An Almost Perfect Wrold

Well Larry Serota, one of the two kings of the 1967 Punchouts (the other is Al Richter) has just posted his final tally of lineups over at Net54baseball.com. After tracking down the final two lineups (turns out they belonged to Team Captains Elston Howard and Willie Mays, making both four lineup men) the final count looks like this:

LAST	FIRST	LINEUPS	NOTE
AARON	HANK	2
ALLEN	RICHIE	3
ALLEY	GENE	2
ALOU	FELIPE	2
ALOU	MATTY	3	2 POSES
ALVIS	MAX	3
APARICIO	LUIS	4
BARBER	STEVE	2
BATTEY	EARL	3
BOYER	CLETE	3
BOYER	KEN	3
BROCK	LOU	2
BUNNING	JIM	1
CALLISON	JOHNNY	2
CAMPANERIS	BERT	DELETED
CARDENAS	LEO	3
CARTY	RICO	2
CASH	NORM	3
CEPEDA	ORLANDO	4
CHARLES	ED	1
CLEMENTE	ROBERTO	3	2 POSES
CLENDENON	DONN	2
COLAVITO	ROCKY	1
CONIGLIARO	TONY	2
DAVIS	WILLIE	2
EDWARDS	JOHNNY	2
ETCHEBARREN	ANDY	2
FLOOD	CURT	2
FREEHAN	BILL	1
FREGOSI	JIM	2
GIBSON	BOB	DELETED
GREEN	DICK	3
GROAT	DICK	3
GROTE	JERRY	DELETED
HALLER	TOM	2
HART	JIM RAY	2
HERSHBERGER	MIKE	4
HOWARD	ELSTON	4
HOWARD	FRANK	4
HUNT	RON	3
JACKSON	SONNY	1
JONES	CLEON	2
KAAT	JIM	2
KALINE	AL	2
KILLEBREW	HARMON	3
KNOOP	BOBBY	3
KOUFAX	SANDY	2
KRANEPOOL	ED	2
LEFEBVRE	JIM	2
LOCK	DON	2
LUMPE	JERRY	1
MANTLE	MICKEY	3	2 POSES
MARICHAL	JUAN	2
MAYS	WILLIE	4
MAZEROSKI	BILL	2
McAULIFFE	DICK	1
McCARVER	TIM	3
MCCOVEY	WILLIE	1
McLAIN	DENNY	2
McMILLAN	ROY	DELETED
MENKE	DENIS	2
MORGAN	JOE	2
OLIVA	TONY	2
PEPITONE	JOE	2
PERRY	GAYLORD	1
PINSON	VADA	2
POWELL	BOOG	4
REICHARDT	RICK	1
ROBINSON	BROOKS	DELETED
ROBINSON	FLOYD	1
ROBINSON	FRANK	3	2 POSES
ROMANO	JOHN	4
ROSE	PETE	2
ROSEBORO	JOHN	1
SALMON	CHICO	2
SANTO	RON	2
SCOTT	GEORGE	3
SIEBERT	SONNY	1
SNYDER	RUSS	3
STARGELL	WILLIE	3
STOTTLEMYRE	MEL	2
TORRE	JOE	2
TOVAR	CESAR	2
TRESH	TOM	2
VERSALLES	ZOILO	1
WAGNER	LEON	2
WHITE	BILL	3
WHITFIELD	FRED	3
WILLIAMS	BILLY	2
WYNN	JIM	3
YASTRZEMSKI	CARL	3
	TOTAL	198

As predicted here, there and elsewhere, the total of 198 brings finality with 14 Team Captains known with a single lineup, 40 with two, 24 with three and 8 with four. 86 players are in the set and with the four pose variations there are 90 poses in all. As Larry states, 66 groups of three smooths out the math as lineups are particular to the groups of players in each triad (the connected panels as sold in the ten cent "long" packs).

Amidst all this carefully executed perfection though lurks the single lineup question. Namely, if you eliminate the four 66'ers (players who changed leagues and were pulled after only captaining one lineup) there are still ten single lineup players. Eight of these would likely have been replaced by turning a three lineup player into a four lineup-er and I suspect two captains went from two to three lineups as replacements were filled in a second print run as the skewing from 1 through 4 is extreme even for Topps.

In a perfect world, the distribution of captains would probably have been with either 2 or 3 lineups. The interaction of pulled players' lineups must have impacted this though, as it seems there would have been 44 two lineup captains and 22 three lineup captains if everything had gone according to plan (if two players went from 2 to 3 lineups the count of those would have been 22). In a set where rules of three rule, that makes (almost) perfect sense.

Here's shot of Luis Aparicio, one of the four lineup players, Captain of Captains!