2010 Chachi Mike Schmidt Special #MS1 1972-1975

In 1974, Topps celebrated the newly crowned Home Run Champion by starting off its baseball card set with 6 "Hank Aaron Special" cards. Card #1 commemorated his record-breaking feat and included Hank's career stats on the back. Cards #2 through #6 featured Hank's Topps baseball cards from 1954 through 1973, 4 to a card.

The 2010 Chachi set will debut a week from tomorrow, and the set will borrow the design of the 1974 Topps set. Keeping with the theme of celebrating a home run champ, and using the same design Topps used for its Hank Aaron Special cards, I'm putting together a special 2010 Chachi insert set for the Phillies' all-time home run king - Michael Jack Schmidt.

Card #1 in this 5-card subset features Schmidt's early cards, including two cards that never were. Schmidt made his Phillies debut on September 12, 1972, too late to even be included in the 1972 Topps high-numbered series. To create his 1972 Topps card, I recycled the picture Topps used for Schmidt's 2001 American Pie baseball card. To create the 1973 Topps card featured here, I used the template for the 1973 base cards and blew up the picture from Schmidt's coveted rookie card, #615 in the set. No offense to Ron Cey or John Hilton, but I always thought Schmidt deserved a solo 1973 card.