1976 Topps Traded: The Missing Cards - #115T Ken Holtzman (part 2)

I'm calling this Missing Card "part two" because Holtzman was traded twice in 1976: in April from the A's to the Orioles as part of the Reggie Jackson trade, and then at the June trade deadline to the Yankees. To see the front of "part one," check out our Facebook page.

(And yes, I plan on creating backs and pairing them with fronts in a permanent gallery page when the "Missing Cards" project is complete.)

1976 Topps Traded: The Missing Cards - #481T Rudy May

For a team destined to finish 10.5 games behind the first-place Yankees, the Baltimore Orioles were busy in 1976. All told, 10 players joined the team that year, including the Dude, Rudy May. May was part of a great acquisition for the O's—netting them an everyday catcher and rainout-entertainment extraordinaire in Rick Dempsey, a young Scott MacGregor, and reliever Tippy Martinez—even though the team sent Doyle Alexander, Ken Holtzman, three sacks of rice, and 20 head of cattle to New York to get it done.

1976 Topps Traded: The Missing Cards - #500T Reggie Jackson

Charlie Finley's decision to dismantle his championship-winning A's still stings the heart of the baseball fan. No team should be blown up in so public a way: first Reggie was dealt to the Orioles, then the fire sale at the trade deadline in June... it's enough to make an Oakland fan root for the team across the bay. And then, to add insult to injury, the team actually competed in spite of its owner's wrangling, so the added spare parts towards the end of the season hurt all the more when they didn't work out (Nate Colbert, Willie McCovey, Ron Fairly). Painful stuff.

Had Jackson been traded sometime before Christmas 1975, this "Missing Card" would've been an amazing inclusion in the Traded series of 1976.

The Heritagical Zipper

I've always liked the Heritage inserts from 1992 and 1993 Donruss Studio, but never really found any in my packs. Today I found five from the 1992 set in the quarter bin at my local shop, including this excellent card of Cal Ripken Jr. donning this "historical" zip-up Cooperstown Collection varsity jacket retailing at the O's team shop at Camden Yards for $139.95—uh, priceless original, probably game-used, yeah, game-used uniform of the St. Louis Browns.

Let's say you were in charge of one of the most compelling insert sets of the year, and you had two options: work the phones, pull some strings, and get real honest-to-goodness old, original uniforms for the superstars to don, or... see if the Sports Authority is open and go down there with your camera, the smokey backdrop you found whilst dumpster-diving behind the Sears, and a few guys in tow.


Hey Cal, just hide the tags on that zip-up replica jersey, we probably only got one shot at this before security comes.