Thanks to blog reader Joe, it was brought to my attention that the
1970 Topps set and it's "all star" sub-set is technically wrong.
While I do understand that the all-stars shown in the 1970 set are
actually the Sporting News selected all-stars, and NOT the all-stars as
voted by fans (as Topps would practice in the years ahead), I agree with
Joe that the REAL all-stars from 1969 should
be shown in the set.
To kick things off let's take Steve Carlton, the actual National
League starting pitcher for the 1969 all-star game, and put him on an
all-star card.
In the Topps set Jerry Koosman of the Mets is depicted as the left-handed pitching all-star, and not "Lefty" himself.
So take a look at the simple card I whipped up to "fix" this wrong:
What makes this player selection even more interesting is that
Carlton was the starting and WINNING pitcher for the game, yet wasn't
given an all-star card.
Turns out there were five players that were starters in that 1969
all-star game that were not given all-star cards in the 1970 set:
Carlton, Cleon Jones of the Mets, Sal Bando of the A's, Frank Howard of
the Senators and the A.L. starting pitcher Mel Stottlemyre
of the Yankees.
So watch for the other four over the next couple of weeks, and
we'll then have an accurate set of all-stars representing the starters
from the 1969 game.
