Fleer Baseball Cards

When it comes to makers of baseball cards, Fleer is a relative latecomer, issuing its first cards in 1959. Unlike Topps and Bowman before it, which printed sports cards for the likes of Yogi Berra and Jackie Robinson, Fleer began its entry into the sports-cards business with an exclusive "Baseball's Greatest" series, the first of which was devoted entirely to Ted Williams, who, in 1959, was nearing the end of what would be 21 seasons as a left fielder with the Boston Red Sox. That inaugural Fleer set featured 80 different biographical Ted Williams cards sold in packs of six along with a stick of bubble gum, a product Fleer had been producing since the 1920s. Fleer was able to sign Williams because “The Splendid Splinter” had notoriously prickly relationships with Bowman and Topps. As it turned out, one of the 80 Williams cards in that first Fleer series quickly became collectible because of an unrelated contract dispute. In card number 68 of the Fleer series, Williams is seen sitting at a table with Bucky Harris, who, in 1959, was the general manager of the Red Sox. The card is meant to celebrate the signing of Williams' 1959 contract on January 23, but Harris had a contract with Topps, which made his presence on the card legally problematic. Some cards made it into circulation before Topps could serve Fleer with a cease-and-desist, but that accounts for the scarcity of what is otherwise a visually dull sports card. By 1960, Fleer's "Baseball's Greatest" series had been renamed as "Baseball Greats," and Ted Williams was joined by almost 80 other players and managers, from Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb to Lou Gehrig and Connie Mack. Focusing as it did on retired players and baseball personnel, the set was not exactly a hot item with the kids, which is why Fleer redesigned the series in 1961, to little avail. But Fleer got a break in 1963, when it secured the rights to put Maury Wills of the Los Angeles Dodgers on its cards. The season before, Wills had stolen a then-record-breaking 104 bases and was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player, so his card was highly sought in 1963, as vintage copies of the card are today.