1976 ASG +40: Luis Tiant 1976 Topps #130

The Yankees are at Fenway for a weekend Series which means that they are once again on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball....even if Curt Schilling won't be part of the festivities.

We tie into the evening by featuring Red Sox alum Luis Tiant as part of our 1976 All-Star Game 40th Anniversary coverage.

1976 Topps #130 Luis Tiant 

1976 was the 3rd and final All-Star game for Luis Tiant. He entered the game in the fifth inning and immediately gave up a Triple to Pete Rose. However El Tiante was able to get out of the inning unscathed. Steve Garvey hit a sharp grounder to third which may have gotten down the line had George Brett not been holding Rose on the bag. Rose's Reds Teammates Joe Morgan and George Foster than followed with a Pop Out and Ground Out. Tiant set down the NL in order in the sixth separating pop out of Phillies Greg Luzinski and Bob Boone with a strikeout of Astros Outfielder Cesar Cedeno.

Luis Tiant's other All-Star games were in 1968 and 1974 he took the loss in both games.

 1976 All-Star Game Luis Tiant vs Cesar Cedeno

We scanned the video of the 1976 ASG to check out Tiant's distinct delivery. Above he is facing Cesar Cedeno, even in this blurry image you can tell that Tiant has his back to the plate.  The catcher in the shot is Tiant's Red Sox teammate Carlton Fisk.

Tiant spent all but two months of his career in the AL, consequently the 76 All-Star Game is the only tie he pitched at the Vet. Yes in those pre-interleague days Luis Tiant pitched 19 seasons and 573 games but the only way you got to see him inside the Philadelphia city limits was to got to the 1976 All-Star game. Similarly his only appearance in the Astrodome was the 1968 All-Star Game.
 
Phungo Luis Tiant Index
I have created Indices for many Hall of Fame players, to these I have been adding a few for noteworthy non-hallers. Tiant is now part of this group.
1975 Topps #430 (This is a great card)

Sources and Links
1976 ASG 40th Anniversary Index 
YouTube - 1976 ASG
Baseball Almanac
Baseball-ref

The Carlton Battery Card 1982 Fleer #632

Last nigh we discussed HoF catcher Cartlon Fisk. Today we transfer from one Carlton, Fisk, to another, Steve.

1982 Fleer #632 Steve & Carlton Carlton & Fisk

This is a fun card from 1982 Fleer - their second set after returning to the baseball card market in 1981.

The Photo was taken at the 1981 All-Star Game in Cleveland. Due to a players strike the game was not played until August 9th. The game reintroduced the second half of the baseball season which in 1981 was played as a split season.

Steve Carlton made the All-Star team but did not play in the game. Fisk started behind the dish for the AL and went 1-3 with his hit coming off of Burt Hooton.

1982 Fleer #632 Steve & Carlton Carlton & Fisk (b-side)

The flip side gives some brief details on the two Hall of Famers and the ASG. It also contains the "Carlton Battery" term which I ripped off for the title of this post


1982 Fleer Stars Subber
The Carlton Battery card is one of 19 star cards towards the end of the 1982F (#628-646). These are the cards that would basically become the Super Star Special subset in 1983.

I was curious if the picture on this card might be a photo taken by Steve Babineau. He was a Fleer Photographer who took a lot of pictures at the Vet for the brand. He was interview by Baseball Cards come to Life here. I found no evidence this was one of Babineau's photos but the interview is a fun read.

Sources and Links 
Phungo Steve Carlton HoF Index
Carlton Fisk HoF Index
Baseball Cards Come to Life 
1982 Fleer 
Cardboard Connection
Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref 

Sunday Night Baseball - Yankees @ Red Sox: Carlton Fisk

With the Yankees @ Fenway for SNB we take a look at Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk

1975 Topps #80 Carlton Fisk (mini)

Carlton Fisk played 11 of his 24 seasons with the Red Sox. He was a member of their 1975 squad that took the Reds to seven games in that years very exciting series. His Home Run in game 6 of that series is when of the most discussed in the history of the game.

"Pudge" was not a one hit wonder,

The unanimous selection for AL Rookie of the Year in 1972 was an 11 time all-star, he cranked out 376 Home Runs (3rd among Catchers behind Johnny Bench and Mike Piazza) on his way to winning 3 Silver Slugger Awards and a Gold Glove.

He returned to the Postseason one other time with the 1983 White Sox with whom he spent the second half of his career. He was inducted in the Hall in 1990 on his second ballot.  

1975 Topps #351 Bob Boone
1975 Topps #80 Carlton Fisk (mini)

Carlton Fisk played baseball at one of the games most grueling positions until past age 45. He hung around long enough to break Bob Boone's record for career games caught. The record game occurred on June 22 1993. It was Carlton Fisk's last career game. He went 0-2 with a sacrifice.  The last man to pitch to Fisk was Alex Ferrnandez.  

1975 Topps
There are many reasons that 1975 Topps is one of the classics, The design is colorful and instantly recognizable. One of my favorite details is the All-Star flair. Unlike the Rookie Cup which often remains unchanged for years Topps comes up with a new All-Star logo most releases.

Most years it is some sort of added icon. In 1975 it is a Star where the player position is located. Off the top of my head this is the only year that the AS Logo flat out replaces a design element.

I have presented FIsk here with the Previous Catching Games Record Holder, Bob Boone. I paired the two cards mostly to display the size difference for the mini, but we also get to see both record holders along with the AS flair compared to the vanilla Baseball Position log.

Both Fisk and Boone have been surpassed in the games caught ladder by Ivan Rodriguez (HoF Eligible 2017) 
 

Check My Math
If my count is correct this is the 3rd time the Yankees have been on Sunday Night Baseball, while the World Champion San Francisco Giants have yet to be featured.

Phungo Carlton Fisk HoF Index 
1982 Fleer #632 Carlton Battery
2008 Donruss Threads Century Collection Materials #CCM-37 Carlton Fisk (92/100)

Sources and Links
baseball-ref
SABR bio by Brian Stevens

Phungo 5 with Play at the Plate

Our last Spring Training Phungo 5 features the Play at the Plate discussing the Reigning AL Champion Texas Rangers. 

1) How does one recover from seeing their favorite team be within a pitch of winning the Series twice and coming up short in back to back series?

After the 2010 WS, I was just pumped that the Rangers had made it.  I fully expected them to beat the Giants, but I was still happy to have been able to take my son to our first World Series game (Game 4).  Experiencing the loss last year was heart wrenching.  Needing one more strike twice and seeing it slip away made me sick.  It put me in a funk that took a couple of weeks to get over. 

2) More interesting story Neftali Feliz moving to starter or Yu Darvish joining the rotation? 

More interesting?  Yu Darvish.  More nerve wracking?  Neftali.  I’m excited to see how Darvish adapts to MLB.  He’s big and has the stuff to be something really special.  I also know he could prove to be very average, which would be a bust with the financial investment the Rangers have made in him.  The Rangers moved CJ Wilson from the closer role to a starter with good results, but I wonder about taking Feliz, who has been a pretty good closer, and making him a starter.  It’s not like the Rangers have a shortage of starters.  They could run out a 7 man rotation if they wanted to, but they like having the depth and I can’t argue with the success they’ve had with Nolan Ryan in charge and Mike Maddux running the pitching staff. 

3) What Catcher deserves a good play at the plate card that has never reallly had one.

My favorite catchers are Ivan Rodriguez, Joe Mauer, Carlton Fisk (his 1977 Topps card is a beauty) and Johnny Bench.  They’ve all had patp cards that I’ve managed to get.  The most iconic patp card I can think of is the ’71 Thurman Munson, which I still need.  As a Ranger fan, I guess the one player I’d most like to see on a patp card would be Jim Sundberg.  He was one of the guys I pretended to be when I was a kid.  

1977 Topps #640 Carlton Fisk (stolen from Baseball Card Database)

4) Which am I more likely to see in your area Rangers or Dallas Cowboy Apparrel? 

Right now it would definitely be Rangers apparel.  The DFW area is a great sports “town”, but if you’re not winning, you sort of get put on the back burner.   That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of Cowboys caps and jerseys around town, but Rangers stuff is everywhere right now. 

5) Which is a more important culinary achievment Texas Chili or Tesas Toast?

 No question, it’s a good bowl of chili.  I’m a little bit of a sissy when it comes to spicy food, so for me, it’s all about flavor over heat. 

Scorecard

First off I am glad to hear there is someone else out there man enough to admit that they prefer a flavourful Chili to a Spicy one.     

  

Moving on to the baseball Qs, I am glad to hear that the Rangers are getting the love they Deserve in Dallas.  The NFL and the Cowboys seem to constantly be shoved in your face.  I also like PATP choices of the Catcher cards as well as his analysis of the Pitching situation in Texas.  And hey we have a Jim Sundberg Sighting - What's not to like 5 out of 5. 

On Deck

We are all fired up for Opening Day with the P5 Debut of Pirates Treasure Room. 

Looking Back

Philadelphia Phillies - The Phillies Room.

Oakland A's - The Fuji Chronicles

Seattle Mariners - Emeral City Diamond Gems 

2009 09 27 - Philly Show, Valley Forge PA

Both Sports Cards Info and Stale Gum have posted video on the Philly Show - both were entertaining and informative with some great cards. Here at Phungo we shall remain low tech and camera shy and bring you a show report with good old fashion scans.

I had a great time at the show and the roughly 3 1/2 hours I alloted myself clearly was not enough. I spent almost my entire trip in the cheapo vintage bins. Pardon the presentation, I am lazy tonight and have left the cards in their sleeves.


1959 Topps #338 George Anderson

Better known as Sparky Anderson, And yes Sparky wore a Phillies uniform during his playing days. I spent more on other cards and may have found deeper bargains then this one, but this one was likely my purchase of the day.

For the Colletor:
I believe there are only Two Topps Sparky Anderson cards the above 59 and his 1960 card #34. This card is in pretty good shape, though off-center and went for $2.50. Nice price for a rookie card of a Hall of Famer - albeit an HOF manager. The low completed auction on eBay for the 59 Sparky Anderson card ended at $6.64 (incl shipping) with many of the cards going for $10 and up topping out at just over $70.

1961 Topps #132 Frank Howard Rookie Star (RC)

Frank Howard played before my time, but I saw him on the field several times as a coach and he certainly is a big man. There was no doubt that he looked like the type of guy that could hit 30 homers and 100 RBIs in a season. Nice RC to pull out of the dollar bin.

I also came across several vintage Bowman cards in the dollar bin including this beat up Jackie Jensen card.

1954 Bowman #2 Jackie Jensen

If your not aware of who Jensen is, reach back into the baseball card blog annals to Ben Henry's post on 9 cards to Jump Start a collection and you will realize why you can't let this card go for a dollar. It should also be noted that Jensen made Jayson Stark of ESPN's all-underrated Red Sox top three strictly on the recommendation of Peter Gammons.


Another Red Sox great that I found in the buck bin was this 1975 Carlton Fisk

1975 Topps Mini #80 Carlton Fisk

A 75 Carlton Fisk might not be a steal for a buck, but look closer - this baby is a Mini. Can't turn down a 75 Topps Mini Hall of Famer.

2008 Topps Gold Campaign 08 #C08-MR Mitt Romney

Just taking a break from all the vintage. This is the last card I needed to complete the Campaign 08 series. For this small set, I didn't care whether the card was a gold card or base. 1 of each candidate was enough for me. It is likely the weakest of the 08 Topps Insert sets, but it is the first I completed - whoohoo. This likely came out of the 3 for a dollar bin and I still payed to much for it.

Back to the good Old Vintage


1958 Topps #115 Jim Bunning
1965 Topps #30 Jim Bouton
1960 Topps #555 Nellie Fox Sport Magazine 1960 All-Star

It was Sunday and check who we found in the half off bin - Two Vintage Hall of Famers and Jim Bouton. What the hell is a 2nd year card of Jim Bunning doing in the half off bin, and this is after already being knocked down to $6? 50+ Year old HOF card for three bucks - that's going in the Phungo collection baby.

I am basically a baseball collector, but football season is upon us and the Vikings are off to a quick start so.....

1974 Topps #129 Fran Tarkenton All-Pro

This is one of my favorite cards from my childhood and it was great to recover it and get the card back into a proper home witin my collection. The 1974 Topps Football is one of my favorites - The All-Pro cards don't have the goal posts but I really like the look of them.

1961 Topps #312 1960 World Series Game #7 Mazeroski's Homer Wins It!

The ultimate David slays Goliath World Series. The New York Yankees outscored the Pittsburgh Pirates 55-27 in the 1960 World Series. But none of that mattered as the Bucos won the 4 tight games while losing the three blowouts.

I look at this card and think of the Pirates winding down their umpteenth consecutive losing season, and the Bronx Bombers preparing to enter another Post-Season as the tournament top seed and favorite.....And then I think that if the Pirates could knock off the Yankees today, Now that would be David Taking Down Goliath.

For the Collector:
As you can tell I was mostly in the vintage bins. I can tell you that Chris over at Stale Gum was able to pick up a Hobby Box of Goodwin Champions for $68 (compare $82 Dave and Adam's Card World). I spoke with another colletor at the show that mentioned that the new Topps Ticket to Stardom was going for $75 ($85 DAC).

The one item I passed on was a 1936 Diamond Stars #27 Pie Traynor. The card was slabbed in 1-Poor condition and ran $20. I considered it just to have a Hall Of Fame player out of this 70 year old set.

Back in the 70s when Mike Schmidt and Brooks Robinson were still active Traynor was the Third Basemen on the Topps 1976 All-Time All-Star team. Now he is in danger of falling into the forgotten Hall of Famer category.

Complements of Fielder's Choice - Donruss Threads and SP Authentic including PUDGE!!

The bounty from the World Series wager with Fielder’s Choice has just come in. Dave sent me a couple of packs from two pretty nice products, Donruss Threads and SP Authentic. I had not seen any of these cards other than via web postings by various card bloggers.

Dave sent 3 hobby packs of each, which was enough to give me a good sample of both products. Both have a similar price point – Donruss Threads is a new product and did have a fresh quality to them. While the SP authentic felt like a lot of other 08 UD releases – All the UD card backs look similar regardless of what line their from.

Donruss Threads also came through with a pretty sweet Game Used card!

2008 Donruss Threads Century Collection Materials #CCM-37 Carlton Fisk (92/100)

And a healthy mix of of prospects and former players.

2008 Donruss Threads Rookie Gold #149 Yohermyn Chavez (21/50)2008 Donruss Threads #95 Josh Vitters2008 Donruss Threads #24 Mark Fidrych

The prospects were about evenly split between high and low level prospects. The three packs yielded top prospect Vitters from the Cubs, the Braves Jordan Schafer, the Brewers Mat Gamel, and Boston's Lars Anderson. I believe the Chavez card above is a gold variation.

Donruss has been away for a while though and has some issues, can you spot an error on this card?

2008 Donruss Threads #81 Jose Tabata
SP authentic presented a nice selection of current stars. Among them were a former Phillie that hit a lot of Homers and also a new Phillie who only has one homer but it was very memorable.

2008 SP Authentic #73 Jim Thome
2008 SP Authentic #29 Joe Blanton

The Player photo is set off by being slightly raised slightly and somewhat shiny. The cards also features the players uniform number in the lower right hand corner in white. It isn't very visible because it is on a white background, but it is an interesting affect. On the right the number overlaps Blanton's left leg.

Each SP pack came with an insert.

2008 SP Authentic Marquee Matchups #MM-10 Carlos Zambrano vs Albert Pujols

The last card in the 3^rd pack of SP Authentic I opened was the J-Roll card.

2008 SP Authentic Authentic Achievements #AA-29 Jimmy Rollins

Similarly the last card in the final pack of Donruss I opened was a Phillie.

2008 Donruss Threads #38 Mike Schmidt

Pretty cool – and I think it brings us full circle on Dave’s guest post from last week.

Here are the specifics

3 Packs Donruss Threads
13 Base (5 former players , 8 prospects)
1 Century Collection (Pudge)
1 Gold Rookie (Chaves)
1 College Greates (#CG-4 Dave Winfield)

3 Packs SP Authentic
12 Base
2 Authentic Achievements (Rollins, #AA-38 Albert Pujols )
1 Marquee Matchups (Zambrano v Pujols)

Team Phungo would like to Thank Fielder's Choice and look forward to the Phils facing the Rays in a future World Series.

Sources and Links
Phungo Carlton Fisk Hof Index