1972 Topps - Carlton Fisk

Carlton Fisk played for sock-proud teams. He started with the Red Sox and then signed as a free agent with the White Sox in 1983. He played catcher for a long time, and was consistently good with the bat and behind the plate. Hall of Fame good.

Cecil Cooper, despite holding the prominent position on this Red Sox Rookies card from '72 Topps, was overshadowed by Fisk. But Cooper played for a long time too. He was even a top 10 MVP candidate for a 4-year span ('80-'83).

Mike Garman was not very good. To be fair, anyone who can stick around for parts of 10 seasons is a great baseball player. But compared to the rest of the class of great baseball players, he was not good.

The 1972 Topps cards have an interesting design. You can't get the effect from this rookies card, but I will try to get some more '72s up to paint the fuller picture. The lettering style and ornaments give a little bit of an idea.

This particular card came to me via ebay. I was quite pleased with the price I paid for it (I think I won it for $8 and it was a $45 card at the time). I took it into my local card shop to show the shop owner. His lightning quick respondes - "It's trimmed." That took the wind out of my sails. In all my years of card collecting, I have not improved much in my skills of condition detection (I'll post a good story some time of my brother getting me in a trade). You can see it plain as day if you are looking for it (and I should have been looking for it). The botton edge is trimmed. The good news is that I told the seller the card he sold me was trimmed, and he refunded the money and told me to keep the card. Instead of a Fisk rookie for $8 I have a trimmed Fisk rookie for free.