Everybody Loves Willie (Mays Baseball Cards)

Reveling in Say Hey oddballs

Somehow, this turned into Willie Mays Week across most of the Wax Pack Gods Universe (how’s that for self-aggrandizing hyperbole?).

And, if you’re going to have a “week,” there’s really no one better to focus on than the Say Hey Kid, right?

Right.

So …

It all started when I was looking at some pics of 1971 Topps cards for a video and ran across that sort of scowling, skeptical-looking image of Mays inside those tough black borders.

And that led me to looking up the Mays Master Set checklist over on PSA …

Which begat a huge, honkin’ post at WaxPackGods.com, where I run down every Mays card that was part of a base set during his career — if you’re counting along at home, that’s 56 cards in all.

You can read that full post here, but make sure to get your popcorn and caffeine ready before you dig in … it’s a long one!

Then, with that post as a launching point, I used this week’s Baseball Card Market Report to identify which among those Mays “wax pack” cards might be hiding a bit of latent value, if investing/speculating is your sort of thing.

You can read that one here, and the good news is that it’s a bit shorter than the original.

And all of that?

Well, all of that got me thinking about what other Mays cards are out there, the ones that fall outside the “normal” bounds of a Topps checklist or a Fleer cookie pack.

Luckily, in this electronic age of ours, that information is right there at our fingertips (like the aforementioned Master Set checklist). And there are pics, too!

I didn’t look through all of the 300+ off-the-wall Mays cards that live out there in the wild, but I did sift through enough of them to identify some personal favorites.

Cards like …

1958 Hires Root Beer (#25)

This looks like a night shot to me, which was just about an unheard-of occurrence for cards back in the 1950s and 1960s. Even today, most cards appear to be day-game shots, though it’s a bit harder to tell now thanks to generally improved photography across the board.

This Hires card has more going for it than the setting, though, as the looking-through-the-knothole motif makes it feel like we’re getting a sneak peek of something special.

And we are … it is the great Mays on a root beer card, after all!

1959 Bazooka

I have a long-standing love affair with the 1959 Bazooka Hank Aaron card, so this Mays from the same set was an easy choice here.

And, while this Say Hey doesn’t evoke quite the magical feel (for me, at least) that the Hammer does on his Bazooka debut, it’s still a mouthwatering hunk of baseball history wrapped up in a gorgeous swath of cardboard.

1964 Topps Stand-Up

This one definitely qualifies as “oddball,” seeing as how it’s not even card-shaped if you pop it open as intended.

But the colors harken back to the great art deco sets of the 1930s (Goudey, Play Ball, etc.), and the die-cut outline makes Mays’ powerful swing feel downright three-dimensional.

1970 Kellogg’s (#12)

And speaking of 3D, nobody has ever done it up quite like Kellogg’s did with their 1970s and 1980s cereal box inserts.

The 1970 run got the whole thing started, with a design that drew heavily from the 1968 Topps 3D test issue, and this Mays card is a stunner. Think Willie will connect on that big, fat baseball hurtling toward his head?

1971 Topps Super Willie Mays (#56)

The general impression of Mays as he entered his 40s in the early 1970s, if you read various accounts online, including recollections from kids of the era, was that he had grown thick, slow, and old.

Somebody forgot to tell all that to Mays’ 1971 Topps Super card, though, where Willie looks fit and trim, ready to bust fences and scorch the base paths with the best of them.

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This is a list that could literally go on for pages and pages and pages, but I’ll stop for now.

You don’t have to, though. In fact, you shouldn’t, because I want to know …

What are your favorite Willie Mays cards?

Let me know, and if the variety of feedback is broad enough, maybe we’ll have to do a follow-up and share some of those beauties with the world.

Until next time, keep your eyes peeled — this hobby is jampacked with obscure but awesome collectibles, and you never know when your next white whale might emerge from the depths.

Thanks for reading!

Adam

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