Select a different Sport or Vintage Baseball Cards set       or SEARCH for:     Enter words, partial words with wildcards (*) or phrases in quotes.   1959 Yankees     displays vintage 1959 Yankees cards.   Willie Mays     displays all Willie Mays cards, old and recent.

Have web site? We'll escort your inventory online Boston,Miami.
Boston,Los Angeles,Las Vegas,San Diego escort your cards here.

Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting along with a listing of the All-Time and Active Leaders in a selected statistical cateogry. Visit our web site for more info on vintage and current baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q1: How long have sports cards been around ? (part 1) The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years, baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal. In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball cards in their products as well. Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in 1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny. The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets. History Of O-Pee-Chee (T5) O-Pee-Chee, also known as OPC, is the Canadian equivalent of Topps. The history of this gum & sports card company is actually quite different. OPC is based in London, Ontario Canada and pre-dates Topps by many years. OPC’s first sports card set was back in 1933 when they produced the V304 hockey cards. The set included stars Eddie Shore and Howie Morenz and has a book value of around $15,000. Their first baseball set was released in 1937. It was a cross between the 1934 Goudeys and Batter-Ups and featured only American League players. The top player in the set is Joe Dimaggio. OPC started their long run of complete baseball card sets in 1965. In these early years, the OPC sets were much smaller than Topps and usually included only the first couple of series. Although they were printed on a slightly different card stock the cards front and backs were nearly identical to Topps but with a small "Printed in Canada" on the back. Baseball was much less popular in Canada and it is estimated that OPC cards from these early years were produced in a ratio of between 1% and 5% of Topps cards making them exceedingly scarce !!! Starting in 1970, OPC baseball cards became more interesting. Canadian legislation demanded that all items produced in Canada carry both French & English so O-Pee-Chee baseball cards became bilingual with their card backs printed in both languages. In 1971, the OPC baseball set had a much more interesting back design and also offered 14 different card photos not in the Topps set of that year. 1972 OPC included a card of Gil Hodges mentioning his death that was not a part of the Topps set. 1974 OPC did include any of the "Washington Nationals/San Diego Padres" variations. In 1977 although the card format remained the same, about 1/3 of the OPC set had different poses/images than their Topps counterparts. In the late ‘70’s, the OPC card fronts appeared similar to Topps but sometimes included traded information with a line across them saying "Now with XXXX". These differences were due the the OPC cards being printed much later into the season allowing for an update of the players status. OPC also was busy with their hockey and Canadian Football League issues. In 1968 they re- entered the hockey market. Today OPC is still strong in the baseball card and hockey card market and has also started printing non-sports cards.

 
***  TOTAL BASES  -  ALL-TIME Leaders  ***
Rank Player (age)        Total Bases
 1.  Hank Aaron HOF         6856
 2.  Stan Musial HOF        6134
 3.  Willie Mays HOF        6066
 4.  Ty Cobb HOF            5854
 5.  Babe Ruth HOF          5793
 6.  Pete Rose              5752 
 7.+ BARRY BONDS (40)       5584
 8.  Carl Yastrzemski HOF   5539
 9.  Eddie Murray HOF       5397
10.  Rafael Palmeiro        5388
11.  Frank Robinson HOF     5373
12.  Dave Winfield HOF      5221
13.  Cal Ripken             5168 
14.  Tris Speaker HOF       5101
15.  Lou Gehrig HOF         5060
16.  George Brett HOF       5044
17.  Mel Ott HOF            5041
18.  Jimmie Foxx HOF        4956
19.  Ted Williams HOF       4884
20.  Honus Wagner HOF       4862
21.  Paul Molitor HOF       4854
22.  Al Kaline HOF          4852
23.  Reggie Jackson HOF     4834
24.  Andre Dawson           4787
25.  Robin Yount HOF        4730
26.  Rogers Hornsby HOF     4712
27.  Ernie Banks HOF        4706
28.  Al Simmons HOF         4685
29.  Harold Baines          4604
30.  Billy Williams HOF     4599
31.  Rickey Henderson       4588
32.  Cap Anson HOF          4574
33.  Tony Perez HOF         4532
34.  Mickey Mantle HOF      4511
     Sammy Sosa             4511 
36.  Roberto Clemente HOF   4492
37.  Paul Waner HOF         4478
38.  Nap Lajoie HOF         4474
39.  Fred McGriff           4458
40.+ KEN GRIFFEY JR (35)    4414
41.  Dave Parker            4405
42.  Mike Schmidt HOF       4404
43.  Eddie Mathews HOF      4349
44.  Sam Crawford HOF       4328
45.  Goose Goslin HOF       4325
46.+ CRAIG BIGGIO (39)      4283
47.  Brooks Robinson HOF    4270
48.  Eddie Collins HOF      4268
49.  Vada Pinson            4264
50.  Tony Gwynn             4259 
51.  Charlie Gehringer HOF  4257
52.  Lou Brock HOF          4238
53.  Dwight Evans           4230
54.  Willie McCovey HOF     4219
55.  Jeff Bagwell           4213
56.  Willie Stargell HOF    4190
57.  Rusty Staub            4185
58.+ GARY SHEFFIELD (36)    4153
59.  Jake Beckley HOF       4147
60.  Harmon Killebrew HOF   4143
61.  Jim Rice               4129 
62.  Zack Wheat HOF         4100
63.  Al Oliver              4083 
64.  Wade Boggs HOF         4064
65.  Harry Heilmann HOF     4053
66.  Andres Galarraga       4038
67.  Roberto Alomar         4018
68.  Carlton Fisk HOF       3999
69.  Rod Carew HOF          3998
70.+ STEVE FINLEY (40)      3966
71.  Joe Morgan HOF         3962
72.  Orlando Cepeda HOF     3959
73.  Sam Rice HOF           3955
74.+ FRANK THOMAS (37)      3949
75.  Joe DiMaggio HOF       3948
76.  Steve Garvey           3941
77.  Frankie Frisch HOF     3937
78.  Chili Davis            3914
79.  Joe Carter             3910 
80.  Larry Walker           3904
81.  Gary Gaetti            3881
82.  George Sisler HOF      3871
83.  Darrell Evans          3866
84.  Duke Snider HOF        3865
85.  Joe Medwick HOF        3852
86.  Bill Buckner           3833
87.  Ted Simmons            3793
88.  Ed Delahanty HOF       3791
89.  Roger Connor HOF       3788
90.  Ryne Sandberg HOF      3787
91.+ LUIS GONZALEZ (37)     3783
92.  Graig Nettles          3779
     Ron Santo              3779 
94.  Willie Davis           3778
95.  Tim Raines             3771 
96.  Jesse Burkett HOF      3759
97.  Mickey Vernon          3741
98.  Jim Bottomley HOF      3737
99.  Dale Murphy            3733
100. Edgar Martinez         3718
 
***  TOTAL BASES  -  Active Leaders  ***
Rank Player (age)        Total Bases
 1. Barry Bonds (40)        5584
 2. Rafael Palmeiro (40)    5388
 3. Sammy Sosa (36)         4511
 4. Ken Griffey (35)        4414
 5. Craig Biggio (39)       4283
 6. Jeff Bagwell (37)       4213
 7. Gary Sheffield (36)     4153
 8. Steve Finley (40)       3966
 9. Frank Thomas (37)       3949
10. Luis Gonzalez (37)      3783
11. Juan Gonzalez (35)      3676
12. Manny Ramirez (33)      3668
13. Jeff Kent (37)          3621
14. Ruben Sierra (39)       3610
15. Alex Rodriguez (29)     3576
16. Bernie Williams (36)    3573
17. Julio Franco (46)       3533
18. John Olerud (36)        3530
19. Ivan Rodriguez (33)     3503
20. Mike Piazza (36)        3440
21. B.J. Surhoff            3414
22. Jim Thome (34)          3327
23. Moises Alou (38)        3241
24. Chipper Jones (33)      3213
25. Vinny Castilla (37)     3161
26. Robin Ventura (37)      3133
27. Carlos Delgado (33)     3089
28. Shawn Green (32)        3081
29. Garret Anderson (33)    3062
30. Kenny Lofton (38)       3041

1951 Bowman Baseball This was Bowman's largest set to date, both in the size and the number of cards. Due to the major rookies in this set (led by Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) the 1951 Bowman set is by far the most valuable of their issues. Card fronts were very similarly to Bowman's 1950 set, so much so that several players 1951 Bowman cards look like larger versions of their 1950 card. Bowman again used hand-painted color reproductions of actual photographs. Cards numbered 243 to 324 (High Numbers) were printed in smaller quantities and are scarcer. This is hte series that features the rookie cards of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays making them even more difficult to obtain. Other notable rookies include Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin, Jackie Jensen and Jim Piersall. TOP ROOKIES: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays,Whitey Ford, Monte Irvin, Nellie Fox, Joe Garagiola, Jackie Jensen, Jim Piersall .... TOP STARS: Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, Duke Snider, Richie Ashburn & MORE !!!

1970 Chemtoy Superballs Chemtoy and MLB teamed up in 1970 to offer a set of major league baseball player "superballs". The 285 "superball" set has 12 from each AL & NL team except Minn., Chicago and Oakland with 11 and is packed with HALL-OF-FAMERS !!! Each "superball" has the player's photo inside the ball. On the back is the player's name, team name, position and a Chemtoy inventory number. This is one of the more interesting collectibles from the late 1960's, early 1970's and highly sought after by Team and player collectors.

Web site services provided by   www.BadaBadaBing.com
CA: San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco;   Las Vegas, Miami, New York City, Washington DC escorts

© 1995-2007 "InterNet's Baseball Card Store" / Joseph Juhasz ... All Rights Reserved