Home of the Kit Pellow Fan Association

Collecting Cleveland Baseball Since 1982

Collecting Cleveland Indians Topps team sets from 1952-present, as well as post-war minor and major league autographs.

New Arrival: Willie Mays, of, San Francisco Giants

I have been following a couple Willie Mays autographs, but hesitant to pull the trigger since they were all ~$200. Then this one popped up for half the price, so I jumped.

I really dig it. It’s in blue ballpoint pen, and bold. The best thing is that its old–it looks like its from the 1970’s–so that autograph it not going to bleed or fade much moving forward. The only possible problem with it was it was paper was clearly extracted from an autograph album, so there are some indentations of past autographs on the page. But it does not detract from the autograph at all.

One of my inspirations to buy this was Facebook of all things. I ran across a guy on there that I used to know in Omaha. An autograph collector. And it reminded me of a story.

One night we were at a game and got to talking about baseball card collecting. I mentioned how neat I thought the mid to late-90’s Topps Mantle/Mays/Aaron reprints were.

He rolled his eyes and said that he did not understand why they would do Mays, since he was overrated.

I was…confused. Willie Mays is not overrated.

He went on about Mays did not hold any career records like Aaron (HR) or hits (Pete Rose). I was going to argue with him…but the people sitting around me decided to jump on him instead. One guy–another collector–was like “Cy Young? Are you saying that Nolan Ryan is overrated since Cy Young holds the all-time wins record? Who wants to see a Cy Young set? NOBODY!”

This got heated. I just sat there listening. These were people with very clear opinions. What they all agreed on? That Pete Rose should get the same treatment at some point from Topps.

And this is where I disagreed…but was smart enough (that time) to keep my opinions to myself.

Standard Batting
Year Age Tm AB H HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP OPS OPS+ Awards
1951 20 NYG 464 127 20 68 7 4 57 60 .274 .356 .828 120 RoY-1
1952 21 NYG 127 30 4 23 4 1 16 17 .236 .326 .736 102
1953 Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did Did
1954 23 NYG 565 195 41 110 8 5 66 57 .345 .411 1.078 175 AS,MVP-1
1955 24 NYG 580 185 51 127 24 4 79 60 .319 .400 1.059 174 AS,MVP-4
1956 25 NYG 578 171 36 84 40 10 68 65 .296 .369 .926 146 AS,MVP-17
1957 26 NYG 585 195 35 97 38 19 76 62 .333 .407 1.033 173 AS,MVP-4,GG
1958 27 SFG 600 208 29 96 31 6 78 56 .347 .419 1.002 165 AS,MVP-2,GG
1959 28 SFG 575 180 34 104 27 4 65 58 .313 .381 .964 156 AS,MVP-6,GG
1960 29 SFG 595 190 29 103 25 10 61 70 .319 .381 .936 160 AS,MVP-3,GG
1961 30 SFG 572 176 40 123 18 9 81 77 .308 .393 .977 160 AS,MVP-6,GG
1962 31 SFG 621 189 49 141 18 2 78 85 .304 .384 .999 165 AS,MVP-2,GG
1963 32 SFG 596 187 38 103 8 3 66 83 .314 .380 .962 175 AS,MVP-5,GG
1964 33 SFG 578 171 47 111 19 5 82 72 .296 .383 .990 172 AS,MVP-6,GG
1965 34 SFG 558 177 52 112 9 4 76 71 .317 .398 1.043 185 AS,MVP-1,GG
1966 35 SFG 552 159 37 103 5 1 70 81 .288 .368 .924 149 AS,MVP-3,GG
1967 36 SFG 486 128 22 70 6 0 51 92 .263 .334 .787 124 AS,GG
1968 37 SFG 498 144 23 79 12 6 67 81 .289 .372 .860 156 AS,MVP-13,GG
1969 38 SFG 403 114 13 58 6 2 49 71 .283 .362 .798 124 AS
1970 39 SFG 478 139 28 83 5 0 79 90 .291 .390 .897 140 AS
1971 40 SFG 417 113 18 61 23 3 112 123 .271 .425 .907 158 AS,MVP-19
1972 41 TOT 244 61 8 22 4 5 60 48 .250 .400 .802 131 AS
1972 41 SFG 49 9 0 3 3 0 17 5 .184 .394 .618 79
1972 41 NYM 195 52 8 19 1 5 43 43 .267 .402 .848 145
1973 42 NYM 209 44 6 25 1 0 27 47 .211 .303 .647 81 AS
22 Y 22 Y 22 Y 10881 3283 660 1903 338 103 1464 1526 .302 .384 .941 156
162 162 162 589 178 36 103 18 6 79 83 .302 .384 .941 156
AB H HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP OPS OPS+ Awards
SFG SFG SFG 10477 3187 646 1859 336 98 1394 1436 .304 .385 .949 157
NYM NYM NYM 404 96 14 44 2 5 70 90 .238 .352 .746 112
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/11/2018.