Hello again Twins fans! This is another post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please share your opinions, stories, comments, and memories below.

1977 Topps

Overall, I think it’s safe to say the mid to late 70s cards are not my favorite. But 1977 might be little better than the other sets of this era. Again, the Twins do not have a plethora of stars in the 1977 set. The 1977 Topps baseball card design is, I would say, good. I like the large team name, italicized, and outlined in black. In the case of Twins cards, the player names are in red and there is a yellow banner with the player’s position. I just don’t love it, maybe because of the photography. I don’t find many of the pictures interesting. There are 660 standard-sized cards in the set with 25 Twins cards including the Butch Wynegar rookie card. The images below are courtesy of www.tcdb.com.

MOST OBSCURE PLAYER

Similar to prior sets, I found about half a dozen possibilities for the most obscure Twins player in the this set. After extensive research, Jim Gideon is my choice for most obscure player in the 1977 Topps baseball card set.

This is Gideon’s one and only Topps card and he only gets a quarter of it. He’s not even the player on the card who ended up with the most significant Twins career – Dave Johnson pitched in 36 games for the Twins in 1977 and 1978 after being picked up from the Mariners part way through the 1977 season. Gideon never pitched for the Twins. In fact, his only MLB action was a single start with the Texas Rangers in 1975.

Gideon was born and raised in Texas. He went to the University of Texas where he was part of the 1975 team that won the College World Series. He was co-captain that season and was outstanding, finishing with a record of 17-0. No college pitcher has ever had more wins in a season when they had zero losses. He ultimately finished his college career with 40 wins. In 2000 he was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

To continue the Texas theme, the Rangers used their first-round draft pick to select Gideon in the 1975 draft. He made 13 AAA starts before starting that one MLB game on September 14, 1975. He pitched 5.2 innings giving up 7 hits, 5 walks, and 6 runs.

In the middle of the 1976 season, he was traded to the Twins. The details on that trade are summarized later in this blog entry. Because Gideon had been a first-round draft pick just the summer before, I would imagine he was seen as an integral part of the trade.

Gideon played in the Twins minor league system until 1979. He went back to the Rangers in 1982 playing for their AA team before retiring.

THE BEST

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Rod Carew #120 is the most valuable Twins card in the 1977 set. I also considered the Butch Wynegar rookie card #175. It’s got the rookie cup. Wynegar was a great player early in his career. He started out strong with all-star selections in his first two years, finishing second in rookie of the year voting in 1976. In 1977 he was only 21 years old, but the picture to me looks like he’s 15. Love that card, but I’m going with the Carew all-star card as the best Twins card of the year.

PERSONAL FAVORITE

The Roy Smalley card (#66) is my personal favorite Twins card in the 1977 set.

For the 1976 set, I selected the Dan Ford as my favorite Twins card in large part because of the facial hair. Was Smalley selected here based solely on the mustache? I have other reasons.

Growing up when I did, Smalley was my favorite player. He filled a void after Carew was traded before the 1979 season. Another reason I selected this as my favorite card for this series is related to memories of his trades. He was included in three trades involving the Twins and I think they won them all including the first one which was a big one.

• 1976: Traded by the Texas Rangers to the Twins with our friend Jim Gideon above, Mike Cubbage, and Bill Singer, for the disgruntled Bert Blyleven and Danny Thompson. The Twins received 25.8 WAR from that trade while the Rangers got 10.5.
• 1982: Traded by the Twins to the New York Yankees for Paul Boris, Ron Davis, and Greg Gagne. Smalley was worth 6.1 WAR with the Yankees. Despite Ron Davis sucking for his Twins career, the Twins still won that trade because Mr. Gagne became a key piece of their 1987 and 1991 World Series championship teams. Gagne was a great fielder. If he could have laid off the low and away curve/slider maybe he would have been a good hitter as well. He did have some pop, hitting 111 home runs in his career. He achieved a 17.9 WAR with the Twins.
• 1985: Traded by the Chicago White Sox to the Twins for Ron Scheer and Randy Johnson. The Twins won this trade too. While Smalley was winding down his career, he still provided 2.1 of WAR. He was a valuable backup infielder, DH, and pinch hitter on the 1987 World Series team. Scheer never made it to MLB. Randy Johnson, who I for some reason loved in 1982, also never made it back to the major league level.

There you go fans. In my judgment the 1977 design is better than the 1976 design. To me, a lot of these late 70s sets run together. We’ll see shortly how the 1978 and 1979 sets stack up.

As always, I would love to see your opinions and comments below. And Go Twins.