '70s. "Greatness" measures in the thousands when we're talking 1970-79.

So, let's get right to it. Slip Meco's Star Wars Theme onto your phonograph player, cook up a Swanson Salisbury Steak TV dinner and wriggle into some hot pants.

It's the greatest cards from the '70s, numbers 40-30:


40.

Ron Pruitt, 1979 Topps, #226

The smaller the numbers get in this countdown the more well-known the people on the cards. Yet, no one would ever mistake Ron Pruitt for a superstar.

Pruitt was a utility player who carried around the delightful position designation of "outfield/catcher". But even if he spent a majority of time in the outfield (baseball-reference says 162 games in the outfield and 89 at catcher) is there any other card that screams CATCHER more than this card?

The close up of baseball's masked man is intriguing on any card, but the crop is so tight on this one that it stands out like no other "man-behind-the-mask." You get a real feel for what it must have been like to be a catcher in the 1970s. The cushioned, iron mask. The hand-drawn eye black. The heavy chest protector.

The 1979 set doesn't get a lot of credit for its innovative photos, but it really outdid itself here.


39.

Ralph Garr, 1974 Topps, #570

I've told this story before.

I'm 10 or 11 years old. I'm in the museum portion of the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Downstairs in the basement.

It's my first trip to Cooperstown and everything is fascinating. But the displays in the basement are my style. The displays are geared toward "today's game," with a focus on the current teams and players in Major League Baseball.

By far, the most interesting display appears on a series of free-standing boards in the middle of the room. All of the cards from the 1975 Topps set are featured in order by number. I follow the cards from board to board. I am very familiar with the '75 set by this time but had not seen many of the cards. There, in Cooperstown, for the first time I see Vida Blue and Rusty Staub and others. Mesmerized.

Then I spot it.

To that date, it was the greatest card I had ever seen in my life.

I was entranced by the action, by Garr bolting out of the box, casting his bat to the side and ridding himself of his helmet. I had no idea who this Ralph Garr was, but I even loved his name. "Garr". What a fabulous-sounding name. To do what Garr was doing on this card was "To Garr".

Little did I know that essentially that same photo of Garr had appeared on his card the previous year.

For my money, the '74 card is not as great as the '75 one. It's not as colorful, the image is farther away and the photo isn't as clear.

However, the '74 card arrived first and that means everything.

I've been to Cooperstown several more times in my life. But nothing can beat the memories of that first trip.


38.

Len Randle, 1978 Topps, #544

This card has energy. It has mystery. Taken together, you have the 38th greatest card of the '70s.

I've addressed this card at least a couple of times on the blog. For years I had no idea what was going on in the photo. Was Lenny Randle laughing? Was he in pain? But even now that I know -- Randle is diving back to first base after a wild pick-off attempt and is looking up to see where the ball went before advancing all the way to third base -- I still come back to it with wonder.

Why in the world was Gene Richards playing first base for the Padres?

Exactly how bad was attendance at Shea Stadium in the late 1970s?

What is a ballclub's laundry bill like in an average year?

So many questions, brought on by a photograph you seldom see on baseball cards, taken from an interesting angle.

Action shots were not as prevalent in the 1970s as they would come to be and that's why they stand out so much to this day.


37.

Ozzie Smith, 1979 Topps, #116

When you know what Ozzie Smith became, a well-manicured, acrobatic, smooth-sailing All-Star for the St. Louis Cardinals, his rookie card seems to come from another time.

Smith is young, showing off '70s-style scruff and dressed in the outrageous chocolate/mustard uniforms of the San Diego Padres. The card back shows some significant promise -- 159 games in his rookie year with 152 hits -- but all I noticed at the time was that there was a place called "Walla Walla".

Yet Smith seems to know what he is about to do. He looks cool, confident. Nobody can see his right arm, but it appears as if it's resting casually on something high as if he's just chilling, enjoying the beginning of a memorable career.

Whenever I see Smith's rookie card in my mind, I see an image of the card miscut, because so many of them are. But this one isn't all that bad.

I did have another version of the card that was drastically miscut. I laminated it to a binder with a bunch of other dupes from 1978 and 1979.


36.

Jim Palmer, 1978 Topps, #160

I am saying this as a proudly heterosexual man: this card works because Jim Palmer is so damn handsome.

Palmer posed for his first Jockey underwear ad in 1977. He and several other athletes, like Pete Rose and Steve Carlton, showed off Jockey's underthings with an advertising tagline that said, "Take away their uniforms and who are they?"

I remember that ad. I can't recall my thoughts other than I regarded it as "adult advertising," like cigarette or automobile ads. But 1977 was the year when Palmer's good looks really came to the front.

That's what makes this card appropriate. Palmer, who appeared on back-to-back action cards in 1976 and 1977, at a distance, is shown for all he is worth in '78. You can hear the women squealing off camera as Palmer bats his baby blues.

It's the classic All-American matinee idol shot, with an All-Star shield to boot, with just a bit of a comical twist as the cartoon Oriole is propped on his head and the Brut advertising sign shines the background.

Too bad it doesn't say "Jockey".


35.

Hal McRae, 1976 Topps, #72

Hal McRae was on my TV a lot in the late 1970s. The Royals were very good. They made the playoffs every year. McRae was also very good and I cheered for him.

But I didn't really know him. As I grew older and McRae progressed in his career and then became a manager, I realized that McRae must have a big personality. He threw famous tirades. He bowled over second basemen mercilessly. And he laughed heartily on this card.

It's too bad that McRae doesn't sound like James Earl Jones because that's the voice I imagine coming from his mouth when I see this card, a big, booming, vigorous, substantial laugh. It must have shook the photographer as he snapped the picture.

You can count almost all of McRae's teeth. How often can you say that about a card?

But the best part of it is the mutton chops. This wouldn't be half the card it is without McRae's beard choice.


34.

Johnny Bench, 1975 Topps, #260

Give me this one.

I've tried very hard to eliminate my own biases in this countdown, which is very difficult since I collected as a child in the '70s. But there is no '75 Ron Cey in this countdown. No '75 Rollie Fingers. I've kept my overflowing love for everything '75 shut tight for this exercise.

But the Johnny Bench card, I cannot hold it in for this card.

I've mentioned before that this card was so big in my brain as a kid, such a presence among other kids I knew who collected at the time, that when I finally had it in my possession -- pulled out of a pack on a red-hot day as I walked home from the drug store -- that I almost wished I didn't have it. I thought someone would snatch it out of my grasp or a gust of wind would whisk it away from this undeserving collector.

What made this card so huge in my mind?

Well, it was Johnny Bench. Nobody was bigger in baseball at the time. I'm pretty sure that was the year when I figured out who he was.

Plus, the treatment of All-Star players by Topps in '75 was so wonderfully over the top that you couldn't help but be awed by the player pictured. Not only was there a giant star, but the entire freakin' border was made specially for the all-star dude.

And then there is Bench's squat and grin. He knows he's good. He just knows it.

And he knows you're lucky to have this card.


33.

Carl Yastrzemski, 1976 Topps, #230

We hold cards so high in our minds as kids that the players look like conquering kings.

None more so than this card.

To me as a youngster, Yaz on this card appeared to be on the top of the mountain. He has just hit a mammoth home run from atop the highest peak in the land. Even though I know that's not true now, that's still how I think of the picture on this card. Yaz has hit an absolute moon shot, which actually isn't that far away because HE'S ON TOP OF A MOUNTAIN!

But when I was scanning this card, I was noticing the helmet. Suddenly it looked too bright. Has anyone mentioned this already? How am I just noticing this? It appears as if it was airbrushed. Considering that the Red Sox had just changed its look from the old blue hats to red ones, this is very possible that it was altered, meaning that this is an old photo!

I'm still making new discoveries 40 years later.


32.

Lindy McDaniel, 1971 Topps, #303

OK, so maybe Yaz wasn't on a mountain, but dammit, Lindy McDaniel here IS on a mountain, right?

This card is a Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Famer with good reason. McDaniel is lost in his craft while on stage before thousands of people in old Yankee Stadium.

The portion of the stadium presented and they way the photo is featured makes it seem to me that McDaniel is standing on a mound inside a giant gymnasium.

The fans in the distance almost appear to be looking up at McDaniel, making him on display even more than ever.

And the tension is there. What's the count? Who is the batter? Who is on base? What's the score? And what is McDaniel about to throw?

Non-card collectors, this is why I collect cards.


31.

Bump Wills, 1979 Topps, #369 (Blue Jays variation)

Possibly the most coveted card of the late '70s for me.

I remember reading about the Blue Jays variation card of Bump Wills. He was rumored to be traded from the Rangers but then the trade fell through or there was no trade at all or something. Yet, Topps supposedly panicked and produced a card of Wills in a Rangers uniform but with a Blue Jays designation.

It was a weird thing to do because Topps wasn't doing stuff like that in 1979. At the time, if players changed teams before Topps could do anything about it, it would airbrush the player wildly into his new uniform. But something like the Wills, that was going back to 1974 with Glenn Beckert and Jerry Morales.

I wanted this card so much.

But I couldn't find it. Instead I had the regular old boring Wills card.

The Wills Blue Jay card was much more valuable to me, even though I think at some point the Rangers Wills was considered rarer? (all of the cardboard shenanigans are blurring together over the years).

It took decades for me to obtain the Blue Jays version of the card. I treasure it as if I am 13 and seeing it for the first time. It still looks weird and cool to me.

It is like no other card in the 1979 set. And like very few other cards in any Topps set from the 70s. I'd also say it's the inspiration for all the weird things that Fleer would do in the 1980s.

30.

George Brett and Al "Cowans", 1976 SSPC, #589

I never saw this card when I was a kid. I know I would have loved it.

Many times I've mentioned that fun didn't really come to baseball cards until the 1990s. The game was treated as much more serious business during the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. There would be no foolishness, no players making wacky faces, even though, heck, that's all players do.

This card is real. No fake news here. Sure, it should be Al "Cowens," but that's not going to keep the card off the countdown.

One other thing:

This is a checklist card.

It might be the greatest checklist card of all-time.


All right, that brings the latest episode to a close. I hope you enjoyed. And I hope you didn't regret that decision to consume a TV dinner and squeeze into hot pants.