1962 Topps - Early Wynn

This is probably the first vintage card I held in my very own hand. It was probably early in 1989. My dad took us to one of the Saturday card shows that they held in the mall. I remember finding a table with team sets of the USA team from the Topps Traded series. Jim Abbott was the key player in the set at the time (I will have to do a post of Jim Abbot). Several of the clear plastic cases holding the USA sets had Abbot visible as the top card. The one I picked up had someone else. I remember thinking about choosing one with an Abbot on top, but then thinking it would look weird if I put the one I had down to pick up another of the same thing. So instead of doing the weird thing and being sure my guy was included, I trusted that Abbott would be in the set (as he ought to have been). When I opened up my team set later to flip through the players, guess who wasn't in there. I'd like to say I learned a lesson that day, but I still sometimes don't do the thing I think to do for fear of looking weird. But the point of the story is that while I was looking at all the worthless late eighties cards my dad was passing the time looking at cards of his boyhood heroes. When we were done for the day (before I discovered the missing Abbot), my dad showed me the 1962 Topps Early Wynn and Luis Aparicio he picked up.

Early Wynn pitched for 23 years and was very good for almost all of those years. He won the Cy Young Award when he was 39 years old. 1962 was almost the end for Wynn. He played part of the 1963 season (as a 43 year old) and won his 300th game. He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1972. He was of the Bob Gibson mold (before Bob Gibson), intimidating and menacing toward batters. In a interesting twist, I later discovered that my Dad's card was actually two cards (a double was behind it), and I traded the extra one for a 1971 Topps Bob Gibson.

Here is the Aparicio.

A bonus '62 Nellie Fox.