Topps Tuesdays: 1965 Topps Mets — When Yogi Came to Shea

The games are over. The hot stove hasn't lit yet. This is the part of the year when a Mets fan's mind wanders — to the shoebox in the closet.

Last week we opened 1964, the first year at Shea. This week it's 1965 — the year Casey Stengel managed his last game, the year two of the greatest Yankees and Braves who ever lived put on a Mets uniform for their farewell summer, and, if you look in the high numbers, the year the Miracle started quietly arriving, four faces at a time.

Every Tuesday we open one year of Topps Mets cards, look at the full team set and what it carries today, and then you vote one card into the Mets Baseball Card Hall of Fame. Here's 1965.

The 1965 Topps Set

Topps made 598 cards in 1965 — the biggest set it had ever produced — released across seven series, and gave it the design collectors still argue is the prettiest of the whole decade. A big, clean color photograph. A bright band of color running along the bottom and curving up around the corners. And in the lower corner, waving right into the picture, a team pennant with the club's name on it — the pennant you tacked to your bedroom wall, printed on the card. The player's name and position sit in block letters under it. It is rah-rah all the way, and it works.

The backs calm down: light blue, the card number inside a little baseball, the player's name in big italic type, a cartoon up in the corner, and full career statistics in a rounded white box. PSA warns about the condition traps that come with all that color — chipping along the colored edges on the back, centering, and print defects — which is why clean '65s cost what they do.

The checklist is a parade: Mickey Mantle (#350), Willie Mays (#250), Hank Aaron (#170), Roberto Clemente (#160), Sandy Koufax (#300), and Pete Rose (#207). And the rookie class is one of the deepest Topps ever printed — five future Hall of Famers debut in this set: Joe Morgan (#16), Steve Carlton (#477), Catfish Hunter (#526), Tony Perez (#581), and, tucked into the Mets' own high numbers, a kid named Tug McGraw. The packs carried a bonus, too — a Topps Embossed card or an iron-on transfer, 72 of each to chase. And a small era ends here: 1965 was the last year of the one-cent pack, one card and a stick of gum for a penny.

Two pieces of set trivia before we get to the Mets. Bob Uecker (#519), who batted right-handed his whole career, posed as a left-handed hitter for his photograph — by his own admission, just for a goof, to see if anybody would notice. And Houston's cards track a franchise changing its name in real time: the Colt .45s became the Astros for 1965, and the early cards still carry the old identity in places. There are no major errors or variations to chase, and no Mets error card at all — the quirks in this team set are all human ones.

The Mets Checklist

The full team set runs 28 cards — 24 individual players and manager Casey Stengel, the team card, and three multi-player Rookie Stars cards, plus the NL Rookies card that earns its place because a Mets prospect shares it with a Hall of Famer.

The checklist:

#22 Charlie Smith · #45 Roy McMillan · #61 Chris Cannizzaro · #73 Dennis Ribant · #93 Jack Fisher · #114 Jim Hickman · #144 Ed Kranepool · #167 Bill Wakefield · #187 Casey Stengel · #205 Warren Spahn · #227 Bobby Klaus · #258 Larry Bearnarth · #277 Johnny Lewis · #285 Ron Hunt · #308 Mets Rookies (Cleon Jones/Tom Parsons) · #329 Hawk Taylor · #349 Larry Miller · #364 Galen Cisco · #381 Al Jackson · #401 Carl Willey · #423 Jesse Gonder · #449 Mets Rookies (Hinsley/Kroll) · #470 Yogi Berra · #495 Joe Christopher · #511 Ron Locke · #533 Mets Rookies (Napoleon/Swoboda/Bethke/McGraw) · #551 Mets Team · #581 NL Rookies (Perez/Collins/Ricketts)

Four Mets live in the seventh-series high numbers (#507–598) — Ron Locke (#511), the McGraw/Swoboda rookie (#533), the team card (#551) and the Perez rookie (#581) — and three of the four are short prints, printed in smaller quantities than the rest of the series. That is why the best rookie card in the team set is also one of the hardest pulls in it.

The ghosts have moved on. Gil Hodges (#99) is still Washington's manager here. Jerry Grote (#504) is a Houston Astro — he becomes a Met in 1966 and catches a miracle three years later. And Charlie Smith finally looks like a Met: after Topps left him in a White Sox uniform on his 1964 card, the #22 photograph is the real thing.

On the field, the 1965 Mets went 50–112 and finished last for the fourth straight year. But read this checklist again and it is a team caught between two eras. Stengel's #187 is his last Topps manager card — he fell at a Toots Shor's party the night before Old-Timers' Day, broke his hip, managed his final game on July 24, and announced his retirement on August 30, handing the club to Wes Westrum. And sharing a roster — and a spring-training university, as Casey called it — were Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn, who between them had been playing major-league baseball since the 1940s, while in the high numbers the kids who would win it all in 1969 were getting their first cards.

What It's Worth Today

The full 598-card set in high grade is a serious piece of property — a PSA-graded complete master set has carried an SMR value approaching $10,000 in mostly PSA 7–8 condition, and the stars in PSA 9 run well into four figures. The 1965 design's popularity keeps even the commons honest, and the short-printed high numbers carry the usual premium.

The Mets sit, as ever, at the friendly end — with three loud exceptions. The #533 Mets Rookies card books around $20 raw and roughly $300 in PSA 9, because two of its four faces turned out to be 1969 heroes. The #581 NL Rookies card is the heavyweight that happens to have a Met on it: Tony Perez's rookie books around $45 raw and past $2,300 in PSA 9 — Mets prospect Kevin Collins, a middle infielder who played parts of three seasons in New York, is the reason it belongs in a Mets team set at all. And Yogi Berra's #470 is an affordable Hall of Famer — guide prices put it around $130 in PSA 8, a remarkable price for the only card of Yogi Berra in a Mets uniform.

The Money Cards

#581 NL Rookies (Perez/Collins/Ricketts) — the most valuable card with a Met on it, and it isn't close: it's Tony Perez's rookie, a short-printed high number. Kevin Collins carries the Mets' flag on a Hall of Famer's debut.

#533 Mets Rookies (Napoleon/Swoboda/Bethke/McGraw) — the most valuable card that is purely Mets: Tug McGraw's and Ron Swoboda's rookie, short-printed, roughly $20 raw and $300 in PSA 9.

#470 Yogi Berra — a Hall of Famer, a one-team-set-only oddity, and still gettable in high grade. Cards that both Yankee and Mets collectors need never stay cheap forever.

#205 Warren Spahn — the winningest left-hander in history (363 wins) on his final Topps card, as a Met. Legend cards in their last uniform always find buyers.

#308 Mets Rookies (Jones/Parsons) — Cleon Jones's rookie card, the quiet bargain of the set: the man who caught the final out of the 1969 World Series, for common-card money.

Five Cards to Sit With

#470 Yogi Berra. Start with the smile. The Yankees had fired Yogi as manager after losing the 1964 World Series — fired him, a man who had played in 14 World Series — and Casey Stengel, who had managed Berra with the Yankees, brought him across town as a player-coach. Berra played exactly four games as a Met in May 1965, the last games of his playing career, three days shy of his 40th birthday, and then coached at Shea until 1972 and managed the Mets to a pennant in 1973. Topps lists him right on the card as what he was: CATCHER-COACH. It is the only Topps card of Yogi Berra as anything but a Yankee, and the photograph — older, broader, grinning in his chest protector — might be the happiest picture in the whole 1965 set.

#533 Mets Rookies — Napoleon, Swoboda, Bethke, McGraw. Four panels, and the whole future is in the bottom half of the card. Ron Swoboda, top right, hit 19 home runs as a 20-year-old rookie in 1965 — a Mets rookie record that stood until Darryl Strawberry broke it in 1983 — and four years later made the catch of his life in Game 4 of the World Series. Tug McGraw, bottom right, was a 20-year-old left-hander who made the club out of spring training; he would become the voice and the heartbeat of the Mets bullpen, and in 1973 he would give this franchise its rallying cry. Dan Napoleon and Jim Bethke, the other two faces, played 80 big-league games between them — which is exactly what a rookie card is: four hopes for the price of one, and history sorts them out. Topps buried this one at #533, in the short-printed high numbers. It is the most important Mets card in the set, whatever the vote says.

#205 Warren Spahn. The card says P-COACH, and that was the deal: the Braves sold the 44-year-old Spahn to the Mets after the 1964 season to pitch and to teach. He went 4–12 — his old manager Bobby Bragan had predicted he wouldn't win six with the Mets, and for once the cruel line held — and the Mets released him in July. He signed with San Francisco and pitched his last game on October 1, 1965, closing a career of 363 wins, more than any left-hander who ever lived. Spahn himself had the epitaph ready: he pitched for Casey Stengel before and after he was a genius. This is a top-ten pitcher of all time, on his final Topps card, wearing a Mets cap. Sit with that a minute.

#187 Casey Stengel. Casey's last card as a manager, and Topps caught him in a familiar pose — out front, selling. Within months of this card reaching the packs, he had fallen and broken his hip, managed his last game, and retired, and the Mets retired his number 37 before the season was even over. The four losing seasons in New York sit on the back of this card next to ten pennants and seven World Series titles with the Yankees, and Casey, characteristically, made the losing sound better than most men make winning sound. When this series started in 1962, he was the face of the franchise. This card is where he hands it over.

#308 Mets Rookies — Cleon Jones / Tom Parsons. A horizontal two-man rookie, and the left half of it became a cornerstone. Cleon Jones was the Mets' left fielder and best hitter by 1969 — he hit .340 that year — and he squeezed Dave Johnson's fly ball for the final out of the World Series, dropping to one knee as he did it, one of the most replayed images in franchise history. In 1965 he was a 22-year-old sharing cardboard with Tom Parsons, a right-hander who won two games in the big leagues. The hobby prices this card like a common. The franchise's history says otherwise.

A few more worth a pause: Ed Kranepool (#144) is now a fixture — a solo card in the low numbers, no longer a teenager sharing a rookie panel, on his way to 18 seasons in this uniform. Ron Hunt (#285) remains the most respected everyday player of the early Mets. Joe Christopher (#495) was coming off a .300 season in 1964, still the best year any of these position players had. And the team card (#551) is a short print — the whole doomed, lovable 50–112 club, in rows, in the second year of Shea.

The Mets Baseball Card Hall of Fame

Three finalists this week. One vote. One plaque.

#470 Yogi Berra — The only Topps card of Yogi as a Met, and his last as a player. A Yankee immortal's farewell summer at Shea, smiling in a chest protector. Cross-team, cross-era, one of a kind.

#205 Warren Spahn — The greatest left-hander ever on his final Topps card, as the Mets' pitcher-coach. He won four games in this uniform and 363 in his career, and this is where the cardboard record of it ends.

#533 Mets Rookies (McGraw/Swoboda) — Two Miracle Mets on one short-printed rookie card. The future of the franchise, four panels at a time — Swoboda's power and McGraw's heart, before anybody knew.

[★ WINNER SLOT — HALL OF FAME INDUCTION TO BE ADDED AFTER THE VOTE ★] The winning card's induction will be announced in this space once the vote is counted.

The vote is yours. Berra, Spahn, or the McGraw/Swoboda rookie — cast it in the Topps Tuesdays group.

Full team set below — all 28 cards. Next Tuesday: 1966.

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Join the conversation. The Topps Tuesdays group is where the weekly Hall of Fame poll lives — come vote, argue your pick, and show off your own '65s. And while you're there, poke around the rest of Talkin' Mets on the Korner: the Game Day Thread, Mets History & Memories, Hot Stove, Down on the Farm, and the Venting Booth for when the bullpen ruins your evening. Nine thousand Mets fans are waiting. Come talk baseball.