First issues first. In case you got here right here “in pursuit” of the Mark Armour/Dan Levitt bestseller, you’ll need to head to this site as a substitute. This text is strictly about Maury Wills. That mentioned, Maury wasn’t a foul addition to a workforce in pursuit of pennants. In his first stint with Los Angeles (1959-66), the Dodgers received 4 pennants in eight years. He even earned a cameo within the first ever Topps World Sequence subset. (Enjoyable truth: The “recreation 5” motion depicted really occurred in recreation 4.)
However again to the true subject of this text, there’s a purpose the World Sequence card, issued in 1960, is Maury’s solely Topps card till 1967. Whereas at spring coaching with the Tigers in 1959, Maury was famously handed over by Topps scout Turk Karam, who was handing out $5 buying and selling card contracts to only about anybody in cleats and a jersey. Because the story goes, Karam was sure Wills, who had toiled within the minors since 1950, had no shot at ever making it to the Present.
Whereas the oversight value Maury $5 that spring, the true losers had been collectors, who needed to look to meals points, Fleer, and picture packs for playing cards of the Nationwide League’s most prolific base stealer since Sliding Billy Hamilton.
Wills was nonetheless an all-star caliber participant by the point he signed with Topps for the 1967 season, however surely his greatest years had been behind him, as had been his pennants. His two Pirates playing cards corresponded to a pair sixth place finishes, his Expos card was as a cellar dweller, and even his return to Los Angeles had him an also-ran three straight years.
Among the many hardest throughout Maury’s late-career cardboard is his card within the 1971 Topps “Baseball’s Best Moments” check concern. As a Wills collector, it’s a card I’d been chasing for some time and at last acquired in at this time’s mail. It’s a horny card that pays tribute to Maury’s single season stolen base file from 1962.
Notably notable, nonetheless, is the “article” on the cardboard again, which opens considerably unexpectedly: “In a significant league profession delayed by 9 years of wandering in minor league ball…”
There are definitely different methods to learn that line, however no less than one is that its creator believes Maury was saved within the minors far too lengthy. In different phrases, it ought to have been clear to the baseball folks paid to determine such issues that Maury was prepared for the massive leagues far sooner than June 1959. By the identical token, one would assume, it ought to have been clear to Topps that Maury not solely had a shot on the majors however was overdue.
Right here then is Topps publicly acknowledging the error of its methods and doing its greatest to proper a fallacious, or—as some may put it—in pursuit of penance. 😉
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