What’s Wrong With This Card Solved – Sammy Drake

The problems with Sammy Drake’s 1962 Topps card have been identified.

Jimmy, our first respondent, recognized there was a problem with the batting record on the back of the card. The top, or “YEAR” row, gives Drake’s statistics for the 1961 season, when he played for Houston, which at the time was a minor league team in the American Association. The bottom, or “LIFE” row, lists Drakes’s combined totals for all of the major-league games he played through the 1961 season. I checked Drake’s numbers at Baseball Reference on line ( http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/drakesa01.shtml) and they are correct. However, their meaning wasn’t clear to those of us accustomed to the bottom line being equal to or greater than the top one.

Gary, one of our regular readers as well as a co-host of the informative and entertaining Mets Musings podcast, responded next. He recognized the “green tint” on the front of the card. A mistake in the printing process of the second series of the Topps 1962 baseball cards caused this very odd appearance. An insufficient level of ink was the culprit, causing cards numbered 110 through 196 to take on this strange hue, resulting in the “green tint” series. The mistake was corrected and the cards reissued.

Winner’s Prerogative. The twenty-five World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals baseball cards that Jimmy selected for being the first person to correctly identify one of the card’s problems are on the way. Gary, you identified the second problem with the card and have also been awarded twenty-five baseball cards by the esteemed panel of judges we have in our hip pocket here at Grubby Glove. We’re on needles and pins wondering what the team of your choice will be so please don’t keep us in suspense. Do tell!

Here is the corrected version of Sammy Drake’s card.