1980 Topps Lou Brock Gets Caught in a Rundown
PLUS -- a question for *you*
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1980 Topps 3000-Hit Celebration (#1) - Card of the Day
If you think finishing your career as the all-time stolen base record and with 3000+ hits should warrant some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award, well, then we think alike.
And we think like Topps (old Topps, at least), too, but only halfly.
Of course, we have three choices for dudes who fit that profile and might have qualified for such an award at one time or another in the long history of our great game and hobby (stats from Baseball-Reference.com):
Ty Cobb, who retired with 4191 hits (or 4189…ugh) and 897 stolen bases in 1928
Lou Brock, who retired with 3023 hits and 938 stolen bases in 1979
Rickey Henderson, who retired with 3055 hits and 1406 stolen bases in 2003
All three had at least 3000 hits and held the all-time stolen base mark when they hung up their spikes.
And all three eventually got their Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) in the form of a Hall of Fame plaque.
But you and me, we’re card collectors. Shouldn’t there be some sort of cardboard LAA to commemorate these feats?
Like a Topps career-capper card?
Yeah, there should, except …
There were no Topps cards in 1928, so Cobb is out. And, he wasn’t really the all-time stolen base leader, either — just the “modern” version, thanks to the base path exploits of (the first) Billy Hamilton back in the 1800s.
That leaves Brock and Henderson …
Now, for most of Topps’ history, they just would not print a card of a guy if they knew he wasn’t going to be on a big-league roster the season of issue, no matter who he was.
So, with Rickey on the sidelines in 2004, there was no final Topps Henderson card showing his entire Major League resume.
Luckily for us, though, Upper Deck gave us a career-capper showing Rickey with the Dodgers.
Similarly, when Brock retired after the 1979 season, Upper Deck came to the rescue!
Oh, wait.
That’s right.
There was no Upper Deck in 1979.
No Fleer, either. Or Donruss or Score or Studio or … anything.
There was just Topps.
And that meant there was no hope of pulling a true, in-the-moment, fresh-from-live-packs career-capper for the man who blazed National League base paths for 19 summers.
But there was something … a glimmer of hope … a half-measure to hold us over until 1985, when Cooperstown would come calling.
Because, on August 13, 1979, about six weeks before he took the field for the last time, Brock recorded his 3000th MLB hit.
Thirty days later, on September 12th, Carl Yastrzemski followed suit.
And, while Topps wouldn’t issue a full-on card of a retired player, they were happy to pad their sets with celebrations of the previous year’s Highlights and Record Breakers, especially if they could group the achievers together.
And, thus, the last Topps set of the (first) Monopoly Era began with a combo card (#1) of 1979’s two 3000-hit men, with Brock appropriately slotted in the leadoff spot…see the dandy at the start of this post.
Yaz would face a similar cardboard fate four years later when Topps thumbed their noses at him, except for the little matter of using his image alongside other retiring superstars, Johnny Bench and Gaylord Perry, to help add fire to the beginning (#6) of their 1984 base set.
But back to 1980 …
All in all, this is a great card featuring two iconic players.
But, as a career-capper? As a cardboard Lifetime Achievement Award?
In that regard, and unlike the man himself, this last Lou Brock card gets us only halfway home.
Oh, and by the way — today is Brock’s birthday. The late Cardinals legend was born 85 years ago.
A Question for YOU
Before we go on, I wanted to check in with you on something.
In the course of researching and writing this newsletter, I often come across fascinating (to me, at least) pieces of baseball history that I didn’t know about.
Like how Lou Gehrig and Dave Van Gorder debuted on the same day (OK, give or take 59 years).
Or how Joe Morgan’s last game took out a few other hobby regulars — if not exactly stars — of the 1980s.
Or how Lou Brock…well, you can read more about that one below.
Anyway, some of these tidbits end up in posts, but most of them either just wink at me on my way to wherever I’m going or end up on the cutting room floor.
So my question is, would you be interested in reading one or a series of short ebooks, each focused on a particular (maybe obscure) topic from baseball history? You know, along the lines of what I described above?
If I went down this road, the current format of this newsletter would remain the same, but I’d make the ebooks available as part of a paid susbcription and/or through platforms like Kindle, Kobo, etc.
Let me know what you think!
POLL
Are you interested in ebooks focused on obscure baseball facts and coincidences?
yes
0%
no
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Alright now…where were we? Ah, yes…
Brock’s Flair for the Dramatic
Everybody knows that Brock was the “good” side of one of the most lopsided trades in baseball history. And that the Cardinals’ fortunes took a turn for the better with their new speedster on board to set the table.
But did you know that Brock provided much of the heroics when the Cardinals opened a new stadium in 1966? Read all about it right here.
—
That’s a lot of speed for one newsletter, so I’ll cut it off there before this thing runs away with us.
But first — what’s your favorite career-capper card, a card issued after a player hangs up his spikes and shows his full stats? Lots of big names missed out on having a career capper completely, so it’s always fun to uncover a few “new” ones.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
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