Return to the Oddball Archive Index
Specs
Year: 1966
Title: Gaylord Perry Insurance
Size: 3-1/2″ by 5-1/2″
Number in Set: 2
Overview
Gaylord Perry pitched for 22 years and eight teams on his way to 314 career wins and two Cy Young awards. He was a Hall of Fame inductee in 1991 on his third ballot. But many people don’t know that in his earlier years in pro baseball, he sold insurance in the off-season.
Then, in the late 1960s, while living in the San Francisco Bay Area (he pitched for the Giants between 1962 and 1971), he sold cars for another dealer.
My Standard Catalog of Baseball cards says the date on these cards (1966) is a bit arbitrary. But the front of each card shows Perry in his San Francisco Giants Uniform with his insurance company or Pontiac Dealer contact information beneath the picture. The backs both indicate printing by J.D. McCarthy (his logo is also on the front of the Pontiac card).
At some point, someone also printed postcards of Gaylord Perry (also produced by J.D. McCarthy) with the same photograph. I have found two different variations on the backs of those.
