I'm currently working on correcting a wrong from a couple of years ago. In 2024 Topps issued a five-card insert set in Series 2 called "Women in Baseball". I was too busy at the time, completing the full flagship and update set, as well as being all about everything 2024 Heritage, so I skipped adding those five cards.
But it's a natural for my collection. It's from 2024 Topps, so it looks great, with that wonderful electric feel. Also noting women in the MLB is awesome. And, finally -- what's wrong with me? -- I've been clamoring for coach cards for at least eight years! (I know that not everyone among the five cards is a coach).
In that 2018 post, I lamented the demise of manager cards (it remains a tragedy) but focused on coach cards, specifically from the 1982 Donruss set. Amazingly there were eight of them in that set.
That's where that post ended, but there are a number of other wonderful examples of coach cards in major sets. This is the kind of quirky that I love in my baseball cards.
Not too long after I made that post, Allen & Ginter went on a coaches-in-cards run, focusing on women in the sport -- kind of what touched off the 2024 insert set.
In 2020, Allen & Ginter featured Justine Siegal, who was the first female coach in a professional men's baseball league when she worked for the Brockton Rox of the Canadian American Association independent league in 2011. She later was hired by the Oakland A's for a brief stint in an instructional league and has coached national teams around the globe.
The following year, Allen & Ginter included two more female coaches in its set, Alyssa Nakken with the Giants and Bianca Smith with the Red Sox. Nakken is now director of player development with the Guardians and Smith coaches youth baseball in Japan and Great Britain.
All of these cards came along when I had bowed out of Allen & Ginter (kind of like I'm doing now). I bought far less A&G in 2020 and 2021 than I had since re-entering the hobby in 2008. So I knew only vaguely of the return to baseball coaches on cards.
It remains enough of a rarity -- 2024 was an insert and kind of a novelty subject -- that I need to bring up some of the other times when coaches showed up on cards.
Coach cards were fairly common in the 1950s, especially when Topps and Bowman were in competition with each other. To fill out their checklists they relied on coaches, managers, and sometimes, umpires. I often wonder what '50s kids thought when their favorite team had 10-12 cards and one of them was a coach.
Once Topps was the sole trading card marketer, coaching cards dried up, but they'd pop up here and there. Please enjoy this way-off-center-and-creased card of "P-Coach" Warren Spahn from 1965 Topps.
In 1973 and 1974, Topps gave some attention to coaches on their manager cards, using tiny head shots alongside or below the main manager photo. But they aren't "coach cards" per se.
But just a couple years later, SSPC went all-in on coach cards in its rebel set in 1976. Turn to the back of the set and there are all kinds of coaches featured.
Some well-known, some definitely not, but SSPC gave them their time in the sun and I like that.
Here are two more, described as "hitting instructors." I suppose they're coaches, too, though maybe it wasn't their official job title.
Cards started getting serious after that -- no time for coaches, there were rookies and errors to chase -- and except for 1982 Donruss I can't think of another coach card from the '80s (doesn't mean there wasn't one).
Then in 1991, Bowman unveiled a card in its set that attracted some eyeballs.
Jimmie Reese, who appeared as a coach in the 1976 SSPC set, returned to cardboard in 1991 Bowman, which recognized Reese's 75 years in baseball. Well-known as a roommate of Babe Ruth, Reese worked as a coach with the Angels from the early 1970s until his death in 1994.
The back is good fun, too, though a bit difficult to read for us oldsters.
The 1991 and 1992 Topps Traded sets also included coaches, though they are the equivalent of a manager for the U.S. national team. Ron Polk is featured the Team USA cards in 1991 and and Ron Fraser is shown with Team USA cards in 1992.
My guess is there is a stray coach card here and there from the early '90s until I wrote that post in 2018 but I don't know for sure. One place that doesn't shy away from coach cards are minor league sets -- virtually each one includes a coach and when you see all those you wonder why Topps is such a fraidy cat when it comes to major league coaches.
I know, I know, coaches don't sell cards and also there is probably compensation that Topps doesn't want to pay. All that does though is make me long for cards from the 1970s and earlier, when the rules were less stringent and cards much looser and fun.
So hat's off to the women in baseball set that I hope to have in my possession soon, at least Topps tried something other than the hot player du jour, even if it was an "extra".
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