Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

And nobody plays hand grenades...anymore.   Or so the old saying goes.  I decided to make the first post of the card show spoils all about the '77 set that I tackled.  I hit my vintage guy Ray as the last table (tradition) I visit before leaving, and out came the want list. 

I came close, but didn't finish the set.  I will not bother you with all the '77s that I grabbed, but there are enough highlights of the nearly 3 dozen that I picked up that are worth showing.


4 solid starters, and a righty-lefty closing tandem.  I'd be happy with my team starting with these 6 guys, how about you?


The Brett cards set me back a few bucks, but the card that I found interesting was the Gary Carter card.  I'll be damned if I could remember Gary Carter as an outfielder, but sure enough he played 92 games in the outfield in 1975, and another 36 in 1976.   A quick question for you all.   Gary Carter finished 2nd in the ROY voting in 1975 to which San Francisco Giants pitcher?  No peeking.  Answer at the end of the post.


Let's see.  Add such names as Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, Carl Yastrzemski, Luis Tiant and Bill Campbell, and you have the makings of a pretty damn good team.  Another crazy stat for you.  Boston won 97 games in 1977, and the pitcher who led the team in wins was their closer, Bill Campbell, with 13.  Figure that one out.


I did better than I thought with the Rose in the upper left, it only set me back $8. 

Tell me something Larry Bowa, did you hear a train whistle as Pete Rose was running by you??  The way Rose played, I wouldn't not want to have been run down by him.  I had to look at the stats just to be sure, but yes that is Garry Maddox firing the ball back into the infield trying to gun down Rose. 

The final 9 cards to complete the set? 

53,120,140,234,265,285,387,478,656.  All the stiffs.  Nolan Ryan record breaker card.  Brooks Robinson.  Mark Fidrych RC.  Ron Guidry.  Mike Schmidt.  Rod Carew.  See?  A list of nobodies.

Give yourself a gold star if you knew that the '75 ROY was none other than....



John Montefusco.


There's still more to come...75's, 64's....

thanks for reading, Robert

5 comments:

  1. I knew Montefusco without even looking ahead :)

    The Rose I saw at my card show was 20 bucks. I would've pulled the trigger if it was 8.

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  2. You can see why he won the ROY - the wavy hair, those dreamy eyes, his pouty lips.

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  3. Not to brag, but I also knew the Montefusco trivia question. Which is surprising since I'm usually horrible with ROY winners.

    I'd never noticed the "bat barrel" quality of Tony Perez's '77 Topps card. I'll have to go and admire my copy of that one a little more now.

    I wish I had a copy of that '77 Rose to admire, period. I'll be crossing my fingers at future shows.

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  4. I've also thought that the '77 Randolph was an underrated card. Granted it's his 3rd Topps offering, but the 1st two just don't appeal to me, the '76 quad rookie with the Pirates helmet, and the stupid '76 Traded with the newpaper front and no stats on the back.

    I'll take the '77 any day over the other two.

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