In celebration of the 65th anniversary of Topps baseball cards, my collection is going to be the subject of this year-long series.
Shortly after starting my obsession in 1971, the goal was to have at least one Topps card from every year.
Although the 1952 set is considered to be the first released by Topps, the company issued two series that was a part of the game a year earlier.
The World Series is the theme for a pair of my 1964 cards.
The Los Angeles Dodgers celebrating the 1963 world championship was the first card I acquired from the set.
Sandy Koufax being mobbed by his teammates after a 2-1 series clinching win over the New York Yankees in game four is quite an indelible image.
Koufax earned the Most Valuable Player Award for the series with two victories.
The left-hander’s performance in the opener was historic as he struck out the first five Yankees he faced and went on to fan 15 batters as the Dodgers took the affair 5-2.
The 1963 season was a breakout year for Koufax as he went 25-5 with an ERA of 1.88. He was named the National League’s MVP and claimed his first of three Cy Young Awards.
A six-time all-star in his 12-year career, Koufax was 165-87. In his final six seasons, he was 129-47 for a .733 winning percentage.
During that stretch, the Dodgers won the World Series in 1965 and Koufax won the Cy Young again in 1965 and 1966. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.
The Trade
In one of the most famous or perhaps infamous trades in baseball history, Lou Brock was shipped to the St. Louis Cardinals in a seven-player transaction involving Ernie Broglio midway through the 1964 season.
On the date of the trade, the Cardinals were seven games behind and in eighth place in the NL. The addition of Brock jump-started the offense for the Cardinals, who would eventually win the World Series against the Yankees. Brock batted .300 and hit a homer with five RBI in seven contests.
For the season, Brock led the Cardinals in hitting with a .348 average and also topped the squad with 33 stolen bases in 103 games.
Once becoming a member of the Cardinals, Brock’s career took off and he would eventually become baseball’s all-time leader in steals with 938. He would also swipe a single-season record 118 in 1974. Both marks have been eclipsed by Rickey Henderson.
In addition to the 1964 World Series, Brock was quite productive in the post-season as the Cardinals win another title in 1967 as he contributed a homer and seven stolen bases, while batting .414. The following season when the Cardinals lost to the Detroit Tigers in the Fall Classic, Brock batted .464 with a pair of homers with five RBI and seven more steals.
Brock began his 19-year career with the Cubs in 1961 and finished with the Cardinals in 1979. A six-time all-star, Brock would join the 3,000-hit club in his final year. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.