1968 Topps Baseball Forum

What was up with Houston in 1968? I guess the A’s caps getting blacked out was based on the move from KC to Oakland, and not wanting the old KC images on the cards representing Oakland players. 

Is this a case of the MLBPAA strike, so they used photos of the players in the caps with 45’s on them, not the Astro A? But that doesn’t explain the lack of team nickname on the card!

I believe the low numbers cards were produced before the deal was made with the players union.

The running theory is that there was a dispute between the Astros and Monsanto (the makers of Astroturf) over the use of the term and  trademark for "Astros."  Not wanting to get caught up in the dispute (and/or possibly to comply with an injunction that issued as part of the lawsuit), Topps produced the cards without the logos and referred to the team as "Houston" on the cards.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=181662

https://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/great-topps-baseball-card-monopoly-part-6-conflict

There is, however, some question to the validity of this story as it has never been officially confirmed by Topps.

However, it's been noted that Fleer also omitted the Astros from their '67 and '68 cloth sticker sets.  In my opinion, both companies leaving out the Houston team logos from their sets in this timeframe points to something more broad affecting their decision.

I believe that's referring to the '69 Topps set... the Astros logos start appearing when the 4th series (card numbers starting with 328), although the team name still says "Houston."

Here's some more info on this mystery: https://fleersticker.blogspot.com/2008/01/you-cant-call-them-astros.html