Saturday, August 25, 2018

Game 128 - 1980 TCMA Peninsula Pilots Color #25 Ray Borucki

Blue Jays 4, Phillies 2
Game 128 - Friday Night, August 24th in Toronto
Record - 69-59, 2nd place, 3 games behind the Braves

One Sentence Summary:  Missed chances and a pair of home runs allowed by Jake Arrieta led to this latest loss, 4-2 to the Blue Jays.

What It Means:  The Phillies are making me cranky.

What Happened:  The offense went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.  With the tying run on base in the 9th, Ken Giles struck out Cesar Hernandez swinging and Rhys Hoskins looking to end the game.  Scott Kingery hit his 7th home run in the 7th and his 2 for 3 night raised his average to .229.

Arrieta threw six innings, allowing all four runs on six hits.

Featured Cards:  Jays' starting pitcher Ryan Borucki pitched 6 1/3 innings and won his third game of the year.  Borucki's father Ray played five seasons in the minors for the Phillies between 1979 and 1983, giving me an excuse to pull his card from the 1980 TCMA Peninsula Pilots (Color) set for this post.  Ray Borucki made it up to Triple-A Oklahoma City in 1982, but he never advanced to the big leagues.

The Pilots were a Class A affiliate of the Phillies between 1976 and 1985.  The 1980 club had a big year with a record of 100-40 and eventually winning the Carolina League championship over the Durham Bulls.  Beckett's database notes that 2,500 color team sets were produced and there's also a rarer black and white team set of which only 1,100 sets were produced.  The color team set was sponsored by Burger King while Pepsi sponosored the black and white team set.

Within the 27-card color team set are four players who would eventually make it to the Majors:  Don Carman (1983-1992), Wil Culmer (1983), Julio Franco (1982-2007) and Roy Smith (1984-1991).  Culmer and Smith were traded to the Indians in September 1982 for John Denny, while Franco was one of five players swapped to Cleveland in December 1982 for Von Hayes.

One time Phillies coaches Bob Tiefenauer (1979) and Bill Dancy (2005-2006) are also in the set, as is the Pilots' general manager Bob Neal along with his fantastic, era-appropriate checkered sport coat.

1980 TCMA Peninsula
Pilots Color #5
1980 TCMA Peninsula
Pilots Color #9
1980 TCMA Peninsula
Pilots Color #12
1980 TCMA Peninsula
Pilots Color #17
1980 TCMA Peninsula
Pilots Color #27

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