THE MISSING ALL STAR CARDS: 1973 TOPPS: AMERICAN LEAGUE

Continuing on this week's thread of all star cards, today we move on to 1973 and what I like to think Topps' cards would have looked like had they designated the previous years starters in the Midsummer Classic for the American League.
I kept the design simple to match the overall 1973 set design Topps used. The location of the "all star stripe" seemed to be a natural at the bottom. It keeps the image unobstructed while still calling out the "all star" designation.
After a win in the 1971 game for the A.L., which was their first since 1962, it was back to the losing side as they lost this one in extra innings, 4-3. As a matter of fact the American League would end up losing every All Star game up until 1983.
Of note here: the Freehan card is an excellent example of an "action shot" done right. The in-game action, the player clearly represented, and look at that crowd in the background. Awesome as they are clearly hanging on the play at the plate, waiting to see the outcome.
Carl Yastrzemski is called out as a first baseman on his card, but was voted into the all star game as an outfielder. Dick Allen was the starting first baseman for the A.L.
Tomorrow I'll post the National League starting nine.

THE MISSING ALL STAR CARDS: 1972 TOPPS: AMERICAN LEAGUE

Today I give you what I'd like to think the 1972 Topps cards would have looked like had they designated all stars as they would later in the decade, between 1975-1981.
Instead of an separate "all star" sub-set, the players would be tagged all stars on their regular issue cards.
I went with a simple bar-design running across the bottom of the card, just above the player's name. The A.L. got a red bar, while the N.L., which I will post tomorrow, got green.
Again, these are the players that were voted to the starting line-up, so even though Ray Fosse, Boog Powell and Tony Oliva didn't play because of injuries, they still get the all star tag-line.
Of course, Reggie Jackson, who didn't get voted in as a starter, was the player with the biggest impact on the 1971 All Star game, hitting a mega-blast off the light tower that instantly became legendary.
As a matter of fact, this game featured six home runs, and ALL six were hit by future Hall of Famers: Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew, Johnny Bench, Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron.
Frank Robinson's homer made him the first player to ever hit home runs as a member of both leagues.

THE MISSING ALL-STAR CARDS: 1971 TOPPS: AMERICAN LEAGUE

For some reason, Topps didn't have any all-star cards between 1971 and 1973, either as a separate sub-set, or an "all-star" designation of some kind on their regular issue itself like '75-'81.
Since I'm a fan of the latter, I've started to recreate all the cards of players between '71-'73 that should have been all-stars.
It's interesting because you have your usual all-stars like Bench, and Carew, but you also have some guys like Glenn Beckert and Dock Ellis that get a nice "bump" on their cards with an "All-Star" tag.
Please note that these "selections" were solely based on voter results from the year before, as Topps did to designate all-stars themselves. So whether or not the player actually started the previous years' all-star game, or if they didn't appear at all (due to injury), they got the all-star nod.
Today we'll start with the American League all-stars for the 1971 set. So obviously these are the guys that were voted in by fans for the 1970 game (except for pitcher of course. They were selected by the manager).
Tomorrow I'll post the National League all-stars from the same set, ending this thread with the National League all-stars from the 1973 set on Saturday.
What I did for the 1971 set was give a star designation (like the '75 and '76 sets), as well as giving the white border around the player photo a color: red for A.L. and yellow for N.L.
The reason I decided on this was mainly due to what Topps did for their 1971 football set, where "all-pros" had a different color for their borders than "regular" cards.
Notice that even though Harmon Killebrew was the starting Third Baseman for the American League in 1970, his card shows him as a First Baseman for the 1971 season.
Also of note: check out the great airbrushing job Topps did with Aparicio, who was traded to the Red Sox on December 1st, 1970, from the White Sox. You can clearly see the White Sox jersey in the photo.