Bob and Max’s Baseball Card Dream: Cards That Were Never Produced
Bob Johnson and Max Smith had been best friends since they were kids. Growing up in the 1950s, their shared passion was collecting baseball cards. They spent countless summer afternoons sorting through their collections, trading duplicates, and dreaming about one day seeing their favorite players in person at the ballpark. As they got older, Bob and Max began to notice gaps in the sets produced by Topps and Bowman. Certain players were missing, odd variations went unproduced, and potential cards featuring unique stories or stats failed to materialize. This gave Bob and Max an idea – they would start their own baseball card company and produce sets that filled in these gaps by creating cards that had never been made before.
In 1960, after graduating high school, Bob and Max pooled their savings and founded J&S Baseball Cards in their hometown of Springfield, Illinois. Their goal was to produce creative, unique sets that highlighted aspects of the game neglected by the major producers. For their first set in 1961, Bob and Max focused on players who nearly made the majors but never got their shot. This “Could Have Been Stars” set featured 81 players from the late 1940s through 1950s who showed promise in the minors but were never given a chance in the big leagues due to various circumstances. Each card told their story through statistics, scouting reports, and interviews with former teammates and coaches. Some of the players profiled were Lefty Gomez, a promising young pitcher whose career was cut short by WWII, third baseman Billy Johnson who batted .330 in the minors but was blocked by the Giants’ future Hall of Famer Monte Irvin, and catcher Eddie Stanky who played 12 minor league seasons hitting over .300 each year but was deemed too small at 5’7″ for the majors.
The “Could Have Been Stars” set was a hit with collectors seeking a deeper dive into overlooked players and stories from baseball history. Encouraged by the response, Bob and Max began planning their next set for 1962. This time, they wanted to create cards for players at specific points that never happened in their career due to injury, trade, or other circumstances. They called this set “What If…” and it featured 81 hypothetical cards imagining alternative player paths and stats. One card depicted Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle’s “1962 Season Stats” if he hadn’t been limited to just 54 games due to an injury sustained the previous year. Another imagined the career of Robin Roberts if he had been healthy and stayed with the Phillies his entire career instead of being traded late. A few other notables were a card for Ted Williams playing the 1960 season at age 42 after sitting out 1959, one for Joe DiMaggio’s “1951 Season” after unexpectedly retiring after 1951, and one imagining the pitching stats if Dizzy Dean had never injured his arm in 1937 at age 30, ending his prime.
The “What If…” set captured collectors’ imaginations by playing with the endless possibilities of baseball history. It was J&S Baseball Cards’ most popular release yet. Production of the 1963 set brought unforeseen challenges. Bob and Max’s printing partner ran into financial troubles, delaying cards and frustrating retailers. By the time the issues were sorted, it was too late in the season for stores to fully stock the new set. With sales lagging, Bob and Max were forced to shut down operations in 1964 after only three years. Their creative concepts were ahead of their time and small independent card companies struggled to compete with the major players. Though short-lived, J&S Baseball Cards left their mark by producing unique sets highlighting overlooked areas of the game. Today, their cards remain a highly sought after niche in the collecting world, keeping the memories of Bob and Max’s baseball card dream alive decades later.
While Bob and Max’s company didn’t last, their ideas showed the untapped potential in baseball cards beyond just standard rookie and star player photos. Concepts like “Could Have Been Stars” shining a light on overlooked minor leaguers and “What If…” cards imagining counterfactual history are now commonplace in today’s alternative and specialty card issues. Bob and Max were creative visionaries who saw gaps in the market years before most. Even if their sets were never hugely popular at the time of release, they proved there was an audience hungry for deeper baseball stories and perspectives beyond the standard fare. In a way, today’s alternative and niche card producers are fulfilling the dream Bob and Max started of providing new ways to look at the game and its history through cardboard. Their short-lived company may be a footnote, but the innovative concepts live on in today’s collecting scene.
