Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss

My Minnies were stolen from me

1954 Redman Orestes Minoso aka Minnie:

If you only have 2 cards from a set, like the 1953 Topps, 11 years before I was born and 19 years before I recall watching baseball and buying packs, its a good synecdoche to have Minnie Minoso and Enos Slaughter, “Country” as compared to “Cuba”, known I picked up somewhere along the way for a Mad Dash around the bases to win the 1946 Series for…wait for it..the Cards:

1952 Redman Yogi Berra

I was a Giants fan from 1970 or so on, but would have picked up somewhere some respect for the Dodgers, especially during the integration era and the value of a card, I would have spied at these trade shows, circa 1975-1978, of a Pee Wee Reese:

1953 Redman Pee Wee Reese, Brooklyn

Likewise or more to the point I would have read about Bobby Thomson and the shot heard round the world; he died in 2010 at 86.

1949 Remar Billy Martin of Oakland Oaks, of PCL, putout by bread company:

The oldest modern era bubble gum card in my set is or was a 1949 Bowman Bob Feller:

1951 was the start of the Topps dynasty and that year featured smallish cards you, people older than me but younger than my dad, could play a game with; here, getting dealt a Warren Spahn is a “ball”:

Phillies star hurler Robin Roberts (who might have been on the mound when eventual newscaster of same name was born, in 1960) was elected to the Hall of Fame, after 286 wins and 2,000+ strikeouts, a 7-time All Star, in 1976 or during the time that I was reading Baseball Digest and going to card shows, influencing this purchase decision:

1952 Topps

Meanwhile I might have seen batting champ Tiger George Kell on the also rans on the Hall of Fame balloting, although he was not inducted until The Veterans’ Committee i 1983, after I had stopped being active in the hobby. My cards sat in my parents’ house during college. Steve Cohen and I went to an occasional show in the late 1980s. I would think most of the increase in value for the hobby or industry as a whole occurred during my collecting years, or between 1975 and 1990. Kell:

A timeline:
First national broadcast of color television The Roses Parade, 1954;
I was born, 1964.
I bought this card, a 1955 Bowman Willie Mays, with “Color TV” stylings, in 1974 or so;
February, 1, 2008, about 7 years ago, it and everything else on this page disappears from the house I was renting in Barron Park.

This is probably my favorite baseball card, all time.

later that day, at new Starbucks at Edgewood, near closing, first day of daylight savings…
1954 Topps Ted Williams

1954 Topps Duke Snider

1954 Topps Duke Snider

I had three 1956 Topps in that set, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson (my only Jackie Robinson) and a Roger Craig (some people call it a rookie card; I sent mine to him while he was the Giants skipper and asked him to pass on word to Mike Remlinger that he was the only guy with “Wah Hoo Wah” and “Humm Baby” on his side):

this is not my actual card

1959 Topps but in so-so shape:

I lost 7 Mayses all in, or all out, but at least I have several more from the sixties and seventies, 1963 thru 1972. It was the PSA article about “Mays sets” that inspired this bad body.
Here’s a better image

1959 Topps Sandy Koufax

1959 Topps Robin Roberts

1960 Topps Hank Aaron

1960 Topps Willie Mays

1960 Topps Sandy Koufax

1960 Topps Yogi Berra

1960 Topps Stan Musial

(I just noticed there are no 1961s in the grouping?)

1962 Mickey Mantle

1962 Topps Stan Musial

1962 Topps Willie Mays

These also have a pleasing post-media design

1962 Topps Roberto Clemente

1934 Goudey “Lou Gehrig Says” Lou Gehrig