Fathers Day - 1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

 For Father's Day the Philies have a number of things going on including a book signing with Bret Boone promoting his new book "Home Game". Bret is of course the son of former Phillies catcher Bob Boone.

Bob is also the son of a Major Leaguer, their relationship is recognized on a 1976 Topps card - which is a perfect one for us to feature as part of our 1976 All-Star Game coverage. 

1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

Bob Boone is the middle member of three generations of Boone's. His Father Ray played for 13 seasons mostly with the Tigers and Indians while Sons Aaron and Brett spent 12 and 14 years in the league respectively.

Pretty impressive careers for each but Bob is by far the MLB tenure leader, he spent 19 seasons in the league including a decade with the Phillies

All-Star
Bob Boone made the first of four All-Star teams in 1976. He entered the game in the fourth inning as a defensive replacement for Hall of Famer Johnny Bench. Boone remained in for the balance of the game. He went 0-2 facing Luis Tiant and Frank Tanana. Among the four NL pitchers he caught that day was another future HoF, Tom Seaver.

In 1979 Boone got to start the All-Star game and got to catch teammate Steve Carlton. However that Battery is a bit of an oddity, For the bulk of Lefty's games in that era his receiver was Tim McCarver.

Boone appeared in two other All-Star Games 1978 and 1983 (as an Angel).

1976 Topps Father & Son

1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

Interesting part of the text here is Bob mentioning that he started his career at third base. In 1972 Boone moved from Third Base to Catcher to make room for Mike Schmidt.

The Father-Son subset is five cards running from #66-#70 the other four pairs are Gus & Buddy Bell, Jim & Mike Hegan, Joe Coleman Sr & Jr, and Roy Smalley Sr & Jr. 

1980 Topps 
Despite appearing in four All-Star Games Boone was never issued a Topps card with an All-Star flair. As noted above he started the 1979 game, however Topps tagged the All-Star ballot winner Ted Simmons with the designation - Simmons had to skip the game due to injury.

Don Sutton Win #300
A just a quick toss back to our posting earlier in the week if you want to read about Don Sutton's 300th victory, a game that was caught by Bob Boone.

Sources and Links
1976 ASG Index
Baseball-ref
Amazon

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

Angel Stadium Anaheim CA

Supplementing the game pix from our previous post with a few photos showing off the Angels Ballpark. 

The entrance to Angels Stadium has a brick field that greets fans, you may notice that some of the bricks appear to be a bit different

That is because they are engraved. Each Angels All-Star gets a brick. Here we have the catcher section which shows us a nice string of Bob Boone bricks from the middle 80s. Red Lion PA Butch Wynegar is seen here bookending the Boone string in 1987. 

Topps 

Collin Cowgill

The Angels use the template from 2014 Topps to introduce the players. 

Collin Cowgill 2 

The template displays the player via video, as we see here - this is a different image then the previous Cowgill pix. Also the name of the player is not displayed initially, but rather added during the intro - notice in the first pix, there is no name, while in the latter photo we have Cowgill's first name Collin. 

More Cards

This wasn't at Angel Stadium, but I thought I would tuck it in here. I spotted these framed Donruss puzzles at a Retro/Vintage store near Berverly Hills. The shop called tini (This Is Not Ikea) was sort of a Kitsch flea market that had a lot of pop culture and movie related items.  

The Big A outside Angel Stadium can be seen from area highways.

Game Tix.

Sources

Baseball-ref

Snapshots - Mike Lieberthal Phillies Wall of Fame Induction

Mike Lieberthal and his son get the red carpet treatment from the Phillies

I appreciated the Mike Lieberthal WoF induction significantly more then I thought it would.  Some great players returned for the occasion, the Phils video team put together another great production which gave me and other Phillies fans a chance to re-examines the long-time catchers career.

Lieberthal has caught more games for the Phils than any other player including Bob Boone (one time MLB record holder for Games), 1993 NLCS champ team Captain Darren Daulton and current All-Star receiver Carlos Ruiz.  Lieberthal also has the team Home Run record for the position.  He was a two time all-star and earned a gold glove behind the plate.

Ceremony  

Bob Boone

I wasn't sure who would introduce Lieberthal.  The Phillies made an nice choice in bringing back Bob Boone.   

Phillies PA announcer Dan Baker and Mike Lieberthal 

Lieberthal recognized the late John Vukovich among others when speaking about is early career.

Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt

 If I get time, I will get a posting up on the actual game sometime this weekend - which includes another HR batting stance (unfortunately not Chase Utley's).  I also have a Phungo 5 with Kerry from Cards on Cards in the On-Deck bin.