Wednesday, September 19, 2012

1979 Topps - Phillies Cards

1979 Topps #231, #253, #88 and #74
As the 2012 baseball season draws to a close, I'm getting closer to the end of my season-long appreciation of the 1979 Topps set.  Where possible, and when there's been a logical connection, I've featured the 1979 Topps cards of ex, current or future Phillies in my series preview posts.

There were several American League teams the Phillies didn't play against this year, so several worthy 1979 Topps Phillies-related cards didn’t have a chance to be properly featured. For posterity's sake, I decided to showcase some of those cards here and provide the full list of Phillies-related cards within the 1979 Topps set. (Please let me know if I’ve missed any.)

Of the 726 cards in the set, 111 have a Phillies connection, representing a little over 15% of the total set.  The list only includes people who actually played, coached or managed with the Phillies and it does not include those who passed through the Phillies minor league system.  So #243 Buck Martinez (drafted by the Phillies in 1967, but lost to the Royals via the Astros in the 1968 Rule 5 draft), #132 Rowland Office (played for the Phillies Triple-A affiliate in 1982), and several others aren’t included in the tally.

National League East (43 - 18 without Phillies)
Atlanta Braves (4) - #39 Dale Murphy, #85 Gary Matthews, #504 Larry McWilliams, #629 Gene Garber
Miami Marlins (0) - None (obviously)
New York Mets (5) - #305 Willie Montanez, #545 John Stearns, #566 Nino Espinosa, #621 Pat Zachry, #655 Jerry Koosman
Philadelphia Phillies (25)
Washington Nationals (9) (the team formerly known as the Montreal Expos) - #43 Wayne Twitchell, #124 Dan Schatzeder, #269 Woodie Fryman, #395 Dave Cash, #468 Stan Bahnsen, #495 Tony Perez, #581 Darold Knowles, #628 Del Unser, #673 Tom Hutton

National League Central (27)
Chicago Cubs (9) - #398 Ivan DeJesus, #412 Hack Wilson ATRH, #489 Larry Cox, #513 Dave Johnson, #579 Greg Gross, #592 Mike Krukow, #614 Willie Hernandez, #639 Manny Trillo, #693 Dave Rader
Cincinnati Reds (6) - #20 Joe Morgan, #126 Doug Bair, #204 Pete Rose RB, #259 Sparky Anderson MG, #301 Tom Hume, #650 Pete Rose
Houston Astros (1) - #49 Vern Ruhle
Milwaukee Brewers (4) - #180 Larry Hisle, #265 Don Money, #474 Dick Davis, #685 Sixto Lezcano
Pittsburgh Pirates (4) - #117 Grant Jackson, #223 Kent Tekulve, #264 Don Robinson, #637 Bill Robinson
St. Louis Cardinals (3) - #59 John Denny, #111 Roger Freed, #143 Tony Scott

National League West (6)
Arizona Diamondbacks (0)
Colorado Rockies (0)
Los Angeles Dodgers (2) - #104 Johnny Oates, #290 Dave Lopes
San Diego Padres (4) - #263 Oscar Gamble, #342 Dave Roberts, #616 Billy Almon, #679 Derrel Thomas
San Francisco Giants (0)

1979 Topps #199, #365, #61 and #544
American League East (8)
Baltimore Orioles (3) - #37 Joe Kerrigan, #102 Mike Anderson, #543 Kiko Garcia
Boston Red Sox (1) - #375 Bill Campbell
New York Yankees (3) - #365 Sparky Lyle, #558 Jay Johnstone, #626 Bob Lemon MG
Tampa Bay Rays (0)
Toronto Blue Jays (1) - #64 Tom Underwood

American League Central (17)
Chicago White Sox (6) - #88 Bob Molinaro, #134 Alan Bannister, #169 Bill Nahorodny, #514 Mike Proly, #527 Lerrin LaGrow, #686 Ron Schueler
Cleveland Indians (4) - #61 Bo Diaz, #253 Rick Wise, #459 Sid Monge, #573 Jim Kern
Detroit Tigers (3) - #231 Johnny Wockenfuss, #272 Tim Corcoran, #469 Lance Parrish
Kansas City Royals (2) - #585 Hal McRae, #664 Doug Bird
Minnesota Twins (2) - #41 Gene Mauch MG, #709 Sam Perlozzo

American League West (10)
Los Angeles Angels (2) - #424 Jim Fregosi MG, #557 Ken Brett
Oakland Athletics (2) - #458 Jim Essian, #711 Dwayne Murphy
Seattle Mariners (2) - #74 Shane Rawley, #199 Larry Milbourne
Texas Rangers (4) - #391 Al Oliver, #463 Steve Comer, #499 Pat Corrales MG, #544 Fergie Jenkins

1979 Topps #499, #709 and #424

5 comments:

Steve F. said...

It really is a great set, one that I'd forgotten how much I liked. The photos are generally crisp, and a nice mix of posed photos, head shots, and action sequences. And it has a nice, simple design to boot.

I have no complaints about the photo quality of recent sets, but this set makes me think: (a) they only use action shots these days--virtually no posed shots or portraits, which it would be nice to have mixed in, and (b) how great would it be if Topps returned to a design like that again instead of the embossed, too complicated ones they use anymore?

Steve F. said...

Also, seeing your list of Phillies on other teams' cards reminded me of an eBay seller I just came across that I bought a few Phillies items from. One of the listings said he was liquidating the collection of an obsessive Phillies fan. When I searched his listings for the word "Phillies," I noticed that about half of his items were Phillies cards. But when I looked at the listings without the filter, I realized that nearly the entire other half was cards of players on other teams who were at one time Phillies. So this obsessive collector actually seemingly collected cards of every player who had ever been a Phillie.

Now maybe that's what you do, so no offense meant by it. But I was thinking how, if you did that, you would have a much, much broader base of cards to collect. For example, you need to get all the cards issued of Lloyd Waner, Jimmie Foxx, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Pedro Martinez, Jamie Moyer, Earle Combs, Johnny Podres, etc., etc. That's gotta to be a huge collection if one were to dedicate oneself to it. And forever growing, both forwards and backwards. Because, for example, you'll be buying Lou Marson cards for his whole career, but also going back and buying old Juan Pierre cards! Jamie Moyer, Matt Stairs, Todd Zeile, Rick White, Terry Mulholland and Kenny Lofton alone would fill a fairly thick binder!

I have all I can handle right now....

Jim said...

That would be a huge collection!

Here are my ground rules for adding non-Phillies cards to the collection:

If they have a card in the year they played for the Phils - it gets added, but only cards of the player's former team.

For example, I've added Jim Thome's 2012 Twins cards to my collection, but I won't add his Orioles cards. I also tracked down the 2012 cards of Juan Pierre, Ty Wigginton and Nate Schierholtz for my 2012 Phillies binder.

Jim from Downingtown said...

Bob Lemon never played for or managed the Phillies. (You may be thinking of Jim Lemon.)

Jim said...

Lemon was the pitching coach for the 1961 Phillies.

Maybe someone with a 1960s Baseball blog could feature Lemon in an upcoming post. ; )