Play Ball! - Bob Laughlin Style

As we get ready for the most unique season in MLB history, I thought this would be a good time to show a Sporting News cover from 1967 that I recently came across featuring the artwork of Bob Laughlin with his representations for each team at the start of the season:

 Here is the full cover from the Feb 25, 1967 issue:

 

Card collectors will recognize Bob's work from his World Series sets that he initially produced himself in B&W

as well as the color World Series and other sets he did for Fleer and other self produced sets in the early to mid-70s:

In fact, in his initial ad for the World Series sets, he mentions doing the above cover for the Sporting News:

If you are interested in checking out The Sporting News archives, they are currently available through a subscription to newspaperarchive.com.  I bought a one month subscription and had a great time reading through articles from the 50's through the 80's.  The database is searchable, so if you want to search for articles on a particular player or team, you can quickly find the pages you are looking for.

More Laughlin Cartoons From Sports Collectors News - The Collectors

Here is the 2nd batch of cartoons that Dave from The Topps Archives sent from his research of old issues of Sports Collector's News from the mid 1970's:

Thanks again to Dave for sharing these.

Laughlin Cartoons From Sports Collectors News - The Collectors

I recently received a large amount of material from Dave (from the fantastic blog The Topps Archives and author of The Modern Hobby Guide to Topps Chewing Gum: 1938 - 1956) related to RG (Bob) Laughlin.

David has been going through old issues of Sports Collectors News from the mid 1970s, and has found a number of interesting items, including reviews of some of Laughlin's various card sets, ads for his cards and his newsletter "Inside Pitch", and a cartoon series that he did called "The Collectors."

I'd like to start off sharing some of the cartoons that David sent:

Back in the days when kids still flipped cards

This really brings back memories - How I used to enjoy going to the grocery store and checking out all the Hostess boxes for cards that I didn't have

A nice twist on the story of mom throwing out the baseball cards

I will be sharing more of the items that Dave sent over the next few posts.  I'd like to say Thanks! to Dave for passing along all these great scans.

1st Issue of Bob Laughlin's Inside Pitch from The Troy Files

Fleer Sticker Project contributor Troy sent one final item related to Bob (R G) Laughlin - Bob's initial issue of his hobby newsletter called "Inside Pitch" from September 1975 (click on the pictures to see a larger version of the newsletter):


I am very glad Troy sent me this copy of the newsletter as it provides confirmation of which year each Fleer baseball card set was released. Since Fleer did not put dates on their cards that came with their annual cloth patch releases, there has been some confusion as to what year certain sets date from.

While Bob's World Series sets from 1970 and 1971 are dated correctly, some of the other sets are not, either in the price guides or consequently by the grading services. Based on Bob's comments in this article however, we can confirm the following dates for each of these sets that Bob produced for Fleer:

1970: Fleer World Series


1971: Fleer World Series


1972: No Fleer set using Bob's work. They issued Quiz cards instead.


As we saw in the previous post, in 1972 Bob produced a set called Great Feats of Baseball that he released on his own

since Fleer decided not to release it based on Topps releasing its Greatest Moments test set in late 1971.

1973: Fleer Famous Feats


This set is often misidentified as being from 1972 in price guides and through grading services as seen with this graded card:


1974: Fleer Wildest Days and Plays

This set is also misidentified in price guides and by grading services as being from 1973:


Just for good measure, here is an ad from Bob in the May 1974 issue of The Trader Speaks advertising his new set for 1974, confirming in fact that the Wildest Days and Plays is from 1974 and that the 1973 set was the Famous Feats set:


1975: Fleer Pioneers of Baseball


1976: Fleer Baseball Firsts

The price guides and the grading services incorrectly identify this set as being from 1974


when in fact we have the confirmation from the artist himself that the set was going to be released in 1976, along with Fleer's directives on how the set should be laid out.

Its interesting that Fleer referred to these cards as "bottom boards" in their letter to Bob. I think that gives some insight as to why the cards were never mentioned on the packs or the boxes of Fleer's annual cloth patch sticker sets from 1969 through 1976 (the 1970/1971 World Series cards were separate sets from the cloth patch releases).

The one exception is the 1976 Baseball Patches box where a picture of one of the cards is shown (see the top left corner):


The cards were included in the packs to give the pack some solid backing since a pack just containing cloth stickers and gum would be somewhat flimsy. So it seems like Fleer thought of these as much as kind of a backing board as they did them being a collectible card set.

The other interesting information from the article is how Bob describes the mood at Fleer at this time in their history. Fleer has just filed its antitrust lawsuit against Topps earlier in the year.

According to this court document:

"Fleer's president, Donald Peck, met with Joel Shorin on April 17, 1975, and threatened suit unless Topps granted Fleer the rights to sell player pictures on stickers, stamps, and decals. Shorin refused and Fleer approached the MLBPA about joining in its suit against Topps. The Association declined and Fleer filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania naming the MLBPA as a co-conspirator with Topps in a suit for violation of sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act."

Bob indicates that Fleer is "super-sensitive and doesn't even want to list, on the copy side of the cards, any active players (who are under card contracts to Topps)." As Bob points out, it would not seem that just mentioning a player's name when listing statistical information on the back of a card would be a reason for litigation, but the Fleer director told him "Topps is just looking for a way to get back at us."

It would take 5 years, but ultimately Fleer would be successful in their case against Topps, which allowed them to finally get back into the baseball card business in 1981. Stay tuned for the next installment of The Troy Files as we take a look at how the hobby publications covered some of Fleer's releases during that time that Fleer was battling Topps in court during the late 1970's.

As always, thanks to Troy for another great item from his files!

How the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments Set Foiled Fleer's Plans from The Troy Files

How did the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments test set cause problems for Fleer back in late 1971 / early 1972?


Thanks to The Troy Files, we've got the scoop from an interview done with Bob (R.G.) Laughlin that appeared in Baseball Card Collector in December 1971 (click on the article to see a larger view) :


According to a letter from Bob Laughlin dated September 8, 1971 to the author of the article, he was working with Fleer on a "set of great baseball feats over the years....unless some other hitch occurs", but in a follow up phone conversation, the author says "Topps has run a test set of 'baseball Greats' using actual photographs this fall. This may mean no Fleer's set for '72 as mentioned in his letter."

The test set being referred to is the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments set which featured 55 cards of current players which featured a small color head shot and a larger B&W action photo on the front (with the same black borders as the regular 1971 set)

and a headline on the back from the team's local newspaper describing the player's achievement:

Here is a look at the entire sheet in uncut proof sheet form:

This is a very attractive set, and one that is a challenge to collect as 1) its a test issue and 2)the cards on the sheet on the right are much harder to find than the cards on the left. The cards on the left sheet are double prints, and are the cards more commonly found.

Going back to the interview, there are some great insights provided by Bob about the situation at Fleer at the time.

- For the Fleer 1970 World Series set, Bob had to make changes to artwork from his original B&W set to remove any active players since Topps had them all under contract. That explains why this card


became this card

- For ex-players depicted in Bob's B&W set, Bob couldn't use them either unless he got their agreement, but Fleer would not pay them anything, so as Bob says, "It was rough" trying to get anyone's approval to appear in the set.

- He indicates only 300 B&W World Series sets were produced, as we had seen him mention in his ads a few years later

- Bob says that he had submitted "about a dozen ideas to Fleer, but they only do what they want to."

- One of the ideas Bob suggested was a Hall of Fame set, but since half of the players in the set were still alive, "the thought of paying these guys anything was too much for Fleer."

- According to Bob, "Its like pulling teeth working with Fleer." He also describes Fleer as being "too timid" and that they "operate at a 1908 pace". Bob certainly wasn't pulling any punches which is interesting because he was still under contract with them at the time as the article concludes with the comment that Bob's contract was going to run out with Fleer at the end of 1971 and he wasn't sure if he was going to renew it.

While I don't have any documentation showing whether or not Bob let his contract run out with Fleer at the end of 1971, Fleer did not issue any sets with Bob's work in 1972.

In the meantime, for 1972, Fleer once again issued Quiz Cards with their cloth patch stickers:

The set that Bob had been working on for Fleer did come out in 1972, but Fleer did not release it. Instead, it looks like Bob printed it on his own according to this ad:

In the ad, Bob mentions the issue with Fleer deciding not to proceed with the set because of the Topps Greatest Moments set.

The cards can be found in two different variations:

1) With a red border and the player depicted in black and white:


2) With a blue border and flesh tones:


So thanks to the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments set, Fleer passed on Bob's set which forced Bob to print it himself, and left Fleer recycling the quiz card concept for a fourth straight year (albeit in a different design).

Even though Fleer decided against using Bob's set in 1972, in 1973 Fleer teamed up with Bob on the Famous Feats set that was included with their annual cloth patches set. Note that the same artwork was used for the Hack Wilson card, so I'm assuming that some other of these 1973 cards probably use the same artwork as well:

I'm guessing Fleer probably decided by 1973 that Bob's set really wasn't competing against the Topps set since 1) the Topps set had used current players and Bob was using retired players, and 2) the Topps set had not been distributed nationally, so Fleer decided to go with a very similar set to Bob's 1972 set in 1973.

In the next installment of The Troy Files, we'll get an update from Bob Laughlin to see how the situation between Fleer and Topps was faring a few years later. Thanks as always to Troy for this wonderful material.

World Series Card Set Ads from R. G. Laughlin courtesy of the Troy Files

Following up my previous post on the 1978 Fleer World Series "Update" cards from Bob (R. G.) Laughlin, Troy sent me some more ads from his files - this time for Bob's first World Series set which was a black and white card set he self published back in 1967:

This ad appeared in the June 1967 issue of Ballcard Collector, and features a rough sketch of what would end up being the 1909 World Series card as seen in the sample of the cards below:


Even though the ad mentions that the set was planned to be 63 cards, it actually ended up being 64 cards as it included the 1967 World Series, presumably because by the time Bob finished with his schedule of doing 9 cards per month the 1967 Series would have been played.


Three years after creating his B&W set, R.G. Laughlin teamed up with Fleer in 1970 to produce a similar set of World Series cards, but this time in color


and featuring team insignias. Bob's ad in the June 1970 issue of The Trader Speaks explains:


Bob did change the artwork on a number of the cards from the previous B&W set as he points out, but a number of cards did retain the same drawings.

Its interesting that Bob was selling complete sets, as I would think that would be in direct competition with Fleer as they were trying to sell packs of cards. I'm guessing part of the deal with Fleer allowed Bob to have a certain number of sets for his own that he could sell directly.

Also interesting to note is that he indicates that only 300 of the 1967 B&W set were printed. He is correct that they are collectors items today, but I question the claim that there were only 300 sets, and that they would never be reprinted. A quick check of ebay found 2 complete sets for sale, and a number of individual B&W cards listed. If there were only 300 copies of these cards printed over 40 years ago, I wouldn't expect to see quite so many available today.

Bob did another World Series set for Fleer in 1971 with all new artwork. The picture below shows the difference between the 1970 design (with the year of the Series on a baseball)

and the 1971 design which featured the year above the MLB logo. It was the 1971 set that was then updated in 1978 with additional cards for the 1971 -1977 World Series:


To finish up this look at Bob Laughlin's World Series card ads, here is an ad that he ran advertising original art from all 3 World Series sets:

and here is what one of the pieces looks like (courtesy of Troy's collection):


Thanks once again to Troy for another set of great items from his files as these ads provide great insight into these sets.