Here's a great card from that wacky 1973 Topps set, #431 Gerry Moses.
Take a look:
Now, is it "Jerry", or "Gerry"?
I have no idea, but I can tell you that I'm leaning towards "Jerry"
since I have a 1972 Cleveland Indians team signed baseball, and it
clearly says "Jerry".
Which brings me to my next point about the card: the photo is
obviously not one of him in a Yankee uniform since he didn't play for
them yet when this card was produced.
Yet it's not a photo of him from the year before, since as I
mentioned above he was with the Indians, and their caps were red from
what I know.
So it seems Topps went a bit further back, but Not EVEN from the
year before (1971), since Moses was with the California Angels that
year, and if you look behind him in the shot, that's an Angel sliding
across the plate there.
So it seems that Topps went with a photo of Moses from his Boston Red Sox days, which were between 1965 and 1970.
Whew! Such complications for a light-hitting, much traveled catcher!
I like the look on Moses' face, almost like, "Oh well, the guy scored, what can you do?"
Now, I'm totally guessing here, but I think the Angels player
sliding home is Ken McMullen, who sported #7 on his uni. But again, wild
guess here.
I'm just a sucker for a nice photo of a catcher in action a'la 1976 Johnny Bench or 1978 Jim Sundberg, as profiled earlier.
Moses would only suit up for the Yanks in 1973 before moving on to
Detroit in 1974, then the Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres in 1975
before retiring.
Never a starter, he ended his nine-year career with 386 games played, 25 homers and a .251 batting average over 1072 at-bats.
But he does leave us with a nice game-action card to appreciate all these years later!
