ANNIVERSARY: Phillies First World Championship - 1981 Topps #404

Another year has passed and once again I have pretty much failed in my goal of putting together my annual single subject series.

This year my target was the 1980 Phillies world championship team.

looks like I managed to add a grand total of four postings related to the 1980 Phillies – all in the middle of the field: Manny Trillo, Larry Bowa, Garry Maddox, and Dick Ruthven.

Today marks the 40^th anniversary of the Phillies cinching their 1980 championship.

 

1981 Topps #404 Phillies Win First World Series

Topps honored the Phillies Victory on card #404 of their 1981 set. The featured player is Tug McGraw.

Today the demise of starting pitching is frequently discussed, However even 40 years ago McGraw registered the 3^rd most outs of any Phillies pitcher for the series. His 7 1/3 innings ranking behind only Steve Carlton and Ruthven.

Even more importantly were the outs that Tug McGraw registered. Baseball-Ref has a new to me stat cWPA – Championship Win Probability Added. Basically the concept is how much each plate appearance affects the probability of winning a championship.

Tug McGraw led all pitchers in the Series with a cWPA of 18.05% (100% represents a single Win). For comparison Steve Carlton who Won 2 games in the series had a cWPA of 2.67%.

Among Phillies batters only Mike Schmidt (19.48) and..... Del Unser! (26.11) who had a couple of big pinch hits off Dan Quisenberry outpaced McGraw.

Perhaps I will dig deeper on this series in the future but for now we are likely on pause with the 1980 Phillies.

Sources & Links

1980 Phillies World Champs Index

Tug McGraw Index

Baseball-ref

Happy Birthday & Anniversary Alan Trammell

On Thursday February 21st Alan Trammell celebrates his 60th birthday. His first as a Hall of Famer.

1981 Topps #709 Alan Trammell (pix swiped from Topps Baseball Card Database)

In this photo on his 1981 Topps card the Tigers Shortstop has a "You have Got To be Kidding Me" expression. An expression that many a SABRmetrician had each year when Alan Trammell was rejected for Hall of Fame induction.

This past December after a long wait Alan Trammell was selected for Hall of Fame induction by the latest incarnation of the Veteran's Committees.

Fifteen tallies and Trammell never got more than 50% of the vote. That is an awful lot of NO votes.

Trammell's HOF case is complicated. His career numbers are a tick below the traditional "Hall of Fame Thresholds". Hits = 2365, HR = 185, RBI = 1003. He checked the box on a World Champions and has some All-Star, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger hardware. Unfortunately he did not come up with the MVP, However....

Two years ago in my HOF ballot discussion of Trammell I examined the 1987 MVP award which I felt he deserved over George Bell. While I felt that two candidates were pretty even overall for me one big factor pushed Trammell past Bell. He performed better down the stretch when the players two teams were vying for the same division title.

For my complete Alan Trammell HOF Analysis click here.

1981 Topps
In general I like the 1981T design. I think the use of a cap as the palate for the Team & Position info is unique in the Topps canon. In fact I am not sure baseball cap icons have been used on many sets Topps or otherwise. However, I am not fond of the color combo given the Tigers by Topps. Purple & Black just appear to go together in this format, Works for Rockies Pinstripes but not 1981 Topps.


Flip
Check the Title of this posting. First we mentioned a Birthday, which we covered in the first sentence. But we also specify an Anniversary well...


 
1981 Topps #709 Alan Trammell (b-side)

Check out the first -toon. Yep In addition to being Alan Trammell's 60th Birthday, it is also his Wedding Anniversary. Since the Trammell's Wed on Alan's 20th Birthday it is also a Milestone Wedding Anniversary as well #40.  If Alan is reading this, the gift for the 40th Anniversary is the Ruby.

June 12 1979
The latter cartoon notes a Steal of Home by Trammell during a 9-2 Tigers victory over the Oakland A's. I am not sure, but this steal may be a borderline violation of an unwritten rule. The Tigers had an 8-2 in the bottom of the 8th inning.

The steal was so insignificant that it did not even make the Sporting News Write up for the game.

Although the write up does mention that the game was one of two led by Dick Tracewski who was holding the post on an interim basis until Sparky Anderson could take over. Perhaps Tracewski was trying to get the team in a more aggressive mode prior to Sparky showing up. 

Alan Trammell Index
1980 Topps - 1987 MVP aWARd / 2016 HOF credentials

Sources and Links
Game Dated Cards
Polish Sports Hall of Fame
Sports Illustrated Jay Jaffe 
Baseball-Ref
Topps Baseball Card Database
AnniversaryGift.Org 

1976 ASG +40: Steve Garvey

With the Dodgers hosting the Cubs during the middle games of the NLCS we turn to one of the LA representatives for our 1976 All-Star Game retrospective.

In 1976 Steve Garvey made the third of his ten All-Star teams. He was the only infielder that represented a team other than the Reds.

1981 Topps #530 Steve Garvey

Garvey went 1-3 in the 1976 All-Star Game. In the first inning he picked up an RBI on a triple off of Mark Fidrych and later scored on a ground out by George Foster. The two runs gave the NL Squad a 2-0 lead which they never relinquished in the 7-1 victory.

Steve Garvey always liked the bright lights of big games. He was the MVP of two all-star games (1974 and 1978) as well as a pair of NLCS  - 1978 versus the Phillies, and 1983 with the Padres vs the Cubs.

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1981 Topps #530 Steve Garvey (b-side)

Just one thing I wanted to note from the back - check the Games Played column. 1980 was the last of six consecutive years that Garvey would play 160 games or more. He played only 110 in 1981, but that was because of the strike. He would return to play the full 162 the following season.

Garvey started a consecutive games played run on September 3rd 1975 that would continue until 1983. The streak reached 1207 games on July 29 1983 and ranks fourth on all-time list.

Sources and Links
1976 ASG Index
Baseball-Ref
Baseball-Almanac

Little League World Series: Go Red Land PA!

Every Year I catch a few innings of the Little League World Series, On Saturday I will be looking on with added interest as a team from near where I was raised is involved in the US bracket championship - Red Land PA.

1981 Topps #459 Greg Gross

I have no idea if he was part of their little league but Greg Gross is an Alum of Red Land High School. He was also a member of the 1980 World Champion Phillies.

I remember Gross primarily as a no-pop pinch-hitter and fourth outfielder, but he was good enough at both those skills to stick in the Majors for 14 years including ten in Philadelphia.

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1981 Topps #459 Greg Gross (b-side)

There are a number of things I like about the back of the 1981T Greg Gross card. First off the Bio info points out that he was born in the same county I spent my formative years, latter cards would ID his hometown as places I have enjoyed as an adult.

Secondly I like the informative cartoons especially the latter one that mentions Gross' contributions during the 1980 NLCS. The 1974 Rookie of The Year award mentioned in the first -toon went to another player that was on the 1980 World Champs, Bake McBride. Gross had the Higher WAR of the two (4.7 - 4.3) However McBride won the oWAR battle (4.0 - 3.1) likely due to his HR (6-0) and Stolen Base Advantages (30-12)

Sources and Links
(h/t @JeffBristol for reminding me Greg Gross was from Red Land HS)

PennLive
Baseball-ref 
Topps Card DB

ANNIVERSARY July 6 1980: Steve Carlton Sets Lefty Srikeout mark.

Steve Carlton is celebrating a bit of a milestone anniversary this week. 35 years ago he became the All-Time leader in strikeouts among Left-Handed Pitchers.

1981 Topps #202 Record Breaker Steve Carlton (career K's lefthander)

While facing his former team, the St Louis Cardinals, on July 6th 1980, Steve 'Lefty' Carlton set the Career Strikeout Record for southpaws.

In the bottom of the fourth inning he struck out Ken Reitz and Tony Scott in consecutive At Bats to tie and set the record that was previously held by Mickey Lolich

The feat made the Record Breaker subset for 1981 Topps. 

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1981 Topps #202 Record Breaker Steve Carlton (b-side)

The b-side of the 1981 Record Breaker cards sort of slack a little by placing all the achievements on the season end date of October 5th, a date which Carlton didn't even pitch. Also notice the by-line for the article is from Philadelphia - Which is incorrect for either date as the Phillies were on the road for both the Record Breaking game in St Louis and the final game of the season in Montreal.

Perhaps the article cites Philadelphia because the Photo of Lefty shows him in a home uniform, and what is with the batting helmet? - notice it is an old school helmet - no earflaps.

Intermittently in the 1980s Carlton held/shared the K record for all pitchers with Nolan Ryan. Topps produced a card in 1984 marking that accomplishment.  

In 1976 Topps issued a similar card for Mickey Lolich who broke the Strikeout record which was previously held by Warren Spahn. Since 1981 both Lolich and Carlton have been passed by Randy Johnson who took over the southpaw K Record in 2004. Carlton still ranks 4th overall in Punchouts and 2nd among Leftys.

Sources and Links
Phungo HoF Index - Steve Carlton
Baseball-ref

Sunday Night Baseball: Angels Rod Carew 1981 Topps #100

With Sunday night baseball in Anaheim for the Tigers and Angels we take a look at Hall of Famer Rod Carew

1981 Topps #100 Rod Carew

Rod Carew spent seven of his 19 seasons with the California Angels. While his best years were behind him by the time Carew got to LA, he still was an important contributor to the team. Carew was a member of each of the Angels first two playoff clubs (1979, 1982), and represented the team in six All-Star games. A hitting machine Rod Carew ranks 2nd among all Angels in both Batting Average (Vladimir Guerrero .319/.314) and On Base Pct (Mike Trout - .395/.393).

The Angels retired Rod Carew's #29 on August 12th 1986. He was the first player to be so honored by the club who had previously retired the #26 for owner Gene Autry (26 was chosen to symbolize the 26th man)

Angels Retired Numbers (photo 2014 0523)

Of course it is the entire career of Rod Carew that makes the Panamanian born infielder a Hall of Famer. He earned an MVP and Rookie of the Year award with the Twins while racking up 2082 of his 3053 career hits (Ranks 23 in MLB history).

Carew's .328 batting average ranks 34th all time and would top all active major leaguers (Miguel Cabrera .321 as of 2015 0516)

His seven batting titles rank fourth all-time behind Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Tony Gwynn.

1981 Topps
This is Rod Carew second Topps base card as an Angel. 1981 was the fifth time that Topps awarded Carew a Hero Number, an honor they would bestow on the hitter 10 times during his playing career.

1981 Topps #100 Rod Carew (b-side)

There he is Rod Carew with close to 1900 games under his belt and a career .333 batting average. 2394 hits down, 659 or so to go 

Sources and Links
Phungo Rod Carew HoF Index
baseball card database
Baseball-ref
LA Times (Jim McCurdie)
LA Angels

Steve Carlton Turns 70

Tomorrow December 22nd  Phillies Hall of Fame Pitcher Steve Carlton turns 70.

1981 Donruss  #481 Steve Carlton Cy Young Award Winner 

There was a twitter exchange last week where Andy from @HighHeatStats noted this will make a lot of us feel old.

Andy is correct. As a hero of my youth Steve Carlton remains perpetually 35, the age he was the night he started and won game 6 of the 1980 World Series.

1981 Topps #404 Phillies Win the World Series

That season Carlton won the Cy Young Award, leading the league in Wins (24), Strikeouts (286), Starts, and Innings. His 10.2 WAR led all players, not just pitchers - Teammate Mike Schmidt took home the 1980 MVP award with a respectable 8.8 WAR. Carlton's 2.34 ERA in 1980 was 2nd to Don Suttom (2.20) but his SABR numbers ERA+ (162) and FIP (2.42) led the league

Of course the calendar inevitably turns and Steve Carlton did not stay perpetually 35. He did pitch pretty well for another couple of seasons (Another Cy Young in 1982) but eventually age and 24 years of fastballs took their toll. In 1988 Carlton retired at the age of 43.

1981 Donruss
Since the above Steve Carlton card was published in 1981 it is likely the photo was taken 35 years ago during his magical age 35 season. A man in the middle of a Cy Young season on the edge of winning a World Championship. 

1981 is the inaugural set for Donruss. The 600 card checker consists strictly of players with a couple of Manager and Coach cards. There are no subsets cards with the exception of four special cards for the MVPs (George Brett and the Phillies Mike Schmidt) and Cy Young (Steve Stone and Carlton)

I remember opening these in 1980. I enjoyed the card being new and different. I thought the backs had a fresh and interesting approach, but they also seemed cheap. They were thinner and if I recall correctly they had a lot of card dust from the cutting process.

Sources & Links
Phungo Steve Carlton HoF Index 
Baseball-ref
Cardboard Connection
Bob Lemke's Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards    

HoF Cards: 1981 Topps #206 Record Breaker Mike Schmidt

Wanted to take a break from all of our playoff card postings so we can put up a Phillies Card. This 1981T card is one of the Dimers that I picked up at the Valley Forge show.

 

1981 Topps #206 Record Breaker Mike Schmidt

This card notes Mike Schmidt breaking the Home Run Record for third baseman. Schmidt hit 48 in 1980 breaking the record previously held by Eddie Mathews who hit 47 in 1953. Schmidt's Record Breaking Homer was hit in the Phillies NL East Clinching game versus the Expos.

At a different recent card show I ran into this:

2014 10 18 Mike Schmidt Home Run Ball from 1980 10 03

This Home Run ball is not the one that Schmidt hit to in the card referenced above. This is a Schmidt HR ball from the previous day when Schmidt hit his 47th homer of the season which tied Eddie Matthews

1981 Topps Record Breakers

The Record Breakers subset has a run of eight cards (201-208) in 1981 Topps. Three of the eight cards are Phillies (Pete Rose & Steve Carlton) and they are 2 other Hall of Famers, Ozzie & Johnn Bench.  

Sources & Links

Mike Shmidt HoF Index

Philly Show 2014 09 28 Index
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Dime Box Summary 
Baseball Cardpedia
baseball-ref

Year of the Horse 1954: Ellis Valentine 1981 Topps #445

Today we return to our Chinese New Years postings - in hindsight spacing these out across several postings may not have been a great idea. Today finds us on birth year 1954.

1981 Topps #445 Ellis Valentine (image swiped from baseball card database)


Iconic cards come in a couple different varieties.

The obvious ones are Cards of Superstars like Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays and Hall of Fame rookie cards. 

Less obvious are the quirky cards such as Oscar Gamble 1976T Traded or the 1975 Topps Kurt Bevacqua bubble gum champ card. The 1981T Ellis Valentine fits into this category. The partial face mask is one of the most memorable looks in baseball card history.  

Valentine wore the face mask to protect a jaw that was busted by a Roy Thomas pitch in an Expos Cardinals game on May 30 1980. The injury put Valentine on the DL for six weeks. The rest of the 1980 campaign went fairly well for Valentine, but he never really was the same hitter following that season.

Last year Jeff Pearlman (formerly of SI) published a very interesting interview with Ellis Valentine who credits Larry Doby as being a mentor early in his career. Valentine also discusses his drug use, apparently part of the turnaround was the beaning. After that Ellis could see his career would conclude at some point and he wanted to put 5 more years together to help with his finances and take care of his parents.

Those changes have led Ellis Valentine to a career in counseling. According to his linkedIn profile he is involved the mental health care field with a couple of organizations based in the Dallas Texas area.

If you want to keep up with Valentine he has a pretty active twitter feed @EValentine17. There is also a Ellis Valentine website where he offers the T-Shirt that evokes the half face mask featured on the 1981T card above.

Year of the Horse 1954
1954 YTH features a pretty stellar class of Hall of Famers including Ozzie Smith, Gary Carter, Dennis Eckersley and Valentine's Expos teammate Andre Dawson. Other 54 YTH are former Phil Keith Moreland, Willie Randolph, Ken Phelps Denny Martinez and two players that died young Mark Fidrych and Donnie Moore.

Year of the Horse Index
1954 Ellis Valentine
1966 Curt Schilling
1978 Jimmy Rollins
1990 Yasiel Puig

Sources
Jeff Pearlman
baseball-ref.com
LinkedIn
baseball card database

Happy St Patty's Day - 1981 Topps #40 Tug McGraw

Welcome to St Patrick's day 2014. If you're a traditionalist, you may hate the Green uniforms that many teams bring out for the Holiday. If you like the special Unis then you may have Tug McGraw to thank

1981 Topps #40 Tug McGraw

According to legend, the Green Uni trend was started a generation ago when Tug McGraw had his uniform dyed green for a March 17 Sprint Training game.

To mark the occasion we present the Tuggers 1981T card which features the holidays signature color, green.

If you take part in St Pats festivities today, have a toast to the Tugger, as it was his favorite holiday.  

Sources
Philly.com