Monday, March 23, 2020

Santo Collection: A Deeper Dive

Ron Santo's playing days were long over by the time I found baseball and the Cubs, but he quickly became one of my favorites because of his radio personality. Santo could tell some great baseball stories, he knew how to laugh at himself, and he wore his Cubs fandom on his sleeve. 

I started picking up cheap well-loved copies of his vintage baseball cards when I re-entered the hobby over a decade ago. The other day I decided to flip through my Santo pages and track down which Topps cards I was missing from his playing days. 

I pleasantly surprised to find I had all of his early cards. Whew!

From the standard Topps set I've left place holders for the following cards:
1965 Topps, #6, RBI Leaders with Boyer & Mays
1968 Topps, #5, HR Leaders with Aarpm, Wynn & McCovey
1969 Topps, #570
1970 Topps, #670
1972 Topps, #555
1975 Topps #35

If you have a beat up Ron Santo card, from the above list, which could use a good home please give me a shout!

In related news: I found a cheap Santo on eBay the other day, and even though it's not from his playing days it is pretty darn close. 
This card is from the 1976 Chicago's Greats set. 
It's not a spectacularly unique looking card or highly sought after, but I'm excited anytime I can add 40+ year old cardboard to my collection. 

Speaking of adding things to my collection... I decided to catalog my Santo cards in TCDB
 No surprise with who resides at #1, but Santo has found himself sitting alone in second place. If I were to log all of my cards I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be in the Top 20, but that's okay for a guy who finished his playing days before I was born.

Thanks for stopping by and stay safe.

8 comments:

  1. The difference between the Vogelmonster and Torrenator is impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The border on that '76 Santo is phenomenal. Really like that. I'm going to find you on tcdb but feel free to deny the request.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I found a bunch of those Chicago Greats cards at the local flea market a while back, but that Santo wasn't one of 'em. Gonna have to keep an eye out for it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I’m going to pass you all in Torrens cards one day. Until ZZ joins.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I contemplated cutting the screen shot off after Karl Olson, but I just had to leave Torrens in there.

      Delete
  5. Never seen or heard of that 1976 Chicago's Greats set... but like Peter mentioned... that border is fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your Santo collection is impressive but WOW you've got a lot of Voglemonsters! And I'm sure at least half of them are low-numbered parallels, autos, relics, etc. cause there aren't all that many base cards of big Dan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are absolutely correct with your hypothesis. It's a good thing I'm a fan of rainbows and autographs!

      Delete