1971 Topps San Francisco Giants Progress

I guess I'm simultaneously trying to collect the 1971 San Francisco Giants Topps team set while also trying to collect the entire Topps '71 set as well. Let's just say the former is nearly at hand, while the latter is a long ways off. All I really need from the '71 Giants set is the Mays card and one from someone named Bob Heise, and then this Juan Marichal Scratch-Off and then I'm good to go.

This was a stacked Giants team that finally won their division after 9 years since their previous postseason appearance; it would be another 16 years before they'd get into the playoffs again (losing to the Cardinals in the NLCS in 1987). Not just the 4 hall of famers Mays, McCovey, Marichal and Gaylord Perry, but a phenomenal breakout year from Bobby Bonds, then tagged to be "the next Mays" (one could argue it would be his son Barry instead).

I would have loved to have seen this team play at windy Candlestick Park that season. You can watch the Pirates beat them in the 1971 NLCS here. Alas, I was 3 that year, but when I became a Giants diehard a good 5-6 years later, I schooled myself with the memory of our most recent team in the playoffs, and hoped for more soon. That I had to wait until my junior year of college made it all the more sweet, I guess.

Here are some of those '71 NLDS champs, immortalized by Topps at the start of the season.