Cardboard Fenway: 1959 Topps Marty Keough

Cardboard Fenway - #88. 1959 Topps Marty Keough

Here's Marty stealing a glance out to the field, like having his picture taken for his baseball card is some kind of torture. Notice the people milling around Fenway behind him.

Cardboard Fenway: 1959 Fleer Ted Williams "1941 – All Star Hero"

Cardboard Fenway - #45. 1959 Fleer Ted Williams "1941 – All Star Hero"

Here's Ted crossing home after smacking a homer in 1941's All-Star Game. While not at Fenway, Williams wore his home whites, as the game was played in Detroit.

Cardboard Fenway: 1959 Fleer Ted Williams "1950 - Great Start"

Cardboard Fenway - #57. 1959 Fleer Ted Williams "1950 – Great Start"

No cardboard celebration of Fenway Park is complete without at least one card featuring the front office.

1959 Topps Fence Busters (Malone–Ness)

What can I say? It's a card that should exist—Elliot Ness and Jim Malone: professional fence busters. And for a dollar? Cheap!

1948 - 1979 Countdown: #34. 1959 Fleer Ted WIlliams

Before Topps' institutionalized exaltation of players like Pete Rose, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, and Mickey Mantle, and Upper Deck's lavishly illustrated Baseball Heroes, hero worship was one of the many options in composing a baseball card set. Witness Fro Joy's 1928 Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig's face and facsimile signature on every card in the 1934 Goudey set. But most of all, feast your eyes on the big wet sloppy kiss on the lips that is Fleer's 80-card set from 1959: Baseball's Greatest, Ted Williams.

Six cards of a guy I can live with (that's about the length of a standard subset). And even 250 cards with Gehrig's little smirking face in the corner isn't bad (Gehrig is just part of the design, not the subject of each card). But 80 cards of the same player? You'd think that would be overkill. Of course, you'd be right. It turns out that you can form a pretty good picture of who Ted Williams was as a ballplayer with just five or six cards, not 80. And you really only need one card to form a solid image of who Ted Williams was as a human being: card #54, "Dec. 1954, Fisherman Ted Hooks a Big One."

From the back:
"Ted is an avid and expert fisherman. He devotes more time to fishing than anything else, except baseball. His status in the fishing world is as renowned as his status in the baseball world. Williams is particularly interested in game fish, such as marlin, tarpon or sailfish. On December 10, 1954 at Cabo Blanco in Peru, Ted caught the 8th largest black marlin ever landed with rod and reel. It weighed 1,235 lbs. Ted calls this 'my greatest fishing thrill.'

(The Best of the Set is Ted Signs for 1959 (card #68). It's by far and away the most valuable card in the set, and the most important for set collectors.)

Fleer made a big splash by signing Williams away from Topps in 1959, and they planned on getting their money's worth out of the deal. The set from 1959 was just the start of Teddy's cardboard coronation as he approached retirement. 1960 saw the first of two Baseball Greats sets of retired players, which lauded Williams as the brightest star among stars.

So then why, if 80 cards is overkill, does this set pull rank on a number of full-bodied sets made up of a season's worth of players? For a number of reasons, not the least being that it was the first post-war set of unabashed hero worship.

Fleer wasn't the first rival of Topps to sign away one of its major stars, but it was the first to do it after Topps swallowed Bowman in 1955. Also, it wasn't just a small-time regional star Fleer built around. It was Ted Williams, The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived. I don't know if this is a fair assessment, but if Fleer doesn't land Williams in '59, does it release baseball cards in 1960, 1961, and the aborted series in 1963? I'm not sure those other sets happen without Williams on board. Heck, the whole reason the Baseball Greats sets exist at all was to include cards of Williams as part of his contract.

Also, if this set didn't exist, I'd argue that subsequent hero worship would've looked a lot different. Remember, Topps' Babe Ruth Story subset in the 1962 set came on the heels of Williams' defection to Fleer (and Maris' record-breaking 61 home runs in 1961). Before the BRS subset, Topps had limited experience in the way of hero worship: they gave Ted Williams card #1 three times (1954, 1957, 1958) and within the first five in 1955 and 1956. The only other instance I can think of is Roy Campanella's post-accident 'Symbol of Courage' card (#550) in the 1959 set.

Following the BRS, hero worship was part of the Topps repertoire, to be used in 1974 with Hank Aaron, 1985 and 1986 with Pete Rose, 1990 with Nolan Ryan, and in the recent abyss composed of every Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds insert set the company has felt compelled to produce. All of these go back to the Babe Ruth Story subset in 1962 Topps, which in turns goes back to Fleer's 1959 set, Baseball's Greatest, Ted Williams.

Card Critic Review: 2008 Topps Heritage

Before I get into how much I like 1959 Topps (it’s by far the most brilliant Topps design of the early years, embracing jazz, beat, and a post-modernist pop culture sensibility within the staid, confines of baseball; plus it’s one of the few American card designs that was blatantly copied for a Japanese card set (1967 Kabaya Leaf, image shown from Rob's Japanese Cards)), I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: if it were up to me, this would be the last edition of Topps Heritage.

I have a few reasons. First, what does the word heritage mean? My cheap-ass dictionary has its meaning as valued objects and qualities such as cultural traditions, unspoiled countryside, and historic buildings that have been passed down from previous generations. So then by this definition, when exactly does the ‘unspoiled countryside’ era for Topps end? I think it has to end with 1959 (that’s when Fleer came on the market and stole Ted Williams). You could make a case that Fleer showing up in ’59 meant the same thing to Topps as the Bowman competition from 1951 to the buyout in 1955, but Topps/Fleer didn’t end the way Topps/Bowman ended and besides, Fleer is now owned by Upper Deck. You could also make the case that Fleer showing up really didn’t (and shouldn’t) mean very much when we’re talking about Topps Heritage, but I think that simply because there was competition (and that Topps doesn’t now own that competitor), no matter how hard Topps tried, their countryside was no longer unspoiled.

Second reason: If Heritage doesn’t end with the Fifties, it’ll end up being a runaway train. I’m a big fan of Topps design from the Sixties all the way up to 1978, but will collectors really want to go for Heritage ’78 in 2027? Maybe I’m in the minority, but I want Topps to be more original than Heritage by then. As a rejoinder to this point, there was an oft-maligned brand a few years ago called Upper Deck Vintage. These sets came out right when Heritage debuted, with Upper Deck pilfering the Topps design vault for three years worth of sets: 1963, 1965 and 1971 (and there was a fourth set, in 2004, but now I can’t remember what that set was supposed to emulate). The point of adding this is that you’ll get no argument from me that Heritage sets featuring these three designs wouldn’t be gorgeous, but Upper Deck’s beaten them to the punch. If anything, Topps should retire the name ‘Topps Heritage’ and call the remaining sets ‘Topps Classic.’

Third reason: A set like Heritage has to toe the line like other sets in today's variation-crazed environment. The intentional misprint and variation are enjoying renewed popularity these days at One Whitehall Street. No brand or set is safe, and Heritage is no exception. Black backs, misspelled names, alternate team uniforms—it’s a lot to pay attention to, especially in addition to the requisite Chrome, Refractors and black-bordered Chrome parallels, plus all the other inserts. And the short-printed cards, mustn’t forget about those… In the end it’s all so tiresome, you know? It almost feels like you have to peel away all these layers just to get to the set.

And that’s the rub: Heritage should first and foremost be about the set, but because it’s Topps (which is almost approaching a mid-Nineties-Fleer level in terms of number of different inserts competing for attention), and because it’s been created and released in the company’s current bells-and-whistles-and-hidden-shit environment, it’s not about the set.

Out of the four shrink-wrapped boxes sent over from Dave and Adam’s Card World (part of the D & A agreement with The Blog), I’ve opened three. Do I have a set? No. Should I? You’re goddamned right I should. 72 packs in and I’m missing at least 50 cards, plus God knows how many untold variations. And that’s just the base set. What’s the deal with that? For set builders, getting an insert in a pack means getting one less card towards completing the set. Add in a healthy amount of doubles and triples—anybody need a Russell Martin?—and very soon you’re in my position. In any case, even if this isn’t the last set we see out of Topps Heritage, it’s definitely the last new set I’ll collect.

It’s good to end on a high note, you know? For all the crap I just spewed about the inserts, the base Heritage ’59 set holds high notes in spades: The classic design; the checklist homage; the team card checklists; the titles of the combo cards; the color spectrum on the fronts; the return of the facsimile autograph; the stealth airbrushing; the rookie parade; the modern green on red (and even black on red) of the backs; the cartoons; the curves and e.e. cummings sans serif Helveltica typography in the spotlight on the front; the squares and straight lines dominating the backs. Even the photographs (usually a Heritage low point) are consistently sharp. The only noticeable drawback for me is the Heritage logo on the front. It seems larger within this design than it has in years past. It’s too bad they couldn’t have relegated it to the back or done it as a watermark.

I also like that the Topps photo editors didn’t shy away from going with photos that show just how pissed off, high or completely out of it a given player is, which rings true to the original photo choices made in 1959. A large number of players squinted their eyes and contemplated the universe in the original, while today's players all seem to be thinking You want me to stand look/stand where? It's great.

Tonight I re-read my review of 2006 Heritage, and while I had high hopes going in for that set and came away disappointed, it thrills me all the more that this year’s set is a winner. It’s a perfect way to retire a brand.