Here’s another bucks worth of cards from the Quarter Bin, which has recently been installed with a “or 5 for a dollar” option. All cards come to you courtesy of the 1970 Topps baseball set. Just a quick word about the 1970 set. It seems like a lot of people don’t really dig this set so much. It seems like they think it’s boring. I happen to disagree. Sure it’s no 1972 set with all it’s flash and pop, but it’s well put together in an understated way. More importantly, it paved the way for the black borders of the 1971 set. Could you image the 1971 set without black borders? I didn’t think so. You can thank 1970 for that. Moving on.

First off, a couple of cards for my manager/team card collection.

#86 Lum Harris

Being a Mets fan, you’re supposed to hate the Braves. Or at least you were. These days I’m not so sure. To prove that the days of Mets fans and Braves fans a fuedin’ and fussin’ are over, I will say something nice about the Braves. I really like that jacket that Lum Harris is wearing. Very nice.

#522 California Angels Team Card

I love team cards and all, but I got to say, Topps failed pretty badly on this Angels card. It took me a while to figure this out, but I kept wondering what exactly was going on in the background of this photograph. Then I realized that the team was posing in front of the giant “A” that the Angels have outside of their ballpark and used to use as a scoreboard. Now this is a pretty run of the mill team card as it sits. Nothing terrible about it really. But when I think of how awesome it could’ve been if Topps made it vertical and zoomed way out so that you could see the entire scoreboard in all its retro-modern glory, with the team real tiny at the bottom, I have to consider this card a failure.

#313 Mayo Smith

For those who don’t know, Mayo Smith managed the Tigers to their 1968 World Series victory. Part of that victory was due to an interesting managerial move on Smiths part. Apparently, he had 4 guys in the outfield who could really hit the ball well – Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Jim Northrup and Mickey Stanley. But, as we all know, you only need 3 outfielders. He also had the problem of getting little to no offensive output from his 2 shortstops. Towards the end of the regular season, when the Tigers had already pretty much locked up the division, Mayo tried starting Mickey Stanley at short, even though he hadn’t played the position since Little League. Although he wasn’t making too many highlight reels in the field, he proved adequate and he started all 7 games of the World Series, essentially giving the Tigers an extra bat in their lineup.

#279 Bill Lee

As someone who is a little fascinated with Bill “The Spaceman” Lee, I would be awfully remiss if I declined to pick up his rookie card in exchange for 2 thin dimes. Hell, I feel like even if I weren’t a little fascinated with the man, I’d still be a sucker for not grabbing it for 20¢.

#183 Jerry Grote

It’s not too often that I can actually grab a Mets card from the bargain bin these days, unless it happens to be because I thought I needed it, was too lazy to check my wantlist and bought it anyway only to find out that I already had it. This Jerry Grote card almost fit all those criteria. I was too lazy to check my wantlist. I bought it anyway. I did already have it (kind of). See, I knew for a fact that I had a 1970 Jerry Grote card that was #183. I know that because I got it in a trade a million years ago with Mark from Stats on the Back. I also happened to know for a fact that the 1970 Jerry Grote card that was #183 that I already had was the O-Pee-Chee version. For whatever reason, I always considered that I didn’t need the Jerry Grote card from the 1970 set so complete my Mets team set from that year because I had that card. It always remained checked off on my wantlist. For 20¢ though, why not get the actual Topps version as well?

Tags: 1970 Topps, Bill Lee, California Angels, Jerry Grote, Lum Harris, manager card, Mayo Smith, team card
Filed Under: Bargin Bin Baseball Cards by slangon
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