1971 O-Pee-Chee Bill Singer #145 Los Angeles Dodgers

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee Bill Singer #145 Los Angeles Dodgers Holding a special place in both Southern California pitching lore and Canadian sports heritage, the 1971 O-Pee-Chee Bill Singer #145 Los Angeles Dodgers card showcases the hard-throwing six-foot-four right-hander in his classic two-handed overhead windup wearing home number 40 under clear Florida spring skies. Framed inside the notoriously delicate full-bleed jet-black border that makes high-grade 1971 singles extraordinarily tough to locate, this sharp Canadian-issued card stands out as a premier condition highlight from O-Pee-Chee's scarce first 752-card baseball release printed in London, Ontario. Nicknamed The Singer Throwing Machine for his relentless high-kick delivery and biting slider, Singer first turned heads across the Pacific Northwest by fanning a league-high 217 batters at Triple-A Spokane in 1966 before stepping seamlessly into the Dodgers starting rotation alongside Don Sutton and Claude Osteen as the heirs to Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. After breaking out for a dominant 20-12 record, 2.34 ERA, 247 strikeouts, and a National League All-Star appearance in 1969, Singer authored his signature Dodger Stadium masterpiece on July 20, 1970, firing a ten-strikeout no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies despite missing much of that summer recovering from hepatitis and a splintered pitching finger, finishing 8-5 with a sharp 3.14 ERA in 106 innings. He later notched a second twenty-win All-Star campaign in 1973 before etching his name permanently into Canadian pop-culture and sporting history on April 7, 1977, when he marched to the mound through swirling snow at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium to deliver the very first pitch in Toronto Blue Jays franchise history against the Chicago White Sox before more than forty-four thousand freezing fans at the lakeshore ballpark. For Canadian collectors, owning an original Printed in Canada vintage O-Pee-Chee card of Toronto's inaugural Opening Day starter carries unmatched historical resonance. Flipping the card over reveals an authentic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back printed on bright yellow cardstock rather than a puzzle back, pairing parallel French and English summaries of his 1970 Phillies no-hitter with full Major League pitching statistics labeled Fiche Comme Lanceur Dans Les Majeures and the Printed in Canada double-asterisk imprint. Scrutinized at high magnification, this standout raw example boasts exceptional eye appeal with front centering near 53/47 left-to-right and 55/45 top-to-bottom, paired with reverse alignment shifted moderately upward near 40/60 top-to-bottom. Deep jet-black borders retain rich original gloss, and both sides remain completely free of creases, surface wrinkles, stains, or pen marks. All four corners stay remarkably square for a 1971 black-bordered issue with only tiny pinpoint white touches under zoom alongside minor factory rough-cut white specks along the bottom and left edges, meriting a conservative raw EX-MT 6 grade. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6