Mets Card of the Week: 1963 Rod Kanehl

1963 FLEER ROD KANEHL

Topps had enjoyed a monopoly since 1956 after the last Bowman set was published the previous year. They had the rights to publish cards of active major league players with or without confectionary products, like gum. Fleer tried to circumvent this by including a sugarless cookie in with their cards in this 1963 offering. While the cookie was a failure, the cards were a relative success.

The plan was to have multiple series but that didn’t happen. Topps successfully sued and there was only one series released. It’s an attractive design, both front and back, and it’s right up my current collecting goal of sets with 100 or fewer cards. There are 66 cards in the set, plus one unnumbered checklist. In one printing run of the set, Joe Adcock was removed from the sheet, replaced by the checklist. That makes the Adcock card rarer than the rest of the numbered ones and the checklist very rare, with it being a further challenge to find an unmarked card.

The set had runs of players from one team, although this was not exclusive. The first four players were all from the Baltimore Orioles. Next came Wilie Mays and then three players from the Boston Red Sox. It was certainly a different pattern than what Bowman and Topps had done previously.

There were three Mets cards in this set. There were 20-game losers Roger Craig and Al Jackson, along with infielder Rod Kanehl. On the surface, it seems a very odd choice to include Kanehl. Not that there were a lot of great choices among hitters on the early Mets but you’d figure they’d take .300 hitter Richie Ashburn or the original Frank Thomas, who had clubbed 34 HR for the Mets in 1962.

But Fleer was limited to guys who hadn’t renewed their contracts with Topps. And it’s not like Topps was giving players a lot at this point in time. The standard compensation was a steak dinner. But with the choice at this time being a steak dinner or nothing, the former looked pretty good. Perhaps Ashburn, Thomas and others had already renewed with Topps, which led to the inclusion of Kanehl and his (-1.7) fWAR from 1962 to be in this set.

Fleer had produced national sets before but did it with retired players. But they had been trying to break into the current market by signing minor league players. One of those was Maury Wills, who signed with Fleer in 1960. Topps didn’t believe Wills was going to make it to the majors, so it did not offer him a contract. So, the 1963 Fleer Wills was his rookie card, coming off his MVP season in 1962 when he had 104 SB.

The two short prints and Wills are the key cards from this set. But it also contains a bunch of Hall of Famers and regional stars – packing a nice wallop into its small 67-card.

As for Kanehl, his MLB career was nothing special. He played parts of three years in the majors, all with the Mets. He was a favorite of Casey Stengel, who appreciated Kanehl’s hustle, which earned him the nickname “Hot Rod.” According to Wikipedia, Kanehl was the only former Mets player to show up for Stengel’s funeral.