Jim Palmer was just 19 when he appeared on a Topps card for the first time. While he was a highly regarded prospect, Topps was still piecing his story together. The text on the back of his 1966 rookie card has a blatant mistake.
“My rookie card has me being lefthanded, which would have been a lot easier holding runners on to be quite honest,” Palmer quipped during a recent interview for MLB’s Carded.
Quickly becoming an ace, the youthful Palmer was given a starting assignment against Dodgers icon Sandy Koufax in Game 2. He won the battle, as the Orioles shut out the Dodgers, 6-0. His performance was captured as part of the World Series cards inside the 1967 Topps set.
“My mom was there,” he recalled of the Dodger Stadium start on Thursday, Oct. 6. “She was afraid of heights. She was in the upper deck and had to come down and trade seats with somebody so she could watch her 20-year-old son pitch a shutout in the World Series.”
The record for youngest pitcher to throw a World Series shutout remains his.
The 78-year-old Palmer grew up in New York as a Yankees fan and recalled collecting baseball cards, putting some in the spokes of his bikes, but not his favored Yankees.
“It could have been a Yogi Berra or Johnny Blanchard. It could have been any of the Yankees. I even liked Jerry Coleman because years later when he was broadcasting (for the Padres), he’d come into town and I would say ‘I had your baseball cards’. All that mattered was that you had a Yankee uniform on.”
On August 13, 1969, Palmer tossed the only no-hitter of his career. His catcher was Elrod Hendricks, who served as a guiding light for some talented staffs in the 1960s and 70s.
“He used to take these cards or your stats and show them to young pitchers and show them what they could do,” Palmer recalled.
Palmer began as a TV analyst during his playing days, something referenced on his later cards. His first games were in the 1978 postseason after the Yankees beat the Red Sox in a one-game playoff to win the American League East. Palmer says ABC would have given the slot to Reggie Jackson had the Red Sox won.
“Every time I see Bucky Dent, I tell him ‘thank you for making me a broadcaster.”
Palmer loves the 1983 Topps Orioles team leaders card he shares with Eddie Murray because it reminds him of the greats he played with over the years, especially on the field behind him. Brooks Robinson, Luis Aparicio, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Paul Blair and Eddie Murray were among the many teammates he had from the mid-1960s through his final seasons in the early 1980s.
Palmer’s last appearances on cardboard coincided with his final season 40 years ago.
“If there’s ever any doubt that I’m 78, all I have to do is look at my old cards and I know.”
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