Competition was raging between Topps and Bowman in 1953 and 1954 leading to problems with both companies sets. Bowman caused Topps to missing 6 cards in 1953 with Topps getting revenge by signing Ted Williams to an exclusive contract in 1954. Bowman then had to pull Ted Williams card #66 from their set shortly after they started printing, replacing it with Jimmy Piersall, who also was on card #210 making the 1954 Bowman Ted Williams #6 one of 50's scarcest cards.

Perhaps distracted by it's competition with Topps, the 1954 Bowman set was filled with errors and variations. Nearly 20% (40/224 cards) had some sort of variation, with some having more than 2.

The St. Louis Browns recent move to Baltimore also made things interesting. Bowman's artists had no idea what an Orioles jersey would look like - so they just madeone up.

Topps added several interesting cards in 1973 starting with card #1, a special card honoring the All-Time Home Run Leaders. Also new was the All-Time All-Star subset featuring Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and other all-time greats on their own special cards.

TOP ROOKIES were Mike Schmidt, the Phillies super-star Hall-of-Famer and the White Sox relief pitcher Goose Gossage.