Sunday, June 3, 2012

Steve Carlton - In Cloth Form

1977 Topps Cloth Stickers #11 and
2012 Topps Archives 1977 Topps Cloth Stickers #77C-SC
Marlins 5, Phillies 4
Game 54 - Saturday Afternoon, June 2nd in Philadelphia
Record - 28-26, 5th Place, 3 1/2 games behind the Nationals

One Sentence Summary:  Cole Hamels allowed a season-high five runs as the Phillies couldn't rally to overcome the Marlins.

What It Means:  Losses like these continue to mount.  This is the kind of game that the 2008 to 2011 Phillies would have somehow found a way to win.  The Phillies had runners in scoring position with less than two outs in both the eighth and ninth innings and needing just a lone run to tie up the ballgame, they couldn't get it done.

What Went Wrong:  Hamels allowed two home run to Hanley Ramirez.  The offense went 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position.

Featured Cards:  Despite his setback on Saturday, Hamels remains the undisputed ace of the 2012 Phillies pitching staff.  I thought I'd featured a few cards of another Phillies ace from the recently released Topps Archives product.  I recently read a post over at 14,000 Phillies, complimenting Topps on the nice job with its 1977 Topps Cloth Stickers homage, featured as inserts within Topps Archives.

The cards are true to the originals, right down to the backs and the photo selection for the set.  Presented here is a side-by-side comparison of Steve Carlton's 1977 original and his 2012 Archives version.  The highlights presented on the back of each card differ in that the original covers Carlton's career through 1976 and the Archives version is a career retrospection.

The Archives set is definitely growing on me.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I just pulled a Steve Carlton relic from 2012 Archives if you're interested.

Jim said...

I'm absolutely interested! Send me an e-mail (Ringo73 at msn dot com) and I'll see what Pirates goodies I can dig up.

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention in my post how much I loved the fact that the Carlton photo on the new sticker looks like it's roughly appropriate for the card. I think they had names on the back of the uniforms by 1976 (when photos for the '77 cards would have been taken), but at least it's not a photo from later in his career -- say sometime after 1980.