Hostess cards and the betrayals of 1977

I’m in a bad place this week -- an ugly place. Which means it is a good time to talk about the 1977 season and the Hostess set.

As we said earlier, 1976 was a fun, buoyant time. We had no idea what kind of nasty storm was approaching.

Part of the problem is that I’m too loyal to people, teams and places and I always think that people, teams and places whom I give love and devotion will continue to treat me and mine well. So I spend a fair amount of time in shock and disbelief when they do not.

Yeah, I know.

So the 13-year-old Mets Guy took the events of 1977 very personally.

The team stumbled out of the gate, with manager Joe Fraizer getting bounced after a 15-30 start, replaced by Joe Torre, who became the Mets first player-manager, with the player part lasting about two weeks.

Then came the massacre, the June 15 trade deadline that found the team shipping Tom Seaver to the Reds for four players. While management was at it, it sent Dave Kingman to the Padres.

I distinctly remember watching the news on television, pounding on the floor that Charlton Heston at the end of “Planet of the Apes.”

The team spiraled down for the remainder of the season, finishing 64-98, the Mets’ first last-place finish since 1967.

Making it worse, the Yankees won the World Series and most of the neighborhood kids jumped on the bandwagon to the Bronx Zoo as Shea became Grant’s Tomb.

Not me, of course. I voiced outrage over Steve Henderson getting robbed by Andre Dawson in Rookie of the Year voting and expected Pat Zachary to be the new staff ace.

The Hostess set was again 150 cards, five of them Mets. That includes Seaver and Kingman. The others are Jerry Koosman, who suffered a 20-loss season despite a respectable ERA, Jon Matlack and Felix Millan.

The design is pretty drab – though not as drab as what was to come—with white borders and player names in a semi-circle.

Looking back, I realize that heading to Cincinnati was painful but probably the best thing for Seaver, who piled up wins, pitched his no-hitter and would have been handed a fourth Cy Young Award had writers not gotten swept up in Fernando Mania.

Hopefully I’ll look back at the events of this week in the same way.

Hostess baseball cards in 1976 fit in with good times, bicentennial

The Hostess sets printed on the bottoms of snack boxes between 1975 and 1979 looked pretty similar, with the white borders and simple listing of a player's name, team and position.

Except, of course, for the 1976 issue.

The cards have bold red, white and blue bars across the bottom – making sure they'd blend in perfectly with everything else during that magical bicentennial year.

The patriotism that flowed in the wake of the 2001 terrorism attacks is the only other time I remember seeing so much red, white and blue. That was for healing. But in 1976, it was for celebrating.

It was a good time, even for Mets fans. Slipped in between Watergate and the Carter malaise, people were upbeat, thinking boldly.

Hawthorn elementary school did the unthinkable, conducting a massive carnival to raise enough money to send the entire fifth and sixth grades to Philadelphia for a day, a spot that was easily considered Bicentennial Central.

This was an adventure of the highest order – the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and Ben Franklin's privy, which was cooler when we learned what it was. Remember, we were 12.

Nothing was missed. Even our school photos that year had a Spirit of '76 flag in the background.

The Mets did not suck. The team finished in third place, but with 86 wins, which was the franchise's second-highest total for a long time.

Dave Kingman bashed 37 home runs, steady Eddie Kranepool hit .292, Jerry Koosman had his big 21-win season and Jon Matlack had 17 wins.

Kingman started in the All-Star Game, played in Philadelphia, of course. The National League won, also of course.

As for the Hostess set, I count seven Mets among the 150 cards: Kingman, Seaver, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Grote, Matlack, Felix Millan, and Mike Vail, who is a short-print.

Vail's presence is notable, as he was the rookie whose brief success in 1975 led to Rusty Staub's unfortunate exodus to Detroit.

I only recently acquired the Seaver,and the photo looks like it was used on some Topps leader cards. I also have the Kingman and Grote.

The rest remain elusive.

We had no idea of the horrors that awaited in 1977, but 1976 was a good time for all.

Twinkies were fine, but the cards were better

I confess there was some sadness when I learned this week that Hostess was filing for bankruptcy.

It's not a love for Twinkies, you understand. I haven't enjoyed one in years.

But from 1975 to 1979, I'd rush to the Twinkies section of Dan's Supreme and Pathmark to turn over box after box, scanning the bottom for elusive Mets. There were cards issued in 1993, too, but that was different. We'll get to that.

But during the Topps baseball card monopoly, the company issued one set of cards. That's different from today, when the company also seems to have a monopoly but issues many, many sets.

But back in the 1970s, the only other cards out there were linked to the occasional food items, printed on the bottom of the box.

It wasn't easy to find the Mets. It was an epic search.

Consider that there 150 cards in the sets. These were some of the Mets “quiet years,” so there were not many of our players in the sets. There were three cards to a box. It's not like there were unlimited of Twinkies boxes.

On a great day, Mom needed something on the store when the shelves were stocked, and I could overturn the entire display searching for Tom Seaver, who was always the priority, or other Mets.

There were some difficult choices. Buying multiple boxes was not an option. And the stock was picked through pretty quickly given all the Mets fans in Massapequa Park.


On the bright side, I could make purchases confidently since the cards were plainly visible on the box bottoms. I didn't have to buy a box merely hoping that Bud Harrelson was nestled under a “golden sponge cake with creamy frosting inside.”

Let's look at each year's cards, starting with the 1975 set. The design in as plain as can be, which stood in sharp contrast to that year's wildly colored Topps issue.




The Seaver card is, of course, spectacular, even with the tape marks. Cut me some slack, I was 11.

I also rounded up a Harrelson and a John Milner. Tom and Buddy were snapped in spring training, and Milner has the beautiful Shea batter's eye in the background.

The Staub card was acquired later. Two years ago it was the subject of some magnificent sleuthing by my friends in the Crane Pool Forum.



I wondered if this was just the worst case of airbrushing ever. Topps back in the day would paint uniforms on traded players. And sometimes, well, let's just say no one was fooled.

There was a long-suspected photo connection between Hostess and Topps.

Note that the Expos logo is still clearly visable on Rusty’s chest. Topps often would leave collar trim in plain view, but never an entire team logo.

Then it appears an artist started adding Mets pinstripes on Rusty’s unstriped Expos jersey, then got distracted and stopped.

And keep in mind, this card is from 1975. Rusty was traded to the Mets at the start of the 1972 season.

Crane Pool Forum poster batmgadanleadoff offered a theory that maked great sense.

Rusty, it is known, had some kind of beef with Topps, because his cards do not appear in the 1972 and 1973 sets. His first Mets card is in the 1974 issue.

His guess is that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line.

“I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team,” he wrote. “In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.”

That makes sense to me. And I was convinced when the fine people behind the Ultimate Mets Database created this mock-up of what an air-brushed 1972 Topps Staub card might have looked like.


There are no such horror with the 1976 set, which we'll tackle next.

You've seen the best, now look at the worst Mets cards -- if you dare!

We’ve spent the last couple months looking at the best Mets baseball cards. But its time to look at the flip side, and I don’t mean the place with all the stats.

For every 1986 there is a 1979. Opening Day is nearby, and before we turn away from cards we need to consider the very worst Mets cards offered up by Topps and some of the others companies.

Several things determine a bad card. I’ll allow companies to have an occasional off design, especially when they were issuing dozens of sets for a while.

And you are going to find some dull, lifeless photos. Not every player is Mr. Charisma.

But the ones that get my goat tend to be the cards that show a total lack of caring. We’ve seen great cards, so we know what the companies are capable of. But here’s what happens when they just stop giving a darn.

In year order:

1969 Tommie Agee

Agee played 132 games as a Met in 1968, 61 of them at Shea Stadium, a short drive from the Topps offices. So why does the company show Agee in an old photo in an air-brushed White Sox uniform? It’s not even a classic Topps headshot here, someone airbrushed the uniform. The 1969 set is notorious for its use of recycled photos, even for stars like Tom Seaver. But this just terrible. Tommy deserved better.


1972 Jim Beauchamp

I’ll forgive the airbrushing since Beauchamp arrived in 1972. But couldn’t the photo at least find a shot with his eyes open? It’s not like headshots are all that tough to shoot.


1981 Bill Almon

Hey, Topps photog. When you twist the lens on the front of the camera, you can actually bring things into focus. Brutal.


1983 Rick Ownbey

This is one of Topps best sets, and the design is intended to have a big action shot of a player and a small headshot in the inset. Ownbey appeared in only 8 games in 1982 and 10 in 1983, so I’m glad he has a card at all. But the inset is virtually the same size as the posed shot, and it’s clearly from another shot in the same roll.


1992 Donruss Vince Coleman

Somebody forget to tell the person cropping the photo that we’d rather have a complete Vince in the picture than the complete number 3. This is like a photo of the outfield wall that just happens to include Vice Coleman instead of the other way around.


1992 Topps Stadium Club Bill Pulsipher

Topps did the high school yearbook thing for a number of young players in this set and the Bowman set. I have no idea why. There are too many of these for it to be a fluke, with the company caught without a photo. And the glove shows that there was some thought in the pose. But the shirt, the hair and the off-camera glance make this the worst of a bad bunch.


1997 Fleer Metal Mark Clark

I’m not panning Fleer for trying something a little – well, a lot – different with the fantasy inspired Metal sets. Some of them are pretty cool in an odd kind of way. But it seems like they forgot to include Mark Clark in this Mark Clark card. I look at this and expect to see the stats for the fire-breathing monster on the back.


2004 Upper Deck Play Ball Jose Reyes

This is an artsy painting of Jose Reyes. I know this because it says “Jose Reyes” on the bottom, and not because the painting above bears even the slightest resemblance to our favorite shortstop.


2005 Donruss Champions Roger Cedeno

I’m using this one card to call attention to an entire set. This was a premium issue. I know the companies were looking for some niche audiences. This must be the set aimed at people who didn’t want photos of baseball players cluttering up their bland background baseball cards.


2005 Topps Gallery Kaz Matsui

I suspect this might have been a nice painting of Matsui before some intern left it out in the rain. I know, the Gallery cards where supposed to be artsy fartsy. This painting might even work as a program cover or something. But it’s not a baseball card.


2010 Topps National Chicle Nolan Ryan

I know it looks like I’m down on the art cards. That’s not true, as you can tell from the previous posts. But I’m down on bad art cards. I’d say that it’s nice Topps hired Mrs. Cooper’s third-graders to illustrate a set, but I don’t want to be unkind to third-graders. This looks more like John Maine than Nolan Ryan. Heck, it looks more like me than Nolan Ryan.

Last looks at Topps' rivals in Mets cards

The folks at Topps must have felt too threatened by the first couple Fleer and Donruss sets, but it didn’t take all that long for the rivals to get better. By the time Upper Deck and Score joined the field, Topps was the choice for loyalists, but not necessarily those who demanded quality above all else.

This is not to say that everything issued by the newcomers was first-rate. But there were some glorious moments of Mets on cardboard, as we wrap up our look at favorite non-Topps Mets.

1990 Donruss Dwight Gooden and Sid Fernandez

The 1990 Donruss set has no business being as good as it is. Splattered paint, bright red borders, the drabbest possible backs, “error cards” and massive over-production is not a recipe for a classic issue. But somehow it works. This is one of my favorite sets.



Donruss filled this with great action cards, like this Dwight Gooden, and nice portraits, like El Sid.
1998 Donruss Don Darling.

Not the best Donruss design, but I like this Darling portrait because we get a great view of the script New York the Mets wore on the road uniforms for only the 1987 season. Am I the only one who likes that uniform?

1998 Studio Dwight Gooden, 2003 Al Leiter and 2004 Mike Piazza







I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a black and white set when Studio made its debut, but some of those portraits are beautiful. And Donruss soon found different ways to showcase the portraits, with backgrounds of lockers, cap logos, patches, stadiums and cityscapes.

2004 Donruss Team Heroes Kaz Matsui


Remember how excited we all were when the Mets signed Matsui? Our own Ichiro! Well, that didn’t turn out as we hoped. But I like this card showing Kaz after his introduction press conference posing in Times Square.

1999 Fleer Turk Wendell



Fleer had some great designs. The 1999 set wasn’t one of them. But I love this portrait of Turk and his tooth and claw necklace. Certainly one of the more colorful Mets, Wendell was actually a pretty good reliever, too.

2001 Fleer Ultra Todd Zeile


Ultra was Fleer’s answer to Topps’ Stadium Club, and was usually a decent set. Everything seems to work in this action shot of Zeile, with the pinstripes, the foul line and lots of Pete Flynn’s manicured grass.

Upper Deck Vintage Tom Seaver


UD tried to tap into the Topps devoted fan base by aping some of the company’s best designs for its retro Vintage sets. This set copies the 1965 design, and it gets points for showing Seaver from the 1983 homecoming season, which can’t be saluted enough!

2001 Upper Deck Legends Tom Seaver


Sometimes UD even used one of its own designs for veteran players. I don’t think I’d seen this nice, relaxed Seaver portrait before this issue.

1992 Upper Deck John Franco


I used to argue that that Mets should retire Franco’s number. Now I’m not so sure, but he should most definitely be in the Mets Hall of Fame.

2001 Upper Deck and 2008 Upper Deck David Wright


Now, I do think David Wright will earn his way on to the wall with Casey, Gil, Tom and Jackie – and someday Mike. This posed portrait is a little odd because he’s wearing a jersey with a 2000 World Series patch, a series he didn’t play in. In fact, he was drafted with the pick the Mets earned for losing Mike Hampton, one of the stars of that postseason


I like that Upper Deck used this photo from the All-Star Game, snapped after Wright hit his home run.

Wait, companies other than Topps made baseball cards too? Here are some of the best Mets

Now that we’ve counted down the Topps top 60 of all time and even added a bunch on to that, I think it’s fair to acknowledge that there are some amazing cards that were, in fact, not produced by Topps.

At the risk of completely beating the baseball card theme to death and then some, I want to point out some of the sweet Mets cards by other companies, all of which have since been banished. And it’s better than reading more about Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.

This isn’t a countdown and is by no means exhaustive, but just some of the finest work from Topps’ vanquished rivals – part one.

1991 Score Dream Team Frank Viola and 1992 Upper Deck Bret Saberhagen.



Sweet Music Viola and Saberhagen were the two most heralded Mets hurler acquisitions prior to Johan Santana. Viola delivered, by and large, becoming the last Mets pitcher to win 20 games. Saberhagen, arrived in New York with two Cy Young Awards on his mantle, and well, didn’t add a third.



But both posed with big apples to show at least the appearance of devotion to our favorite city. Viola’s a New Yorker by birth and Saberhagen, well, likely did what the photographer told him to do.

True story: When people work for my newspaper for 10 years they are asked to pose for a photo that is used to make a little cutout figure that lines the walls of the cafeteria. I noticed that one employee posed in his Mets jersey with a big apple, a shot that might have been inspired by these cards.


2007 Upper Deck Endy Chavez

Endy’s NLCS Game Seven act of superhuman fielding is possibly the most glorious catch in Mets history, with apologies to Mr. Agee and Mr. Swoboda. Too bad Yadier Bleeping Molina had to go and ruin things. Topps used the photo for one half of a postseason card, but Upper Deck gave the moment the attention it deserves.


1984 Fleer Darryl Strawberry

To their credit, the folks at Fleer knew how to keep a design nice and simple, and not detracting from the photo. Sadly, the photos were often kind of lacking. But this card of a youthful Straw in his first full year is darn near perfect.


1986 Donruss Gary Carter

No design was too busy for Donruss, however. Sometimes it worked well, and the 1986 set was one of the company’s best. For some reason, the photos seemed particularly crisp. I love the lighting on this action shot showing Kid at the tail end of his swing, watching the flight of the ball before chugging down the basepath.

2008 Upper Deck Goudey Tom Seaver

I like retro sets, in theory. But some of the ones that have artwork instead of photos are pretty nasty, almost as if the task was delegated to Mrs. Jackson’s third-graders on finger-paint day.


But when the companies decide to make a set special, and not just something to justify the inserts, the results can be spectacular. This Tom Terrific card from Upper Deck’s Goudey set hits the mark and then some.

2007 Upper Deck Goudey Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado




Upper Deck had a good run with these sets. A year before the Seaver gem, the company used most of the artwork in the backgrounds. The Beltran card recalls the old-school ballparks. The Delgado card goes one step beyond, with the pose, the smile, the sun illuminating his face.

Solving the mystery of the horrific Hostess Rusty Staub

I fondly remember turning over box after box of Ring Dings and Twinkies at the Dan’s Supreme supermarket in downtown Massapequa Park, looking for baseball cards on the bottom of the boxes, searching for the rare Mets player who might appear.

These memories were stirred by a post on Paul Lukas’ awesome Uniwatch blog showing an ad for the cards.

That, in turn, brought back horrific memories of what might be the worst Mets card ever rendered – and a potential mystery solved by members of the even more awesome Crane Pool Forum.

First, some background. Baseball card lovers know that it stinks to have a player wearing the wrong uniform on his card. It just looks bad.

This is a problem because players get traded, especially during the winter. And Topps back in the day the sole producer of cardboard glory, sometimes wanted to get cards produced without having the time – or the desire – to get a fresh photo of the guy in his new threads.

The company worked around this problem in two ways.

First, it would ask each player to remove his cap for a headshot, known in card circles as a “big head, no hat” photo, or BHNH.

Or, the company would either paint over a cap logo, and, in some cases, attempt to paint a new logo on the cap.

The 1962 set had a ton of BHNH cards, since it was the Mets' first year, and manager Casey Stengel appeared with his Yankee logo painted over.

But after that, it wasn’t unusual to see a player or two get the brush treatment. Sometimes the artists did a fairly nice job. Sometimes, not so much.

Logos got more complicated over the years, and the 1977 expansion Blue Jays players no doubt hoped and prayed that the squishy bird heads painted on their cards would bear only slight resemblance to that their actual caps would look like.

That brings us to our horror story and Hostess. The Mets had experienced some awful air-brush jobs over the years, but the 1975 Hostess card of Rusty Staub is the worst of the worst.

Hide the children, because this is nasty stuff.

Wow. For starters, the Expos logo is still clearly visable on Rusty’s chest. Topps often would leave collar trim in plain view, but never an entire team logo.

Then it appears an artist started adding Mets pinstripes on Rusty’s unstriped Expos jersey, then got distracted and stopped. Or, he was in a sugar frenzy from eating too many Ring Dings. Either way, there is a whole section of Rusty that is without stripes.

And keep in mind, this card is from 1975. Rusty was traded to the Mets at the start of the 1972 season. You telling me Hostess couldn’t get a current shot of Rusty after three years at Shea?

Something went horribly wrong, and there must be a reason. Crane Pool Forum poster batmgadanleadoff has a theory that makes great sense.

He’s thinking that Hostess used Topps’ archives for the photos. Clearly they reached out to someone because there were a lot of cards in the sets and the bakery folks probably didn’t shoot the players themselves.

Rusty, it is known, had some kind of beef with Topps, because his cards do not appear in the 1972 and 1973 sets. His first Mets card is in the 1974 issue.

“I'm guessing that Hostess licensed their pictures from Topps and that the screwup with the Expos "elb" logo and pinstriping was not an artist's oversight, but that the photo was supposed to be cropped higher up, at around Staub's neck and through the shoulder line. I've seen several proofs of old Topps cards where the cap or helmet was airbrushed to reflect the player's brand new team. In those proofs, the jersey top (former team) was left unaltered. The final card was cropped above the jersey.”

That’s very plausible. And I was convinced when the fine people behind the Ultimate Mets Database created this mock-up of what an air-brushed 1972 Topps Staub card might have looked like.

That’s very much in line with what other air-brushed Mets of the ear looked like. So what we likely see before us is Hostess folks not cropping old photos as intended.

Now, equally frightening is the physical cropping of the entire card from the box. I will not accept blame for this. This is the way the card was when I found it at a show – the only time I’ve ever seen it.

Maybe Rusty bought up all the boxes to prevent this nightmare from getting out in public, but I don’t think Twinkies would appeal to his gourmet tastes.

Speaking of treats, the Ultimate Mets folks have a whole bunch of modern Mets in pretend cards using designs from the 1970s. If you, like me, love the cardboard treasures from that era, you'll love the handiwork on display here.

And here's some less-than-glorious artwork from Topps, a gallery of air-brushed shame.


I don't know if it's coincidence or design, but a lot of air-brushed Mets didn't last with the team more than a year. This Jerry Robinson from the 1971 and Phil Hennigan from 1973 are good examples. At least Phil got a full logo on his cap.

Bob Miller was an original Met, then came back for a cameo in the 1974 set. Alas, Topps didn't bother to the hide his Pirates collar.


Joe Torre got the air-brush treatment in 1974, with Topps even adding the pinstripes and a button on what was a Cardinals jersey.


Finally, we have the sad case of Mickey Lolich. He lasted a season with the Mets, appearing in this 1976 traded card and a in a real photo in the 1977 set.

I met Lolich at a card show near Detroit years later and asked him about his short tenure at Shea.

"Hated it," he said. "I'm just an ole country boy and didn't like living in the city."

Of course, Mickey was involved in one of the worst Mets trades ever, coming from Detroit in exhange for -- you know it -- Rusty Staub.