Collecting the 1967 Phillies

Wow, it's been 2 1/2 months since I've posted any baseball cards. I needed something to bounce me out of my post-season doldrums, and it came to me today.

There were about 25 player cards per team (one per player on the roster - imagine that!), plus a team card, manager, 1 to 3 rookie stars cards, and a multi-player card for 11 (?!?) of the teams.

With 20 teams, the set started off featuring a card for each team every 20 cards or so. That started to vary once you got to the World Series and League Leaders cards. Also, any trades that occurred after Topps finished their set layout (but before finalizing the photos) caused that player to be shown on his new team.

The Phillies had 31 cards in the 1967 set: 27 player cards, team, manager, multi-player, and 1 rookie card. There was also a Phillie featured on a 7th series National League Rookies card. This worked out to 4 cards per series, except for series 1 and 5.

I collected most of my 1967 cards in that season. (Only the 7th series cards eluded me until the 1980s.) So here is how the Phillies' players unfolded for me during the summer of 1967:


1st Series:

I'm not sure why there are 6 Phillies cards in this series.  All the players were on the team in 1966, so it wasn't a case of last-minute team-switching.

2nd Series:

3rd Series:

4th Series:

5th Series:

I think Gomez was a last-minute addition to the Topps set.  He was signed by the Phillies over the winter, not having played MLB for several seasons.  Francona was acquired in early-April, so was probably originally planned to be a Cardinals' card.

6th Series:

7th Series:

I didn't get my first cards for these 4 Phillies until the 1968 set. (By then, Bunning was a Pirate.)