My Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book tribute display

For a while I have had three of those trading card displays they sell at Michaels and other places with decorative frames. I've got one filled with my favorite Andy Pafko cards and one that highlights Central Illinois players (mainly Bill Madlock, Chuck Dressen, Del Unser and Walter "Boom-Boom" Beck). 

I couldn't really decide on what to put in the last display and finally decided to do a tribute to my favorite baseball card book, the Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book written by Brendan C. Boyd and Fred C. Harris.

Although I started Heartbreaking Cards before I discovered Flipping and Trading (as I like to call it), I feel my writing style about cards and my sense of humor fits right in with the mentality of the book. 

I always wanted to try to make a go of getting every card highlighted in the book. Although there are many oddball cards highlighted that don't command high prices, there are also some keys cards that would make completing it somewhat of a challenge. 

My display holds 20 cards and so I paged through and picked out some I already owned and some that I would try to track down to complete the project.

The book features photos of pre-1970s cards with the authors sharing their thoughts on each player or why they are a fan of the card featured.  

In the end, I went with these 20 cards. 

1951 Bowman Sibby Sisti
1951 Bowman Ewell Blackwell
1953 Topps Bob Del Greco
1954 Bowman Billy Loes
1954 Bowman Joe Nuxhall
1958 Topps Sam Jones
1958 Topps Bob Cerv
1958 Topps Carlton Willey
1959 Topps Coot Veal
1959 Topps Walt Dropo
1959 Topps Stan Lopeta
1961 Topps Jackie Jensch
1963 Topps Bill Tuttle
1963 Topps Harry Craft
1963 Topps Tommie Aaron
1963 Topps Ryne Duren
1963 Topps Ken Hubbs
1963 Topps Ralph Terry
1965 Topps Bo Belinsky
1969 Topps Roy Face

For the order of the cards I went with something semi-random with an eye for not bunching cards from the same set. I went with Tommie Aaron as the first card...the Aa in Aaron just seemed right.

Here's the completed project: 

My pick for the final card was pretty easy for me as I went with 1951 Bowman Sibby Sisti because...

...it was the card that was the last one featured in the book. 

The epitaph "Goodnight Sibby Sisti, wherever you are." begs me to share what Sisti was up to after retirement. How about making an appearance in one of the greatest baseball movies ever made?

Sisti played the manager of the Pittsburgh team in The Natural's final game (second from left).

He claps along to the game action and makes a pitching change during Robert Redford's Roy Hobbs famous final at-bat of the game. 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I'm happy to have crossed off a project that has been on my list for a long time.