Trade Offs

One of my favorite things about Topps back in the Seventies and Eighties was that if a player got traded mid-way through the season, or perhaps right before the cards went to press, then that player’s hat had to be changed, often badly, as is the case of Reid Nichols here in 1986. Nichols was traded by the Red Sox to the White Sox mid way through 1985, probably because he and Dwight Evans looked too much alike. Anyway, why Topps didn’t just issue him in a Red Sox uniform in 1986 and then include him in the Traded set in a White Sox uniform I’ll never understand.

Topps didn’t toy with the collector’s ability to suspend disbelief in the Sixties, they just tried to pick a photo where that player wasn’t wearing something that might identify him with his former team, though sometimes that couldn’t be avoided (see Maury Wills’ card from the 1969 set—he’s still obviously a Pirate, despite the Expos team name emblazoned under his name). Another one of the ways they combated late-season movement was by just removing a logo from the player’s hat (see Ray Culp’s 1969 card).

In the Seventies, Topps did pretty well with the Traded tack-ons in 72, 74 and 1976. Why they didn’t do this every year is a mystery.