Mike Schmidt

There isn’t much known about the 1972 Puerto Rican Winter League sticker set, but the albums and sets, which are ‘hobby library historically significant,’ still command a pretty penny when they pop up for sale. REA & eBay offered this one in their July 2000 catalog.

The complete set consists of 231 cards/stickers with a few composite subsets, including card #’s 198-206, which form a photo of Roberto Clemente. Just FYI, some collectors have questioned the set’s 1972 dating and suspect that it may have come out in early 1973; if you own a copy, let me know if there’s any copyright dating inside.

The league included a lot of Major Leaguers looking to brush up on their playing skills during the winter months, often Puerto Rican players and folks at the very beginning or end of their careers. Stars included in this set include Rich Gossage, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, and Frank Robinson (as manager of Santurce), along with Felix Millan, Willie Montanez, Sixto Lezcano, Steve Rogers, Sandy Alomar, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Zisk, Jose Pagan, Elrod Hendricks, Juan Pizzaro, and Ron Cey. But the most significant card in this set is Mike Schimdt’s pre-rookie. REA sold this PSA 8.5 in their Spring 2019 auction for $1,320.

The set also includes a few famous game veterans, like Satchel Paige; they have their own section in the album.

The “Veteranos Famosos Del Baseball” scan above is from a complete album that Leland’s Auctions sold for $1,558.50 in November 2023. They explained that the album has 44 pages, including the covers, and measures 6.4” x 8.75”. All the stickers were “carefully” attached. Here are the front and back covers of Leland’s album.