Half-Century Later: 1976 Topps All-Time All-Stars Subset!
One of the coolest all-time subsets from nearly 50 years ago celebrates players from 50 years before that!
Each “Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter” pack has a handful of great sports card subjects, helping sports card collectors working with limited budgets – like me!
This Week’s Newsletter Highlights! –
⚾ REFLECTING ON 1976 TOPPS ALL-TIME ALL-STARS!
🏈⚾🏀 SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
🏀🏈⚾ IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS
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⚾ BEST SUBSET EVER!?! 1976 TOPPS ALL-TIME ALL-STARS!
Nearly 50 years ago this year, one of the greatest base card subsets ever was created. Decades later, I still marvel at these cards, which are one of the very few highlights of this 1976 Topps set!
This subset finally allowed collectors to own baseball cards of legends we would otherwise never be able to touch -- the 1976 Topps “The Sporting News” All-Time All-Stars. Here’s a great series of articles about this subset, and here’s a look at every card in the set!
Opening packs of 1976 Topps meant I could have a Babe Ruth card in my collection. I could trade for a Ted Williams card or Lou Gehrig or Ty Cobb! For the first time, as a dopey kid, I learned about amazingly fun names like Pie Traynor, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove!
This subset was created for a reason, which many people might not realize. It celebrated the 100th anniversary of Major League Baseball! (To be more specific, 1976 was the 100th anniversary of the National League, as the American League wasn’t created for another 25 years, in 1901.)
Here are some of the many reasons why this subset is my all-time favorite!
“The Sporting News” Headline Banner: It’s so regal and official, and it’s shocking this hasn’t had more reproductions in recent years. I love it. The Sporting News was a pretty great, weekly newspaper-like magazine created in 1886, that ended its print runs in 2012. This was the magazine for baseball fans, and the weekly publication even earned the nickname “The Bible of Baseball.”
The All-Time All-Star Teammates: In the mid-‘70s, baseball fans were in the midst of the Big Red Machine’s greatness and at the cusp of George Steinbrenner’s first Yankees championships. Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Brooks Robinson, were the stars of the day, with recent retirees like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays leaving the game, along with the deceased Roberto Clemente. For us to see an “All-Time All-Stars Team” without any of those names, including Mickey Mantle, impressed on us how great these players must have been!
It's interesting, though, that Topps only named an All-MLB team, rather than expanding this subset to include both an AL team and an NL team. Which players did we miss out on? Would we have seen some color photos in there, with guys like Mays and Brooks Robinson?
The History: Baseball, more than any other sport, has a direct connection with American history, from its ties to Civil War-time games played in fields to the number of superstar players fighting the Axis countries in World War II.
The Stats on the Back: One thing I really lovedappreciated about this set is that the card backs looked just like all the other card backs from the active players in the set. They didn’t have a weak paragraph about the player’s greatness. In other words, you got to see the full breakdown of Ty Cobb’s career, and you got to see Ruth’s full stat line, with the asterisks to show all the boldtimes he led the league in home runs! (You even get to see his Red Sox stats!)
Educating Us on Players We Knew Little About: If you asked me about Pie Traynor without these cards around, I would have thought about an apple pie with training wheels. Instead, I now know that the Pirates third baseman was one of the greatest defensive third basemen ever, and that he was the first third baseman elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
The Photography: It’s very possible these were the very first photographs I ever saw of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Ty Cobb. Cobb’s picture, specifically, is just a work of art. The lines, the angles, his nearly closed eyes as he appears to be rounding third base, it’s just a masterpiece. Color would have ruined this picture. You can feel the mighty breeze coming off of Ruth’s bat on this shot of his follow-through.
It’s shocking to me that Topps hasn’t tried to duplicate this design or this insert idea in the past 50 years. Really, though, it’s an All-Time All-Star Team, so it should be relegated to landmark milestones, I suppose.
I’m very excited for 2026, when Topps celebrates MLB’s 150th anniversary, and I can guarantee Fanatics is going to do something amazing for this event. Not only is the oldest sports league in America hitting a milestone anniversary, but it’s also the first year of Fanatics holding all three sports licenses, and baseball will be the first product rolled out. I’m excited to see if some Negro League players make the new team!
Will they bring back “The Sporting News” as a partner for this? The magazine is no longer, but there is still a website.
I think it would be cooler if they joined forces with The Athletic, used the same font as the original, and the same design all around.
Who Would Make the New All-Time All-Star Team?
Here’s my guess, mostly using JAWS scores from Baseball-Reference.com – I want to read yours in the comments! (Rather than highlight one player for left, center and right field, I chose three outfielders, no matter which OF position, to make things easier.)
Catcher: Johnny Bench
First Base: Lou Gehrig
Second Base: Rogers Hornsby
Shortstop: Honus Wagner
Third Base: Mike Schmidt
Outfield: Babe Ruth
Outfield: Willie Mays
Outfield: Hank Aaron
(Sorry Barry Bonds, you’re held out of this elected class, also.)
Starting Pitcher LHP: Lefty Grove
Starting Pitcher RHP: Walter Johnson
Relief Pitcher: Mariano Rivera
Isn’t it interesting that after an additional 50 years, Gehrig, Hornsby, Ruth, Grove and Johnson remained on the All-Time team!?!
Come back next week to see who I name for my Topps All-Time All-Collectable All-Star Team, which is limited to just players whose careers overlapped the years Topps started producing baseball cards!
⚾ BASEBALL CARD TRIVIA!
Send me the answer to this question – you could win this free card from me! 2022 Throwback Thursday Mark McGwire Incredible Hulk!
What was the very first card ever graded, all the way back in 1991?
Email your answer to gonoscards@gmail.com and you can win this 2022 Throwback Thursday Mark McGwire Incredible Hulk card! Rather than take the first person who answers it right, I’m going to do a random drawing of all the people who answer this question before midnight, Friday, December 13. Winner will be announced in the Dec. 19 newsletter.
Read the Question from Dec. 5: Answer before midnight, Friday, Dec. 6. Prize: 2021 Topps Update Mike Schmidt – Cards That Never Were #CNW-8! Winner will be announced Dec. 12.
Question from Nov. 28: The Topps Living set uses the same card design as which legendary Topps card set? – Answer: 1953. WINNER: We had several correct guesses on this one, but we could only draw one winner! Lewis Fitzgerald wins the 1979 Topps Willie Stargell card! Congrats, Lewis!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS: #20 of 23
Imhoff breaks down all the moves Fanatics should make, just two years away from when they unify the baseball, football and basketball card licenses in 2026. He shared his first move in our June 20 newsletter, and he’ll continue to share more of these going forward.
No. 20 – CARD DONATION PROGRAM
Another initiative I would investigate would be finding ways to donate cards to children in need. One idea would be to partner with children’s hospitals. Local cards shops would be given incentives if they sponsored a local hospital. Customers would bring cards they wanted to donate (in good condition) and they would receive discount codes or vouchers to use in the shop or online at the Topps website. Card shops that partnered up would be given discounts on shipments they received.
You can subscribe to Patrick Imhoff’s Substack Newsletter here!
Coming Next Week!
⚾ TOPPS ALL-TIME ALL -COLLECTABLE ALL-STAR TEAM!
🏈 ⚾ 🏀 SPORTS CARD TRIVIA!
🏀 🏈 ⚾ IF PATRICK IMHOFF BECAME CEO OF FANATICS
⚾ 🏀 🏈 REMEMBERING ROOKIE CARDS FROM 1952 IN EVERY SPORT!
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so the 1976 all time all star cards are fairly reasonable on eBay, I was actually surprised. Most can be found for around $5 in decent shape, just picked up a Honus Wagner and will probably grab the Ty Cobb too, like you said that photo is pretty good, considering this was in the 70s.
Thanks, man! Honestly, I grew up hating the ‘76 set, but I absolutely love their All-Star cards, and this subset. I always loved the Ruth and Cobb cards specifically, just cuz as a dopey kid, you’d hear about them in random movie or tv references. You’d never hear much about Pie Traynor or Walter Johnson, haha. But not until I got my Toploader Binders did I ever care about filling this subset out — which made me wonder what the subset was all about. Had no idea ‘76 was NL’s 100th anniversary. Anyway, I’m with you — what can Fanatics do!?! I’m excited. These would look cool in Chrome for sure!