#150 Ted Beard

#150 Ted Beard
Progress: 1st of this card
220 of 407  54%
How acquired: $6.25 on eBay
Condition: Very Good
At some point (no time soon), I want to compare the 407 players/coaches chosen for this set with the 407 most used players in 1951/52.  I suspect there is going to be a huge discrepancy.  This would not mean to be any sort of shot at Topps and the player selection, that would be wildly unfair.  The fact that the late, great, Sy Berger was able to sign as many guys as he did for this inaugural set is incredible.  It's not a situation like we had from around (loosely) 1996-2003 when Topps' player selection was geared towards rookies to the point of incompetence.

Beard is one of many rarely used backups (194 games over 7 seasons) to make the cut in this set, along with a lot of rookies.  And you don't have to be a huge cardboard historian to know there are no shortage of omissions in this set, Musial, Williams, Ford are few that immediately come to mind.  But I'm sure there are a lot of other guys, who were everyday players, that I'm not familiar with that were omitted as well.  The list and breakdown will be a project for another day.  I'd actually like to do it for every Topps base set, see which one's best represented the previous years players, and which one's did the worst.  But for now, Ted Beard takes his place in my binder and crosses off another need.

Stats: 7 seasons, 94 hits, 6 home runs, .198 avg.

Best Hall of Fame Showing: N/A