Tuesday and Wednesday 7:35 SunTrust Park - Atlanta, GA
Phillies 40-69, 5th Place in the N.L. East, 25 1/2 games behind the Nationals Braves 51-59, 3rd Place in the N.L. East, 16 1/2 games behind the Nationals
Phillies Probables: Zach Eflin (0-3, 6.13), Jerad Eickhoff (2-7, 4.56) Braves Probables: Julio Teheran (7-9, 5.10), Sean Newcomb (1-6, 4.61)
At the Ballpark: There are no scheduled promotions or giveaways for this quick two-game series in Atlanta.
Phillies Leaders Average: Cesar Hernandez - .294 Runs: Cesar Hernandez - 55 Home Runs: Maikel Franco - 17 RBIs: Maikel Franco - 57 Stolen Bases: Cesar Hernandez - 12
Wins: Aaron Nola - 8 ERA: Aaron Nola - 3.12 Strikeouts: Aaron Nola - 117 Saves: Hector Neris - 11
Wins: Mike Foltynewicz - 10 ERA: Mike Foltynewicz - 3.94 Strikeouts: Mike Foltynewicz - 115 Saves: Jim Johnson - 22
1982 Topps #733
1982 Topps Traded #4T
1982 Topps Appreciation: Teammates with the Braves in 1981 and 1982, Larry McWilliams and Steve Bedrosian briefly reunited as teammates with the 1989 Phillies.
Friday and Saturday 7:05, Sunday 1:35 Citizens Bank Park - Philadelphia, PA
Cardinals 69-57, 2nd Place in the N.L. Central, 1 1/2 games behind the Brewers Phillies 56-71, 5th Place in the N.L. East, 17 1/2 games behind the Nationals
Cardinals Probables: Shelby Miller (8-9, 4.25), Adam Wainwright (15-7, 2.40), Justin Masterson (2-1, 6.30) Phillies Probables:Kyle Kendrick (5-11, 4.90), David Buchanan (6-7, 4.25), Jerome Williams (1-0, 2.19)
At the Ballpark: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . . The Phillies will host their first Star Wars night tonight with Darth Vader scheduled to throw out the first pitch. On Sunday, kids under 14 will receive a Phillies Back-to-School Gym Bag.
1988 Topps Appreciation: The four Cardinals featured here, Larry McWilliams (1989), Danny Cox (1991-1992), Greg Mathews (1992) and Jose DeLeon (1992-1993) all spent a brief part of their careers pitching for the Phillies.
Of the four, I have the vaguest recollection of Mathews' time with the club. Mathews signed with the Phillies in February 1992 and opened the season with the AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. The big club summoned him in July to fill the hole in the rotation created when Don Robinson was released. He pitched great in his first two starts, throwing 15 innings and allowing three earned runs. But that success would elude him the rest of the season.
He finish out the year with the Phillies going 2-3 with a 5.16 ERA in 14 games (7 starts). The club released him following the season, and his five-year big league career was over. For his troubles, he received a Phillies card in the 1993 Fleer set, featured in this post.
Turner Field - Atlanta, GA Friday 7:35, Saturday 7:10, Sunday 1:35
Phillies 45-54, 5th Place in the N.L. East, 14 1/2 games behind the Nationals Braves 54-44, 2nd Place in the N.L. East, 5 games behind the Nationals
Phillies Probables:Cole Hamels (11-4, 3.23), Joe Blanton (8-8, 4.70), Roy Halladay (4-5, 4.32) Braves Probables: Ben Sheets (2-0, 0.00), Mike Minor (5-7, 5.49), Tim Hudson (9-4, 3.71)
At the Ballpark: The first 10,000 fans through the turnstiles tonight at Turner Field will receive a Tim Hudson home alternate t-shirt. On Sunday afternoon, kids will be allowed to run the bases following the completion of the crushing series sweep by the Phillies.
1979 Topps Flashback:Larry McWilliams made a brief 40-game pitstop in Philadelphia in 1989 towards the tail-end of his 13-year career. As a starter and a reliever, McWilliams posted a 2-11 record with the Phils a 4.10 ERA before being shipped to the Royals in early September for minor league catcher Jeff Hulse. His time with the Phillies has been memorialized with three baseball cards, all from 1989 issues - Bowman, Topps Traded and the team-issued Tastykake set.
McWilliams spent his first six seasons with the Braves, and he's credited with helping to halt Pete Rose's 44-game hit streak in 1978. On August 1, 1978, he was the starting pitcher in the game that saw the end to the streak and his diving stop of a ball hit by Rose up the middle in the 2nd was the closest Rose came to advancing his streak that day.
1989 Topps #385, #358, 1989 Topps Traded #49T and #63T
Happy new year! Here's to a wonderful 2012 for you and your friends and family.
The 1989 season was a hot mess for the Phillies. Mike Schmidt tearfully announced his retirement, fan favorites Chris James, Steve Bedrosian and Juan Samuel were all sent packing, and the team continued to underwhelm with another last place finish. Here and now, with the 2012 Phillies about to begin their journey in about 45 days, I'm reminded again just how much distance there is between today's team and the team I somehow managed to root for some two decades ago.
1989 Topps #154 (Back)
The Set
Number of cards in the set: For the eighth year in a row, Topps issued 792 cards in its base set and another 132 in its traded series.
My very brief thoughts on the set: I never really cared for this set although I recently enjoyed flipping through the set with my son Doug. For the record, and this is completely unofficial, there are three Doug's in the set - Dascenzo, Drabek and Jones. We may have missed a few since we were too pre-occupied with the discovery that there are two guys named Candy in the set. But I digress.
Was 1987 the last great Topps baseball card set (in my opinion, of course?) When I look through the Topps base set cards from 1988 through 2011, there isn't one complete set that really stands out. I like the 1993 set, but was it a great set? I'm fine with chalking this observation up to the fact that the sets I like the most are sets I first encountered during my childhood. But is there something more to it? Has Topps produced a great, universally adored baseball card base set since 1987? These are deep questions for a New Year's Day.
Notable competition: Upper Deck entered the fold in 1989 with it's ground-breaking set, holograms on the back and all. This next statement will make me sound crotchety, but baseball cards and baseball card collecting hasn't been the same since I opened that first foil-wrapped Upper Deck pack. Fleer, Donruss and Score were all afterthoughts to me in 1989. Topps resurrected the Bowman name in 1989 with an extra large, underwhelming set featuring the first Phillies cards of a lot of the players the team acquired prior to the start of the 1989 season.
Record and finish: Have I already mentioned that 1989 was a hot mess for the Phils? The team started the year with what seemed like dozens of new faces and a bunch of more new faces would join the team before the season was over. They managed to win two more games than in the prior year, going 67-95 on their way to a second straight last place finish.
Key players:Von Hayes was the only consistent offensive threat in the line-up, putting up a respectable .259 average with 26 home runs and 78 RBIs. When your next two offensive power houses are Ricky Jordan (.285, 12 home runs, 75 RBIs) and Dickie Thon (.271, 15 home runs, 60 RBIs), you know it's going to be a long year. New second baseman Tommy Herr hit .287 and John Kruk hit .331 after being acquired from the Padres for James in June. Ken Howell and Jeff Parrett led the pitching staff with 12 wins a piece and Roger McDowell saved 19 games for the Phils after they had shipped former closer Bedrosian to the Giants. Rookie Pat Combs gave the team hope for the future when he won four games and pitched to a 2.09 ERA following his September call-up.
Key events: In late May, future Hall of Famer Schmidt called a press conference in San Diego to announce his retirement. Although he was hitting just .203 with 6 home runs at the time, his decision still came as a shock. Steve Jeltz lost his starting shortstop job to Thon, but he did manage to hit two home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game, making him the first Phillie in history to do so. As mentioned at the outset, GM Lee Thomas was extremely busy, trading away popular players and netting Kruk, Randy Ready, Lenny Dykstra, McDowell, Terry Mulholland, Dennis Cook and Charlie Hayes in three seperate trades. And my hero, Bob Dernier, hit a thrilling, game-winning, inside-the-park home run against the Giants on May 15th. The video is terrible, but it's hard not to get chills listening to the call from Harry Kalas:
1989 Phillies in 1989 Topps
Cards needed for a complete team set: There are 28 Phillies cards in the base set and Topps added another 11 Phillies cards to its traded set.
Who’s in:
Cards of the eight starting position players - 7 cards
#187 Darren Daulton (c), #358 Ricky Jordan (1b), #49T Tom Herr (2b), #119T Dickie Thon (ss), #63T John Kruk (lf), #27T Lenny Dykstra (cf), #385 Von Hayes (rf)
All three players (Mulholland, Cook and new third baseman Charlie Hayes) acquired from the Giants for Bedrosian were omitted from the traded set. However, the players acquired from the Mets for Samuel (Dykstra and McDowell) on the same day as the Bedrosian deal, made it into the traded set as Phillies. This baffles me. (For the record, all three appear in Fleer's update set.)
1989 Topps Traded #79T, #95T, 1989 Topps #418 and #707
Who’s out: As mentioned previously, Charlie Hayes, Mulholland and Cook were all left out, despite their prominent roles with the team, for better or worse, during the second half of the season.
Phillies on other teams: Brace yourselves. There are 16 players in the base set who played with the Phils in 1989 but appear on other teams. First, here are the 11 who ended up as Phillies in the traded set - #93 Ken Howell (Dodgers), #176 Jeff Parrett (Expos), #235 John Kruk (Padres), #259 Larry McWilliams (Cardinals), #435 Lenny Dykstra (Mets), #463 Steve Lake (Cardinals), #551 Randy Ready (Padres), #692 Steve Ontiveros (Athletics), #709 Tom Herr (Twins), #726 Dickie Thon (Padres), #735 Roger McDowell (Mets). And here are the 5 who didn't - #41 Terry Mulholland (Giants), #91 Floyd Youmans (Expos), #132 Curt Ford (Cardinals), #338 Jim Adduci (Brewers), #667 Dwayne Murphy (Tigers).
1989 Topps #74
What’s he doing here: Parrish was traded to the Angels on October 3, 1988, the day after the 1988 season ended. Of course, this was back in the day when the sets were coming out shortly after Thanksgiving, so it might have been too late to airbrush anyone even for a trade that early in the offseason. But . . . the Phils hired new manager Leyva on October 3, 1988, and managed to airbrush him into a Phillies hat in time for his card to appear within the 1989 Topps set.
Cards that never were candidates: There are a whopping 19 players who appeared with the Phillies during the 1989 season, but did not appear as Phillies in the 1989 Topps set. I've narrowed the list down to seven players who should have had Phillies cards - Combs, Charlie Hayes, Mulholland, Cook, outfielder Dwayne Murphy (9 home runs in 98 games), outfielder Curt Ford (.218 average in 108 games) and reliever Randy O'Neal (appeared in 20 games with a 6.23 ERA). On second thought, maybe O'Neal doesn't necessarily need a Phillies card. Ford appears in the 1989 Bowman set as a Phillie.
Favorite Phillies card: I have to go with Dernier's card. It's his last major Topps baseball card and it's always been a favorite of mine.
Other Stuff
Recycled: Schmidt's card is reprinted in the 2001 Topps Archives set.
