The 1975 Topps countdown, worst to best (No. 660-641)

 

Yup, I'm doing this. I'm still not done writing about 1975 Topps, will never be done writing about it.

But I know everyone else has their limits. I don't plan to publish posts in this series any more than a couple times a month. That means this will drag out a loooooong time but I also know that if I wrote one of these, say, once a week, the interest would plummet immediately. Who knows, maybe people are disinterested now. There are a lot of weird people out there.

However, I am very interested in counting down every single card in the set in order of bestness and worstness. I indeed will rank them all.

The criteria for ranking is based on almost nothing more than my personal preferences. This will be extremely subjective. Even more subjectively, a lot of the ranking will be based on what I liked, and did not like, as a 9-year-old kid collecting the set.

I will give more weight to cards of stars and such, but mostly it will be about what I thought was cool at the time.

All of the cards you see here will be from my own collection unless cited otherwise. Also, please know that even though we're about to see the absolute "worst" of '75 Topps, none of these cards are terrible to me, far from it. I adore them all.

I think that should be apparent by me ranking every single one. So here we go, the bottom 20:

660. Checklist, 397-528 (card 517)

I've been known to wish that numbered checklists would return to sets, but I know that's not realistic or needed in the internet age. This countdown will be somewhat realistic and acknowledge that these checklists have only two rankable traits -- the border colors and the names list. The checklists came in tan/light blue and pink/yellow. I have no issues with either. So this is at the bottom because the list of names is the least interesting.

659. Checklist, 529-660 (card 646)

The final checklist in the set. There are a few fun names here and seeing the final cards in the set on the back is a little interesting.

658. Checklist, 133-264 (card 257)

This checklist shows off the MVP subset, which had to peak some collectors' interest in '75. I know I saw checklist cards in '75 but they were all of the pink-yellow variety.

 

657. Checklist, 265-396 (card 386)

The third checklist in the set shows off the league leader cards and also displays Reggie Jackson, who may have been the No. 1 star at the time, at No. 300.

656. Checklist, 1-132 (card 126)

 

The first checklist in the set is the top-ranked checklist because it's first in the set and also because you get to see all the record cards to lead off the set. Interesting that they were called "record" on the checklist but "highlights" on the actual card.

 

 

655. Cubs team (card 638) 

Controversy! Maybe for some anyway. The lowest-rated team checklist card is the Cubs because they ditched their fun floating heads team cards from earlier years. The team photo is not great, one of the less-clear shots in the entire set. Bonus point though for posing in front of the ivy.

 

 

654. Rookie Pitchers (card 614)

Generally, I didn't like the multi-player rookie cards from this era when I was collecting as a kid. I'm not super-fond of them now, although I prefer them to the Bowman philosophy of giving solo cards to players who never make the majors. Dyar Miller and Vern Ruhle both enjoyed a number of years in MLB. Kucek received just one solo Topps card and Siebert is the rare mid-1970s player that I had never heard of before until looking him up a few years ago.

 

653. Marty Pattin (card 413)

The lowest-ranked individual player card. May seem harsh but this card sets off my OCD in two ways: one, there is much too much empty space above Pattin's head, two the spaced out letters of his name is setting off alarms. As I said in my 1975 Topps blog, it looks like a counterfeit version of a '75 Topps card.

652. Bruce Ellingsen (card 288)

A card no one I knew in 1975 wanted. Was it the pouty stare? Was it the wavy hair? I'm going with the hair. With maybe an exception or two, if you aren't wearing a hat in the '75 set, you aren't going to rank very high. 

 

 

651. Fred Beene (card 181)

We are beginning a run of cards of players looking to the heavens, hiding the team logo on their hats. I didn't like this look as a kid. 1. I was buying these cards to see team affiliations. 2. I had no desire to look up a player's nose.

650. Bob Gallagher (card 406)

I recall seeing this card as a youngster and being put off by his unruly hair and stern look into the distance (a look that might have served him well during his post-career job of high school teacher). 

649. Jim Holt (card 607)

 

The worst '75 case of staring into a player's nostrils. Topps wasn't shy about airbrushing hat logos in 1975 so I don't know why there are so many upturned hats.

 

 

 648. Steve Arlin (card 149)

I can only imagine the fate of this card if we saw it as youngsters. I was always thinking that some player looked like a woman thanks to the long hair of the day, and no doubt I would have thought the same about Arlin, and promptly wanted it out of my collection.

647. Gene Locklear (card 13)

Children are mean and play games with other children in which they try to pawn off certain player's cards onto their unsuspecting friends. Locklear was at the top of the list along with a couple of others. I can't shake that feeling even though Locklear went on to become a respected painter.

646. Danny Frisella (card 343)

 

I've mentioned before how I wasn't too aware of the airbrushing that was going on with cards while collecting in the mid-1970 but I KNEW this wasn't right. Also Frisella was entirely too sweaty.

 

 

 645. Orlando Pena (card 573)

Are you keeping track? That's seven upturned caps in a row. I don't think that's all of them, but it's most of them. This is Pena's final card. He might need a shave.

644. Rookie Outfielders (card 619)

A couple of recognizable players in Ayala and Turner because of the slightest of dents made by the players. Even Smith found a solo card as an airbrushed Mariner. The four combined to produce 18 solo Topps cards, which sounds not so bad I suppose.

643. Jesus Alou (card 253)

It's difficult for me to believe that Topps couldn't get a better photo of Alou, who had more than 200 at-bats in 1974 and was near the end of his long MLB career. I have no idea what he's doing in this photo, he looks like something scary just ran across his feet.

642. Joe Lis (card 86)

The first example of a full airbrushed hat logo in this countdown. I didn't like anything about this card as a kid. All the sweaty hair, the sweat all over his hat (but that could be airbrushing). 

641. Cardinals team (card 246)

I do like team cards of this era but they're not going to perform very well in the countdown because many of the photos are not great. This looks pretty good as a backlit scan but in person it's too distant and the background antiseptic.

OK, that's the first 20. There's nothing there that would help me sell someone on the '75 set, except the wonderful border colors, but it will get better -- eventually.