Mets Card of the Week: 1965 Lumpy Waler

The baseball cards of my youth were a product for kids. Sure, there were adults who had cards but it was only a tiny share of the marketplace. Of course, it’s now flipped. And that’s okay. There’s no doubt that if the kids from the 50s, 60s and 70s had unlimited access to the internet, stand alone game consoles and mobile phones with more power than what was used for the first moon landing that we wouldn’t have purchased a ton of baseball cards, either.

But because they were made for kids, the manufacturers didn’t try to make them grand. They were packaged with gum, had cartoons on the back and had various inserts that appealed to kids, whether those were rub-offs, game cards or story booklets. If you were to describe those cards in a single word, you’d choose wholesome or earnest.

Now that they’re a product for adults, that marketing towards kids is gone. And so is the charm. Instead, if you have to describe cards produced in the 21^st Century, you’d say they were slick. And there are whole sets devoted to recreating the look of cards from decades ago. Nostalgia is their main focus.

And there’s nothing wrong with nostalgia, at least when it happens organically. There’s few things that make me happier than looking at my cards that are 40 and more years old. Some I can recall buying in packs and some were hand me downs from my older brothers. Which brings us to today’s COTW entry.

This was a Christmas present from my brother Arthur many, many years ago. He chose the design of the 1965 cards because that was a set he remembered collecting. And he faithfully recreated the card design, the uniform design, what players from that set looked like and even a pose that would have been included in the year’s set, if not the tight focus of his art work.

And the flip side of this even contained a cartoon. It showed a batter with a focused look, getting ready to swing at the arriving ball. And the ball had a face and a simple exclamation – “Oh no!” And the text under the cartoon read, “Lumpy batted .280 in the Banana League!”

And there was more text on the back of this watercolor, just like there’d be on a real card. It said, “The Mets acquired Lumpy in the one-for-one trade that sent Choo-Choo Bruckman to the Chicago Cubs in the offseason. The New Yorkers are looking for the veteran third-sacker to give them strength in that position for years to come.”

Yep, the Mets were always trying to trade for a third baseman. At least Bruckman didn’t turn out to be Amos Otis or Nolan Ryan. He couldn’t have, if he became a Cub.

I knew this made the move but I hadn’t seen it in a couple of years. Was afraid that it somehow got lost. So, it was a pleasant surprise when my wife found it a few days ago. My real 1965 set is in plastic sheets in a binder so that I know exactly where they are. Now to find a spot in this room for Lumpy, so he never gets lost again.