Why Kids Used to Spit on Babe Ruth's Earliest Topps Cards
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These days Babe Ruth is more or less a fixture in Topps sets. And why not, even more than 100 years after he rose to prominence as the game's top slugger, Ruth is still considered by many baseball fans, historians, and collectors to be the GOAT. When it comes to Ruth, however, modern tributes are hardly his only Topps cards. In fact, he has a baseball card history with Topps that dates back to the very origins of the brand.
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Several early examples, but by no means the earliest, came as part of a "Babe Ruth Special" subset issued as cards 135-144 in the 1962 Topps baseball set. Notably, the Ruth cards came out in the wake of Roger Maris' eclipsing of Ruth's single-season home run record. Perhaps the message to collectors was "Yes, Roger is amazing, but don't forget about the Babe!"
Just the year before, as both Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were staging their double-barreled assault on the Ruth record, Topps issued a ten-card 1961 "Baseball Thrills" subset highlighting some of the greatest moments in baseball history. The Ruth card, quite naturally, focused on the Babe's record 60 home runs in 1927.
Backing up nearly a decade (and skipping over a couple Ruth issues), Topps included Ruth in its popular 135-card "Look 'n See" issue. While other cards in the set focused on scientists, artists, and world leaders, Ruth was the lone ballplayer represented. Heretical as it sounds today, it's possible that this card was the most coveted 1952 Topps card of a Yankees outfielder at the time, at least in some circles.
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While 1952 was a huge year for Topps and the year many collectors associate with its foray into the Hobby, the truth is the company put out several baseball card sets in 1951. One of them, the 11-card, die-cut "Connie Mack All-Stars" set, included a Babe Ruth card.
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Still, even the 1951 Babe Ruth was not his first card from Topps. That honor belongs to an extremely under-the-radar issue from 1948 known as Hocus-Focus. Among the set's postage-stamp sized 252 cards, the 19-card "K" series features a mix of baseball all-time greats and 1948 World Series highlights.
As with all cards in the set, Ruth's image appears on the card front after being "developed" through a dampening process detailed on the inside of card wrappers. While the directions provided might suggest a sink and a bowl of water to most collectors, what kids back then could wait that long to see the image on the front of their cards? The result, of course, was to go with whatever happened to be handy, which in most cases was [trigger warning] saliva!
Spittle or not, perhaps it's fitting that the first Topps Babe Ruth baseball card dates back to the very first year Topps issued any baseball cards and just months after the passing of the Bambino himself. After all, both Topps and Babe Ruth are practically synonymous with baseball, however much the Hobby and the game itself have changed over the past 75+ years.
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.