Al from SoDak

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.

Hey Twins fans! This is the sixth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please share your opinions, stories, comments, and memories below.
1976 Topps
Well, I feel like this entry is a bit of a dud. Few star players and few interesting cards. The 1976 Topps baseball card design is just OK in my opinion. I do like the colored bars on the bottom of the card showing the name of the player and team. I also like the player silhouette, but overall, I can’t say it’s one of my favorite designs. The 1976 set has 660 cards with 28 Twins cards including rookie cards of Dan Ford and Lyman Bostock among others. The images below are courtesy of www.tcdb.com.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
I found about half a dozen possibilities for the most obscure Twins player in the 1976 Topps set. After extensive review, my choice is pitcher Jim Hughes.

Hughes was born and raised in California and was drafted by the Twins in the 33rd round of the 1969 draft. He was used primarily as a starting pitcher working his way up through the minor leagues. He debuted in September of 1974, starting two games and completing one. In 1975 and 1976 he was a member of the Twins’ starting rotation. He started 34 games in 1975 and had a winning record of 16-14 pitching 249.2 innings. He had an amazing May of that season being named American League Player of the Month (this was prior to the existence of the separate Pitcher of the Month award). During that magical month he was an incredible 6-0, with five complete games and two of which were shutouts. In the other game he pitched, he entered in the third inning and gave up no runs the rest of the way and picked up the win. What a month!
Hughes went 9-14 in 1976, then pitched only two games in April 1977 before being sent to AAA Tacoma for the remainder of the season. He would pitch two more years in the American minor leagues and one season the Mexican League in 1980. It seems arm troubles ended his career (https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Jim_Hughes_(hugheji03)). Seems like he was quite the flash in the pan – one great month, but what a month it was.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #400 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. And I agree it’s probably the best card in the set. It’s an interesting picture of Carew in the dugout with the AL All Star label. Carew has probably the best Twins card in many of the 1970s sets. Boring, I know.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
My favorite Twins card in the 1976 set is the all-star rookie cup card of Disco Dan Ford (#313). That choice may be based solely on the sideburns alone. And is it just me or did athletes, heck maybe even all people, just look way older in the 70s? I feel like Ford looks about 35 in this picture; he was 24.

There you have it folks, a review of the Twins cards in the 1976 Topps set. This is the shortest blog entry in my series. I’m sorry to say I don’t find 1976’s Topps design to be particularly interesting and in my judgment most of the pictures on the cards are dull. If you disagree, please, I would love to see your opinions and comments below. And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the sixth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please share your opinions, stories, comments, and memories below.
1976 Topps
Well, I feel like this entry is a bit of a dud. Few star players and few interesting cards. The 1976 Topps baseball card design is just OK in my opinion. I do like the colored bars on the bottom of the card showing the name of the player and team. I also like the player silhouette, but overall, I can’t say it’s one of my favorite designs. The 1976 set has 660 cards with 28 Twins cards including rookie cards of Dan Ford and Lyman Bostock among others. The images below are courtesy of www.tcdb.com.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
I found about half a dozen possibilities for the most obscure Twins player in the 1976 Topps set. After extensive review, my choice is pitcher Jim Hughes.

Hughes was born and raised in California and was drafted by the Twins in the 33rd round of the 1969 draft. He was used primarily as a starting pitcher working his way up through the minor leagues. He debuted in September of 1974, starting two games and completing one. In 1975 and 1976 he was a member of the Twins’ starting rotation. He started 34 games in 1975 and had a winning record of 16-14 pitching 249.2 innings. He had an amazing May of that season being named American League Player of the Month (this was prior to the existence of the separate Pitcher of the Month award). During that magical month he was an incredible 6-0, with five complete games and two of which were shutouts. In the other game he pitched, he entered in the third inning and gave up no runs the rest of the way and picked up the win. What a month!
Hughes went 9-14 in 1976, then pitched only two games in April 1977 before being sent to AAA Tacoma for the remainder of the season. He would pitch two more years in the American minor leagues and one season the Mexican League in 1980. It seems arm troubles ended his career (https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Jim_Hughes_(hugheji03)). Seems like he was quite the flash in the pan – one great month, but what a month it was.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #400 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. And I agree it’s probably the best card in the set. It’s an interesting picture of Carew in the dugout with the AL All Star label. Carew has probably the best Twins card in many of the 1970s sets. Boring, I know.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
My favorite Twins card in the 1976 set is the all-star rookie cup card of Disco Dan Ford (#313). That choice may be based solely on the sideburns alone. And is it just me or did athletes, heck maybe even all people, just look way older in the 70s? I feel like Ford looks about 35 in this picture; he was 24.

There you have it folks, a review of the Twins cards in the 1976 Topps set. This is the shortest blog entry in my series. I’m sorry to say I don’t find 1976’s Topps design to be particularly interesting and in my judgment most of the pictures on the cards are dull. If you disagree, please, I would love to see your opinions and comments below. And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fifth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. This post is in a little different order than prior posts. Because I tend to dive most deeply into the most obscure player of the set (we all know about Tony, the Killer, and Carew not to mention Puckett, Hrbek, Mauer, and Morneau), this post will start with a write up of the player I deem to be most obscure in this set. Also “best” and “favorite” might be the same card, hence no different write up. If my favorite is different than the best, I will certainly say so. In previous posts, I struggled to differentiate between best and favorite. That’s not the case for the 1973 Topps, my favorite is definitely different from the best (which, I’m sorry tends to trend toward the most valuable).
Anyway, here we go…
1973 Topps
I love the look of the 1973 Topps baseball cards – the black border on the picture, the white border of the cards, and especially the silhouette of the player and his position in the lower right corner. The player’s name and team are listed at the bottom of the card. These cards are the standard 2.5” x 3.5” which started in 1957. The complete set has 660 cards. The Twins have 29 cards in this set including two variations of #49, the Frank Quilici manager card with his coaches. One of the variations has palm trees in the backgrounds for two of the coaches. www.PSAcard.com states the values of the two variations are the same and the number of each variation graded by PSA are similar.
               
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
The 1973 Topps set has about half a dozen decent options for the most obscure Twins Player in the set, but one of these never played for the Twins. Meet Mr. Ken Reynolds.

Reynolds was originally drafted by Philadelphia in the fourth round of the 1966 draft. He was primarily a starting pitcher in their minor leagues. He started 25 games in 1971 and 23 games in 1972 for bad to awful Phillies teams. He had a crazy bad record of 2-15 in 1972. Reynolds came to the Twins in a November 1972 trade. The Twins traded fan favorite and future Twins Hall of Famer Cesar Tover for Joe Lis, Ken Sanders, and Reynolds. It seems like Philadelphia won that trade but it wasn’t robbery. Tovar played only one season for the Phillies and had a WAR of 0.9 WAR. The players the Twins received totaled -1.4 for the time they played for the Twins. That -1.4 WAR does not include Reynolds as he never played for the Twins and was traded to the Brewers in March 1973 for Mike Ferraro. Ferraro also never played for the Twins and the organization released him in May. Reynolds had a 7.36 ERA in two games for the Brewers. Reynolds later pitched for the Cardinals in 1975 and the Padres in 1976, finishing his MLB career with a 7-29 record. He stuck around the minor leagues until 1979.
An interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Ken Reynolds was that he played for the Hawaii Islanders in 1976 which was a AAA team and part of the Pacific Coast League. I went to Hawaii three weeks ago. It took me 4-5 after coming home to readjust to the time change. It seems like having Hawaii in a North American league would make travel exciting but brutal for those minor leaguers who experienced it. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Islanders, the Hawaii Islanders were surprisingly part of the PCL from 1961 thought 1987. I found the entire Wikipedia entry to be fascinating and would encourage your perusal. Hall of Famers Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn played for the Islanders. This is something this blog series has done for me, introduce me to interesting parts of the game I never knew.
THE BEST
The Rod Carew #330 is the most valuable Twins card in this set. I like the stance, the pose, the background, and just the general look of this card. And I just love the look of this set in general.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
There’s something about the Tony Oliva card (#80). I think it’s a great picture, great pose, and mine is autographed (with his phenomenal signature). In the 1960s, there are many players photographed standing in Yankee Stadium with an inauthentic stance or pose. Tony’s stance may not be overly competitive but the pose, to me, looks better than average. But it’s not my favorite card.

The Harmon Killebrew (#170) is one of my favorite autographed cards in my entire collection (again, an exceptional autograph). This action shot seems to show an aggressive stance like he’s ready to release his energy and hit a blast. Where is he? The catcher’s red and blue pant stripes and the stadium background suggests Cleveland to me. I’m not sure. What do you think? I love this picture. But it’s not my favorite card.

As an aside, seriously, whose autograph is better Oliva or Killebrew? I’ve heard many say Killebrew’s signature is the best, but Tony O’s is similarly clear, legible, and smooth. Please share your opinion below.
Even though I have those two autographed cards of Hall of Fame players, neither ranks as my favorite Twins card from 1973. That honor easily belongs to another Hall of Famer – the #530 card of Jim Kaat. I think it’s absolutely awesome that Topps chose a photograph of a pitcher, Mr. Jim Kaat, batting. I love that this 1973 Topps card was issued, ironically, during the first year of the Designated Hitter. American League pitchers simply did not bat in 1973. Kaat could probably be considered a very good hitting pitcher. He batted .185 in his 25-year career, .289 in 1972, and .375 in 1981 (but only 8 at bats). I love all of that, which makes this my favorite Twins card in the 1973 Topps set.

Please, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. I really want to know. Let’s have fun with this! And Go Twins.

Hey Twins fans! This is the fourth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 Topps Game
This insert set from the 1960s is unique. It’s a very limited set and like the 1964 Topps Giants seems to contain only the best of the best. The cards measure 2.25” x 3.25” so slightly smaller than today’s standard sized card. The cards resemble a deck of playing cards. The complete set has 33 cards, three of which are Twins players. Each card has a color image of the player, facsimile autograph, and a game outcome. This set contains a second year Rod Carew (#29) after his rookie card in 1967 was a dual card with the Senators’ Hank Allen.
Rules for the game can be found at https://www.beckett.com/news/1968-topps-game-baseball/. Seems to me you would go through the cards quickly and maybe there should have been more cards in the set. But I have never played. Maybe I should try to get the full set and play?
According to the same Beckett website above, these game cards were inserted within the third series release of the regular Topps baseball cards from 1968.
THE BEST
Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew fight for the best Twins card in this subset. Because Rod Carew has no solo rookie card in the 1967 set, I’m going to choose his card as the best simply because it's one of his first stand-alone cards.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I’m going with the #5 Killebrew as my personal favorite simply because his outcome was a double and Carew’s was, unfortunately, a ground out. Hey, I’m competitive and would want to win this game!

MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Just like my earlier entry about the 1964 Topps Giants set, when there are only three cards in the set, somebody has to be named “most obscure,” at least according to the format I set for this series. So like Camilo Pasucal in the 1964 Topps Giants set, Dean Chance gets named most obscure Twin in this game set because the other two cards show Hall of Famers. But, hey, at least his game outcome was a strike out (which I assume was a positive for a pitcher in this game).

Dean Chance was an excellent pitcher. He won the Cy Young Award in 1964 when there was only one winner for all of MLB. His career record was 128-115 with a career ERA of 2.92. Now he did pitch during the year of the pitcher (1968), but that career ERA measures up very well. His career ERA+ was 119. Chance came to the Twins in a December 1966 trade with the Angels; the Twins gave up Pete Cimino, Jimmie Hall, and Don Mincher. The Twins got 13.1 WAR from Chance in three seasons. The trade seems like a win for the Twins as the players they gave up combined for 5.7 WAR for the Angels. While playing for the Twins, he led the American League in innings and starts in 1967, which was also one of two years he made an All-Star team. In December 1969, Chance was traded by the Twins with Bob Miller, Graig Nettles, and Ted Uhlaender for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. This trade seems like the Twins screwed up both ways. Nettles was obviously great for many years, some contend he is worthy of the Hall of Fame. And some also argue the same for Taint, who the Twins released in 1971.
Chance retired after his age 30 season. It was said by Wikipedia and other websites that his body broke down perhaps because of funky wind up where he essentially turned his back the batter. Interestingly, in retirement he was a successful carnival operator and founded the International Boxing Association. I have vague memories of Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press writing about Chance and the IBA.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hey Twins fans! This is the fourth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 Topps Game
This insert set from the 1960s is unique. It’s a very limited set and like the 1964 Topps Giants seems to contain only the best of the best. The cards measure 2.25” x 3.25” so slightly smaller than today’s standard sized card. The cards resemble a deck of playing cards. The complete set has 33 cards, three of which are Twins players. Each card has a color image of the player, facsimile autograph, and a game outcome. This set contains a second year Rod Carew (#29) after his rookie card in 1967 was a dual card with the Senators’ Hank Allen.
Rules for the game can be found at https://www.beckett.com/news/1968-topps-game-baseball/. Seems to me you would go through the cards quickly and maybe there should have been more cards in the set. But I have never played. Maybe I should try to get the full set and play?
According to the same Beckett website above, these game cards were inserted within the third series release of the regular Topps baseball cards from 1968.
THE BEST
Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew fight for the best Twins card in this subset. Because Rod Carew has no solo rookie card in the 1967 set, I’m going to choose his card as the best simply because it's one of his first stand-alone cards.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I’m going with the #5 Killebrew as my personal favorite simply because his outcome was a double and Carew’s was, unfortunately, a ground out. Hey, I’m competitive and would want to win this game!

MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Just like my earlier entry about the 1964 Topps Giants set, when there are only three cards in the set, somebody has to be named “most obscure,” at least according to the format I set for this series. So like Camilo Pasucal in the 1964 Topps Giants set, Dean Chance gets named most obscure Twin in this game set because the other two cards show Hall of Famers. But, hey, at least his game outcome was a strike out (which I assume was a positive for a pitcher in this game).

Dean Chance was an excellent pitcher. He won the Cy Young Award in 1964 when there was only one winner for all of MLB. His career record was 128-115 with a career ERA of 2.92. Now he did pitch during the year of the pitcher (1968), but that career ERA measures up very well. His career ERA+ was 119. Chance came to the Twins in a December 1966 trade with the Angels; the Twins gave up Pete Cimino, Jimmie Hall, and Don Mincher. The Twins got 13.1 WAR from Chance in three seasons. The trade seems like a win for the Twins as the players they gave up combined for 5.7 WAR for the Angels. While playing for the Twins, he led the American League in innings and starts in 1967, which was also one of two years he made an All-Star team. In December 1969, Chance was traded by the Twins with Bob Miller, Graig Nettles, and Ted Uhlaender for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. This trade seems like the Twins screwed up both ways. Nettles was obviously great for many years, some contend he is worthy of the Hall of Fame. And some also argue the same for Taint, who the Twins released in 1971.
Chance retired after his age 30 season. It was said by Wikipedia and other websites that his body broke down perhaps because of funky wind up where he essentially turned his back the batter. Interestingly, in retirement he was a successful carnival operator and founded the International Boxing Association. I have vague memories of Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press writing about Chance and the IBA.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hey Twins fans! This is the fourth post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 Topps Game
This insert set from the 1960s is unique. It’s a very limited set and like the 1964 Topps Giants seems to contain only the best of the best. The cards measure 2.25” x 3.25” so slightly smaller than today’s standard sized card. The cards resemble a deck of playing cards. The complete set has 33 cards, three of which are Twins players. Each card has a color image of the player, facsimile autograph, and a game outcome. This set contains a second year Rod Carew (#29) after his rookie card in 1967 was a dual card with the Senators’ Hank Allen.
Rules for the game can be found at https://www.beckett.com/news/1968-topps-game-baseball/. Seems to me you would go through the cards quickly and maybe there should have been more cards in the set. But I have never played. Maybe I should try to get the full set and play?
According to the same Beckett website above, these game cards were inserted within the third series release of the regular Topps baseball cards from 1968.
THE BEST
Rod Carew and Harmon Killebrew fight for the best Twins card in this subset. Because Rod Carew has no solo rookie card in the 1967 set, I’m going to choose his card as the best simply because it's one of his first stand-alone cards.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I’m going with the #5 Killebrew as my personal favorite simply because his outcome was a double and Carew’s was, unfortunately, a ground out. Hey, I’m competitive and would want to win this game!

MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Just like my earlier entry about the 1964 Topps Giants set, when there are only three cards in the set, somebody has to be named “most obscure,” at least according to the format I set for this series. So like Camilo Pasucal in the 1964 Topps Giants set, Dean Chance gets named most obscure Twin in this game set because the other two cards show Hall of Famers. But, hey, at least his game outcome was a strike out (which I assume was a positive for a pitcher in this game).

Dean Chance was an excellent pitcher. He won the Cy Young Award in 1964 when there was only one winner for all of MLB. His career record was 128-115 with a career ERA of 2.92. Now he did pitch during the year of the pitcher (1968), but that career ERA measures up very well. His career ERA+ was 119. Chance came to the Twins in a December 1966 trade with the Angels; the Twins gave up Pete Cimino, Jimmie Hall, and Don Mincher. The Twins got 13.1 WAR from Chance in three seasons. The trade seems like a win for the Twins as the players they gave up combined for 5.7 WAR for the Angels. While playing for the Twins, he led the American League in innings and starts in 1967, which was also one of two years he made an All-Star team. In December 1969, Chance was traded by the Twins with Bob Miller, Graig Nettles, and Ted Uhlaender for Luis Tiant and Stan Williams. This trade seems like the Twins screwed up both ways. Nettles was obviously great for many years, some contend he is worthy of the Hall of Fame. And some also argue the same for Taint, who the Twins released in 1971.
Chance retired after his age 30 season. It was said by Wikipedia and other websites that his body broke down perhaps because of funky wind up where he essentially turned his back the batter. Interestingly, in retirement he was a successful carnival operator and founded the International Boxing Association. I have vague memories of Charley Walters of the St. Paul Pioneer Press writing about Chance and the IBA.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. This is my third post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 TOPPS
The 1968 Topps set is one of my personal favorites which is interesting because I find the look rather ugly, but I really like some of the Twins cards. The set’s cards are standard size, with kind of a burlap looking border. The player’s name is at the bottom with a colored circle showing his team and position. The set has a couple of my favorite multi-player cards ever and Rod Carew’s first stand-alone Topps card (#80) as well as an all-star card (#363). There are a whopping 37 Twins cards in the set.
THE BEST
With this set, I might run into a problem for my personal choice of best and favorite. There are more than a few cards to choose from that fit both categories. As far as value, both the #490 Super Stars card with Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the #480 Manager’s Dream card with Tony Oliva, Chico Cardenas, and Roberto Clemente rank high. I don’t always want to equate value with best, but in this case my choice for best card has to be the Super Stars card. The card has three Hall of Famers who as a group hit 1,769 home runs. Three of the top 18 HR hitters ever…on one card!! Quite a bit of firepower on one single card.
                        
PERSONAL FAVORITE
For my personal favorite I am going to select the Rod Carew (#80). You just got to love Rod Carew’s first solo card. I like the pose and the Topps rookie cup. Like I said in a previous post about Tony Oliva, Carew just looks so young here.

And like my statement above about firepower on a single card, the AL RBI Leaders card also has three Hall of Famers in Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. I really like these types of leader cards with multiple Hall of Famers. This card represents 1,611 career home runs and 5,240 career RBI. A lot of history there.

I’m going to choose the Carew as my favorite Twins card in the set, but I really, really like that Super Stars card above as well.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Cal Ermer did manage a major league baseball team, but only briefly. He previously had a very limited playing career. He went 0-3 in his lone MLB game for the Senators in 1947, was a long-time coach and manager in the Senators/Twins organization, who ended up managing the Twins for part of 1967 and all of 1968. I thought he was the right choice for most obscure player/coach in the 1968 Twins set, but then I read about right-handed pitcher Moe Ogier.

Maurice “Moe” Ogier appeared on a dual rookie card (#589) with Ron Clark. Mr. Ogier made the 1968 Twins opening day roster but was sent to the minor leagues shortly thereafter to make room for Jim Kaat after Kaat was activated from the disabled list for an elbow injury dating to the prior season. Ogier didn’t pitch that season – or ever – in the major leagues. Ogier played six years in the Twins minor league system. His record was 36-37. His minor league strikeout numbers were rather good especially for that era, but his WHIP was also high. He pitched later in the Angels and Padres systems. He never made the majors, but he did have this baseball card.
While researching this post, I learned a new phrase that I had not heard before – phantom ballplayer. According to Wikipedia, a phantom ballplayer is a player who spent time on an active roster but never appeared in a game. That sounds to me like a definition for obscure. Moe Ogier is the choice here.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. This is my third post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 TOPPS
The 1968 Topps set is one of my personal favorites which is interesting because I find the look rather ugly, but I really like some of the Twins cards. The set’s cards are standard size, with kind of a burlap looking border. The player’s name is at the bottom with a colored circle showing his team and position. The set has a couple of my favorite multi-player cards ever and Rod Carew’s first stand-alone Topps card (#80) as well as an all-star card (#363). There are a whopping 37 Twins cards in the set.
THE BEST
With this set, I might run into a problem for my personal choice of best and favorite. There are more than a few cards to choose from that fit both categories. As far as value, both the #490 Super Stars card with Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the #480 Manager’s Dream card with Tony Oliva, Chico Cardenas, and Roberto Clemente rank high. I don’t always want to equate value with best, but in this case my choice for best card has to be the Super Stars card. The card has three Hall of Famers who as a group hit 1,769 home runs. Three of the top 18 HR hitters ever…on one card!! Quite a bit of firepower on one single card.
                        
PERSONAL FAVORITE
For my personal favorite I am going to select the Rod Carew (#80). You just got to love Rod Carew’s first solo card. I like the pose and the Topps rookie cup. Like I said in a previous post about Tony Oliva, Carew just looks so young here.

And like my statement above about firepower on a single card, the AL RBI Leaders card also has three Hall of Famers in Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. I really like these types of leader cards with multiple Hall of Famers. This card represents 1,611 career home runs and 5,240 career RBI. A lot of history there.

I’m going to choose the Carew as my favorite Twins card in the set, but I really, really like that Super Stars card above as well.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Cal Ermer did manage a major league baseball team, but only briefly. He previously had a very limited playing career. He went 0-3 in his lone MLB game for the Senators in 1947, was a long-time coach and manager in the Senators/Twins organization, who ended up managing the Twins for part of 1967 and all of 1968. I thought he was the right choice for most obscure player/coach in the 1968 Twins set, but then I read about right-handed pitcher Moe Ogier.

Maurice “Moe” Ogier appeared on a dual rookie card (#589) with Ron Clark. Mr. Ogier made the 1968 Twins opening day roster but was sent to the minor leagues shortly thereafter to make room for Jim Kaat after Kaat was activated from the disabled list for an elbow injury dating to the prior season. Ogier didn’t pitch that season – or ever – in the major leagues. Ogier played six years in the Twins minor league system. His record was 36-37. His minor league strikeout numbers were rather good especially for that era, but his WHIP was also high. He pitched later in the Angels and Padres systems. He never made the majors, but he did have this baseball card.
While researching this post, I learned a new phrase that I had not heard before – phantom ballplayer. According to Wikipedia, a phantom ballplayer is a player who spent time on an active roster but never appeared in a game. That sounds to me like a definition for obscure. Moe Ogier is the choice here.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. This is my third post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 TOPPS
The 1968 Topps set is one of my personal favorites which is interesting because I find the look rather ugly, but I really like some of the Twins cards. The set’s cards are standard size, with kind of a burlap looking border. The player’s name is at the bottom with a colored circle showing his team and position. The set has a couple of my favorite multi-player cards ever and Rod Carew’s first stand-alone Topps card (#80) as well as an all-star card (#363). There are a whopping 37 Twins cards in the set.
THE BEST
With this set, I might run into a problem for my personal choice of best and favorite. There are more than a few cards to choose from that fit both categories. As far as value, both the #490 Super Stars card with Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the #480 Manager’s Dream card with Tony Oliva, Chico Cardenas, and Roberto Clemente rank high. I don’t always want to equate value with best, but in this case my choice for best card has to be the Super Stars card. The card has three Hall of Famers who as a group hit 1,769 home runs. Three of the top 18 HR hitters ever…on one card!! Quite a bit of firepower on one single card.
                        
PERSONAL FAVORITE
For my personal favorite I am going to select the Rod Carew (#80). You just got to love Rod Carew’s first solo card. I like the pose and the Topps rookie cup. Like I said in a previous post about Tony Oliva, Carew just looks so young here.

And like my statement above about firepower on a single card, the AL RBI Leaders card also has three Hall of Famers in Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. I really like these types of leader cards with multiple Hall of Famers. This card represents 1,611 career home runs and 5,240 career RBI. A lot of history there.

I’m going to choose the Carew as my favorite Twins card in the set, but I really, really like that Super Stars card above as well.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Cal Ermer did manage a major league baseball team, but only briefly. He previously had a very limited playing career. He went 0-3 in his lone MLB game for the Senators in 1947, was a long-time coach and manager in the Senators/Twins organization, who ended up managing the Twins for part of 1967 and all of 1968. I thought he was the right choice for most obscure player/coach in the 1968 Twins set, but then I read about right-handed pitcher Moe Ogier.

Maurice “Moe” Ogier appeared on a dual rookie card (#589) with Ron Clark. Mr. Ogier made the 1968 Twins opening day roster but was sent to the minor leagues shortly thereafter to make room for Jim Kaat after Kaat was activated from the disabled list for an elbow injury dating to the prior season. Ogier didn’t pitch that season – or ever – in the major leagues. Ogier played six years in the Twins minor league system. His record was 36-37. His minor league strikeout numbers were rather good especially for that era, but his WHIP was also high. He pitched later in the Angels and Padres systems. He never made the majors, but he did have this baseball card.
While researching this post, I learned a new phrase that I had not heard before – phantom ballplayer. According to Wikipedia, a phantom ballplayer is a player who spent time on an active roster but never appeared in a game. That sounds to me like a definition for obscure. Moe Ogier is the choice here.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. This is my third post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 TOPPS
The 1968 Topps set is one of my personal favorites which is interesting because I find the look rather ugly, but I really like some of the Twins cards. The set’s cards are standard size, with kind of a burlap looking border. The player’s name is at the bottom with a colored circle showing his team and position. The set has a couple of my favorite multi-player cards ever and Rod Carew’s first stand-alone Topps card (#80) as well as an all-star card (#363). There are a whopping 37 Twins cards in the set.
THE BEST
With this set, I might run into a problem for my personal choice of best and favorite. There are more than a few cards to choose from that fit both categories. As far as value, both the #490 Super Stars card with Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the #480 Manager’s Dream card with Tony Oliva, Chico Cardenas, and Roberto Clemente rank high. I don’t always want to equate value with best, but in this case my choice for best card has to be the Super Stars card. The card has three Hall of Famers who as a group hit 1,769 home runs. Three of the top 18 HR hitters ever…on one card!! Quite a bit of firepower on one single card.
                        
PERSONAL FAVORITE
For my personal favorite I am going to select the Rod Carew (#80). You just got to love Rod Carew’s first solo card. I like the pose and the Topps rookie cup. Like I said in a previous post about Tony Oliva, Carew just looks so young here.

And like my statement above about firepower on a single card, the AL RBI Leaders card also has three Hall of Famers in Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. I really like these types of leader cards with multiple Hall of Famers. This card represents 1,611 career home runs and 5,240 career RBI. A lot of history there.

I’m going to choose the Carew as my favorite Twins card in the set, but I really, really like that Super Stars card above as well.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Cal Ermer did manage a major league baseball team, but only briefly. He previously had a very limited playing career. He went 0-3 in his lone MLB game for the Senators in 1947, was a long-time coach and manager in the Senators/Twins organization, who ended up managing the Twins for part of 1967 and all of 1968. I thought he was the right choice for most obscure player/coach in the 1968 Twins set, but then I read about right-handed pitcher Moe Ogier.

Maurice “Moe” Ogier appeared on a dual rookie card (#589) with Ron Clark. Mr. Ogier made the 1968 Twins opening day roster but was sent to the minor leagues shortly thereafter to make room for Jim Kaat after Kaat was activated from the disabled list for an elbow injury dating to the prior season. Ogier didn’t pitch that season – or ever – in the major leagues. Ogier played six years in the Twins minor league system. His record was 36-37. His minor league strikeout numbers were rather good especially for that era, but his WHIP was also high. He pitched later in the Angels and Padres systems. He never made the majors, but he did have this baseball card.
While researching this post, I learned a new phrase that I had not heard before – phantom ballplayer. According to Wikipedia, a phantom ballplayer is a player who spent time on an active roster but never appeared in a game. That sounds to me like a definition for obscure. Moe Ogier is the choice here.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. This is my third post in my series about Minnesota Twins baseball cards. Please read my first post here for deeper detail on my series.
1968 TOPPS
The 1968 Topps set is one of my personal favorites which is interesting because I find the look rather ugly, but I really like some of the Twins cards. The set’s cards are standard size, with kind of a burlap looking border. The player’s name is at the bottom with a colored circle showing his team and position. The set has a couple of my favorite multi-player cards ever and Rod Carew’s first stand-alone Topps card (#80) as well as an all-star card (#363). There are a whopping 37 Twins cards in the set.
THE BEST
With this set, I might run into a problem for my personal choice of best and favorite. There are more than a few cards to choose from that fit both categories. As far as value, both the #490 Super Stars card with Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, and the #480 Manager’s Dream card with Tony Oliva, Chico Cardenas, and Roberto Clemente rank high. I don’t always want to equate value with best, but in this case my choice for best card has to be the Super Stars card. The card has three Hall of Famers who as a group hit 1,769 home runs. Three of the top 18 HR hitters ever…on one card!! Quite a bit of firepower on one single card.
                        
PERSONAL FAVORITE
For my personal favorite I am going to select the Rod Carew (#80). You just got to love Rod Carew’s first solo card. I like the pose and the Topps rookie cup. Like I said in a previous post about Tony Oliva, Carew just looks so young here.

And like my statement above about firepower on a single card, the AL RBI Leaders card also has three Hall of Famers in Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. I really like these types of leader cards with multiple Hall of Famers. This card represents 1,611 career home runs and 5,240 career RBI. A lot of history there.

I’m going to choose the Carew as my favorite Twins card in the set, but I really, really like that Super Stars card above as well.
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
Cal Ermer did manage a major league baseball team, but only briefly. He previously had a very limited playing career. He went 0-3 in his lone MLB game for the Senators in 1947, was a long-time coach and manager in the Senators/Twins organization, who ended up managing the Twins for part of 1967 and all of 1968. I thought he was the right choice for most obscure player/coach in the 1968 Twins set, but then I read about right-handed pitcher Moe Ogier.

Maurice “Moe” Ogier appeared on a dual rookie card (#589) with Ron Clark. Mr. Ogier made the 1968 Twins opening day roster but was sent to the minor leagues shortly thereafter to make room for Jim Kaat after Kaat was activated from the disabled list for an elbow injury dating to the prior season. Ogier didn’t pitch that season – or ever – in the major leagues. Ogier played six years in the Twins minor league system. His record was 36-37. His minor league strikeout numbers were rather good especially for that era, but his WHIP was also high. He pitched later in the Angels and Padres systems. He never made the majors, but he did have this baseball card.
While researching this post, I learned a new phrase that I had not heard before – phantom ballplayer. According to Wikipedia, a phantom ballplayer is a player who spent time on an active roster but never appeared in a game. That sounds to me like a definition for obscure. Moe Ogier is the choice here.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Thanks, folks. 
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog inviting feedback for some paint schemes for the wall in a room that has transitioned from our youngest son's bedroom to our office. Alas, he got married and moved to North Carolina -- we like the married part, just wish he didn't live so far from northern Indiana. That post is here: https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/23701-help-design-my-man-cave/ 
The goal was to combine a Fathead with some shelving to create a space to display the set of Tony Oliva baseball cards I've gathered, along with some others. I invited feedback to the following ideas: 
 
And the one I chose was...
No. 6. 
So, next up was using a friend's table saw to rip some MDF board into 5/8" x 5/8" strips, followed by cutting a quarter-inch angled groove to hold the cards. Then Mrs. IT took over, handling the priming and painting. Finally, my brother-in-law, much more adept at such projects than me, helped me stick the Fathead and place and mount the strips. 
Here's what I got: 

 
I'm pretty pleased. Mrs. IT needs to do a little touch-up painting, touching up the screw holes and a few more spots. What you see here are a complete set of Topps, Kelloggs and Hostess Oliva cards on the left, plus a couple extra odds and ends. On the upper right are my Killebrew cards, with Carews underneath. Neither of those are complete.
Eventually, I'll tighten them up so I can add some other favorites from over the years -- Hrbek, Puckett, Gaetti, etc. Probably need to get a Wynegar and some others. It may not take long for Lewis to make an appearance on the IT Wall of Fame. And depending on how full I want to make the space, I may also include a few non-Twin favorites and/or legends from over the years, namely Brock, Aaron, Clemente, etc. I don't have any that are particular valuable (and none graded), but on the wall will at least bring more enjoyment than in boxes under the bed. The total space is about 84 inches by 40 inches.
Thanks to @Cornholio, @Rod Carews Birthday, @Wyotwinsfan, @davidborton, @DocBauer, @gil4, @nclahammer, @Original_JB, @dcswede, @Khaddie and @Puckett34 for great insights and suggestions.
I was originally thinking I'd go with No. 8, but after coming up with a number of mockups, I was starting to lean toward No. 6 by the time I posted. So to get a couple early affirmations of that option helped firm up that decision. Some other comments:
There were some good suggestions that would have given it a much more professional feel (and would have been beyond my capability or cost more than I was prepared to spend. A couple folks cautioned about covering up too much of the Fathead. With that encouragement, I did move the strips out a bit. They end up overlapping by about three inches, rather than the six inches I originally planned. I think that was an improvement, so thanks for those suggestions. If I was to do anything different with the layout, I'd give each row another quarter to half inch of space (starting at the bottom) to push the top row up to have even less overlap with the letters.  A few people had ideas for some additions, suggesting some autographed photos, Homer Hankies, etc. (And speaking of, I need to track down one of this year's.) I do plan some of those things with the next steps. The exterior wall of the room has about 43 inches on each side of a window, so I'm thinking of putting in a relatively high shelf for the four Wheaties/Kelloggs boxes (still full) from 1987 and 1991. I may do a second shelf with some autographed balls, but I really don't have any significant ones. I do have some other things, however, such as a Rod Carew RC Cola can and an Oliva-signed cap, etc. I'm only a few years from retirement, so I'll need to consider where to go with two jerseys. I'm perhaps the only person on TD with a game-used Travis Miller jersey. I never thought I'd buy a gamer of anyone, but when you're in the team store and see one with your last name on it, it's tough to resist. My congregation gifted me another jersey when transitioned from pastoring there to another ministry opportunity. In total, I have another 10 or so linear feet of wall space on this half the room to use for such things. Mrs. IT gets the other side of the room. So again, thanks. If anyone heads through northern Indiana on the toll road and wants to stop off for a visit, I'd be glad to show it in person! 😃
 

And while I'm at it, I do have another spot in the house that folks might find interesting. I've been fortunate enough to have been able to combine some work-related travel with vacations and have been to all 30 current stadiums (plus a dozen or so that have been closed)*. I spent some time to create some collages from photos I've taken along the way (plus a handful from the Web of stadiums that I went to before I started taking pictures). Here's what we have in our entry hallway. Each frame is a division, with the teams in alphabetical order from top to bottom.
 
 
*Lest you think that's impressive, what's more impressive is the amazing Mrs. IT. She's been to 24, even though she's not a baseball fan. When someone asked her about it, her response, "I don't like baseball, but I like some people who like baseball." 
 
 

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!

Hi folks. I am Al from SoDak. I have been reading Twins Daily since its inception and always thought of contributing. Well, here I go.
I am a collector of Twins baseball cards. About 10-15 years ago, I made it a goal to get at least one card from every Twins player who had a card. That goal seems to have morphed into getting each Twins card for every Topps set (and a few other brands here and there). I currently have more than 2,400 cards from about 750 unique players. I have a plan for a series of posts to review and comment on each year’s set of Twins cards. But by no means will this be completed in one initial post. I plan to cover each year in order of the years I have completed. So, I will start with my first completed set (1963 Topps) and go forward to other completed sets. As I continue with my series, I will continue with my collecting. Hopefully when I get the most recent set, I will have more of the earlier sets completed and can loop back and comment on those. Hopefully we all find this an interesting exercise.
To start with I am going to give my opinion of the best card. This will likely be one of the most expensive cards but not necessarily the most expensive. I don’t want to have too many Killebrews, Olivas, Carews, etc. I will also give my opinion of my personal favorite card. This might be based on the look of the card, or a story behind the card or player. Finally, I will discuss the card of the most obscure player in my opinion. This will hopefully include a little research and history of this player so that we can learn more about lesser-known players. I anticipate the obscure player part ending up as the most detailed and longest part of the post.
We’ll see how this goes.
1963 TOPPS
This colorful set is one my favorites from the 1960s. The cards are 2.5” x 3.5” which has been the standard card size since 1957. Each card contains a larger color image of the player with a smaller black and white picture within a circle at the bottom of the card. The player’s name, team and position are on a colorful thick border at the bottom. The league leader cards and many of the rookie cards are of the notorious “floating head” design. This 1963 set contains the Tony Oliva #228 rookie card amongst its 33 Twins cards.

THE BEST
Many sources list the Oliva rookie card and Harmon Killebrew #500 as the most expensive Twins cards in the set. The Oliva card is of the often ridiculed “floating heads” design, so I am going to lean to the Harmon Killebrew card the best card. Hopefully this doesn’t start a trend of too many Killebrews.

PERSONAL FAVORITE
I like the Bob Allison #75 where he is shown in a solid batting pose. Jim Kaat (#165) stares down the camera at the start of a wind-up. To me, that’s a good card and made better by the fact that I was able to get mine autographed at TwinsFest a few years back. I also like that the AL Home Run Leaders #4 has Killebrew front and center as the top dog from 1962. The autograph on the good-looking Jim Kaat card puts that card on top for me as my personal favorite.
                     
MOST OBSCURE PLAYER
My choice as the most obscure Twins player included in the 1963 Topps baseball card set is George Banks (card #564).

Interestingly, the Twins had five rookie cards included in the 1963 Topps set. Four of those cards were like the Oliva rookie with “floating heads” design, but one rookie player got his own card – yes, Mr. Banks. Why? Well, he was signed in 1957 by the New York Yankees and had minor league success. George Banks hit 82 minor league home runs through 1960 (on his way to 223 home runs in 11 minor league seasons). In 1961 the Twins selected him in the Rule 5 draft, the mechanism that led to the Twins obtaining Shane Mack and Johan Santana (trade) many years later.
George Banks played mainly 3rd Base and Outfield. He played a total of five seasons in MLB, splitting his time between Minnesota and Cleveland. He was a piece in a key trade – He and Lee Stange were traded to Cleveland for Mudcat Grant who we all know won 21 games in the World Series year of 1965. Mudcat won Game 6 nearly all by himself. He led the Twins to a 5-1 win in this elimination game. He allowed only six hits and was also a force in the batter’s box with a 3-run home run.
Banks could never match his minor league prowess in the big leagues. His WAR was 0.3. He only got 203 at bats in MLB. He played 63 games in 1963, but only 25 in 1964. After the trade he played in a total of 17 games over parts of three seasons in Cleveland.
But George Banks did have a nice 1963 rookie card. The card shows him squaring to bunt which contrasts with his minor league propensity to his home runs. Love it!
So there it is. My first entry in what could end up being a long series about baseball cards and the Minnesota Twins. Hopefully I get some positive feedback, encouragement, and views to keep me motivated.
If you disagree with my opinions, I would love to see your opinions, criticisms, and suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be too hard on me. Let’s have fun with this!