Oscar Gamble’s legendary hair was just part of long big-league career

He’ll always be known for his epic Afro and one of the greatest baseball cards ever made — 1976 Topps Traded No. 74T — but he also was a reliable big-leaguer for a long, long time.

He’s Oscar Gamble, a former New York Yankees outfielder who died on Wednesday at age 68. A member of the Yankees for seven of his 17 seasons in MLB, he hit .265 with 200 home runs and 666 RBI in 1,584 games. He also played for the Cubs, who drafted him in the 16th round in 1968, as well as the Phillies, Indians, White Sox, Padres and Rangers.

“He was the player on the Yankees known for big hair,” said his agent, Andrew Levy, on Twitter, “but those who knew him best will remember his big heart.”

Just For Fun: Can you identify which years these vintage baseball card photographs were used?

When someone says “1952 Topps Mickey Mantle” there’s simply one image that comes to mind for collectors — the image of the Oklahoma-born slugger looking over his right shoulder where his Louisville Slugger resides.

The blue hues and the yellow bat — the results of colorized images back in those days — are dramatically different than what we often expect from the cardboard of today, yet they are the basis of everything, too.

Seeing one of these memorable card images recently got Buzz wondering whether fellow collectors would be able to identify photographs from memorable vintage baseball card sets — but without the accoutrement that make 1952 look like 1952 or 1965 look like 1965.

It’s officially awards season and Buzz’s Oscar picks are in …

Hollywood’s awards season is here with the nominees for the SAG and Golden Globes arriving this week and the inevitable chatter about who might get an Oscar nomination on Jan. 15 heating up online.

Good luck finding yourself Oscar cardboard, though, as cards showing Hollywood’s biggest honor aren’t all that common at all. In fact, they’re downright scarce even though countless Oscar winners themselves have appeared on cards. (At right is a 2005 Topps Chronicles card Buzz bets most of you have never seen.)

Because of that, we’re going with a different piece of awards cardboard above — you all remember that one and its 2011 Topps American Pie card, right? — as Buzz presents his picks for the top Oscars collectors need to know.