1971 O-Pee-Chee Duke Sims #172 Traded Los Angeles Dodgers

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee Duke Sims #172 Traded Los Angeles Dodgers Standing alongside teammate Al Downing as one of the sharpest insider secrets of early-seventies team collecting, the 1971 O-Pee-Chee Duke Sims #172 Traded Los Angeles Dodgers card is an authentic Canadian-only team variation that never existed in Dodgers livery within the American Topps release. Even though Cleveland dealt Sims to Los Angeles on December 11, 1970 for pitchers Alan Foster and Ray Lamb, 1971 Topps left card number 172 untouched as a Cleveland Indians card throughout its U. S. print run. By contrast, O-Pee-Chee updated its London, Ontario printing plates before Canadian Series Two packs reached corner stores, replacing the top banner with bold red Dodgers lettering, printing a black Recently Traded to Dodgers notice across the lower-right grass beneath Sims batting in his dark Cleveland helmet, and changing his reverse team header to Los Angeles Dodgers. For dedicated Dodgers master set builders and vintage O-Pee-Chee variation collectors, this scarce north-of-the-border issue represents the only 1971 trading card documenting Sims on the Los Angeles roster. Feared across both leagues as a muscular six-foot-two left-handed pull hitter with effortless stadium power, Sims arrived at Dodger Stadium fresh off blasting a career-high 23 home runs in just 344 at-bats during 1970, earning a reputation as a certified Yankee-killer thanks to multiple late-inning game-winning blasts highlighted right on the card back. Installed by skipper Walter Alston as L. A.'s Opening Day catcher in 1971, Sims delivered a career-high .274 batting average and stout .357 on-base percentage across 90 games as the Dodgers won 89 games and battled San Francisco down to the final day of the National League West race. Over eleven Major League seasons with Cleveland, Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, and Texas, the Salt Lake City native slugged exactly 100 career home runs, an enduring feat that still stands as the all-time Major League home run record for any Utah-born Major League player across baseball history. Turning the card over confirms an authentic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back printed on yellow cardstock rather than a puzzle back, pairing parallel French and English biographies with complete Major League batting stats and the Printed in Canada double-asterisk mark. High-resolution scans reveal attractive centering around 58/42 left-to-right and 52/48 top-to-bottom on the front with balanced framing on the clean, stain-free yellow reverse. However, zoom inspection identifies distinct diagonal corner creases across both right-side corners, including multiple fan-like crease lines above the letters RS in Dodgers at top-right and a sharp corner crease across the bottom-right tip, plus moderate left-corner rounding and bottom-edge flecking, warranting an honest, conservative raw VG 3 grade. Grade Estimate: VG 3