Top Hat

I'm not sure exactly how many Topps All Star Rookie Awards trophies have popped up for auction over the years but it would surprise me if the total has hit double digits.  So it was noteworthy indeed when one was hammered down in a Hunt Auctions offering recently. The trophy in question belonged to Tommy Harper, who had a solid but relatively unspectacular career that spanned 14 seasons and started off quite well in CIncinnati.

He was an original Pilot, selected from Cleveland after a season there and was probably Seattle's best player. He made the move to Milwaukee and held best player distinction there as well before getting traded to Boston after the 1971 season in a massive ten player deal you don't see the likes of anymore.

Harper recently consigned a number of items from his playing days to Hunt and happily for us it included his 1963 trophy:

It's a really nice piece but the top hat is a real head-scratcher, isn't it? Described as being just under ten inches tall, it's had some small repair work done but looks remarkably well preserved.

Included in the lot was a photograph of the ten award winners for 1963:

Going left to right, front to back, that's  Gary Peters, Jimmie Hall, Pete Rose, Jesse Gonder and Harper rounding out the front. Rusty Staub, Al Weis, Pete Ward, Ray Culp and Vic Davalillo are mostly all smiles in back.

Here's Harper in 1964, with his card sporting the little trophy Topps usually added for the award winners:

I say "usually" because the left it off poor Jesse Gonder's '64 entry:

Totally uncool.

Before signing off, here's the cover of the 1963 Banquet Program, which is my favorite of the eight issued from 1959-66:

Time For Three

It recently occurred to me that I have not managed to show a full cover run of the Topps Rookie Banquet Programs from 1959-66.  Given out at the annual awards banquets hosted by Topps brass every fall, the programs from these events are coveted collectibles.

I've covered all the past years but two: 1960 and 1965.  I only have a weird angle shot for the 1960 edition, which was the second banquet:

Not the best shot but it shows the trophy in great detail.

Our last missing piece is the 1965 version and it's a beauty, if slightly cut off in this scan I nicked from 4192cards.com.

The interior is fairly typical:

The venue was The Americana Hotel, which is now the Sheraton, just north of Times Square in NYC; a hotel where I have attended a few dinners myself over the years.

As noted in a previous post, these banquets turned into the Baseball Achievement Awards in 1967 and resulted in a much smaller (and cheaper) program being distributed. They still have the dinner every year from what I can tell and this will be the 55th year the rookie awards have been handed out.

Now the most famous banquet program in 1964's as Topps released a boxed card set that year.  36 oversized (3" x 5 1/4") cards came in a real snazzy foil enhanced slipcase and now go for quite impressive sums.  However, Topps also printed a program that year, it's just smaller than the other rookie banquet programs and fits in the slipcase that held the cards:

It is said the interior matches the card set with one exception - Luis Tiant, the Topps Minor League Player of the year (card 34A). I don't know if this is true or not so if anyone has the skinny, drop me a line.

Here is the slipcase for comparison:

I believe the '64 program is the toughest one of them all-it rarely seems to come with the card set and not too many have turned up over the years. The 1964 "program" is one of the great all-time Topps items IMHO.

Get With the Program

Well, a little more information has dribbled in on the Rookie Banquet Programs and I figured it was a good topic for a catch up thread on a blustery day here at the Archive.

I'm going to work my way back in time, probably because I watched the new Star Trek movie last night and I'm just going with the theme.

I found a scan from Ebay on my hard drive of the '66 program cover and it's a beaut:



No interior scans unfortunately.

Friend o' the Archive Chuck Lumb left a comment here recently about the '64 program and confirmed it was issued along with the card set. He describes it as 3 3/16" wide by 5 5/16" tall, or just slightly larger than the dimensions of the cards. No scan yet but it would have to replicate the box cover for the card set. Chuck also advises that Luis Tiant is page #35 in the program but he is card #34a in the set. Topps numbering bugaboos are old school by now!

And finally, we have a nice cover scan of the '63 program, which I found on a fabulous Pete Rose site called www.4192cards.com



That is one kickin' cover. There is an interior shot at the 4192cards.com site as well, along with a veritable plethora of Pete Rose goodies.

I'll try to scour the web for our missing covers and get back to you all shortly.

Programs, Get Your Programs Here!

Meanwhile, back on the rubber chicken circuit...a discussion of some early Topps Rookie All Star Banquet Programs. Few of these have survived the years and I cannot even lay claim to owning more than one (1962) or even having a full run of scans covering the years the program was a full-blown affair (1959-66). So I'll show what I have and hope our faithful readership can fill in the blanks.

Topps first made a big deal out of the annual crop of Major League rookies in 1959, with a colorful 31 card subset of The Sporting News Rookie Stars of 1959 which was likely the venerable publication's marketing response to the 1958 Sport Magazine All Star cards from the year prior:



The back of the card shows the writeup from TSN:



I have to think the idea of honoring top rookies evolved into the first Rookie Awards Banquet, held in New York City in 1959:



I'd say it's pretty optimistic when the event goes annual, even the first time out! That was from an Ebay auction a while back, one of the few I've seen over the years.

Sport Magazine was back at it in 1960:



There was a new kid in town though, the Topps Rookie All Star trophy:



Jim Baxes was indeed one of the first ten winners of the annual award, as seen in the prior thread on 1964 Rookie Banquet Cards.

There were also paper inserts issued in 1959 and 1960 packs that allowed you to "Elect Your Favorite Rookie" and I am working on getting some scans of the 1959 version (they are quite rare) but am not sure how long they fed into the annual awards, which seem like they were a much more officious affair. Here is a scan of the 1960 insert from a 1988 issue of Sport Collectors Digest:



The All Star Rookie Trophy icon was a staple of 1960's Topps cards but was not squared away in appearance until 1961:



I do not have any good scans of the '60 or '63 programs and the '62 was previously shown but here are a couple interior shots from that year:



You can see the floating heads that were later co-opted for the '64 Banquet cards.



I can show a scan, nicked from Ebay, of the 1961 program cover:



I need color scans from 1965-66 (and maybe '64--there are mixed reports if the card set issued that year negated the use of a bound program) and will post 'em if I get 'em. If not, I'll use some old SCD pictures. Topps switched to a different format for the program in 1967 (I think it went to four larger pages from the previous digest sized versions) but the banquet was still going strong in the mid 80's.

A Moveable Feast?

Well, it didn't take long for some better '64 Rookie Banquet scans to come winging my way across the mojo wire, courtesy of friend o'the archive Doug Goodman.

Here is a good look at the trophy card:



The hard working election committee sure looks officious:



Here is what the PR cards looked like:



And a better peek at the Minor League Awards header card is just below:



And what better way to conclude than with a salute to the Master of Ceremonies, the future host of Sale of The Century and the man who made Yogi Berra a household word, the one and only Joe Garagiola:

Feast On This

Over the the first 50 or so years of Topps marketing cards there aren't many examples of legitimately released sets that were not issued in packs or sold in stores. The 1970 Bowie Kuhn card comes to mind, as does the Joe Garagiola business card and the 1990 George HW Bush card (with a "maybe" on Pres. 41-some were rumored to have been inserted in packs) but there's not a wide range of possibilities. But Topps did manage to issue a fairly broad set in 1964 featuring the subjects of the current and past festivities held annually at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York that is known today as the Rookie Banquet set.

A little background is in order. The first Rookie Banquet was held in 1959 to honor those ten lucky players chosen by a surprisingly well-rounded Election Committee for the Major League Baseball All Star Rookie Team. For the next seven years Topps issued a really nice program that was distributed to the formally attired attendees. After the 1966 gathering the program was scaled back although I believe the banquet is still held to this day.

Here is the cover of one from 1962-it's a little rough:



However, my mission today is not to discuss the programs (that will happen to be sure, just not now) but rather a permutation in 1964 that resulted in a scarce 36 card set full of esoteric and diverse subjects that actually was the program.

The cards are oversized at 3" x 5 1/4" and were designed so that each was like a page from a paper program, numbered at the lower right:



The backs are duller than dull:



But there are allegedly back variants with printing from the 1964-65 Push-Pull set, which had the following reverse:



Weird, eh? I had to pull that one from the 'bay. Now in theory the winners would have the infamous gold rookie trophy displayed on their cards the following year but Brumley's was inadvertently left off. Here is what the trophy looked like, in case you forgot:



The set was housed in an attractive slipcase:



The box is printed on semi-reflective foil and it looks pretty cool in the light. Some very simple mid-60's design work was used, quite effectively I think.

Each player so honored like our Mr. Brumley was accompanied by another card with a writeup from the team's public relations director, as such (everything below this consists of scans of items I do not own):



Sorry, some of the scans I nicked can't be blown up. The most notable non-player depicted, at least to me, is Topps' own Sy Berger:



Yup, that would be his rookie card!

Past honorees also got their due:



There are also various header cards, like this one:



Here's a selection of cards for your viewing pleasure:



That Luis Tiant card is actually numbered 34A, which means the set stops at #35 (a picture of the trophy which I cannot find a scan of, alas) and not #36. Luis was the Topps Minor League Player of the Year so his card looks a little different than the other 1964 winners.

A checklist is certainly in order (Hall-of-Famers, prominent veteran players, the '64 rookies and significant committee members are identified, the Standard Catalog has a full player/committee list if you need it):

1. Header Card (6th Annual Topps Rookie All Star Team Awards)
2. The Baseball World Votes (4 players, incl. Billy Williams)
3. The Baseball World Votes (Clubhouse scenes)
4. Topps Rookie All Star Team Honorary Election Committee (Media members and Hank Greenberg and Frankie Frisch)
5. Topps Rookie All Star Team Honorary Election Committee (Media members, Joel Shorin of Topps and Jackie Robinson)
6. Executive Director of the Committee and his Associates (Sy Berger of Topps plus others)
7. Topps Salutes Joe Garagiola
8. The 1959 Topps Rookie All Star Team (10 players including Willie McCovey)
9. The 1960 Topps Rookie All Star Team (10 players)
10. The 1961 Topps Rookie All Star Team (10 players including Billy Williams and soon-to-be HOF'er Joe Torre)
11. The 1962 Topps Rookie All Star Team (10 players)
12. The 1963 Topps Rookie All Star Team (10 players including Pete Rose, mea culpa)
13. Header Card (1964 Rookie All Star Team)
14. Cleveland Indians PR
15. Bob Chance
16. San Francisco Giants PR
17. Hal Lanier
18. Philadelphia Phillies PR
19. Richie Allen
20. Kansas City Athletics PR
21. Bert Campaneris
22. Milwaukee Braves PR
23. Rico Carty
24. Boston Red Sox PR
25. Tony Conigliaro
26. Minnesota Twins PR
27. Tony Oliva
28. Washington Senators PR
29. Mike Brumley
30. Cincinnati Reds PR
31. Bill McCool
32. Baltimore Orioles PR
33. Wally Bunker
34. Header Card (5th Annual Topps Minor League Player of the Year)
34a. Luis Tiant (Minor League Player of the Year)
35. Rookie All Star Trophy

These cards are quite valuable and generally appear as singles nowadays as it seems many extant sets were broken up over the past two decades. I would estimate a 200-250 set print run on these guys but I get the impression there are no more than a three or four dozen sets or remnants thereof out there. Sets still do pop up from time-to-time though as old sportwriters move or pass away and their archives are cleaned out and auctioned.