favorite card in the 1956 set?

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Posted By: dennis

here's mine

love that old unpadded wall

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Posted By: David M

I know it's boring to say you like a Mantle card everyone has seen a million times, but like the Clemente, I like the background photo. It seems I saw the "real" photo on here once that the drawing was made from. That drawing makes it look like Mantle is 12 feet in the air.

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Posted By: Daryle

The Whitye Ford card is one of my favorites in the '56 Topps set. The Clemente and Mantle are right up there with it.

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Posted By: Anonymous

lots of them, Harvey Haddix legging one out as pitcher, Roy Sievers going over the wall, Jim Rivera the fans clothes are cool, Jim Hegan looks to be givin someone the boot and Mayo Smith just looks nuts. I love the whole set!

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Posted By: Bob

We seem to have a severe lack of scans going here. Let's catch up...

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Posted By: doug goodman

I'm always a fan of Mossi and his ears...

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Posted By: boxingcardman

But I also like this one.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Roger

I'm going to take the whole Dodger team

as they celebrate their first championship.

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Posted By: PC

I like the Mantle. It's a great card, but it also has an "artistic quirk" in the background behind Mickey's great catch ...

Did you guys ever notice that the first column of fans on the far left in the stands is repeated as the last column of fans on the right? Look at the guy with the suit and tie on, and the fellow with the horizontal stripe on his shirt leaning to his left. They appear twice.

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Posted By: bobw

Here's the original photo used for the background.

The Topps artist also put the ball in Mickey's glove so it looks like he caught it.

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Posted By: PC

Nice picture.

I wonder what happened to "horizontal stripe" guy, and if he ever noticed he was on one of the hobby's great cards, twice.

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Posted By: Steve F

I realize the artist placed the ball into his glove. But, did he really make the snag that day?

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Posted By: bobw

The original caption from the photo:

September 20, 1951 Mickey Mantle Diving for Catch

Original caption: Yankee outfielder Mickey Mantle seemingly walking on air, keeps his mouth open as he leaps for a try at White Sox Ed Robinson's homer into the right field stands in the 7th inning of the September 20th clash at the stadium. Although Mickey made a valiant effort to pull down the ball, it sailed into the stands, giving the White Sox a tally and a lucky fan a souvenir. The Yanks took the tilt, 5-4.

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Posted By: Jason L

looks like the artist simply repeated the crowd to add more background that was needed before the Mantle mugshot appears to the right...you notice in the original photo, the crowd shot ends before that repeat.

On the Dodger team scan above, I noticed that Duke Snider is the only one with his name offset in a black box....anyone know why?

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Posted By: David M

I've looked at that card 100 times and had never noticed the crowd repeat. Good catch! You..not Mantle..

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Posted By: Jason L

You know, the cards that depict a crowd in the background seem to generally represent fairly thin turnouts...lots of empty seats, and no cards seem to show a packed house.

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Posted By: Jim VB

In those days, the Yankees drew around 20,000 a game. (Baseball Reference shows 19,352 per game for 77 games, but I don't think they are considering doubleheaders.)

Edited to say- Looks like they played 10 home doubleheaders in 1955. That raises the average attendance to 22,240 per date. Still lots of empty seats.


In any case, given those numbers, empty seats were not a rarity.

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Posted By: PC

I think the non-action background shots of guys warming-up, throwing, etc. were taken before the actual game, so it makes sense that the stands were generally empty.

Also, the Mantle photo was taken on September 20, 1951, which was a Thurs., and you would expect the bleachers would probably not be full during the week. The attendance at Yankee Stadium that day was 13,712.

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Posted By: Jason L

on the attendance records!
agreed about the warm-up shots.

Funny to think about, isn't it...only 13,000 people showing up to watch Mickey play? In hindsight, long after his era, there would be no end to the number of people that would want the chance to watch him play today!

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Posted By: dennis

that was baseball in thru the 1970s,low attendance,low salaries,no corporate sponsorship. being able to buy box seats the day of the game(at wrigley field!),double headers and ladies days. no jumbotron and no rock music between innings. baseball just baseball.
warren spahn that fluid delivery and a great 56 topps card!

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Posted By: john

I like the Clemente and the Aaron. I believe the Aaron background shows Willie Mays sliding into home plate. Does anyone have a scan?

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

Here is the '56 Aaron:



I rather like the Jackie Robinson myself (not my card):

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Posted By: David M

Let me scan my Mint 9's for everyone to look at. Now where did I put those...?