The Mysterious Strangers

As I mentioned previously, 1967 was my first year of collecting baseball cards. Other than Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Harmon Killebrew, I had no idea of any MLB players, so those 1967 cards were my introduction. Since the 1967 high-number cards were not sold in my area, players in that 7th series remained unknown to me until I bought their 1968 cards.

Below are the 12 players and 2 managers whose final cards were in that 1967 7th series. As such, (except for John Sullivan, who played for the Phillies in 1968) I had no idea who they were until years later. To me, they existed only as mysterious names on the 7th-series checklist (issued as part of the 6th series) until I acquired their cards in the 1980s.


I have already posted all of these cards individually on this blog. You can follow their labels below to each post.

Click here to see all the players whose final card was in the 1967 set.

Final Card: Jack Sanford

Jack Sanford (#549) played minor league baseball from 1948-1954. After military service in 1955-56, he joined the Phillies in September 1956. The following year, he compiled a 19-8 record, led the league with 188 strikeouts, and won the Rookie of the Year award. Only 2 Phillies have won that award since (Dick Allen in 1964, and Ryan Howard in 2005).

After one more season with the Phillies, he was traded to the Giants, where he spent the next 6 1/2 years as a top starter. In 1962, Sanford won 24 games to lead the Giants to the World Series.

In August of 1965, he was sold to the Angels, where he remained until mid-1967. On June 15th, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics for outfielder Roger Repoz. His last game was on August 6th, and he was released on August 15th, ending his career.