Stopped last time at the twin Preston W's at #176. In the next section, the trend of matching subtle pairs while largely ignoring the big stars continues. And a lot of them could have been fixed.
Leading off, we have one of the prettiest cards in the '59 set, Yogi Berra. He's paired at #180 with his Yankee counterpart who also dons the Tools Of Ignorance. So we're starting off on the right foot at least.
Not sure if Matt Cain was a star yet, but Milt Graff was definitely not, bless his heart. At #182, the only match here is the color scheme.
Having Stu Miller - the NL ERA leader for '58 - one card away at #183 just makes it a miss.
The next cards match up perfectly. Reds star pitchers in the great black with yellow text scheme. Back on track at 184. Though Haddix only hurled for Cincy the one year, it's a nice coincidence that he matched up well here.
We've reached the #200 plateau. And again, since they don't include executives any more, the matchup is ignored here.
There was a new AL President in '59, so there isn't a corresponding card of him (Tom Yawkey for a year and then Joe Cronin), so that's the end of the executives.
Gallardo was known for being the 26th pitcher in MLB history to win a game 1-0 by pitching the shutout and hitting the home run himself. This doesn't quite make him executive material though.
Two more steps down the line and it's another disjointed union. #203 has Roger Maris (on the A's) and Nick Swisher with the ChiSox BEFORE he actually had his most productive years in New York pinstripes. Topps isn't psychic, so this one's a miss too.
#205 fares no better. Don Larsen and Milton Bradley?
While later on, Roy Halladay has no '59 partner either. He and Larsen both had similar wins and strikeout numbers in proportion to their seasons. Larsen came before the Cy Young award really got going.
Furillo at #206 isn't quite a superstar, but he's very easy to match to a modern counterpart, since there are three outfield positions to choose from.
Either of these guys would have worked...
Especially since Jones comes soon after at #212. Finally, a cardboard tribute to the "Jones brothers". Wonder if they considered matching the poses on the original cards? Doesn't seem like that got communicated to the photographers.
Another marginal matchup at #217. Pink pitchers. Maybe Erskine and Weaver are somehow alike...?
But with all these quality Dodger pitchers, couldn't it be one of them?
My PC guy Osteen at #224 matched with David Wright? No offense David, but ~ meh. The fence lines matching up with his uniform piping looks like he's got one of those braces on that they use for spinal injuries.
Not sure who you'd match with Wright, since there were no Mets yet, but this guy was up and coming from the Reds...
It's not gettin' any better at #225 either. Another Mets star mismatch.
And this guy was just brought in in 2008 to play short with the Braves. More on Pedro in a second.
At least the combo cards are keeping some semblance of relevance in this part of the sets. They've even brought the fonts closer to what they should be. Again, the star power in the modern version of #237 far outweighs the old one, at least from the perspective of 2020. Maybe those guys were revered as much back then as Jeets is now...?
Here's Halladay down at #246. Paired with a versatile yet irrelevant catcher from Washington.
So let me backtrack for a second. Back at #163, we had Koufax and Ausmus. If we switch out Halladay to Larsen, that opens up Ausmus to pair with Porter as versatile infielders that can catch. This also frees up Koufax to take his three Cy Youngs along to compare notes with Pedro, who has done it three times as well.
Early Wynn and Carlos Zambrano are good Chicago pitchers at 260, but it's blasphemy to match up North and South side rivals, isn't it?
Put this guy there instead. He put up several years of double digit wins like Wynn.
Ugh, even though they're both Dodger trios, the font thing has once again regressed into that smooshed look. And the names are twice as far from the title as in the previous combo. Fire the typesetter!
Two respected fan fave hitters at #268, but I'd have done it differently on both sides.
Tigers slugger outfielders...
...and White Sox sluggers and (at least part time in Thome's case) first basemen.
Much better!
In all fairness... Swish was a power hitting outfielder for the Athletics up through 2007. The fact that he eventually went to the Yankees like Maris is an added bonus.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'll give them credit for a bit of psychic-ness for Maris and Swisher. It makes perfect sense NOW, even though it didn't then. And subtly associating David Wright with spinal injuries was pretty psychic, too!
ReplyDeleteOf course if they had actually paired up Larsen and Halladay, that would have been even more psychic, as they would turn out to be the only pitchers to date to pitch no-hitters in the post-season!