Monday, April 2, 2012

Vintage Card of the Month: 1970 Topps Steve Barber


Major League Baseball is kicking off this month, not counting the 2-game schedule between the Mariners and A’s in Japan, and I decided to go with a 1970 Topps Baseball card for the Vintage Card of the Month.

I am not a huge fan of the 1970 series, I prefer the ’71 set, but I picked up this card from Adam at Thoughts and Sox a couple of weeks ago. He included the card in a collection of Mariners cards he pulled aside for me. I scanned the card in at high resolution and it picked up all the print lines and wear on the front of the card. The card does not look like this in hand.

The ‘70s Topps Baseball set was pretty basic with a gray border, team name in the upper corner, player name and position. The back of the card was standard for the time and include the player’s basic info, a small write up and complete lifetime stats.

The Seattle Pilots spent one season, 1969, in Seattle before moving to Milwaukee and became the Brewers but the team still has a large following in the Seattle area. After spending 15 years in Seattle I have to admit I have a love for the team too but admittedly only 2 things of note came out of the Pilots time in Seattle, Lou Pinella (who never played a regular season game for the team) and Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four.

Steve Barber was drafted by the Pilots in the 1968 Espansion Draft, he spent only one season in Seattle and was released by the time the team moved to Milwaukee. He went 4-7 with a 4.80 ERA. and was defnitly on the downside of his career well before the team picked him up.

1 comment:

  1. I need to find me a Pilots card of my own just so I can prove to the kids that I don't have yet that there really was a team called the Pilots.

    Cuz, really, I still don't even believe it.

    ReplyDelete