The 1975 Topps countdown, worst to best (No. 420-401)

 

Hey, here's another post dropping during a Game 7. But no worries. There's no expiration date on these. Although, personally, if the Diamondbacks are going to win, I'd rather be reading blogs.

For this edition of the 1975 Topps countdown, I thought I'd mention what goes into my rather arbitrary ranking of this set. With the set I love so much, there are a lot of emotions at work and it's hard to convey why I like a card more than another a lot of the times for '75. But here is what I'm considering:

1. The impact of the player on the card. If everything's equal, the player's impact wins out. But other things come into play, for instance I didn't rank the Indians team card higher even with Frank Robinson on it, because it's a tiny inset picture.

2. The color combinations and whether they match. Matching border colors with team colors is a lot of fun in this set. The wild clashing is fun, too, but matching is more important here.

3. The photo composition/what's going on in the photo: Is the picture interesting, is it boring, does it look off, is there something wrong with the cropping or sharpness or whatever?

4. Was this a favorite when I was a kid? I'd like it if this didn't have as much impact as it did -- I'd like to be somewhat objective -- but it's impossible with the '75s. Favorite cards when I was 9 rule.

There are probably one or two other factors I consider but those are the major ones.

So let's go. We'll be just about done with the 400s after this.

420. Gary Thomasson (card 529)

The from-the-ground-up photo is always fun. Thomasson looks tall already and then he's looking up, so the pitcher is, what, 8-foot-8?

419. Ron Bryant (card 265)

Not the most exciting image, but Bryant signing his name "Ron Bear Bryant" is fantastic and adds a few points for this card.

418. Roric Harrison (card 287)

Roric Harrison passed away just last month. He had Alzheimer's and I read an account where he wandered away and was declared missing during an incident a couple years before he died. As a kid, I thought Harrison was very tall and was also distracted by the two fingers extended from his hand. I had no idea what that meant.

 

417. John Hiller (card 415)

An absolute favorite card as a youngster. I pulled the Hiller card out of the first three packs of cards I bought and I'm pretty sure it was my favorite of the bunch. I don't know why, there is very little happening here. 

 

416. Randy Moffitt (card 132)

I just featured Moffitt's sister in my previous blog post. Most of you '75 fans know who that is. I'll let the rest of you guess.

 

415. Rogelio Moret (card 8)

Moret is the first non-Highlights card in the set. That, a red glove and a dome in the background gets him to 415.

414. Ted Kubiak (card 329)

A colorful card. I've said several times that I interviewed Kubiak when he was managing and that he was kind of an odd, semi-confrontational sort. Then other times he was weirdly pleasant. I think he had a lot on his mind.

 

413. Steve Mingori (card 544)

Still with the "stand-still" photos. The batter in the background livens it up.

412. Dave Lemanczyk (card 571)

Another favorite as a kid. I didn't know it at the time, but he came from Upstate New York, not far from where I grew up. You can't tell from the scan but this is another one of the cards in the '75 set that has a dreamy quality to it.

 

411. Larry Dierker (card 49)

A pretty notable player in early Astros history. I can't help but think that the uniforms Houston would unveil in '75 might have helped this picture ... or not.

410. Ramon Hernandez (card 224)

Here is a card that demonstrates that the image is more powerful than the printed message. I'm sure I thought Hernandez was a middle infielder for about the first 20 years I had this card.

409. Ray Corbin (card 78)

We're getting into some cards -- Ramon Hernandez is one of them, too -- where the card would have been better (and ranked higher) if they didn't crop off key aspects of the image. In this case it's Corbin's hand and foot/feet.

408. Bob Apodaca (card 659)

The second-to-last card in the set! Like the shadow.

407. George Stone (card 239)

Very little difference between this card and No. 408. The Mets cards had significant impact in my neighborhood in '75. I didn't know who George Stone was but his card seemed very important.

406. Mike Anderson (card 118)

I've said before, green with Phillies cards makes me happy. I would've liked to see the rest of his bat emerge behind him.

405. Jim Wohlford (card 144)

There's a free-swinger now! Check out the Coke scoreboard in the distance.

404. Rookie Outfielders (card 616)

This is probably my favorite of the '75 rookie prospect cards. Everyone seems pretty happy to be a prospect and, of course, Rice is on the card. There's just one more of these to go in the countdown.

403. Andy Hassler (card 261)

This pitching pose is one of my favorites. A number of the Angels players in this set show the black strip on their left arm sleeve. It's for minor league pitcher Bruce Heinbechner who was killed in a car crash during spring training in March 1974.

402. Tony Solaita (card 389)

Here is one of the terrific color matches in the set, I kind of wish all the Royals cards had this color combination.

401. Don Baylor (card 382)

The shadow across Baylor's face is distracting, even more distracting than Baylor not getting a card number with "0" or "5" (just wait another year, Topps). Still like this card quite a bit.

And that's it for another '75 countdown edition. Hope you enjoyed. The next time this series reappears, we will likely be in the MLB offseason. And we'll need all the baseball card content we can get.