Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Game 27 - 2001 Nabisco Phillies Phillie Phanatic

Braves 10, Phillies 1
Game 27 - Sunday Afternoon, April 29th in Philadelphia
Record - 16-11, Tied for 2nd place, 1 1/2 games behind the Mets

One Sentence Summary:  Vince Velasquez and Jake Thompson took a beating against the Braves offense and the Phillies bats went quiet in this 10-1 loss.

What It Means:  This was not a very good game.

What Happened:  Velasquez lasted just four innings, allowing six runs on seven hits.  Thompson went 3 2/3 allowing three runs on three hits.

Jesse Biddle, pitching for the Braves, made his Philadelphia debut pitching two scoreless innings and striking out five.  He also collected an RBI-double in the ninth.

Featured Card:  The Phillie Phanatic celebrated his 40th birthday on Sunday afternoon, with a bunch of trained dogs and other sports mascots joining him on the field for a pre-game celebration.  The official Phanatic rookie cards are a pair of black and white postcards released by a company called Harrison/Erickson in 1980 and 1981.  The cards were presumably produced for the Phanatic to hand out during early promotional appearances.

The card featured here is a faux-rookie card, released in 2001 as the header card on a pack of vintage Phillies baseball cards given away as a promotional item to fans prior to a game.  The back of the card indicates that Nabisco is sponsoring this vintage baseball card giveaway and features a Ritz Crackers logo.  The card actually uses an attractive design that could have fit right in with something actually released in 1978.

1 comment:

Steve F. said...

Harrison/Erickson, Inc. is the design company that the Phillies contracted with to come up with the Phanatic. (They later also designed Youppi, the Expos mascot.) Bill Giles has said his worst business move ever was when he decided to save $1,300 in 1978 by not buying the copyright to the Phanatic but just paying $3,900 for the costume. Three years later the Phillies paid the company $250,000 for that copyright!