Today I'd like to profile yet another beautiful card from my all-time favorite set, the 1976 offering by Topps: Al Oliver #620:
What an awesome card. The photo used, the card design, the colors all working together.
Just perfect!
There's something so "classic baseball" about the image, as if it can be from the '50's, '60's or '70's.
As for Oliver, he definitely falls into one of those "underrated' stars in my book.
The man put in a fantastic 18 year career which saw him total over
2700 hits, 200 homers and 1300 runs batted in. He even finished over
.300 (.303) for a career batting average and was named to seven all-star
teams, while getting M.V.P. attention in ten
different seasons.
You can also easily make an argument for him as the true "Rookie of
the Year" in 1969 over actual winner Ted Sizemore of the Dodgers. Why
Sizemore "ran-away" with the voting that season is beyond me. (There are a few Dodger Rookie-of-the-Years that raise this question throughout the years actually!)
Anyway, I've always felt Oliver was part of that group of players
from this era (Garvey, Parker, Pinson, etc) that should have gotten more
Hall of Fame attention than they did.
Oh well, what do I know, right?
For now I'll enjoy looking at this card!