#350 Mickey Mantle - New York Yankees

Mickey Charles Mantle
New York Yankees
Outfield

Bats:  Both  Throws:  Right  Height:  5'11"  Weight:  195
Born:  October 20, 1931, Spavinaw, OK
Signed:  Signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent before 1949 season
Major League Teams:  New York Yankees 1951-1968
Hall of Fame Induction:  1974
Died:  August 13, 1995, Dallas, TX (age 63)

Writing about the extremely well-known Hall of Famers in this set is way more difficult and daunting than writing about the fringe players who enjoyed a cup of coffee in the majors.  What can I write here about Mickey Mantle that isn't already well known and better written?

With that caveat out of the way . . . Mickey Mantle, the popular center fielder for the Yankees during their 1950s and early 1960s dynasty, was a three-time A.L. MVP winner, a 20-time All-Star, a triple crown winner in 1956 and a member of 7 World Champion Yankees teams.  He's regarded as one of the best switch hitters in baseball history and was a first ballot Hall of Famer in 1974.  Mantle led the league in home runs four times and in runs scored five times.  He finished his career with a .298 batting average, 2,415 hits, 536 home runs (currently 18th all-time) and 1,509 RBIs.  His #7 was retired by the Yankees upon his retirement in 1969, he ranked 17th on the 1998 Sporting News list of Baseball's 100 Greatest Players, and he was voted as one of the three outfielders on Major League Baseball's All-Century Team.

Not surprisingly, Mantle was my Dad's favorite non-Phillies baseball player.

Some text for this post originally appeared on my 1956 Topps blog.

Building the Set
December 3, 2022 from The Philly Show (Sports Card Plus - Cooper City, FL) - Card #598
This was the fourth of four final cards acquired for our set at The Philly Show, the Philadelphia Sports Collectors Show, held within the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  We arrived at the show in a steady rain right after doors opened at 9am, secured our autograph tickets and started walking the floor prior to the arrival of most of the crowd.  My goal for the show was simple:  Find the last four cards needed to complete our 1965 Topps set.  I wrote a full summary of the show in this post over at The Phillies Room.

The first two cards needed to complete our set took a while to find, but I eventually added the Orlando Cepeda (#360) and the Gordy Coleman (#269) cards within the first hour of walking around.  With Cepeda and Coleman out of the way, I turned my attention to the Tony Perez rookie card (#581) and the BIG final card needed for our set - this Mantle card.  Perez came quickly, as I found a gorgeous version of the card for sale from dealer America's Pastime.  Having spent a few hours at this point walking the show floor, I had added notes in my phone for the location of five ungraded Mantles I had come across so far, none of which had checked off the two qualities I was looking for - relative affordability and excellent or better condition.

When I came across this Mantle card from Sports Card Plus, I knew we had completed our set.  There was some negotiation, and a little hesitation, but I eventually agreed to the price the dealer finally offered.  And then . . . I went a step further.  In the case next to the stack of 1965 Topps superstar cards was a stack of 1969 Topps superstar cards with the 1969 Topps Mantle card, one of the key cards of that set, on top of the stack.  I asked to see that card as well, studied it for a minute or two, and offered the dealer a bundled price for the two Mantle cards.  My offer was accepted after a few beats, Venmo information was exchanged, and the cards were ours.  Our 1965 Topps set, begun almost three years prior, was complete.

I found Doug and casually announced, "We completed the set."  Smiling, he asked to see the Mantle card and then I proceeded to show him not one but two new Mantle cards.  I then regaled him with my negotiation story, which will be embellished and lengthened for dramatic effect as the years go on.  My Dad would be proud.  Four down, none to go.

I honestly held off a few weeks to write this post as we were busy with Christmas preparations and because I didn't want this particular journey to end.  This was fun.  Slogging through some of the commons and multi-player Rookie Star cards got a little tedious at times, but I enjoyed myself.  As I've stated before on this blog, writing about these baseball cards helped me escape briefly each day and got me through some long, stressful days during the 2020 pandemic.  I'll start up my 1969 Topps blog in earnest now, with regular posting starting in the new year.

The Card / Yankees Team Set
Each of Mantle's cards in Topps flagship sets between 1952 and 1969 are iconic, and this card is no exception.  The back of the card highlights his heroics in the 1964 World Series, and his walk-off home run in Game 3 is highlighted earlier in the set (#134).  Mantle also appears on two League Leaders cards for home runs (#3) and RBIs (#5), so this base card is his fourth appearance overall in the 1965 Topps set.  Also highlighted on the back are his three MVP wins and his four home run titles.  He would not add to either of those tallies.

This card has been reprinted quite a bit, and I tried to review Mantle's entire cardboard output in the Trading Card Database to determine how many different reprints are available.  I counted six different reprint versions for the card, starting with the reprints available as inserts with the 1996 Topps flagship set and up to the 2021 Topps x Mickey Mantle exclusive online set.

1965 Season
Mantle's SABR biography notes "years of injuries, late nights and excessive alcohol consumption" caught up to him in 1965.  While he was still an All-Star, he endured possibly the worst season of his career, batting .255 in 122 games with 19 home runs and 46 RBIs.  The Yankees finished below .500 at 77-85 and in sixth place, with Mantle making 107 starts in left field.

1951 Bowman #253

1952 Topps #311

1959 Topps #10

1962 Topps #200

1969 Topps #500

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1951 Bowman #253
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (25):  1952-1953, 1956-1969, 1975, 1996, 2006-2012
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2022 Topps Update Salute to the Mick #STM-9

5,873 - Mantle non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 12/21/22.

Sources:  
1956 Topps Blog

Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
National Baseball Hall of Fame
SABR
The Trading Card Database

And with that, this blog is done! The video above flips through the entire glorious and bindered set.

Previous Card:  #349 Larry Miller - New York Mets

Next Card:  #351 Jim Perry - Minnesota Twins

#513 New York Yankees Team Card

Beginning in 1956 and going all the way through to 1981, with a one year absence in 1969, Topps included team cards in its flagship sets.  There are 19 team cards in the set, and this is the final one we needed.  Only the Houston Astros, in flux because of their name change from the Colt .45s, did not receive a team card in the set.

Building the Set
August 15, 2022 from Houston, TX - Card #592

From a collecting perspective, I spent a lot of the summer avoiding the urge to buy the seven remaining cards needed for our set from eBay or online dealers.  It would have been easy enough to simply click a few buttons, enter my credit card information, and wait for the envelopes to arrive in the mail.  (I still think the Mickey Mantle (#350) will be the final card added to our set, simply due to its high price tag.)  But I was mostly successful in resisting the urge to click our way to completing this set, wanting to finish the set in person at a baseball card show.  I failed a few times, including when I purchased this Yankees team card in early August from eBay seller txsurf, located in Houston, Texas.

I couldn't resist the price of this card, especially since Yankees cards continue to carry a premium in the northeast.  I also added a Bobby Murcer card from the 1969 Topps set, and I'll be starting with that set's blog soon.  After adding this team card, we were down to needing just six more cards for a complete set, and (spoiler alert) I ended up splurging and adding the Carl Yastrzemski (#385) and Sandy Koufax (#300) cards in September and October, respectively.  After nearly three years of collecting, the final four are now Mantle, the Tony Perez (#581) rookie card, Orlando Cepeda (#360) and for some strange reason, Gordy Coleman (#289).

The Card / Yankees Team Set

I couldn't find an exact match for the source photo Topps used for this card, but I easily found a photo taken from the same shoot but from straight ahead and not from the right.  The angle of the photo used for the Topps team card is unusual, with all players and coaches shifting their view sideways.  The 1964 Yankees had minimal transactions during the season, so there's no way to determine at what point during the year this photo was taken.

Former Yankees manager Yogi Berra (#470) is seated in the front row, to the left of the team logo, and he'd be unceremoniously fired following the World Series loss to the Cardinals in 1964.  Berra would spend the 1965 season as a player-coach for the crosstown Mets.

1963 Topps #247

1964 Topps #433

1966 Topps #92

1967 Topps #131

1965 Season

This was the first of what would be a decade-plus of seasons in which the Yankees would bid farewell to a number of aging veterans and attempt a rebuild process.  They'd finish in sixth place in 1965 and drop all the way into last place in 1966.  Under new manager Johnny Keane (#131), who had just defeated them in the World Series as manager of the Cardinals, the team was 77-85, enduring their first losing season since 1925!  The club played the first exhibition game in Houston's Astrodome on April 9, 1965, with Mantle hitting the first home run in the history of the new domed ballpark.  Not one Yankees player crossed the 100-RBI threshold, with center fielder Tom Tresh (#440) winning the team's triple crown with a .279 average, 26 home runs and 74 RBIs.  Mantle was limited to 122 games and batted only .255 with 19 home runs.

On the mound, Mel Stottlemyre (#550) was a 20-game winner, with Whitey Ford (#330) winning 16 games.  Pedro Ramos (#13) was the team's top reliever, saving 18 games.  Shortstop Murcer made his major league debut on September 8th, and he'd be one of the team's few bright spots throughout the early 1970s.

Update Cards

For each team card featured, I'll be building a checklist of cards that could have been included in a 1965 Topps update set.  I'm trying to come up with six potential cards for each team, and easily got to that total for the Yankees.  As is the case with teams going through rebuilds, there were quite a few candidates to pick from here and I narrowed it down to those players with the most games without a card or those players who would have an impact on the club in the coming years.  Of the six players listed below, only Edwards wouldn't appear with the Yankees in the 1966 Topps set.

• Bobby Murcer (ss) - As mentioned above, Murcer made his big league debut as a September call-up.  He'd be a four-time All-Star with the Yankees and win a Gold Glove in center field in 1972.
• Roger Repoz (of) - Repoz appeared in 79 games, batting just .220 as the team's fourth outfielder.
• Ray Barker (1b) - Barker came over the Yankees on May 10th with Pedro Gonzalez (#97) going to the Indians.  Barker, who appears with the Indians on a Rookie Stars (#546) card, played in 98 games for New York.
• Horace Clarke (3b) - Clarke saw action in 51 games.  He'd spend 10 seasons with the Yankees, and was their every day second baseman between 1967 and 1973.
• Doc Edwards (c) - The back-up catcher is in the set with the Athletics (#239), but he appeared in 45 games for the Yankees after a trade on May 3rd.
• Roy White (of) - White made his debut a day before Murcer and he'd be the regular Yankees left fielder between 1968 and 1977, making two All-Star Game appearances.

Sources
Baseball Reference

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #512 Cap Peterson - San Francisco Giants

Next Card:  #514 Joe Azcue - Cleveland Indians

#475 Clete Boyer - New York Yankees

Cletis Leroy Boyer
New York Yankees
Third Base

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  165
Born:  February 9, 1937, Cossville, MO
Signed:  Signed by the Kansas City Athletics as an amateur free agent, May 31, 1955
Major League Teams:  Kansas City Athletics 1955-1957; New York Yankees 1959-1966; Atlanta Braves 1967-1971
Died:  June 4, 2007, Lawrenceville, GA (age 70)

One of 14 children born to the Boyer family, seven boys and seven girls, Clete Boyer was one of three of the Boyer boys to play baseball in the majors.  Older brother Cloyd Boyer pitched for the Cardinals and Athletics in the early 1950s, and Ken Boyer (#100) was an 11-time All-Star and the 1964 National League MVP.  Clete Boyer was a steady-fielding third baseman who played for parts of 16 seasons in the major leagues and another four seasons in Japan.

Originally signed by the Athletics, Boyer didn't come into his own until the early 1960s with the Yankees.  In an infield including Bobby Richardson (#115) at second base and Tony Kubek (#65) at shortstop, Boyer provided steady defense with some occasional pop at the plate.  He'd win World Series rings with the Yankees in 1961 and 1962, batting a career-high .272 in 1962.  Boyer would hit at least 10 home runs in six of his eight seasons with the Yankees, including 18 home runs in both 1962 and 1965.  He was dealt to the Braves before the 1967 season, and he'd slug a career best 26 home runs with 96 RBIs in 1967.  Boyer, long in the shadow of Brooks Robinson (#150) in the American League, won his only Gold Glove in 1969 with the Braves.  He'd play four seasons for the Taiyo Whales between 1972 and 1975 and serve as the team's coach in 1976.  Boyer would return to the majors as a coach with the Athletics (1980-1985) and Yankees (1988, 1992-1994), working with his former teammate Billy Martin.

Boyer batted .242 in 1,725 big league games, collecting 1,396 hits, 162 home runs and 654 RBIs.  He's among the game's all-time third base leaders for fielding percentage (32nd with .965), assists (35th with 3,218) and double plays turned (22nd with 315).

Building the Set
March 6, 2022 from The Philly Show (Sports Cards Plus - Cooper City, FL) - Card #583

This is the 99th of 102 cards acquired for our set from the Baseball Card Sports Memorabilia Show, affectionately known as The Philly Show, held in the basement of the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia in early March.  We went nuts and left the show needing only 12 more cards to complete our 1965 Topps set, and I wrote about the show in detail over at The Phillies Room.  After our 51 card haul from Uncle Dick's, and with more card spending budget still in place, I set out to find another dealer with a binder of 1965 Topps cards with reasonable prices.  I had purchased cards from Sports Cards Plus before, finding the last few cards needed for our 1971 Topps set from this dealer back in December 2019.

Settling in, we found 37 cards needed for our set with an average price per card working out to around $6.  The lot, including this Boyer card, consisted mostly of semi-stars and team cards.  After paying for this mini haul, we were officially 13 cards away from a complete set, with one more purchase coming to end the day.

The Card / Yankees Team Set
A veteran at this point, there's not much room on the back of the card for anything other than his career statistics.  The one career highlight mentioned is his Game 7 home run in the 1964 World Series, and the Topps cartoonist even gave the drawing a #6, Boyer's number with the Yankees.  His home run came in the top of the ninth inning off Bob Gibson (#320) with his team trailing 7-3.  Boyer and Phil Linz (#369) would both homer off Gibson, but the future Hall of Famer would get Richardson to pop out to second, ending the game and giving the World Championship to the Cardinals.

1965 Season
Boyer stuck around with the Yankees for two seasons following their last World Series appearance until 1976.  He appeared in 148 games, making 140 starts at third base.  Boyer batted .251 with 18 home runs and 58 RBIs, third on the club behind Tom Tresh's (#440) 74 and Joe Pepitone's (#245) 62.

1957 Topps #121

1962 Topps 490

1964 Topps #69

1968 Topps #550

1971 Topps #374

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1957 Topps #121
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (14):  1957, 1959-1971
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2008 Upper Deck Yankee Stadium Legacy #3460

258 - Boyer non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 10/8/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #474 Cookie Rojas - Philadelphia Phillies

Next Card:  #476 Billy O'Dell - Milwaukee Braves

#413 Hal Reniff - New York Yankees

Harold Eugene Reniff
New York Yankees
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'0"  Weight:  215
Born:  July 2, 1938, Warren, OH
Signed:  Signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent before 1956 season
Major League Teams:  New York Yankees 1961-1967; New York Mets 1967
Died:  September 7, 2004, Ontario, CA (age 66)

The first thing I noticed from Hal Reniff's Baseball Reference page was that he apparently had two unflattering nicknames with either Porky or Whale.  The second thing I noticed is that he appeared in 276 big league games between 1961 and 1967, pitching only for the Yankees or Mets, and pitching exclusively in relief.  Reniff was a member of three pennant-winning Yankees teams in 1961, 1963 and 1964.  While his club won the World Series in 1961, he didn't appear in any of those postseason games.  The Yankees lost the series in both 1963 and 1964 with Reniff appearing in four games and throwing 3 1/3 scoreless innings.  His best season came in 1963 when he appeared in 48 games, pitched 89 1/3 innings, saved 18 games and had an impressive 2.62 ERA.  Reniff was sold to the Mets in June 1967, and he'd appear in his final 29 major league games with the club.  He had a career record of 21-23 with 45 saves and a 3.27 ERA, with 314 strikeouts over 471 1/3 innings pitched.

Reniff was a mainstay of the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs bullpen, then the Yankees' top farm team, between 1968 and 1972.  Despite finding some success each season with the Chiefs, Reniff was never again promoted to the Yankees, and he retired following the 1972 season.

Building the Set
March 6, 2022 from The Philly Show (Sports Cards Plus - Cooper City, FL) - Card #572

This is the 88th of 102 cards acquired for our set from the Baseball Card Sports Memorabilia Show, affectionately known as The Philly Show, held in the basement of the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia in early March.  We went nuts and left the show needing only 12 more cards to complete our 1965 Topps set, and I wrote about the show in detail over at The Phillies Room.  After our 51 card haul from Uncle Dick's, and with more card spending budget still in place, I set out to find another dealer with a binder of 1965 Topps cards with reasonable prices.  I had purchased cards from Sports Cards Plus before, finding the last few cards needed for our 1971 Topps set from this dealer back in December 2019.

Settling in, we found 37 cards needed for our set with an average price per card working out to around $6.  The lot, including this Reniff card, consisted mostly of semi-stars and team cards.  After paying for this mini haul, we were officially 13 cards away from a complete set, with one more purchase coming to end the day.

The Card / Yankees Team Set
His 18 saves from 1963 are highlighted in cartoon form on the back of the card.  Reniff pitched professionally for 17 seasons, with lengthy minor league stints bookending his career, and Topps had to squish the font on the back to fit in all his minor league numbers dating back to 1956.  As shown below, there wasn't much variety in terms of Reniff's Topps flagship card offerings.

I definitely didn't notice it at the time of purchase, but this card suffers from some serious diamond cut issues.  It's in the binder for now, but if it bugs me enough it could be subjected to an upgrade.

1965 Season
Along with fellow relievers Pedro Ramos (#13) and Pete Mikkelsen (#177), Reniff saw plenty of action with the Yankees in 1965.  He relieved in 51 games, going 3-4 with a 3.80 ERA over 85 1/3 innings.  Ramos led the club with 18 saves, with Reniff saving three games.

1962 Topps #139

1963 Topps #546

1964 Topps #36

1966 Topps #68

1967 Topps #201

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1962 Topps #139
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (6):  1962-1967
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2003 Upper Deck Yankees Signature Series - Pride of New York Autographs #PN-HR

33 - Reniff non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 9/3/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #412 Bob Bailey - Pittsburgh Pirates

Next Card:  #414 Al Lopez MG - Chicago White Sox

#550 Mel Stottlemyre - New York Yankees

Melvin Leon Stottlemyre
New York Yankees
Pitcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'1"  Weight:  178
Born:  November 13, 1941, Hazleton, MO
Signed:  Signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent before 1961 season
Major League Teams:  New York Yankees 1964-1974
Died:  January 13, 2019, Seattle, WA (age 77)

As a 22-year-old rookie in 1964, Mel Stottlemyre went 9-3 with a 2.06 ERA over the final few months of the season, helping the Yankees win their fifth consecutive pennant.  In his only World Series action as a player, Stottlemyre started Games 2, 5 and 7, throwing a complete game victory in Game 2, but losing the decisive Game 7 to the Cardinals' Bob Gibson (#320).  He was a 20-game winner in 1965, 1968 and 1969, leading the league in complete games with 18 in 1965 and 24 in 1969.  Stottlemyre was a five-time All-Star, starting the 1969 game against the Cardinals' Steve Carlton (#477).  He retired as a player following the 1974 season having pitched in 360 games, and compiling a 164-139 record with a 2.97 ERA, 152 complete games and 40 shutouts.  He struck out 1,257 batters over 2,661 1/3 innings pitched.

Stottlemyre would next begin a long career as a minor and major league pitching coach, coaching at the big league level with the Mets (1984-1993), Astros (1994-1995), Yankees (1996-2005) and Mariners (2008).  He won a World Series ring with the Mets (1986) and four with the Yankees (1996, 1998-2000) while serving under manager Joe Torre (#200).  His sons Mel, Jr. and Todd also pitched in the majors.

Building the Set
March 6, 2022 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards - Babylon, NY) - Card #548

This is the 64th of 102 cards acquired for our set from the Baseball Card Sports Memorabilia Show, affectionately known as The Philly Show, held in the basement of the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia in early March.  We went nuts and left the show needing only 12 more cards to complete our 1965 Topps set, and I wrote about the show in detail over at The Phillies Room.  Having wandered aimlessly among the dealer tables looking for binders with vintage commons, I decided to check to see if Uncle Dick's had refreshed their inventory following the December show, during which I had wiped out both their 1965 Topps binders.  Much to my pleasant surprise, they had.

I found 49 commons and semi-stars we needed for our set in the two neon green binders of 1965 Topps cards at Uncle Dick's.  Having reached the end of the binders, I asked if there were any star cards from the set available for my perusal, and of course there were.  I found this Stottlemyre card along with the Harmon Killebrew (#400) card in a modest stack of star cards, and I offered a bundled price for the two, less than the original combined price, and the dealer accepted.  Having once again wiped out Uncle Dick's stock of needed 1965 Topps cards, we wandered the show room floor a little longer before I settled in for the next bulk purchase of commons.  With the addition of this card, we were just 50 cards away from a complete 1965 Topps set.

The Card / Yankees Team Set
Collectors first got a glimpse of Stottlemyre in series two as part of the World Series subset, as his performance in Game 2 (#133) earned him a card.  This is his official rookie card, with Topps making it just under the wire by getting him into the set's seventh series.  On the back, his fantastic 1964 season is recapped in cartoon form and with the write-up above his statistics.

1965 Season
This was Stottlemyre's best season overall, and I'm sure Topps was anxious to get his rookie card in their flagship set.  Starting the season in the Yankees' starting pitching rotation, he emerged as the team's ace, going 20-9 with a 2.63 ERA in 37 starts.  He threw 18 complete games, tops in the league, including four shutouts.  He also led the league with 291 innings pitched.  Known also as a decent hitter, Stottlemyre hit an inside the park grand slam on July 20th at Yankee Stadium off Red Sox pitcher Bill Monbouquette (#142).

1966 Topps #350

1968 Topps #120

1969 Topps #470

1972 Topps #325

1975 Topps #183

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1965 Topps #133
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (11):  1965-1975
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  2014 Topps Archives Fan Favorites Autographs #FFA-MS

158 - Stottlemyre non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 8/1/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #549 Cubs Rookie Stars

Next Card:  #551 New York Mets Team Card

#582 Bob Schmidt - New York Yankees

Robert Benjamin Schmidt
New York Yankees
Catcher

Bats:  Right  Throws:  Right  Height:  6'2"  Weight:  205
Born:  April 22, 1933, St. Louis, MO
Signed:  Signed by the New York Giants as an amateur free agent before 1951 season
Major League Teams:  San Francisco Giants 1958-1961; Cincinnati Reds 1961; Washington Senators 1962-1963; New York Yankees 1965
Died:  May 2, 2015, Debary, FL (age 82)

As a rookie catcher with the Giants in 1958, Bob Schmidt was selected to the National League All-Star team by batting .266 with 12 home runs and 32 RBIs through the first half of the season.  Schmidt didn't make it into the game.  He'd finish the year in a prolonged slump, with his average dropping to .244 and adding just two more home runs.  Schmidt would share catching duties with Hobie Landrith in 1959 and 1960, and in early 1961 the Giants would deal him to the Reds for catcher Ed Bailey (#559).  Schmidt would see limited time with the Reds in 1961 and in 1962 before he was on the move again, this time to the Senators.  With the struggling expansion team he was the team's opening day catcher and saw action in 88 games, while batting .242 with ten home runs and 31 RBIs.  

After spending all of 1964 with the Yankees' top farm team in Richmond, he made the Yankees' opening day roster in 1965 as an insurance policy for the injured Elston Howard (#450).  He'd be returned to the minors in mid-June, playing out the balance of the 1965 season and all of 1966 in Triple-A before retiring.  Schmidt appeared in 454 major league games, collecting 317 hits and batting .243 with 39 home runs 150 RBIs.

Building the Set
March 6, 2022 from The Philly Show (Uncle Dick's Cards - Babylon, NY) - Card #542

This is the 58th of 102 cards acquired for our set from the Baseball Card Sports Memorabilia Show, affectionately known as The Philly Show, held in the basement of the Valley Forge Casino Resort in King of Prussia in early March.  We went nuts and left the show needing only 12 more cards to complete our 1965 Topps set, and I wrote about the show in detail over at The Phillies Room.  Having wandered aimlessly among the dealer tables looking for binders with vintage commons, I decided to check to see if Uncle Dick's had refreshed their inventory following the December show, during which I had wiped out both their 1965 Topps binders.  Much to my pleasant surprise, they had. 

This Schmidt card was $6 and was one of 49 commons and semi-stars purchased in my triumphant return to Uncle Dick's and his replenished neon green binders.

Depending on my ability to compose five posts a week on the cards acquired at this show, I should be completely caught up on this blog by mid-October.  It's entirely feasible we complete our 1965 Topps set by the end of 2022, although nine of the remaining 12 cards needed are fairly expensive.

The Card / Yankees Team Set
This is Schmidt's final appearance in a Topps flagship set, and his only appearance with the Yankees.  The cartoon on the back highlights his .284 average in 1951 while with the Lenoir Red Sox in his first professional season.  The write-up mentions he was destined for Toldeo to start the season, but Howard's injury (see below) resulted in Schmidt sticking around.

1965 Season
Through the first few months of the 1965 season, Schmidt, Johnny Blanchard (#388) and Doc Edwards (#239) shared catching duties for the Yankees while Howard recovered from elbow surgery.  Schmidt would make 11 starts behind the plate between opening day and June 9th, and he'd appear in 20 games overall, batting .250 with a home run and three RBIs, before his demotion.  With the Toledo Mud Hens, Schmidt became the club's regular catcher and batted .294 in 69 games.

1958 Topps #468

1959 Topps #109

1961 Topps #31

1962 Topps #262

1963 Topps #94

Other Notable Baseball Cards
First Mainstream Card:  1958 Topps #468
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (7):  1958-1963, 1965
Most Recent Mainstream Card:  1979 TCMA The 1950s #246

31 - Schmidt non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 7/31/22.

Sources:  
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
The Trading Card Database

Wikipedia

Previous Card:  #581 N.L. Rookie Stars

Next Card:  #583 Wes Covington - Philadelphia Phillies