On September 23, 1957, against St. Louis at County Stadium, Aaron came up in the eleventh inning with a man on and hit a home run to center that won the game and the pennant. His teammates carried him off the field. He finished the year with 44 home runs and 132 runs batted in, both best in the league, batted .322, and was named Most Valuable Player. In October the Braves beat the Yankees in seven games, and he hit three more.
The card that came out that summer was the first Topps had printed at the size every card since has used, 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches, and the first Topps set made entirely of color photographs, with no painting anywhere on the front. There are 407 of them. Each is a plain color photograph with a thin white border and a small box at the bottom with the name and team.
Henry Aaron batted right-handed every day of his life. On this card he bats left.
Henry Aaron batted right-handed every day of his life. On this card he stands in as a left-handed hitter, because the negative was turned over when the picture was made. Whoever prepared it did not catch the flip, and nobody caught it at the press either. Topps never printed a corrected version, so there is only the one card, and every copy of it is wrong in the same way.
That changes what the error means. When a mistake is caught and fixed, collectors chase the version that got away. Here there is no second version to compare it to. The mistake is simply the card, the way a family photograph with someone’s eyes shut is still the photograph from that day.
Behind him the grandstand falls away into shadow, and a dark ground shows any print flaw or scratch. The white border is narrow and takes a corner knock badly, and centering varies from copy to copy. Sharp copies of the season’s best player are not easy to find, and this one does not help itself.
