#4 1964 N.L. Home Run Leaders - Mays, Williams, Callison, Cepeda & Hart

Beginning in 1961, Topps started including league leader cards in its sets and there are 12 league leaders cards kicking off the 1965 Topps set.

Building the Set
April 29, 2020 from Huntington, WV - Card #93

In the middle of the sixth week of the coronavirus lockdown, I decided I needed some cardboard therapy.  The last card I had added for our set was back in the beginning of April when I went searching for the Al Kaline (#130) card upon his passing.  With no clear direction in mind, I went out to eBay and decided I'd pool my budget together for a few of the bigger cards in the set.  I browsed aimlessly until deciding on a reasonable strategy for my search - I'd look for cards in the order we needed them.  We already have cards #1 and #2, so I started looking for cards #3 and #4.  If I use this strategy again, I might start going backwards too, looking for cards #598, #597, etc.  I realize I'm lucky I can still buy baseball cards at this time and I don't take it for granted that I'm able to do so.  I'd like to think that buying these few cards is also helping the sellers in some small way.

I bought this from a seller in Huntington, WV on a Sunday and the card arrived at our house on Wednesday.  Both this card and card #3, the A.L. Home Run Leaders card, arrived on the same day.  The price I paid for it was fair and the happiness it brought me upon its arrival was immediate and much needed.

At the end of April, the end of the lockdown was still no where in sight, although some states had started to (most likely prematurely) ease restrictions.  My family was safe and healthy and we had settled into our new routine, only leaving the house for walks, to play outside or to venture to the grocery store.  What a strange, stressful and scary time.

The Card
This is one of two league leaders cards featuring five players, with the other being the A.L. Pitching Leaders (#9) card.  Seven of the top eight N.L. home run leaders in 1964 were from the Giants (3), Cubs (2) or Phillies (2).  There's an uncorrected error on the back as Willie Mays (#250) is given a team designation of "N.Y." even though the Giants had moved to San Francisco seven years earlier.

Mays ran away with this title, his third to date, and he'd add one more home run title to his resume in 1965 when he hit a career high 52 home runs.  Billy Williams (#220) never led the league in home runs, although he did finish twice in both 1964 and 1970 and he finished in the top ten in the league nine times.

Orlando Cepeda (#360) had led the league in home runs in 1961 with 46.  Johnny Callison (#310) made the cut with his three home run performance on September 25th in a game against the Braves.  Jim Ray Hart (#395) snuck onto the front of this card with his 31st home run on October 2nd, the penultimate game of the season for the Giants.

Flipping to the back, and similar to what Topps did with the A.L. home run leaders card, every N.L. player to have hit a grand slam during the 1964 season is listed.

Giants Team Set / Cubs Team Set / Phillies Team Set

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