Ranking 1970s Topps Baseball Cards : How Dare I? Do I Dare?

 

Have you ever felt like you were doing something out of your element?

            Okay…maybe not that.

            After all, this is a sports card blog, and I am going to write about sport cards.

            Or maybe you’re writing about/doing something you maybe SHOULDN’T be doing?

            Hmmmm, I don’t feel that way either.

            Not really.

            Okay, the thing is…I’m going to be ranking 1970s Topps Baseball card on the blog today. My favorite to my least favorite. Totally my opinions and you are happy to disagree with me. In fact, disagreement in encouraged. It’s discourse.

            We still believe in discourse in America, right?

            So why all of the stressing?

            Well…see…I didn’t collect cards in the 1970s. I was all of five when the decade ended. I wasn’t one of those kids who ripped open the colorful cornucopia of colors in 1975 or did my best to keep my 1971 cards in as good of condition as I could. I wasn’t wowed by the psychedelic awesomeness of 1972, or those interesting action shot of 1973.

            No, I’m a product of 1980s collecting. 1980 itself to be exact. My card are the Junk Wax Era cards. That’s my time. That’s when I thrived in The Hobby. Obsessed over The Hobby. Blew every damned nickel and dime (you could still buy cards in the 1980s using those) on The Hobby.

            What business did I have ranking 1970s cards?

            Well…a lot…I think.

            1970s cards were everywhere when we were kids. You met with/traded with a collector a year or two older than you, and they were bound to have 1970s cards in their collections. Some kid your age has an older sibling who collected? Boom…1970s cards. Most of the bourgeoning LCS that me and my friends found ourselves racing into, their stock of common cards were primarily from the 1970s. I lusted over 1970s sports card like any kid desirous of that which came before him. Sometimes I wanted 1970s cards (and 1960s and 1950s cards) more than the stuff I was opening on a regular basis.

            I think I have a lot of business talking about and ranking 1970s Topps baseball cards.

            So without further ado…let’s get this show on the road.

 

1.      1976 Topps

            If someone who’d never seen a baseball card said to me, show me the quintessential baseball card, I’d show them 1976 Topps. This year is my favorite of the decade. I’m a man of simple pleasures and it doesn’t get simpler than a nice big photo, a solid white border, a thin colored border, then two bars at the end for the player’s name and team. And how about that little drawing that lists the player’s position?

            Sheer perfection in my book.

            I’ve known some collectors who consider 1976 Topps boring. And that’s…fine. I’d go with modest or unpretentious, but certainly still a beautiful card. The Johnny Bench card above is not only one of the best baseball card photos ever, but also one of my favorite baseball cards ever. The dust hasn’t even settled on whatever play just happened. It’s a great photo of one of baseball’s most badass catchers of all-time. And the simplicity of the card itself, allows for the image to really stand out.

            And the card back! I just really think the card back is…er...groovy. Yeah, yeah is standard Topps green but having that bat and ball design as the only real decorative addition also fits into my simple, modest, unpretentious yet completely elegant design that Topps was doing in the year of our lord 1976. It’s just a solid, well-done card that makes me feel like a collector, like I could’ve been one of those kids back in ’76 ripping them right out of packs and loving the heck out of this set.

            I’m actually trying to build it….am about 200 cards in.

1977 Topps

            Well, I said I liked it simple. I said I liked it modest and without pretention. You don’t get as modest as a card that’s mostly white border. But it’s what 1977 Topps does with that border that matters to me. I love that the border is top-heavy. I love that the team names are in big, bold writing with the player’s name just a little less prominent right below it. We get that small pennant vibe that often shows up on baseball cards, revealing the player’s position. And below that top-heavy border, the rest of the card is given over to the photograph.

            To me, 1977 Topps cards look like comic book covers.

            Sports stars are kinda superheroes, right?

            Before 1976 Topps caught my eye, 1977 had probably been my favorite of the decade for years. If I were born in 1977, I’d proudly be collecting my birth year set. No slouching on 1974…but…come on, man! The Rod Carew care is a personal favorite. I think I told a story about buying one once. Or my friend, Miller, buying it. When I met Miller, he was a huge Rod Carew fan. So, I became a huge Rod Carew fan, although I’d never seen him play, and had no clue he played for anyone but the California Angels. When I saw this 1977 card for the first time my eyes bugged out. Carew? A Twin?

            I’ve been a fan of that year’s style ever since.

            Now, the back of the card.

            Another simple design. More Topps green, although less saturated with the dye than 1976. The cards have a little comic box with a bit of baseball trivia. There’s one facet of the card that in all my years of collecting and loving 1977 cards, I never realized, until I listened to Matt Sammon’s awesome, and sadly missed, Wax Ecstatic podcast. It’s the little stands at the bottom of that card that make the stat line look like it’s a billboard you’d see on the side of the road. Topps designers even added little patches of grass.

            A classic design.

 1978 Topps

            That script team name. That bold color borders. The great photography…come on, isn’t this Reggie card iconic? The orange backs with navy blue trimming. The play ball game too. 1978 Topps baseball is one again one of those I wish I was around to rip in wax pack form. I mean as a collector. I was around. But I was four.

            I’ve been a fan of this design my whole entire collecting life, and even those years when I wasn’t collecting and came across cards. Topps doesn’t seem to use the 1978 design in many of its Archive or other throwback inserts…and that’s fine with me. I like that we don’t get much 1978 retread. It keeps the set special for me. Makes that Reggie card all the more iconic. My Eddie Murray rookie card all the more special.

            And see what I mean about those backs? The orange and darker blue really play off each other to give the card a crispness and clarity that some of the green and black ink backs of the seventies don’t.

            Another winner from a great decade of cards.

 

1972 Topps

            Groovy! Come on get happy! Far out! There are two sets in the 1970s that scream 1970s for me and 1972 is one of those sets. I love the psychedelic, acid-washed, black-light poster-on-your-wall feel of the front design. 1972 has a lot of color but it isn’t overwhelming. Topps took a step-back on the action that year, and that’s fine with me. I like the In-action cards for what they are. And, in taking a step back, you get great posed photography like the Henry Aaron card. Or, my favorite card from that set, the Roberto Clemente card.

            Its solemn, it’s sad, it The Great One eyes cast downward and focus on the ball bouncing in and out of his hand. It’s like an eerie, unintended foreshadowing to the fact that Roberto would be gone by the end of that year.

            The backs of the card help complete the picture too. 1972 Topps gave the decade it’s first taste of the rich, orange backs that would be repeated in the aforementioned 1978 Topps. I like the way the stats are bordered around the white. Both the front photo and back statistic feel almost like coat of arms to me.

            Groovy to the max.

            I think these cats would approve.

1971 Topps

    Another Icon of the decade. Maybe in the running for the icon Topps design of the decade. The all-black bordered, hard-to-find-in-good-shape 1971 Topps Baseball card. I know my Clemente card is pretty beat-up. But I love it because its one of the few cards that I kept from my youth when I initially stopped collecting in 1992. All of the shades and colors really add to my enjoyment of that year’s brand. The black contrasts really fantastically with the bold colors of both the team name, the player’s name, and even the position. If you’re a Pirates fan like me, on the 1971 design Three Rivers Stadium really begins to make its presence felt on the cards. Yeah, it’s a cookie-cutter…but it’s where I saw nearly all of my professional baseball when I was a kid.

            Now the backs….eh…the backs of 1971 Topps. There iconic as well. I believe this is the first time in Topps history that an image of the player was used on the back of the card as well as the front. And…I like it. But you know what I’d rather have instead? The players full career statistics instead of just the 1970 season and their career totals. I’m funny like that. Probably why I never truly enjoyed the backs of Donruss cards either.

 

1974 Topps

            My birth year…and a pretty good year for Topps baseball cards as well. The action shots at least a step up. The Pete Rose card is probably one of my favorite images on a 1970s Topps card. It’s not ’78 Reggie or ’76 Bench for me, but I’ve always been drawn to it. 

          In 1985 Fleer liked the image so much they tried to make one of their own

        Topps has used banners or pennants or what-have-you designs on their cards before, most notably 1965 Topps, another favorite of mine, but I do like the way the banner-border top and bottoms the card for the team name. Both city and team.

            That said…I have a pretty sordid history with this set so…

            As for the backs. I don’t particularly think there’s anything special about the backs of 1974 Topps cards. It’s your standard green ink coupled with a darker ink. I like the player’s signature added on the back with the player’s name in print. Beats it being on the front of the card, like Topps was about to do on and off for the rest of the decade and into the early 1980s. 

1975 Topps

            The other set from the 1970s that SCREAMS 1970s to me, is 1975 Topps. I don’t want this to be a controversial opinion…and maybe it isn’t. But I’m not, and never have been, wowed by 1975 Topps baseball cards. Though I can understand the fandom. And I love watching my fellow hobbyist get cards from the 1975 set or try and finish the 1975 set in regular and mini form.

            Topps had mini cards in 1975...which I'm not really a big fan of either.

            If 1975 Topps baseball typifies or SCREAMS the 1970s, as I’ve opined; then why am I not its biggest fan. It’s simple. There’s too much color in the set. Wherein I think 1972 gets the color and the so-called flamboyance of the era right, 1975 feels gaudy. I’m not a big fan of the two-tone borders. Though I do like the bold way the team name is on top of the card. When I was trying to get 1970s cards as I kid, ’75 was just always the design I shied away from spending my money on.  Even as an adult collector, any guys who had cards in the 1970s that I PC, their 1975 card tends to be one of my last purchases…or I haven’t even purchased it at all yet.

            Now the backs…

            I’m actually a fan of the back of 1975 cards. More so than I am the front. The red, green, pink and white combo feels totally original to me. Or I’m just enamored with the way it looks. I know, I know, it seems wrong to be so meh about the front design of 1975 Topps baseball but to be an advocate for the back of the cards. I feel you.

            But I can’t help how I feel.

 

1979 Topps

            Believe it or not, 1979 Topps used to be one of my favorite cards designs. This was the set the kids a year or so older than me had a ton of when I started collecting in 1980. This meant I wanted 1979 Topps cards. Would trade what I could to get them. Thought about 1979 cards. Lamented over the fact that I wasn’t a year older and could’ve started collecting cards in 1979. Based on my sermonizing on simplicity, 1979 Topps baseball card should probably still be on of my favorite sets.

            But it’s not.

            There’s simplicity and then there’s out and out boring. And that’s what 1979 feels like to me. It feels boring. Phoned in. It’s the only set of the decade that has to put the big Topps logo right there on the front of the card. Guess Fleer was really breathing down their neck by that time. You’d think they’d want to have something more exciting than a photo, a plain white border…and…a banner?

            Is that a banner?

            As for the back of the cards? 

            Meh. Topps has been there and done that so many times that decade with a green back, some card stock gray, and choose your dark ink. And 1979 seems the least inspired of all of them.

 1970 Topps

            I…I didn’t really know where to put 1970 Topps on this list. I know that it isn’t one of my favorite sets. But I don’t know that it’s my second to least favorite set. The worse I can say about it is that it’s kind of a dull card, albeit with a gray instead of white border, with some mostly un-exciting picture of players. If I have a reason for liking the cards, its for the fact that 1970s Topps is the last set that will show the Pittsburgh Pirates in their short-sleeved jerseys and the all-black hat that they wouldn’t bring back until 1987. It’s the last set to really show Forbes Field in the background.

            Like 1975…I LOVE the back design on the 1970 Topps baseball set. The blue and yellow on the white card stock really stands out in contrast the rather drab front side of the card.

 

1973 Topps

            And last but not least…1973 Topps. You know how all the way up above I said I was a man who preferred a simple design. Quite a number of words later, I still do adhere to that way of thinking. But then there’s 1973 Topps baseball. With its overwhelming white border. With action shots that look like they were taken with a camera on zoom from up in peanut heaven. With a just not that exciting design, placed in the decade between one of Topps best offerings (1972) and a pretty solid 1974 set.

            The only thing that ever sells me on 1973 Topps is that Wille Mays and, sadly Roberto Clemente have their last official cards in that set.

            It’s also last Topps set to be sold in series form until 1993.

            But I do like the 1973 card backs. 

            I like the black and gold motif, which I don’t think Topps used again until the Art Deco backs on their 1990 release. I like that the stats are vertical instead of horizontal…something I also like about the 1975 backs. But its not enough to sell me on a rather dull card with sophomoric action photography.

 

            Whew…okay…so I did it. But did I do it well? Is there someone sitting at home reading, saying “stick to the 1980s and leave the 1970s Topps releases out of your mouth, punk!” Look, I will say this: ranking anything is hard. And for the 1970s baseball releases and me, it’s doubly card. Ranking best to worst in a decade where I thought Topps really tried to flip their game on its head is maybe a fools game. And as I said above, I’m completely enamored with this decade and its card releases. They’re all legendary to me.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY:  Russell Streur will be back for Memorial Day Weekend with a piece on collecting Milwaukee baseball cards....Hmmm...does the Bucco fan in me approve of that? I'm sure you're all going to love it. It'll be good to have Russell back!