Topps went and gave him a card in 1972 even though up to that point he hadn’t played since 1969.
Yet when the 1973 season came around, he was left out of the 1973 set even though he put in almost a full-season of work with the Milwaukee Brewers.
So here’s my “missing” 1973 card:
Ferraro played in 124 games in 1972, batting .255 with 97 hits over 381 at-bats and 406 plate appearances.
I mean, come on, how is this not enough action for a card?
Granted (and here is where it gets even more interesting), Ferraro would never play in another Major League game again!
So besides 10 games with the New York Yankees in 1966, 23 games in 1968, and a scant 5 games with the Seattle Pilots in 1969, that 1972 season would be the bulk of his big league action.
I get that with a late-series card in the ’72 set it was based on the amount of playing time he was getting that season, but was it a given that he was out of baseball the following year, enough that Topps decided to leave him out?
I love stuff like this: the quirks of Topps’ selection process, where guys with a handful of games the year before get a card, yet a guy with over 100 appearances could get snubbed.