403 - Sonny Jackson

About This Player
Sonny Jackson played in 12 Major League seasons split between the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves. Jackson made is big league debut with Houston in 1963 at the age of 18. After a few years seasoning in the minors, Jackson was established as the starting shortstop in 1966.  While still qualifying as a rookie, Jackson led the National League in singles (160) and sacrifice hits (27) and established his career high in batting average (.292).  Jackson also set a then record for most stolen bases by a rookie (49).  Despite his success, Jackson come in second to Tommy Helms in Rookie of the Year voting.

After five seasons in Houston, Jackson was traded to Atlanta. Although he struggled offensively, Jackson played seven seasons at shortstop and center fielder for this club.  Jackson played his final Major League game in 1974.

About This Card
The glasses that Jackson wears made its Topps card debut in 1970.  

550 - Dave Johnson

About This Player
Davey Johnson played 13 years in the big leagues and three of them with the Atlanta Braves.  Johnson began his playing career and spent the majority of it with the Baltimore Orioles.  During his tenure with the O's, Johnson started at second base for four American League pennants and two World Series Championships. He also made three of his four All-Star appearances as an Oriole and won three Gold Glove Awards.

Johnson, after a poor 1972 season, was traded to the Atlanta Braves and responded with the best offensive numbers of his career.  Johnson had career numbers in 1973 in runs (84), hits (151), home runs (43) and RBI (99).  He earned his fourth All-Star selection that year.  Johnson tied Rogers Hornsby's single season record for home runs for a second baseman with 42; one on Johnson's home runs came as a pinch-hitter.  The 1973 Atlanta Braves also featured the first trio of teammates to hit 40 home runs in a season; Darrell Evans hit 41 and Hank Aaron hit 40.

After getting a hit in his only at bat in 1975, Johnson was released by the Braves.  He spent 1975 and 1976 playing in the Japanese league.  He returned to the play in the U.S. in 1977 with the Philadelphia Phillies and finished his playing career with the Chicago Cubs in 1978.  In the 1978 season, Davey Johnson became the first player to hit two grand slams in pinch-hit at bats.

Johnson is probably more profilic for his career as a manager.  Johnson has spent 16 seasons as a manager at the Major League level with division pennants with the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals and a World Series Championship with the Mets in 1986.  Johnson was selected as American League Manager of the Year in 1997 with the Orioles. 

Johnson is the current manager of the Washington Nationals.

About This Card
To reflect many of the trades that had taken place during the offseason and current season, Topps often airbrushed the new uniforms on a player.  Davey Johnson appears in this photograph in a Braves uniform at the end of the first turn of a double play with New York Yankees' Felipe Alou having slid through second base even though the Braves did not play the Yankees.

This play took place, with Johnson as an Oriole, on September 17, 1972.  Alou hit a single in the bottom of the second inning.  Thurman Munson followed by grounding into a 6-4-3 double play.

In addition to Johnson having been airbrushed into a Braves uniform, Topps also airbrushed over the first half of the scoreboard on the right field wall in Yankee Stadium.

Special thanks to Chris Stufflestreet and his 1973 Topps Photography blog.

124 - Jim Hardin

About This Player
Jim Hardin pitched six seasons in the big leagues and only this final season with the Atlanta Braves.  Hardin made his Major League debut with the Baltimore Orioles in 1967.  Hardin had his best season the following year in which he pitched to a 18-13 record with a 2.51 ERA and 16 complete games.  After four-and-a-half seasons in Baltimore, Hardin was traded to the New York Yankees.  He signed with the Atlanta Braves in 1972 with whom he would play his final season.

Hardin died on March 9, 1991 when the plane he was piloting crashed in Key West, Florida.  Shortly after take off, the propeller from his aircraft failed from fatigue.  The aircraft stalled and the plane crash while Hardin attempted to return to the airport to make an emergency landing.  It was widely reported that, during the plane's descent, Hardin steering the plane away from a baseball field filled with young children.  The plane came to rest in a parking lot of a TGI Fridays restaurant, which was under construction at the time.  Hardin is one of three Yankees to lose their lives in aviation accidents; the other two are catcher Thurman Munson (1979) and pitcher Cory Lidle (2006).  Hardin was survived by his wife and three children.

About This Card
This card is one of my lesser conditioned cards in the set with a crease throughout the card and the pen marking on the numbers.  Typically in my set building, I just a few lots of varying conditions and keep the best conditioned card for the set. Apparently, this was the best condition I had for Hardin.

Team Checklist - Atlanta Braves

About This Card
Yet another team checklist toward my 1973 Topps set.  Since the team checklists were distributed only in the final series packs, they are also considered short printed.

610 - Rookie Pitchers (Jimmy Freeman / Charlie Hough / Hank Webb)

About These Players
Jimmy Freeman pitched very briefly with the Braves: 19 games in 1971 and 1972.  Otherwise, Freeman spent eight years in the minors before and after his short call up.

Charlie Hough enjoyed the lengthiest career out of these three and lengthier than nearly all players who played in the Majors: 25 seasons.  Hough, well known for his knuckleball, started his career with the Dodgers and pitched mostly in relief.  He pitched 11 seasons with the Dodgers and did get postseason in the Dodgers' three World Series losses in 1974, 1977 and 1978.  Hough joined the Rangers in 1980 and was soon converted to a starter.  He pitched another 11 seasons with the Rangers, including an All-Star selection in 1986.  Hough pitched two seasons with the White Sox and another two seasons with the Marlins before retiring.

Hank Webb spent six seasons in the Majors, although bouncing in and out of the minors throughout his career.  Webb made his best league debut with the Mets in 1972.  His best season was in 1975 in which he pitched 115 innings with 7-6 record and 4.07 ERA.  Webb final in his final big league season in 1977 with the Dodgers.

About This Card
Charlie Hough is the last player from this set to retire and one of two players in this set who appears in his last regular-issue Topps card as late as 1994.  (Nolan Ryan also appears in the 1994 Topps set.)

Freeman and Webb both appear for their first time in a Topps set in 1973.  Hough previous appears in the 1972 set.

33 - Jim Breazeale

About This Player
Jim Breazeale spent most of his playing career in the minor leagues with a few brief stints in the Majors.  Breazeale was drafted in the first round of the 1968 amateur draft.  He made his big league debut in 1969 at the age of 19 and played in three games that season.  He returned to the big leagues in 1971 and played in ten games.  Breazeale remained on the Braves' roster for the entire 1972 season used primarily as a pinch hitter and a backup first baseman.  Breazeale would remain in the minors until 1978 when he was drafted by the White Sox in the Rule 5 draft.  He would see only minor playing time with the White Sox.

About This Card
The cartoon states that Jim Breazeale is the backup first baseman to Hank Aaron.  Breazeale played 16 games at first base and was used more often as a pinch hitter.  Teammate, Orlando Cepeda, played more at first, 22 games, before he was traded to the A's.

This card is Breazeale's only Topps card.

1 - All-Time Home Run Leaders (Babe Ruth / Hank Aaron / Willie Mays)

About This Opening Day
As Opening Day started in 1973, baseball enthusiasts watched in anticipation as Hank Aaron was closing in on baseball's all-time home run record.  Only 42 homers away from breaking Ruth's mark, and considering Aaron his 34 the year before and 47 the year before that, there was a small possibility that Hank Aaron could break the record in 1973.

Babe Ruth held a mythic record long thought to be unattainable.  Before Aaron and Mays began their careers, the player second on the home run list was Jimmie Foxx with 534 home runs, 180 short of Ruth.  Ruth would hold the record for 53 years.

Hank Aaron, 39 years old at the time, still remained a productive hitter.  Despite never hitting more than 50 home runs in a season, Aaron continued to rank in the home run ranks with his consistency and longevity.  Aaron would end the 1973 season with 40 home runs, only one short of Ruth's mark and two from breaking the record.

Willie Mays was third on the home run list at the time and still active in 1973.  When Mickey Mantle retired in 1968, third on the list at that time, Mays ranked second and looked like he could take the record.  However, his production decline in the following year.  In 1973, Mays would hit only 6 home runs in his final season with the New York Mets.
 
About This Card
Topps capitalized on the home run chase by featuring Ruth, Aaron and Mays as the first card in the first series of the set.  Topps continued featuring all-time records later in the fourth series.

72 - Ron Reed

About This Player
Ron Reed spent 19 seasons in the Major Leagues as a starting pitcher and a reliever.  Reed made his big league debut with the Braves in 1966.  He was still considered a rookie in 1968 and was send to the All-Star Game, the first Braves rookie to have been selected.  His finest season was in 1969 in which Reed won 18 games with a 3.47 ERA, 160 strikeouts and guides Altanta to their first National League Division title.  Reed continued his role in the starting rotation throughout his years with the Braves.  After Reed was traded in 1976, the Phillies converted him to a reliever and pitched in six postseasons for the team.

For a brief time, Reed was a two-sport athlete.  At 6 feet, 6 inches, he played for the Detroit Pistons from 1965 through 1967 before devoting himself full-time to baseball.

Ron Reed was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.

For more information:
National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame

About This Card
Another fun action shot from the 1973 set, this time of Ron Reed fielding a play from the pitchers mound.

359 - Cecil Upshaw

About This Player
Cecil Upshaw played in nine Major League season and seven of them with the Atlanta Braves. Upshaw established himself as the Braves' closer in 1967 and was in the top ten in the National League in saves in four seasons from 1968 through 1972. Upshaw also pitched in all three games of the 1969 NL Championship Series.

Upshaw's career was sidelined in 1970 from an unfortunate accident.  While walking along a San Diego street with this cousin and fellow Braves teammate, George Stone, Upshaw demonstrates his dunk shot on a metal awning when his ring finger gets caught between the roof and the awning.  The accident would leave Upshaw in the hospital for 62 days and he would miss the entire 1970 season.

More about the incident can be read from the link below:
Baseball Digest - July 1971 - "The Ordeal of Cecil Upshaw"

Upshaw would later be traded in the middle of the 1973 season to the Astros.  He would later play for the Indians, Yankees and White Sox before retiring in 1975.

Upshaw passed away on February 7, 1995.

About This Card
Upshaw is featured wearing the classic Braves blue cap with the white front and the lower case "a".  The Braves wore this cap from 1972 through 1980.