2010 Chachi #26 Phillies Team

The Chachi set's annual Phillies team card is always the hardest card for me to put together. But a good team set has to have a team card, right? The tough part is finding a usable picture each year. The Yearbooks don't feature team pictures any more, and my best bet is waiting for the team's annual Photo Day as a team picture is usually the giveaway for all fans attending. I got desperate back in 2006 and went with the old floating heads-style team card, an idea I stole from the Cubs.

(Quick side note - The year's Photo Day is next Saturday, July 24th, and once again the Phillies are giving away a team photo. If anyone reading this attends that game and picks up an extra, I will gladly trade you some baseball cards of your choosing for your extra team photo. If you don't collect baseball cards, I will gladly mention you fondly on this blog in exchange for said team photo.)

In any event, this year's team photo is actually last year's team photo. I scanned the picture from the Phillies' 2009 Division Series program. That's the reason for the line down the middle, and the reason why Cliff Lee and Pedro Feliz, among other ex-Phillies, make appearances even though they're long gone. If I track down a 2010 team photo, I'll certainly update this card and the 2009 NLDS team photo version will become a rare Chachi set variation, highly sought by baseball card collectors worldwide.

1974 Topps #383 Phillies Team

1974 vs. 2010: I thought it was interesting to see how many of the team's single season records had fallen since 1974. Chuck Klein and Lefty O'Doul still hold many of the single season offensive records, while Grover Cleveland Alexander's single season pitching records will most likely never be surpassed. Curiously, Richie Allen and Johnny Callison are listed as having played 163 games in 1964 on the back of the 1974 baseball card, but Baseball Reference only credits both players with 162 games that season. What happened to the 163rd game? (Click to enlarge all images.)