Random Topps Card of the Day: 1960 Topps #119 Chico Cardenas

It's Retro Sunday!!! Thanks to the Topps Card Randomizer, introducing the Random Topps Card of the Day for Sunday, September 26, 2010:

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1960 Topps #119.
• Player Name, position, team: Chico Cardenas, shortstop, Cincinnati Reds.
• Major League Debut: July 25, 1960.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1959 stats (Havana-AAA IL): 154 Games, 587 At Bat, 58 Runs, 149 Hits, 28 2B, 5 3B, 13 HR, 29 RBI, .254 Avg. (yes, that's how the stat headers read).
• Any special information about player: Contract sold to the Redlegs before the 1957 season. Bats: right, Throws: right.
• Any special information about this specific card: Cardenas' first regular Topps card (total includes regular and traded cards only). In Topps' tenth year, they decided to be a bit daring. The 1960 set was the first to feature the ten players who were named to its first ever All-Star Rookie team. But not only did they honor the rookies of the past year, but they also decided to showcase the future stars of baseball. Those who Topps believed to be baseball's brightest prospects. And with the help of Sport Magazine, Topps named 32 players as one of 1960's Rookie Stars. Leo Cardenas (nicknamed Chico), was one of those stars. While the most famous of these Rookie Stars had a name that was hard to pronounce, let alone spell (Carl Yastrzemski), Cardenas would indeed wind up with a pretty decent career. The cartoon on the back indicated Cardenas had spent (up to that point) four seasons as a professional baseball player. Sport Magazine acknowledged that Cardenas was "One of the finest fielding prospects to come along in a long time...won the name of 'Mr. Automatic'...figures to give great defensive strength to the Reds infield..." In his first year in the majors, he appeared in 48 games, hit .232 with one homer and 12 rbi's. His first full season with the Reds would not come until 1962. He would go on to be a five-time All-Star and did win the Gold Glove as a Red after the 1965 season.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $2.50-$6.00.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 0 cards.

In case you're actually wondering, I don't own this card, but was able to get a crystal clean copy of the image from the from the Baseball Card Cyber Museum. So thank you Joe McAnally and the folks at the BCCM. (You have to stop by and visit them now. They just announced that they are allowing more people to enter the museum at one time.)

Well, it's back to normal on Monday. Tomorrow's card will be: 2001 Topps #379. Post will arrive at 1:00 PM CST. Come on back then to see what the Topps Card Randomizer gets us to look at then.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama