O-Pee-Chee Gave the Expos (a) Familiar Face(s)

Who needs a team card when you can have a Collage of Coaches?

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1977 O-Pee-Chee Expos Coaches (#198) - Card of the Day

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Most collectors think of O-Pee-Chee baseball cards as “Canadian Topps,” and that’s a pretty fair characterization in general. After all, from 1965 through 1992, O-Pee-Chee issued cards that were identical in design to the corresponding Topps set, but with a few differences:

• O-Pee-Chee cards were bilingual, featuring both French and English.

• O-Pee-Chee used brighter card stock, opting for a sort of orange creamsicle fare instead of the muddy brown Topps mush.

• O-Pee-Chee checklists sometimes differed from the Topps checklist.

• O-Pee-Chee often denoted late player movement with text on the card front: Al Oliver was “NOW WITH TEXAS RANGERS” on his 1978 OPC card, for example (read about that card here).

• O-Pee-Chee sometimes used different photos for some players (see the 1977 Elvis Chuck Hartenstein matched pair, for example).

That 1977 O-Pee-Chee set was one that featured a different lineup of cards from the one Topps ran out, which must have been a disappointment to Canadian collectors. After all, from 1973 through 1976, every OPC set contained a full 660 cards, just like the Topps sets.

But in 1977, the O-Pee-Chee checklist featured just 264 cards, while Topps chugged along at 660. Player selection for OPC was further diluted by the addition of two new teams, the expansion Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays.

O-Pee-Chee did keep most of the players from the two Canadian teams, though, so the set is fairly bursting with Jays and Expos cards…unless they appeared on one of those multi-player rookie cards (sorry, Andre Dawson and Doug Ault!).

Also gone were the team cards.

On the other hand, O-Pee-Chee made concessions for the ‘Spos and Jays in that “team” realm in the form of four-men “coaches” cards. You see the Expos version up top, which showcases Jim Brewer, Billy Gardner, Mickey Vernon, and Ozzie Virgil.

All four were well-known in baseball circles, with Brewer having just pitched his last game in 1976. Gardner was a long-time infielder and coach who would eventually manage the Twins and Royals. Virgil was the first player from the Dominican Republic to make it to the majors, and his son, Ozzie Jr., played 11 years in the bigs and was a two-time All-Star catcher.

As for Vernon, he was a bona fide star during most of his 20-year run in the big leagues. His best seasons came with the original Washington Senators in the 1940s and 1950s, and he racked up seven All-Star appearances and two American League batting titles, as well as heavy MVP consideration on multiple occasions.

Immediately after he concluded his playing career in 1960, Vernon became the first manager of the expansion Senators after the originals blew town for Minnesota. His teams went 135-227 before the axe fell, and Washington replaced him with Eddie Yost for one game and then Gil Hodges on a permanent basis.

If you’re wondering about the Blue Jays coaches, well, here you go:

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Not quite the same star power as the Expos were able to field, but Don Leppert, Bob Miller, and Jackie Moore all played and coached in the majors. Harry Warner, meanwhile, spent 17 years in the minors before embarking on his own coaching career.

Finally, what relevance does all this have to anything, to today? The answer lies in the fine print on the back of the Montreal card:

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Did you see it?

If not, I’ll let you off the hook — Mickey Vernon was born on April 22, 1918.

1967 Topps Gil Hodges Sees What Might Have Been

It’s always a good day to look at a Gil Hodges baseball card, so let’s use the mention of his name above as an excuse to do just that. This 1967 Topps beauty shows the Hall of Famer beaming in that same role as Senators skippers. I gave this one the old one-two deep-dive treatment in this post.

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