if i had a hammer...

...i'd hammer out a post about some 1971 topps cards i received in the mail recently.  like this one from night owl

i've been seeing a lot of old mr. met recently.  today is the day his 1977 o-pee-chee card is featured over at oh my o-pee-chee, and i pulled a 1970 topps style card of his from my 2012 topps archives blaster the other day.  now, i get to cross a card off of my want list.  thanks greg.

then, out of the blue, i received these four cards from thoughts and sox.

jose cardenal

he's a cardenal on a cards card.  nice.

doug rader

one of the many dave roberts

and don wilson

wilson's number 40 is retired by the astros.  he threw the first no-hitter in the astrodome back in 1967, and passed away in 1975.  thanks adam!

those cards are great and i sure do appreciate them.  so imagine how grateful i am after opening a package from crinkly wrappers that included 30 high numbers on my list.

like walt alston

and jose pena

a couple of dodgers that i used to only see in my dodgers binder.

plus, a bunch of the cards had the magic hats, like don o'riley

did the white sox ever wear hats that shade of blue?  o'riley had been with the royals in 1970 and was released by the white sox during spring training in 1971.

here's billy wynne of the angels

who was either hatless or wearing a white sox cap in the original photo. or maybe even a mets hat if the photo were from 1967.  wynne at least appeared in a few games for the angels in 1971.

here's rickey clark demonstrating the proper style of cap for the angels

and the magic continues, with the fantastic reynolds boys

see?  topps did at one time have a dry sense of humor - not the stupid 'put a squirrel on a card' sense of humor.  plus, archie's angels hat is not even close.  at least they got the red brim right on his card, unlike wynne's above.  if you were to combine wynne's hat and archie's hat, you might be close to the real thing.  but it would still be a magic hat.

here's another three-in-one rookie card ted sent

with wayne redmond wearing what looks like it might be a magic visor.  kind of like george hendrick on his 1977 cards.

finally, al severinsen gets a magic ups hat on his rookie card

what can brown do for you, other than give you crazy eyes?  and make balor moore give you the stink eye for messing up his rookie card.

to finish off the post, here's my hammer - not the hammer of justice, but a bona fide 1971 topps hank aaron card

what an awesome surprise! i figured those x00 cards would be the last ones i would get, and now 400 is sitting pretty in the binder.  thanks ted!  the back end of my 1971 topps set binder isn't quite as lonely as it was just last week.