My First Baseball “Cards”











Built Rite




Batter Up





Earl Gillespie








Author: Mark Armour


12 thoughts on “My First Baseball “Cards””

  1. Holy crap I can’t begin to explain how much my 8-year-old son would love these games. He has a set of baseball guys ( which he’s using to play out games as it is. He knows how to look up retrosheet on his ipad and follow the play-by-play. But an actual game like this is something he would play for hours.

    The good news is that this is something I can totally see making into a project where he designs his own cards and then we photocopy enough of the routine cards so that the game becomes playable. Heck if the weather turns out to be the way it’s shaping up to be we might be doing this on at least two snow days this week.

    Liked by 3 people

  2. You can find these game on eBay pretty cheap as well. But you are right, it would be pretty easy to make your own and even add some better realism. In these games, for example there is one triple and one home run. There is a balk in one of the games which therefore is coming up every few innings. So its not perfect.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Very cool! I foresee a whole new genre to collect. Darn you! I once took a regular deck of cards and created a ’68 Topps game from memory. My son and I played for hours while vacationing on the Oregon Coast. The illustrations are excellent. So many times, sports art in books or games is done by someone unfamiliar with the game.

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  4. The ’61 Earl Gillespie score sheet has catcher Del Crandall hitting second, an unusual placement for a slow footed backstop. The picture of Earl with headphones is worth the price alone.

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    1. This was the actual lineup from their game. An interesting fact about this game points out the flaw in the score sheets. The flaw, as every scorekeeper knows: what happens if the game is not settled in 9 innings? In fact, the actual game was 2-1 Cardinals in 10 innings, so Gillespie only showed 9 innings!

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Earl Gillespie was an institution in Milwaukee Sportscasting long after his days of calling the Braves ended. He was beloved in Milwaukee and remained sports anchor on WITI-TV6 in Milwaukee. I am actually surprised that I have no recollection of seeing this game anywhere around Wisconsin when I was a kid.

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  6. Wow this brought memories shooting back when I saw the pic. I have these around in a drawer or box somewhere. My brother, who’s about a dozen years older than me had these, then I pretty much self-inherited them when he moved on and got married.

    Liked by 1 person

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