The 1958 Topps baseball card set was the seventh series of baseball cards produced by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. It was the first Topps set with separate cards dedicated to players on the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants after the two franchises moved out west following the 1957 season. As was typical for sets of the era, the 1958 Topps offering contained cards of current major league players as well as a selection of retired stars.
The flagship regular issue release featured 574 total cards featuring individual major league players, managers, and umpires. Topps utilized a classic horizontal design with borders on the top and bottom providing room for player information. Full color action photos of the ballplayers were featured on the front with career statistics and biographical info printed on the back. A vertical team logo also appeared on the fronts. Topps continued their pattern of issuing cards late in the season, with the 1958 set coming out near the end of that summer.
Several notable rookies made their Topps card debuts in 1958, such as future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Willie McCovey. Other top prospects to join the set included Tim McCarver, Ron Santo, and Gaylord Perry. Established stars like Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Duke Snider, and Juan Marichal also received their eighth consecutive card issues from Topps. Two Chicago Cubs teammates, Ernie Banks and Billy Williams, were the lone African American players featured that year.
In addition to the standard player cards, the 1958 Topps issue included 22 unique manager and coach cards. Legendary skippers Casey Stengel, Walter Alston, and Chuck Dressen were among those featured. Topps also allocated space for 32 umpire trading cards, including stalwarts Jim Honochick, Ed Runge, and Jocko Conlan. The checklist also contained 99 team cards highlighting the 16 major league franchises of the time. A further 42 of these were dedicated to complete team rosters with headshots of every player on that squad.
As the Dodgers and Giants had each just completed their inaugural seasons in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Topps acknowledged the huge moves by issuing separate club cards for both former New York teams. Complete new cities were added to the cardboard landscape. The Dodgers’ Brooklyn/Los Angeles roster card was one of the more visually impressive in the set.
Topps offered several premium offerings beyond the flagship release that further expanded the 1958 checklist. A “High Numbers” series was issued containing 76 additional cards of players that had been called up late in the season or were prospective rookies for 1959. This supplement series started with card #575. In addition, Topps produced nine promotional “Painted Facsimile” cards as mail-in premiums available by collecting wrapper points. Highlighting top stars, these had hand-tinted portraits.
Though not a significant vintage in the eyes of hardcore collectors today, the 1958 Topps set serves as an interesting historical baseball card release. It marked the first year without the Dodgers-Giants rivalry in New York while also being a first look at future legends just starting their big league careers. The set endures as a snapshot of the game during a transitional year while also being filled with many familiar faces from a storied era in baseball history. Its large checklist and mix of players old and new cemented Topps’ place as the premier producer of sporting cards in the 1950s.
