Vintage Baseball, Football and PWHL Cards Join a Collector’s Latest Finds

A handful of new cards can send a collection in several directions at once. This latest group reaches from a 1961 Topps baseball card to a cartoon game deck, a 1967 football issue and a first PWHL pickup. Each one has its own reason for making the cut: a set-building thread, a childhood favorite, a family connection or a player whose screen career matters as much as his time on the field.

A loose end from the 1961 Mets project

Billy Loes is the newest addition to a project built around the players who became members of the 1962 Mets. The earlier 1961 Mets Prequel gathered 1961 Topps cards for those players, along with one 1961 Post Cereal card. Loes belongs in the story, though he never played for New York: the Mets bought him from the Giants, but he quit before spring training after becoming unhappy with how the front office had treated him.

The Mets sent Loes back to the Giants, who released him. That ended his Major League playing career before he could suit up for the club that had acquired him. The card also points to much fuller chapters earlier in his career: Loes was an All-Star with the 1957 Orioles and pitched in three World Series with the Dodgers. The card brings those different stages together, along with the short Mets connection that made him a fit for this collecting project.

Adding Loes brought the 1961 Topps count in this collection to 82, far beyond the collector’s guess of 40 or 50. Twenty-seven cards belong to the Mets Prequel, and 17 are part of a possible Orioles team set. The remaining cards are scattered across other interests. That split is a useful snapshot of how a set can accumulate: a focused project provides a backbone, while other players and collecting plans fill in around it.

A cartoon favorite from the same year

Another 1961 find came from a very different kind of card release: the Ed-U-Cards Quick Draw McGraw game, sold as a deck. The card surfaced during a search for “Ed-U-Cards,” and the childhood affection for Quick Draw made it an easy pickup. It has a place here for the character and the memory attached to it, rather than as part of a conventional sports set.

A Francona question tucked into a 1970 card

The 1970 Topps set remains a long-term aim, but it’s currently on semi-hold. Cards still come home when they turn up; there’s just no active hunt underway. A Tito Francona card made the latest group and prompted a satisfying bit of baseball-season arithmetic, thanks to his son Terry’s long run as a player, coach and manager.

Tito’s playing career ran from 1956 through 1970. Terry played from 1981 to 1990, then began coaching and managing in 1996. The account here finds just two seasons after that start when Terry wasn’t coaching or managing in the Majors: 2012, when he worked as a TV analyst, and 2024, when he was retired. By the collector’s count, the span from 1956 through 2025 includes only 17 of 70 seasons without a Francona in a Major League dugout. A single card can do that: open up a question that leads well beyond the cardboard.

Timothy Brown across football and television

The 1967 Philadelphia Gum NFL card is the third Timothy Brown card in this small collection. Brown had a solid football career, but the collector’s interest also comes from his appearances in both the film and television versions of M*A*S*H, where he played different characters. That overlap gives the card a place in a collection shaped by sports and screen credits alike.

A custom card made a couple of years ago adds Brown as Captain Jones, his character in the first season of the TV series. Jones shared the Swamp with Hawkeye, Trapper and Frank. The character had a racist nickname; it’s left out here. Seen together, the gum card and custom piece show two sides of the same collecting interest, one rooted in football and the other in television.

A first PWHL card

The last pickup marks a new category: the collector’s first PWHL card, featuring Theresa Schafzahl. A hockey household helped build a lasting interest in the sport, though the collector has grown tired of the NHL and is enjoying the Professional Women’s Hockey League more. Having fewer teams and players to follow is part of the appeal, alongside the style of play and the general atmosphere. There isn’t a single favorite team or player; instead, a rotating group of teams and roughly 10 to 20 players draw support.

Schafzahl’s University of Vermont connection offers another reason to follow her: a longtime friend attended the school, giving the collector a soft spot for UVM alumni. Upper Deck has the PWHL license, but the cards strike the collector as expensive. The back of the Schafzahl card provides another look at the issue itself, rounding out this first step into a new card category.

These pickups share little beyond their place in one collection, and that’s part of their appeal. A card can extend a player project, revive a childhood favorite, spark a family-history calculation or introduce a collector to a league they’re enjoying. More cards are waiting to be shared; when they appear is still an open question.

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