Book Update 106 August 2020
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BOOK UPDATE 106 AUGUST 2020 S MR BOOK UPDATE An Ode to the Classic 1952 Topps Baseball Card Set of your father’s beer that your mom was to never know The latest book in Tom and about. Ellen Zappala’s card collecting The senses also serve as a powerful tool for recol- lecting the past for those who were sports card collec- series offers up sensory delight tors as kids. Few things hold the sensory vividness as the smell in the backstories and current- of gum wafting up or the sight of a much sought-after day fascination surrounding the card in a freshly opened pack of cards. What can pull a card collector back in time more than remembering the legendary Topps issue feel of wax packs in your hands while waiting to pay for them at a candy store counter and wondering what may ur five senses have an amazing power that can be inside? Offering an equally intense sense of men- draw us back in time, even as far back as our tal time travel is recalling the sound of a card wedged childhood. For those who grew up loving the through a bike’s spokes that made it tick like a motor Ogame of baseball and were fortunate enough to the faster you rode and the taste of those pink rectangle attend a Major League game as a kid, that is especially strips lightly dusted with powdery white sugar. true. As a kid growing up just outside of Boston in the Just close your eyes and you can recall the smell of late 1950s and early 1960s, Tom Zappala’s senses were a field’s freshly cut grass; the sight of a favorite player stirred by the game of baseball and the men, equip- stepping into the batter’s box; the feel of the soft pocket ment, venues and cards associated with it. of a perfectly broken-in glove you hoped would be used “I was passionate about baseball and cards; al- to capture a fouled treasure; the sound of ash or pine though, my friends and I thought of them in the way the hitting horsehide followed by the crowd’s immediate re- manufacturers originally did: That they would be some- action; the taste of a hot dog and, perhaps, a tiny sip thing to play with,” says Zappala. “We flipped them and S MR AUGUST 2020 107 BOOK UPDATE played a game called scalers, in did you also got all the cards.” which you would kneel down about Having started to collect cards 15-feet in front of a brick wall and in the late 1950s, Zappala says he toss your cards. If you landed your has vivid memories of walking to card on another card, you won all a local store where he would pur- the accumulated cards. If someone chase packs. tossed a card and it landed against “As soon as I got outside, my the wall, you would try to knock it story was the same as that of thou- down with another card, and if you sands upon thousands of American kids at the time. I would rip open the packs, stick a piece of gum in my mouth, and go through the cards to see who I got.” In 1959, when Zappala was 7 years old, there were, of course, no card guides or Internet. So unless a kid had a father, uncle or older brother who collected cards when Ellen Zappala they were young, saved them, and then passed them down along with in 1952, the same year he was born, information about them, there was the Topps Gum Company of Brook- really no way to get any sort of his- lyn, New York, had put out a set of torical perspective on the cards that 407 cards that had been the brain- had come prior. child of Sy Berger, a Topps em- It was for that reason that a ployee who teamed up with design- young Tom Zappala had no idea er Woody Gelman to create what Tom Zappala that just less than a decade earlier, sports cards historians would many 108 AUGUST 2020 S MR years later deem to be the most im- him and his wife, Ellen, to produce a portant postwar baseball card set beautiful coffee table tome to add to ever produced: the 1952 Topps set. their award-winning series of base- Using the kitchen table of his ball collectors’ books. apartment on Alabama Avenue in Just released, Baseball & Bub- Brooklyn as their workspace, Berger ble Gum: The 1952 Topps Collec- and Gelman came up with a de- tion, beautifully documents the 1952 sign that included a colorized photo Topps offering that, along with the of the featured player along with a 1909-11 T206 set and the 1933 facsimile autograph and his team’s Goudey release, has come to be re- name and logo on the front. On the vered within the sports card collect- back, the new design called for in- ing hobby as one of “The Big Three.” formation that included the player’s Initially preparing to release height, weight, birthdate, stats and a Baseball & Bubble Gum: The 1952 short biography. Topps Collection in late July at the The set, which was the largest 2020 National Sports Collectors ever produced at that time, became Convention in Atlantic City, those the standard for sports card design plans were dashed when the con- and, as time went by, saw Berger vention was postponed due to the recognized within the hobby as “The COVID-19 pandemic. Father of Modern Baseball Cards.” The original plan was to roll out That backstory, as well as the their latest book with events that cards themselves, would have been were to include personal appear- lost on the then-7-year-old Zap- ances, discussions and signings by pala who, back then, never even the Zappalas; a special guest ap- knew such a set existed. Little did pearance by one of the surviving he know the day would come when players featured in the ’52 Topps he would become so enamored by set; and a discussion with Joe Or- these cards that they would inspire lando, the president and CEO of Collectors Universe, parent com- pany of Professional Sports Authen- ticator (PSA), who contributed the foreword and the fourth chapter in the new book. Although they hope to continue with those plans in the winter dur- ing the now-rescheduled show, Zappala says he wanted to keep on schedule for the book’s release and is more than pleased with what it offers to those who love baseball, sports cards, and this historic set. Sports Market Report (SMR) re- cently met with Zappala to discuss Baseball & Bubble Gum: The 1952 Topps Collection, which he calls the most enjoyable book he, his wife, and their team have ever worked on. We began our meeting with Zappala by asking him what made this book so special. Tom Zappala (TZ): Since we started this collection series, we S MR AUGUST 2020 109 BOOK UPDATE have had many people suggest that For many people, the 1952 we do books on the 1933 Goudeys Topps set is much more than just an- or the T205 set. Those are both other great group of baseball cards. great ideas and not ones we have It is a set that changed the game – ruled out, but there is just some- not the game of baseball, but the thing about the 1952 Topps set that collecting card hobby. It ushered in resonates with so many collectors. a completely new era of how cards There is no doubting that it ranks were designed and collected. Be- right up there with the T206 set, and cause of those reasons, and more, I think one of the reasons for that is we thought it was a natural for our because there are still people alive next book. today who collected those cards as Sports Market Report (SMR): kids. That makes them something What were some of the other rea- more than historically significant, sons? such as is the case with the T206 TZ: That set was produced cards. The ’52 Topps cards still have during an extremely interesting the power to bring back childhood time in history – the history of memories for those who got them the world, of America, and of the when they were first released. game of baseball. The careers of It is also the set that started the many players in this set were inter- second generation of collecting and rupted by service in World War II or has become iconic due to all the the Korean War. It was also when whom we cover in the book. great Hall of Famers that are fea- the color barrier was being bro- SMR: For those who may not tured in it. On top of that, you have ken in baseball, and Major League be familiar with your other books, the Mickey Mantle card, which is Baseball fans were introduced to can you give an overview of what one of the most famous and sought- players like Jackie Robinson, Roy readers can expect to find in this after cards in the hobby. Campanella and Monte Irvin, all of book? 110 AUGUST 2020 S MR BOOK UPDATE TZ: This is both a history book the collection. His chapter is written released. The company couldn’t un- that will appeal to those who love purely from the standpoint of a col- load the cards on anyone. In the late Americana and popular culture and lector.