Post #660 - What Does That Number Mean?

As a child in the 1970s the number 660 had lots of meaning.  First, those of us who followed baseball knew that Willie Mays finished his career with 660 home runs.  Topps card #1 from 1973 Showed Ruth (714), Aaron (673) and Mays (654) and their career home run totals.  They were certainly anticipating that Hank Aaron would break Ruth's record.

Aaron hit 40 homers in only 120 games to end the season with 713.  That led to another one of our favorite cards as a kid - 1974 Topps card #1 - it declared Aaron as the new all-time home run king.  I remember watching him hit #715 with a lot of my family.  I know there were enough people in the room that I was forced to sit on the floor in front of the television.  I also remember that the big color television was broken so we watched on a small set that was placed on top of the 200-pound paperweight.  Is that part of a "you might be a redneck if..."?

Unrelated by interesting - I just noticed that Hank Aaron received MVP votes every year from 1955 to 1973.  13 times he finished in the top 10 of the voting.  I've got to find out if anyone had more consecutive seasons with MVP votes.  That is longer than most players' careers.  Any ideas?

The serious card collectors knew the number 660 for another reason.  From 1973 to 1977 that represented how many cards were in the Topps set.  I didn't learn until years later that 660 was the number because 132 were on a sheet and 5 sheets x 132 equalled 660.   Since no one in my circle had ever seen or heard of an uncut sheet that meant nothing to us.