Game 75 - Monday Night, June 25th in Philadelphia
Record - 35-40, Tied for 4th Place, 8 games behind the Nationals
Vacation Catch-Up - Part 4 of 9
What It Means: This is why the 2012 version of the Phillies is so frustrating. Just when I'm about to completely give up hope, they pull off a game like this one, in which everything seemed to come together nicely.
What Went Right: The Phils jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first thanks to aggressive base running and three throwing errors from the Pirates. Carlos Ruiz had three hits in the win and Jimmy Rollins contributed a lead-off double to start the first and a two-run home run in the fourth.
Joe Blanton pitched seven strong innings, allowing all three runs (two earned) on seven hits while striking out eight.
Featured Card: It feels like forever since I featured a new Phillies card, given the losses that have piled up recently and my week-long vacation to the shore. (I featured three newish Phillies cards back on June 21st.) This is J-Roll's 1971 Topps-style card from the Topps Archives set, which after much deliberation, I decided not to collect. Don't get me wrong - I like the set, and I'm learning not to mind the flimsy card stock. But my multi-year transformation from a set collector to a Phillies card collector is now complete.
One day, I'll turn my attention back to the sole Topps base set from the '70s currently missing from my set collection.
3 comments:
I decided to collect the set by buying boxes--my first set collected that way in many years. Alas, the collation sucked. So while I got my fair share of SPs (one every two packs for the 48 packs I got), it's still going to be a long-haul to complete the set. I wish I had just saved my pennies and bought a complete master set for about $200 on eBay. It is definitely fun set though!
I guess that's part of the problem of collecting sets nowadays. It's easier (and cheaper) to just buy the set on eBay. Back in the day, your option was to collect and trade to complete the set yourself or wait for a dealer at a baseball card show to collate a set.
This may be an idea for a future post, but I was seriously bummed out when the first factory sets started appearing. It almost felt like that was cheating.
Definitely do a post on the subject!
In the late 1970s, you used to be able to buy hand-collated sets from at least one advertiser in Baseball Digest, although I never did--nor could I have sprung for the $10 or $15 all at once! I remember the ad used to say "Just about a penny a card!" That was even when prices had gone up to, say, $15 for a set of 660 or 726 or 792. It must have been in the days before false advertising laws were enforced, as it really was about 2 cents per card, but still a good deal.
Anyway, I'm with you. I probably didn't buy a factory set until the early 1990s. To me, "cheating" was buying an entire wax box, or splitting one with a friend. Around 1980-85, they were about $8 or so from the "WIN Outlet" in downtown Reading. Those were the days....
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