Stars of the 1960s: Willie Mays

Here's the 2nd post in a new series on this blog - "Stars of the 1960s". Unlike the first post (Johnny Callison), going forward these posts will only feature cards from 1966-1969. (I don't have any superstars from the 1965 set, and have very few non-Phillies' cards prior to 1965.)

Today I went through my card binders and identified 18 players for this series. Surprisingly, for EIGHT of those stars Topps re-used a photo in that 4-year span. Wow! I can see not taking the time to snap a new photo of Bob Barton every year, but Willie Mays? Carl Yastrzemski? Ernie Banks? Hank Aaron? Juan Marichal? Al Kaline? (Yeah, why waste time chasing after THOSE guys!)

Here's Willie on the downside of a great career. Like Steve Carlton and some others, Willie hung on too long. I remember watching him in his last season with the Mets, where he would sometimes flip the ball to the right fielder to make the throw back to the infield.

Besides re-using the '66 photo in 1969, the photo on his 1968 card was also used in the 1965 set.