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.

Wes Westrum (#593)

I always thought that the name "Wes" was a nickname derived from Westrum's last name, but his first name really is Wesley! By the time this card appeared in the 7th series in 1967, Wes was about to be fired.

Westrum was a catcher for the New York Giants from 1947 to 1957, with most of his playing time coming between 1950 and 1953.

Wes managed the Mets from 1965 to 1967. After 95 games in 1965, he took over the reins from Casey Stengel. Westrum was dismissed 151 games into the 1967 with the team in last place. In the team's first 6 seasons, they finished 10th, 10th, 10th, 10th, 9th (thanks to the Cubs!), and 10th. Westrum should have gotten a honeymoon after bringing them in 9th in 1966!



The Mets carried on with an interim manager (Salty Parker, if I recall correctly) and then brought in Gil Hodges in 1968.

Westrum also managed the Giants for the 2nd half of 1974 and all of 1975. He appeared on a manager's inset photo on the 1975 Giants Team card.