it's time for my 1958 topps flagship sampler set to be showcased. i've skipped 1957 topps since i've completed the set, so this will be the first of the samplers to feature cards with actual photographs on them!
as a reminder, i have reinstated my sampler sets for the vintage topps flagship sets that i have not completed. more details were provided in these posts featuring my 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, and 1956 topps samplers which you can find here. i am maintaining my topps flagship through the years mini-collection, so the 1958 topps pete whisenant card remains there and not in this updated sampler. similarly, with the set size being expanded in the late 1950's, my 1958 topps ken boyer card remains in my topps flagship #350 mini-collection.
in 1958, there were still only 16 teams represented, and it's an (almost) all-portrait oriented set. as with 1957, there is just a single image of each card subject, and the facsimile autographs that were prevalent in the first five flagship sets are nowhere to be found. team logos are back after a two year hiatus, and the solid color backgrounds return after two years as well. this set is all about color, with a variety of color combinations between the card background and the position/team boxes at the bottom of the cards. i counted 26 different color combinations, although there a couple i am not quite sure about.
- red/yellow, red/green, red/black
- orange/red, orange/yellow, orange/blue
- yellow/green, yellow/blue, yellow/red, yellow/black
- green/red, green/yellow, green/blue
- blue/red, blue/yellow
- pink/yellow, pink/black
- black/red, black/yellow
- light blue/yellow, light blue/red, light blue/black
- light orange/blue, light orange/black
- light green/red, light green/black
the card backs are all uniform in terms of color or card stock, and the comics are player specific and limited to two topics per subject, typically.
the 1958 topps set includes cards from a few of the now-typical subsets - league presidents (the lone portrait oriented cards in the set), team cards, and combo cards (first featured in the 1957 set). the 1958 set also introduces the all-star subset, and it includes checklists (on the backs of team cards) in the main body of the set for the first time as well. in other team related news, the reds are still identified as redlegs, but the senators are back to being referred to as the "senators" (the switch from "nationals" was made in the 1957 topps set) having officially changed their team name to "senators" for the 1956 season. the big team news for 1958, however, was that the dodgers and giants had relocated to the west coast and so are referred to as the los angeles dodgers and san francisco giants on cards for the first time.
enough now. let's see what the 1958 sampler set looks like, starting with an ai generated needlepoint sampler for the set.
baltimore orioles - joe durham
card #96
starting with the yellow/blue combo, durham's card is one of the first 1958 cards i owned, having picked up a few cards in the late 1980's. he spent all of 1958 in triple-a vancouver, but returned to the majors in 1959 for a short time.
boston red sox - gene stephens
card #227
stephen's card features the blue/yellow color combo, and the card back has a couple of references to ted williams who was featured as card number 1 in the set. unlike williams who exclusively played left field in 1958, stephens appeared at all three outfield spots that year. he hit only .219, however, so perhaps the comparisons to the splendid splinter stopped after that.
chicago white sox - bill fischer
here is the red/yellow color combination. i had not heard of schofield, wisconsin before seeing it on the back of fischer's card, and i see now that it is considered part of the wausau metro. fischer started the 1958 season with the white sox but was traded to the tigers in july. he finished the season with the senators, going 4-10 in 42 appearances across his stints with those three clubs.
cleveland indians - don mossi
card #35
the latest installment of the don mossi sampler/player collection uses the yellow/green color combo. he is a repeat player from my 1955 and 1956 samplers, but that is by design as he is one of the players i chose to chase all the way through. his card back notes that he essentially pitched a perfect game across seven appearances in 1954, which is something, but topps jinxed him as he had his first losing season in 1958, going 7-8 across 43 games, five of which were starts.
detroit tigers - j.w. porter
card #32
here we have the red/black color combo, along with the first player whose name is just initials. literally. his name is j.w. porter, known by his nickname "jay". sort of the reverse of homer j. simpson. anyway, porter was a top prospect as evidenced by the sizeable bonus he received (noted on the back of the card). what is not noted here, because his card was in the first series, is that he was traded by the tigers to cleveland in february of 1958. he appeared in 40 games for the indians, primarily as a catcher, and hit just .200 that year.
new york yankees - andy carey
card #333 (or is it 45?)
i am not sure of the significance of the "45" scribbled on the back - maybe the 45th card of a previous owner's collection - but the front of carey's card displays the orange/blue color combo. carey helped the yankees return to the world series in 1958 and dispatch the braves, although he was just 1 for 12 in the fall classic. he did hit a career high 12 homers during the regular season, thrice hitting two bombs in a game.
kansas city a's - vic power
card #406
this card is the first one to appear here that was not part of my original sampler set from the early 2000's, and it features the light blue/red color combo. it also refers to the franchise as the "k.c. athletics" rather than the "kansas city a's" which was the case on all but two of the cards in the set featuring the kansas city club. power split the 1958 season between the athletics/a's and the indians, and he led the american league in triples with 10.
washington senators - bobby usher
card #124
here's an example of the light orange/black color combo, or maybe it's just orange/black. this is the one combo i am not certain about - the orange could just be a touch lighter due to age or printing variations. either way, i've had this card for as long as i can remember, picking it up at the same time as the joe durham card up above. it's good to see the whale in the comic with a bandage over his blow hole - no balls will get wedged in there a la cosmo kramer. as for usher, he spent all of 1958 - his last year in professional baseball - in the minors with the phillies' organization.
milwaukee braves - harry hanebrink
card #454
the green/red color combo looks pretty good on hanebrink's card which features the first full body image we've seen so far. as the back mentions, hanebrink saw some consistent playing time in the outfield for the braves in 1958 spelling wes covington from time to time in left field. being a card from a late series allows for this sort of info! although he hit just .188 on the season, hanebrink was on the braves' postseason roster, going 0 for 2 against the yankees in the world series.
chicago cubs - jerry kindall
card #221
here's the pink/black color combo on kindall's card. good to see that the st. paul native stayed close to home and attended the university of minnesota, which has produced other big leaguers such as dave winfield and paul molitor. he appeared in just three games for the cubs in 1958, spending most of the year in double-a as the bonus rule requiring him to be on the roster had expired.
cincinnati reds - bob purkey
with whisenant's card not returning to the sampler, i picked up purkey's card fairly recently. it features the same black/yellow color combo as whisenant's so it is a good substitute. purkey was an all-star for the reds in 1958, posting a 17-11 record with 17 complete games and three shutouts, perhaps thanks to that "snaky" curve. he did not appear in the midsummer classic.
los angeles dodgers - dick gray
card #146
this is a duplicate card as i have another one in my dodger collection, and it represents the yellow/black color combo. the topps artists didn't do too badly with the interlocking "la" on gray's hat - better than they did with the giants' as we will see in a bit. gray was a true rookie in 1958, making his big league debut on opening day against the giants. he recorded the second hit in los angeles dodger history that day (following charlie neal's second inning single with one of his own), and the next day hit the first home run in l.a. dodger history. he wound up hitting three home runs in his first five career games, but finished the season with just nine homers overall.
philadelphia phillies - dave philley
card #116
philley representing the phillies (or "phils" as they are called on his card) was a no-brainer and the reason i added this card to my collection the first time i was working on samplers. it's also a good example of the blue/red color combo. for the record, most of the phillie cards in the set use "philadelphia phils" but there are some that use "philadelphia phillies" and at least one that has "phila. phillies" on it. philley had previously played in the city of brotherly love with the a's, but as the card back notes, 1958 was his first year in the national league. he wound up hitting .309 on the season, but was 18 for 44 as a pinch hitter (.409 average) which is in line with the first comic on the back.
pittsburgh pirates - bob friend
card #315
friend's card is a newer one to my collection, as i was looking for an example of the orange/yellow color combo. the card back notes his ace status, and he maintaned that reputation in 1958 by leading the national league with 22 wins and 38 starts. he finished third in the cy young voting and pitched in the all-star game for the second time.
st. louis cardinals - eddie kasko
card #8
i used to have lloyd merritt's card in my sampler representing the cardinals, and it was also the red/green color combo, but i must have sent it out to madding at some point (or some other collector) so i picked up kasko's card recently. the back is interesting to me because it notes that he moved from third to short in 1957, yet he is still identified as a third baseman on the front. he did play mostly short in 1958 for the cards, and was about average in terms of fielding percentage for the position. it's also fun to see "niche" there in the text. i am a pronunciation snob when it comes to that word - "neesh", not "nitch".
new york giants - willie kirkland
card #128
kirkland's card is the most recent card i've purchased for my '58 sampler. i was looking for a better example of the giants' hat, as well as a new-to-me color combo, and this card delivers on both fronts with a wonky "sf" and the light blue/yellow color combo. like gray above, kirkland was a true rookie in 1958 who made his debut on opening day against the dodgers. he was 1 for 5 with an rbi in the game, and went on to hit .258 with 14 homers in his rookie campaign.
that's the end of the teams portion of the sampler, with 16 of the 26 color combos i counted represented. we will get to the rest of them in a bit.
now that the full color backgrounds are back, there is no opportunity for me to feature a card showing the yankee stadium facade, but as i mentioned up top, there were a couple of true subsets in the 1958 topps set. the first one was the inclusion of the league presidents for the third year running.
league presidents: william harridge and warren giles
i suppose it's not really a subset, since both presidents are on the same card (as they were in 1957) as opposed to having individual cards (as was the case in 1956). the only real comment i have here is that i have never seen "president" abbreviated to "prexy" before. the card mimics the base card design (even if topps omitted the respective league logos), and so i don't consider this to be a "combo card" which has a slightly different design as you will see in a bit.
team cards are the other returning subset
baltimore orioles
the backs of the team cards featured the checklists for the entire set, making this the first time that the set checklists were part of the base set and not "inserts". by the time the orioles' team card was printed, the numerical series' checklists had been completed and so an alphabetical checklist was created. this is similar to future topps flagship team cards, except that the players featured here are not team specific. i like this one because it features willie mays and mickey mantle.
card #408
combo cards were introduced in 1957, and continued in 1958.
combo card: mound aces - bob friend/billy pierce
new in 1958 were the all-star cards, with subjects chosen by "the editors of sport magazine". i've included one from each league even though the design is the same - just the background color is different - along with a "combo" all-star card.
all-stars:
eddie mathews
i also decided to add the landscape oriented card from the all-star subset.
casey stengel and fred haney
aside from that card and a couple of skippers showing up on combo cards, there weren't any manager or coach cards in the 1958 set, so that does it for subsets.
another theme i look for are what i call "o-pee-chee" type cards. these are cards that feature a player in a uniform different from the team that is designated on the card. these cards are quite prevalent in the mid-60's when updated photos were scarce but are not necessarily as plentiful or obvious in other sets. in 1958, i am sorry to say that i could not find a card that clearly fit the bill, thanks primarily to topps' artists. however, this card comes close.
jim finigan
after all that, there were still 10 color combos that need representation, and here they are.
art schult
bobby adams
card #99
the image on my card might be a bit blurry, but the colors are clear, and this is the light orange/blue combo. the text on the back of adams' card was predictory as he played first base for the first time in his career in 1958, along with his more familiar positions of second and third.
card #110
i'm considering this a green/blue color combo, but the green is not as deep as the hanebrink card above, nor is it as light as some of the cards coming up. i choose to believe that it's supposed to be the darker green, although i've not seen an example of logan's card that quite gets there. logan was an all-star in 1958, and unlike most of the other reserves, he actually got to appear in the game albeit as a pinch hitter.
johnny logan
harry anderson
card #251
here's the light blue/black color combo, along with a period after "phils" that wasn't on the preceding card. the comics are interesting, as hacker's no-hitter in the minors against seattle came in 1951, not 1955, according to baseball-reference. he did have a no-hit bid in 1955 that ended with one out in the ninth against the braves. the second comic is not very complimentary or optimistic at all. in 1958, hacker split time between the majors and minors, going 0-1 for the phillies in nine appearances.
card #171
the black background as part of the black/red color combo might have you thinking that anderson is ready for "night court", but this anderson preferred night games. he hit a career best .301 in 1958, with 23 homers and 97 rbi - also career highs.
warren hacker
bob boyd
card #279
now that's a green background, and a strong example of the green/yellow color combo. boyd had another solid year for the orioles in 1958, hitting over .300 for the third year in a row.
mike baxes
card #302
the orange/red color combo is one of the more overwhelming combinations in the set. i appreciate the back of baxes' card mentioning his brother jim who would go on to be featured in the 1959 topps set with an awkward looking photo - an image so awkward that target and the dodgers preferred a photo of baxes as an indian for the 1990 dodger retrospective set. as for this baxes brother, he finished his big league career with 73 appearances for the a's in 1958.
ray herbert
card #379
i have this card down as the light green/red color combo, but it also rounds out the various ways the team's name appears in the set. this card uses the "kansas city a's", while baxes' card is "kansas city athletics" and the power card up above featured "k.c. athletics" as already mentioned. herbert returned the majors in 1958 after two full seasons in the minors. he went 8-8 for the a's/athletics splitting time between the bullpen and the starting rotation. he had five complete games, four of the nine inning variety and one that lasted 10-1/3 innings.
bobby gene smith
card #402
this is the light green/black color combo, and an example of the cardinals being identified as "cards". smith hit .284 for the cardinals in 1958, his second year in the league. he was actually known by his full name as you might have guessed from this card as well as his 1960 topps card, and bobby gene smith was referred to as such because of another bob smith on the cardinals in 1957.
bob smith
card #445
this bob smith, providing a pink/yellow color combo example, was not the bob smith that was with the cardinals in 1957 that caused bobby gene smith to be identified by all three of his names, although i think the topps copy editors may have thought so. this smith debuted in the big leagues with the red sox (the only franchise he had ever been with) in 1958 and did not play in the national league in 1957. he went 4-3 for the bosox with one complete game as a rookie.
with that, we've now seen all 26 color combos that i identified. adding all of those cards to the team-based cards and subsets leaves three spaces on the fourth sheet. i've filled those spaces with these cards:
frank zupo
card #229
zupo's brow and chest hair game was strong for a teenager! zupo appeared in just one game in 1958, subbing in at catcher for the orioles on september 13. he went 0 for 2 against the tigers' jim bunning.
johnny klippstein
card #242
here's another example of me picking up non-dodger vintage cards of "future dodgers", as klippstein split the 1958 season between the reds and dodgers, eventually pitching in the world series and earning a ring with the dodgers in 1959. despite what you might assume based on the photo used for klippstein's card, he did not pitch with his eyes closed.
bill renna
card #473
renna saw limited playing time in 1958, but his ops was .910 as 9 of his 15 hits were for extra bases. four of those hits were home runs, but contrary to what you might assume from the comic on the back, none of those dingers were hit at fenway.
so, that's my 1958 topps sampler set, all 36 cards of it. 1959 is next - stay tuned!
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