1975 Hostess Marichal, Cooper

Nineteen seventy-five was a watershed year for a few reasons:

1) I was born;
2) The Red Sox went to the World Series;
3) Hostess began its five-year run of baseball cards.

Any baseball fan who grew up in the 1970s likely has fond memories of chowing through a combination of flour, artificial chocolate flavoring and high-fructose corn syrup while cutting a Pete Rose or Mike Schmidt off a box of Hostess dessert-like product. Of course, any youngster with a Hostess card was likely to "adorn" it with jagged edges and cupcake stains. It may have ruined the monetary value, but likely sent the nostalgia value through the roof. 

Here are a couple of '75 Hostess cards that didn't make the cut: past-his-prime Hall of Famer Juan Marichal, who pitched for the Sox in '74, and first baseman Cecil Cooper, who went on to greater success with the Brewers from 1977-87 while the Sox plowed through a half-dozen or so first basemen. 

Marichal-with-the-Sox is a popular fantasy card subject, but I'm pretty certain this is his first Hostess creation. Have some Ho-Hos and celebrate!

1955 Topps Sammy White

Since we're having so much fun with Red Sox catchers lately, let's do another one. Sammy White was sort of the poor man's Jason Varitek -- his offensive numbers were far from Tek's level, but by all accounts he was a master at handling a pitching staff, a la Tek. You can read more about Mr. White here.

White was a Bowman exclusive in '54 and '55, which gives me a chance to create a Topps card for him. The head shot is same one used in the '56 Topps set, while the "action" shot is from one those glorious TCMA old-timers sets from the 1970s-80s. God, I loved those cards. Good, cheap quasi-unlicenesed cards of good-to-great players ... Excuse me, I have to go buy some now.

1981 Topps Traded Rich Gedman

The early days of Topps Traded emphasized traded players (whatta shock) and free agents over rookies. It appears once Topps ditched multi-player rookie cards in '83, the call was made to add more rookies (Darryl Strawberry, anyone?) in the Traded set, after which the traded/free agent players merely got in the way while collectors tore through the boxes in search of those Joe Slusarski RCs. 

Which may explain why Rich Gedman, the pride of Worcester, Mass., was ignored by Topps even though he was called up in May of '81 and played well enough to be named rookie of the year by The Sporting News (remember good ol' TSN?). Gedman went on to become a two-time all-star while replacing the enormous cleats of Carlton Fisk, who left for the White Sox as a free agent in '81.

Gedman's career, of course, was all but destroyed by collusion and injuries in 1987, and he was just kinda there the last few years of his career. These days, he's the hitting instructor for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

One other tidbit about Geddy: He was completely passed over in the 1977 draft and was signed by the Sox as a free agent that year. He has to be one of the better undrafted Americans in the draft era to make it with the Sox.

2001 Topps Heritage Jason Varitek

As many of you know, Jason Varitek didn't sign a Topps contract until 2007, and thus didn't appear on any Topps cards before then, with the exception of his 1992 Traded issue in his Team USA uniform. (The story I heard years ago was that he was so put off by the photographer in '92, he refused to sign a Topps contract, but who knows.)

This is the first of a number of Varitek Heritage cards I have "in the can." You know what's weird about the '01 Heritage set, at least from a Sox standpoint? The "base" team set -- that is, the non-short prints -- weighs in at a whopping two cards, Manny Ramirez and the immortal Wilton Veras (or I called him, Wiltin' Badly). The other 16 Boston cards are jammed into the short-printed high number series, which is 16 more than the number of Yankee SPs. (On the other hand, the Mets base team set is one card -- Timo Perez -- and the other 17 cards are SPs.) Sounds like someone at Topps reallllly liked the Red Sox, huh? 

1974 Topps Jim Rice

A little while back, we looked at the mythical 1974 Fred Lynn card. Here's the version for his Gold Dust Twin, Jim Rice. I used a photo from the 1987 Kmart boxed-set card (see below), one of the few Rice pix out there with the pullover jersey and blue hat, which the Sox wore from 1972-74 and again in spring training '79. I dunno, I always thought it was a strange combo. I've always identified the pullover shirts with the red hats, and one without the other is just ... wrong.

 

Much like pig and elephant DNA, red Red Sox hats and button-down jerseys
just don't splice.

1967 Topps Mike Andrews and Reggie Smith

This is the first in a number of '67 Sox fantasy cards in the can, and we'll start with Mike Andrews, a second baseman good enough to crack Bill James' top 100 second sackers of all time in his New Historical Baseball Abstract despite a short (893-game) career. It's too bad everything he's done -- member of the '67 Sox, chairman of the Jimmy Fund -- is still overshadowed by the whole Charlie Finley b.s. in the '73 World Series with the A's.

Andrews shares a rookie card with Reggie Smith, which is a double bonus for Sox fans. But two players of this quality deserve their own individual cards. The Andrews photo is from the '68 Dexter Press set, which is a source for some of the "New and Improved" cards you'll see here.

Smith has always been a favorite of mine, even though he always seemed to be feuding with his teammates (Carlton Fisk, Bill Lee, etc.) and fans (calling Boston a racist city during the busing crisis, and I believe he had to wear a helmet in the outfield because the fans were so angry at him). By '74, he was in St. Louis, although the Sox did receive two keys to the '75 team (Bernie Carbo, Rick Wise) in return. 

It's actually amazing all the talented players the Sox dumped during Dick O'Connell's time as GM -- Smith, Jim Lonborg, George Scott, Tony Conligliaro, Sonny Siebert, Hawk Harrelson -- but the team was able to stay above .500 thanks to a kick-arse farm system.

According to baseball-reference.com, the most similar player to Smith is the guy who soon took his center field spot in Boston -- Fred Lynn.

1990 Bowman Jeff Bagwell

The Red Sox hosted the Astros not too long ago, and of course, the Jeff Bagwell-for-Larry  "Why Do People Park in the Driveway and Drive in the Parkway" Andersen trade came up. Jerry Remy's line: "That one didn't work out too well, did it? ... Lou Gorman!" 

What irked me about the trade was that Gorman, the Red Sox GM, went on and on about needing to improve the bullpen, when he had two closers -- Lee Smith and Jeff Reardon -- to start the season.  I still don't know why he even signed Reardon in the first place when he had the younger Smith doing perfectly well. Perhaps Gorman was blinded by Reardon's '87 World Series ring.

Then he traded Smith and Reardon got hurt. Oops.

I'm still shocked Topps whiffed on a 1990 Bagwell card in its Bowman line, passing him over for future Cooperstown hopefuls such as Greg Blosser, Mickey "Three Major League Cards, Zero Major League Games" Pina and Mike Rochford. I took this New Britain picture and Gimp-ed a Boston "B" on it, a la the earlier Fred Lynn card.

1974 Topps Fred Lynn

One goal of this blog is to create "pre-rookie" cards of Red Sox players before the resuscitated Bowman brand came along and gave a "major league" card to every Greenville or Salem player with half a pulse.

Here's Fred Lynn with the Pawtucket Red Sox in 1974. I Gimp-ed a Boston "B" over the original "P" on his cap. Here's the original image, from the Paw Sox' 25th anniversary set:

I had no idea the Paw Sox used a generic "P" in the early days until I saw this pic.

Lynn was called up to the Red Sox late in the '74 season and, of course, turned into Jesus in Spikes in '75.

1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

On June 20, 1995, at approximately 5:15 p.m., about 20 million Americans stopped what they were doing, looked up and decided they weren't baseball card collectors any more.

OK, that's not what really happened, but the hobby did experience a serious drop-off around that time. While many people blamed (and still blame) the decline for the 1994-95 strike, i've always attributed it to:

1) Too many damn sets;

2) High pack prices. A 50-cent pack in 1992 was a buck minimum in '95. Were you making twice was much in '95 as you were three years earlier?

(In all fairness, you can make a pretty good argument that thanks to the interwebs, there's never been a better time to be a collector than right here, right now.)

Which brings us to Upper Deck's base-brand 1995 Collector's Choice set. It's a nice little set, but the player selection mostly reflects the fractured 1994 season. If you were sick of the Boys of Butch Hobson and wanted something with the latest trades/rookies/free agent signings, you had to turn to one of the Deck's pricer offerings. 

Let's fix that. 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the damnedest Red Sox team to ever reach the postseason. You hear about teams practicing rent-a-player? The '95 Sox were rent-a-team.  So many former stars and former semi-stars shuffled through town that year, you couldn't keep track of them even with a scorecard. The Sox under then-GM Dan Duquette always had three teams -- one coming, one going and one playing -- but his ways seemed to take on goofy proportions in '95-96. 

So here are some blink-and-you'll-miss-em '95 Sox who finally get a Collector's Choice card, plus Tim Wakefield, whose extraordinary 17-year run with the Sox started that year. Chris Donnels, we hardly knew ye.