A Baseball Card for Kong Day

AKA, How to Fit Five Teams on One Card

Today’s Lineup…

• 💪 Card of the Day - Happy Kong Day

• 🦸‍♂️ Hall of Fame Heroes

• 📚 Bats in the Library

1977 Topps Dave Kingman (#500) - Card of the Day

Today, Dave Kingman turns 75 years old.

That’s a calendar gut punch akin to hearing Hootie & the Blowfish on the oldies station. Or when the balding manager at the local MCL calls you “sir.”

But it’s true. Apparently.

Kong is 75. So that makes this the perfect moment to sit back and admire one of the most majestic, world-conquering hunks of cardboard you’re ever likely to find.

Heck, if you didn’t know what baseball was and saw this 1977 Topps card, you’d probably think Kingman was a mighty viking who had just vanquished his foes with a single strike from his hefty wooden hammer.

And that’s likely not far from the truth, considering that he hit 36 home runs for the Mets in 1975, then another 37 in 1976.

The early part of 1977 was a bit cooler in Kingman’s orbit, as he connected just nine times in his first 58 games.

Then the fun really started. Consider the timeline:

• June 15: The Mets traded Kingman to the Padres for Paul Siebert and Bobby Valentine.

• September 6: The Angels nabbed Kingman off waivers from the Friars.

• September 15: The Halos traded Kingman to the Yankees for Randy Stein and money.

• November 2: Kingman became a free agent.

• November 30: The Cubs signed Kingman.

If you’re counting, that made five franchises in less than a calendar year for the man who was just about big enough to wear all their jerseys at once: Mets, Padres, Angels, Yankees, Cubs.

And all along the way, Kong was thrilling collectors with this baseball card that’s so darn good, I already wrote about it (at least) once before, right here.

Testing the Hall of Fame Waters?

I mentioned test issues in yesterday’s intro, and listed out a few that Topps has unleashed over the years.

But test issues aren’t Topps’ purview alone, at least not in practice. Take the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes set, for instance.

While not technically a test issue since Donruss announced the thing and distributed it pretty widely in wax packs, HOF Heroes was a one-and-done affair.

Consisting of 44 cards adorned with paintings from the brush of Dick Perez, who was already making a name as the Diamond Kings Dude, Heroes felt like something really special when you held them in your hand.

At least they did for me. The tingles started with those Goudey-looking wrappers…

… and continued with the tales of heroes from bygone days, including my introduction to the great Josh Gibson.

Definitely worth a closer look if you haven’t spent any time with these beauties. I wrote about the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes in a bit more detail on the blog here.

Bats - What I’m Reading

More Mets?

Well, sort of, but I love this book more for its peek inside the world and mind of Davey Johnson than for its Flushing flavor.

Johnson was one of the first managers to use computers and crunch numbers in preparing for games, and this book gives some insight into that process.

And, seeing as how it was first released in April of 1986, just as the Amazing Mets unfurled their Amazing championship season, this read is sort of like being at ground zero for some really historic baseball stuff.

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That’s it for today’s experiment. What did you like most?

Thanks for reading.

—Adam