Game 115 - Introducing the 2022 Chachi Set Design

Phillies 2, Dodgers 1
Game 115 - Thursday Afternoon, August 12th in Philadelphia
Record - 60-55, 1st Place, 1/2 game ahead of the Mets

One Sentence Summary:  Ranger Suarez and four Phillies relievers somehow combined to shut down the Dodgers in this 2-1 series finale win.

What It Means:  The Phillies maintain a slim lead in the East and they'll open a three-game series against the Reds on Friday night.

What Happened:  Suarez is slowly getting stretched out and he threw 4 1/3 innings and 82 pitches in this game, allowing a run on three hits.  Archie Bradley picked up the win with two perfect innings of work and Ian Kennedy battled the Dodgers and the home plate umpire to pick up his third Phillies save.  Bryce Harper hit a solo home run in the first and Ronald Torreyes had a clutch two-out single in the fourth to deliver the eventual winning run.

Featured Cards:  Earlier than ever, Topps released its first look at its 2022 flagship design back on July 15th.  Over the past several years, I've tried to reveal the design I'll be using for the next year's Chachi set a day or two after Topps' big announcement, but this year work and a family vacation put me behind schedule.  But now, I'm happy to announce my Chachi custom baseball card set will be heading to the 2000s for the first time in 2022, paying tribute to the underrated (in my opinion) 2000 set.  I hinted at my leaning towards the 2000 set in last year's announcement post, and in the end it came down to that design or the designs for the 1972, 1984 or 1987 Topps sets.

I wanted to put some distance between using the 1972 design and this year's Topps Heritage set, as well as the 1987 design and Topps paying tribute to that set with its own 2022 insert releases.  The 1984 set's design would be easy enough to replicate but finding two photos of some of the players could pose a challenge.  So in the end, the 2000 Topps set won out and I'm excited to take this step into the future . . . relatively speaking.

Here's a look at potential future Chachi set candidates, and I'm getting close to the point where I'll run out of 1970s and 1980s Topps designs to use:

1965 - My favorite Topps design from the 1960s and the subject of this other blog of mine.
1972 - The only set design from the 1970s I've not used yet.  Will 2023 finally be the year for this groovy set?
1984, 1987, 1989 - Or will 2023 be the year I tackle the two-photo challenge of the 1984 set.
2001, 2006, 2008 - Over the past few years, I've really come to appreciate the designs of the 2006 and 2008 sets.
Other Future Candidates - 1981 Donruss, 1981 Fleer, 1982 Donruss, 1983 Fleer, 1985 Fleer, 1987 Donruss

For a complete visual summary of past years' Chachi sets, please see here.

Memory Lane
2014 Chachi Preview #1 (8/8/13)
2015 Chachi Preview #1 (8/15/14)
2016 Chachi Preview #1 (8/11/15)
2017 Chachi Preview #1 (8/10/16)
2018 Chachi Preview #1 (8/7/17)
2019 Chachi Preview #1 (8/20/18)
2020 Chachi Preview #1 (8/2/19)
2021 Chachi Preview #1 (8/7/20)

2022 Chachi Preview #1 (8/13/21)

Transactions:  David Paulino (rhp), who last pitched in the majors in 2018, had his contract selected from Lehigh Valley and Nick Maton (inf) was optioned back down.  Sam Coonrod (rhp) was moved to the 60-day injured list to open up a spot on the 40-man roster for Paulino.

2021 Virtual Phillies Wall / 2021 Season Summary Index / 2021 Chachi Set Checklist