1983 Tastykake Philadelphia Phillies Photo Cards

Number of Cards:  32
Card Size:  3 1/4" x 5 1/4"

Description:  This is the first team-issued photo card set featuring full color photos.  A color head shot of each player is on the front and the backs are either blank or contain an encouraging message "written" by the player.  Most of these messages begin with a standard, "Dear Fan: Thanks for your letter.  the Phillies and I appreciate your interest."  In the checklist below, I've indicated which photo cards have the "Dear Fan" greeting on the back, which are blank and which have a message variation.  This is the second consecutive year Tastykake sponsored the set, and the black Tastykake logo can be found on the backs of all cards with the exception of the card for Veterans Stadium.

Interestingly enough, the 2001 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards lists Joe Amalfitano in the checklist instead of Porfi Altamirano.  The Beckett database entry for the set perpetuates this error.  As pointed out by 14,000 Phillies in his checklist entry for the set, both Beckett and the Standard Catalog omit the Dave Roberts card from their checklists.

How Distributed:  My guess is these photo cards were available to purchase in set form at Veterans Stadium and also available individually as players responded to fans' autograph requests.  I personally had a tough time tracking down the cards for John Denny, Von Hayes and Bill Robinson.

Complete Standard Checklist (Unnumbered, presented here alphabetically, with Dear Fan inscriptions unless otherwise noted): 

1. Luis Aguayo 2. Porfi Altamirano 3. Marty Bystrom (blank) 4. Steve Carlton (blank) 5. Larry Christenson 6. Pat Corrales MG (blank)       7. Ivan DeJesus 8. John Denny 9. Bob Dernier 10. Bo Diaz 11. Ed Farmer

12. Greg Gross 13. Von Hayes 14. Al Holland 15. Garry Maddox 16. Gary Matthews 17. Tug McGraw (Support . . . )       18. Larry Milbourne 19. Bob Molinaro 20. Sid Monge 21. Joe Morgan 22. Tony Perez

23. Ron Reed (blank) 24. Dave Roberts 25. Bill Robinson 26. Pete Rose 27. Dick Ruthven (blank) 28. Mike Schmidt (blank) 29. Ozzie Virgil 30. Phillies Coaches (blank) 31. Phillie Phanatic  32. Veterans Stadium (blank)

One and Only Phillies Baseball Card (0)

First Appearance in Phillies Team Issued Set (7):  Denny, Hayes, Holland, Milbourne, Molinaro, Morgan, Perez
Returning Players in Phillies Team Issued Set (21):  Aguayo, Altamirano, Bystrom, Carlton, Christenson, DeJesus, Dernier, Diaz, Farmer, Gross, Maddox, Matthews, McGraw, Monge, Reed, Roberts, Robinson, Rose, Ruthven, Schmidt, Virgil

Manager (1):  Corrales
Coaches (1):  There's one card featuring all five Phillies coaches - Mike Ryan, Deron Johnson, Bobby Wine, Dave Bristol and Claude Osteen.

Phillies Phanatic (1):  The more readily available version features the Phanatic on his ATV.

Other Cards (1):  Veterans Stadium.

Surprises:  There are no real surprises here, and I'm assuming the set was issued once with no updates made.  The entire 25-man opening day roster, with the exception of the two players discussed below, received photo cards.  The Phillies also had five players on the disabled list to start the 1983 season, and they all received cards too - Luis Aguayo, Marty Bystrom, Hayes, Al Holland and Roberts.

Omissions:  Len Matuszek and Alejandro Sanchez both made the opening day roster, but were omitted from the set.  Sanchez returned to the minors a week into the season when Hayes was activated from the disabled list.  Matuszek stuck around a bit longer, optioned down to Triple-A Portland on April 29th.  Kiko Garcia started the season at Portland, but was recalled on May 17th and he'd remain with the club through the rest of the season.  I wish the Phillies had considered an update set as Garcia and a number of players acquired during the season - Joe Lefebvre, Willie Hernandez, Larry Andersen and Sixto Lezcano - would have been obvious choices.  There were also a number of prospects who debuted during 1983, including Charles Hudson, Kevin Gross, Steve Jeltz, Juan Samuel and Darren Daulton, and update cards for those players would have been highly sought after by collectors.

Variations/Rarities:  According to the set's entry in the 2001 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, several cards are available with different backs.  There's also a different Phanatic card available showing him walking around the field in the vicinity of home plate.  I've listed these variations below.

Fellow collector Bill e-mailed to let me know of a few other back variations.  The Greg Gross card can be found with both "Dear Fan" and "Support amateur baseball" backs.  And the ATV variation of the Phanatic can be found with "Dear Fan" and "Tell your parents" backs.

Back Variations       1. Greg Gross (Support . . . ) 2. Sid Monge (Quitters never win)      3. Pete Rose (A good eduction) 4. Phillie Phanatic (Tell your parents)

Phanatic Variation        1. Phillie Phanatic - Not on ATV

Resources:   14,000 Phillies, Beckett.com, Phillies collector Bill, 1984 Phillies Media Guide.

This set was originally featured in a post back in October 2014, and I'm going to slowly go through these team-issued set posts and update them with new information gathered (if any) over the past six years.

Standard Version

Variation

1982 Tastykake Phillies Photo Cards / 1984 Tastykake Phillies Photo Cards

1980-1999 Phillies Team-Issued Photo Cards Want List / Phillies Team Issued Sets Index Page

How Many MLB Ballparks Have You Visited?

The Phillies Room will be on auto-pilot for a short while due to a planned vacation and required routine maintenance.  A full report will be forthcoming upon our return, and I am especially looking forward to updating the list I've compiled below by adding two additional stops.  A recent comment from fellow collector Steve F. motivated me to put this list together.  I'm about to cross over the half-way point, but I still have a long ways to go to get to his list of 27.

In chronological order, here's the list of Major League ballparks I've visited.  How many have you visited?  Where should we head next?

Team - Ballpark (First Game Visited) 

1. Baltimore Orioles - Oriole Park at Camden Yards (5/23/1992) 
2. Colorado Rockies - Coors Field (5/29/2000) 
3. Pittsburgh Pirates - PNC Park (7/2001) 
4. Cleveland Indians - Progressive Field (8/2001) 
5. Chicago White Sox - Guaranteed Rate Field (9/17/2002) 
6. Kansas City Royals - Kauffman Stadium (9/26/2002) 
7. Chicago Cubs - Wrigley Field (9/28/2002) 
8. Detroit Tigers - Comerica Park (8/9/2003) 
9. Cincinnati Reds - Great American Ballpark (8/12/2003) 
10. Philadelphia Phillies - Citizens Bank Park (4/12/2004) 
11. Tampa Bay Rays - Tropicana Field (4/16/2006) 
12. Los Angeles Dodgers - Dodger Stadium (4/20/2011) 
13. Boston Red Sox - Fenway Park (8/16/2014) 
14. Washington Nationals - Nationals Park (8/24/2016) 
15. Atlanta Braves - SunTrust Park (5/17/2018)*
16. San Diego Padres - Petco Park (6/30/2018)
17. Arizona Diamondbacks - Chase Field (7/2/2018)

Crossed off the list, now inactive: 

1. Philadelphia Phillies - Veterans Stadium (7/15/1979) 
2. Atlanta Braves - Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (8/1/1995) 
3. St. Louis Cardinals - Busch Stadium I (9/27/2002) 
4. Montreal Expos - Olympic Stadium (9/25/2004) 
5. New York Yankees - Yankee Stadium I (8/14/2005) 
6. Washington Nationals - RFK Stadium (10/2/2005) 

*Game rained out, but I’m counting it since hot dog and beer were purchased and I waited through the 2 1/2 hour rain delay.

Discovering Hardball Passport (@sportspassport)

1994 Score #656

I recently discovered the fantastic Hardball Passport website which promises baseball fans the ability to track every major and minor league baseball game attended in person - for free.  For an added price, the website allows the ability to download a sortable database of hitting and pitching statistics for every game you've attended.  This is the Passport+ feature and for a $19.49 fee (due annually), I decided the price was worth being able to track these personal statistics.

While compiling my personal baseball journey, several items stuck out and I thought I'd share them here:

• For fans who have logged their stadium visits within the database, I'm the current active leader in visits to both Citizens Bank Park (177) and Veterans Stadium (133).

• I'm missing a ton of Phillies games in my profile.  I've only entered those games for which I have definitive proof of my attendance or ticket stubs which means there are quite a few games from the '80s that I'm missing.  I only religiously saved ticket stubs beginning in the early '90s.

• My games per season chart shows that I attended zero games in 2000 and only 1 game in 1999.  This could be completely accurate, but I'll never know.  These years represent my personal "dark times" and there could have been  a trove of ticket stubs from 1999 and 2000 that were dumped in the garbage years ago.

• There are also some older minor league games I attended that I haven't recorded since these games aren't in the Hardball Passport database (yet).  I attended quite a few Winston-Salem Spirt/Warthogs and Durham Bulls games during my college years.

• Spring training games and the Phillies On-Deck series games aren't tracked.

• There aren't any surprises on my personal leaderboard.  Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels lead the way in most of the offensive and pitching categories in games I've attended.

• I've seen 22 Hall of Famers play.  I know I've seen more than ten games with Mike Schmidt, but I've only entered those games for which I had a ticket stub.

• I've seen seven players in 100 games or more - Rollins (224), Chase Utley (154), Pat Burrell (144), Ryan Howard (123), Bobby Abreu (122), Shane Victorino (102) and Carlos Ruiz (100).

• The pitchers I've seen the most are Ryan Madson (59 games), Rheal Cormier (49), Jose Mesa (35), Hamels (31), Brett Myers (28) and Brad Lidge (28).

• The non-Phillies player I've seen the most is Chipper Jones with 20 games.  Jones hit 4 home runs and .359 in the 20 games I've attended, cementing him in my memory as a Phillie Killer.

• I've visited 23 ballparks, and I need to visit 17 Major League ballparks to have visited all current Major League venues.

• The Phillies are 181-134 in games I've attended and that record is going to take a severe hit over the next few years.