The greatest third baseman who ever played does not get a card of his own. He gets a third of one — the right-hand panel of a horizontal card titled ROOKIE THIRD BASEMEN, sharing the frame with Ron Cey of the Dodgers and John Hilton of the Padres. Three young men, three head-and-shoulders portraits, one number in the checklist. In 1973 nobody knew which of the three the card would eventually be about.
They were not wrong to hedge. Cey went on to thirteen full seasons and a share of the 1981 World Series Most Valuable Player award. Hilton played parts of four. Schmidt hit 548 home runs, won three National League MVPs and ten Gold Gloves, and left the argument about his position settled. The card records all three at the moment before any of it happened, which is the particular pleasure of a rookie card and the particular pleasure of this one.
Three young men, one number in the checklist. In 1973 nobody knew which of the three the card would be about.
Its scarcity is a matter of scheduling rather than design. Number 615 falls in the fifth series — cards 529 through 669 — and 1973 was the last year Topps issued baseball cards in series at all. High numbers were always printed in smaller quantities than the early runs, and they reached shelves late in the year, arriving just as football cards did and just as the baseball season ended. Fewer were made, fewer were bought, and fewer still were kept by anyone whose attention had already moved on. The 1973 set is difficult in high grade throughout; the high numbers are the reason.
The horizontal format adds its own difficulty. Three portraits inside one border leave no room to hide a cut that drifted, so centering shows plainly here in a way it does not on a single-player card. Between a late-season print run and a design that refuses to flatter the trim, a well-centered, sharp-cornered example is a genuinely uncommon thing — and it remains the only rookie card of a man who spent eighteen seasons in one uniform.