ANNIVERSARY: Roy Halladay

Today marks the 10th Anniversary of Roy Halladay's NLDS no-hitter. I have discussed this game a number of times in the past. Today I will just simply state it was one of the greatest games I ever attended. 

Our original account of the no-hitter  can be found here.

2017 Topps Untouchables #U-18 Roy Halladay

This card is not specifically dedicated to that game, but it is definitely in the neighborhood. "Untouchables"  could be seen as a synonym for no-hitter, an that is the case here:

Flip

2017 Topps Untouchables #U-18 Roy Halladay (b-side)

On the backside of the card we see the top bullets are dedicated to his 2010 no-hitter pair - The regular season perfect game and the NLDS no-hitter.   

Untouchables

Untouchables is a 30 card insert found in 2017 Topps Update.  Halladay has two cards in the set, He reps the Blue Jays on the other card. The checklist contains one other Phillies pitcher, Steve Carlton.. 

Sources and Links

Roy Halladay HOF index

No-Hitters Index

Game Dated Cards

Cardboard Connection

1980 World Champions: Larry Bowa 1971T #233

We have turned over into a new year (and decade) so we can officially celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1980 Phillies.

1971 Topps #233 Larry Bowa (b-side)

This is not Larry Bowa's rookie card, he shared 1970T #539 with fellow middle infielder Denny Doyle.

However this is Bowa's first solo card and it is a fine card. To start with we have one of the most iconic designs in the Topps canon, 1971. Secondly the photo captures Bowa in a defensive posture, which was his most dominant skill during a long career. Finally this card is part of one of Team Phungo's favorite collections: All-Star Rookie Cards.

The cup was awarded to Larry Bowa for his 1970 campaign that saw him finish 3rd in the Rookie Of the Year voting (Carl Morton, Bernie Carbo).

I would also like to give a shout out to Paterson New Jersey's Johnny Briggs who appears in the background of this shot. Briggs spent the second half of the 1960s on the Phillies roster but was only teammates with Larry Bowa for one year as he was traded early in 1971 season.

1971 Topps #233 Larry Bowa (b-side)

Lots of fodder on the back of Larry Bowa's 1971T card. TOPPS goes all selfie and mentions the award they have given to Bowa. The most noteworthy portion of the text is Topps use of the term '"On-Base" average' which I imagine is one of the earliest on card uses of the term.

Unfortunately Topps use of the word "fine" to describe Bowa's OBA is questionable. At .277 he ranked 53rd among the 56 NL players who qualified. The League Average was .329, Bowa's 21 walks ranked 110th.

The final sentence in the bio refers to Paul Bowa, his baseball-ref page can be found here. 

Not sure where the front image was taken, could be spring training or possibly Shea stadium, but this back photo sure looks like the Vet - Even in b&w.

1970 RoY voting
As mentioned above Bowa finished 3rd in the NL Rookie of the Year voting:

Carl Morton or Bernie Carbo deserved to be 1-2 by both 1970 standards and modern analytics. To be honest I am surprised the BBWAA went with Morton (18-11, 3.60 ERA 154K) over Carbo (.310, 21 HR).

Among the 5 players receiving votes he was clearly the least deserving. However, other than Cedeno he is probably the player to have the most career success. He is also the only player among the lot to win a World Series.

Phungo Originals

This is one of the cards that made the cut for the Phungo Sketch Challenge

Phungo Original 1971T Larry Bowa

I swapped out the Rookie Cup for a World Series Trophy and went with a simplified background. I think Larry looks more like John Vukovich - oh well, my art career is a Work In Progress - perhaps I can say I have a "fine On-Base Average"

Larry Bowa Index
1972 Topps #520 (2008 NLCS)
1975 Topps #420 (1976 All-Star Team +40)
1975 Topps #420 (Larry Bowa Bobblehead night 2015)
1976 ASG Program (1976 ASG +40)
1981 Fleer #645 (1980 Phillies Reunion/Card Show w/ Pete Rose & Mike Schmidt)
1981 Fleer #645 (1980 Phillies +30)
1984 Topps #704 (1983 NL Champs w/ Joe Morgan & Cedeno)

Peanut Gallery (Other columns on this card)
Topps Baseball 1971 (Night Owl Cards)

Sources and Links
1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies
1971 Topps All-Star Rookies
Phungo Artwork
1971 Topps Blog (Night Owl Cards)
baseball-ref
SABR Bio Larry Bowa Rich D'Ambrosio 
SABR Bio Johnny Briggs (John Saccoman) 

2004 Jun 14: Jim Thome 400th Career Home Run index

This is an index of postings related to the June 14 2004 game in which Jim Thome hit his 400th Home Run


Game Ticket June 14 2004 Reds @ Phillies

2005 Topps #25 (Wall of Fame Inductions / 400 Home Runs) 
2005 Sykbox #43 (Hall of Fame Election Results

Other Milestone Home Runs
2008 UD X Xponential #X2-JT (500th HR 2007 09 16)

Other Sources and Links
Jim Thome Index
Game Dated Cards Index

2016 World Series

I will be rooting for the Indians this year. However I like both squads.

2004 UD USA Baseball #USA-60 Terry Francona

One of the reasons that I will be cheering for Cleveland is that their manager led some very bad Phillies teams in the late 1990s. In my opinion he took a little to much heat here for that lack of success of those teams. 

Prediction
However....I believe the Indians are way overmatched, I predict the Cubs in a quick four games. MVP goes to Ben Zobrist.

For more information on this card an 2004 UD USA Baseball see our original posting on this card which is here


Sources and Links
baseball-ref

1967 Topps #290 Bill White

This is a companion posting to the column earlier this week on AL league president Bobby Brown.

1967 Topps #290 Bill White

Like Bobby Brown, Bill White was a former player who became a league President. White led the NL from 1989-1994. 

His playing career was 13 years 3 of which were spent with the Phillies. We ran a more thorough profile last year on the occasion of White's 80th birthday - click here to read the more.  The 80th Birthday Column also contains a 1966T card of White for those of you that are interested in 2015 Heritage Originals.

John Hancock

2009 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary #1014 Subway Series/Interleague Play  

The 1967T card at the top of the post has a facsimile signature that clearly reads "Bill White", a more familiar and less formal monicker than the "William D White" which appears on the NL Baseball above.

Contrast this with Bobby Brown who we featured on Wednesday. Brown stuck with Bobby rather than sign as Robert on the AL Baseball 

Pencil
When grading cards or commenting on their condition, there are several words or phrases that come up: Creasing, Rounded Corners, Faded, Tape, Gum Residue etc. One of those terms is Pencil or Ink for whenever there is writing on the card. At some point someone had scrawled the number 10 on Bill White's Chest. This was his uniform number while with the Phillies. Noteworthy Phillies to where the number were Larry Bowa and Darren Daulton, Michael Young was the most recent active player to don #10, which has now been returned to Bowa in his current role as Bench Coach. 

Sources and Links
SABR Bio Bill White by Warren Corbett
New York Times
Baseball-ref

1964 Phillies @ 50 (now 51) Pat Corralles

This is our second 1964 Phillies related posting in the last couple of days and we have another manager related card.

1965 Topps #107 Rookie Stars Pat Corrales & Costen Shockley 

And like last weeks card today's entry is another Manager card, Pat Corrales was not the leader of the 64 club but he would helm the Phillies in the early 80s. He is also the man who connect the team series that we have run so far - Corrales played for the 1964 Phils and managed the 1983 Phils.

Corrales' contributions to the 1964 squad were negligible, He was a rookie who pinch hit in two games.  He remained with the Phillie for the 1965 season with whom he played a career high 63 games. The rest of his career was spent bouncing around the fringes for three different clubs, his final Major League game came in 1973.

As mentioned above Pat Corrales was a manager of the NL Pennant winning 1983 Phillies. However, he was not THE manager. Despite having the team in first place, Corrales was fired after the All-Star Break, Paul Owens took over and led the team to the playoffs. 

1965 Topps Rookie Stars
We featured the other half of this Rookie Stars card in this column last September

Sources & Links
1964 Phillies Index
Year of the Blue Snow (James Lincoln Ray)
baseball-ref 

Snapshots 2012 06 06 - Dodgers @ Phillies

The Phillies inept offense once again spoiled a brilliant performance by Cliff Lee resulting in a 2-1 loss.  Lee threw 7.2 great innings last night before hanging a curve which Elian Herrera nailed for a 2 run double.  Despite the Phils lack-of-O the game was entertaining and fairly briskly played.  I came away with the old bummer the Phils lost, but still had a great night at the ballpark. 

Snapshots 

Cliff Lee

Lee threw 92 pitches for strikes last night - tough to do in a loss.

Carlos Ruiz 

.358 BA, 8 HR, 32 RBIs and this guy is in 4th place among catchers in the All-Star Voting.  Sounds like The Phils mediocre record is defintely leading to some fan apathy.

Chad Billingsley

Gotta give some credit here.  Billingsley got off to a rocky start but settled down nicely scattering a smattering of hits through the next 6 innings without yielding a run.

Don Mattingly, Dee Gordon, Clayton Kershaw

Everybody's smiling - you would be too if you were part of the team with the best record in baseball. 

Phungo's Two Cents - 2010 Upper Deck

I am going to dedicate way to much time to this post - I found little to like about my first sample of 2010 Upper Deck Cards.

Full disclosure - if your here and have read much of my card specific commentary, it is likely evident that I am at Topps guy. Topps cards simply have history on their side - these are the cards of my youth and I enjoy that sense of history. So anything I follow up with here is likely tainted somewhat my a personal bias.

Ok now that I got that out of the way....

I had a fear that ones Topps got the exclusive MLB license that they would mail in the 2010 set. I think it is far more accurate to say that Upper Deck was the brand that mailed it in. I found 2010 UD boring and uninspired. I don't going with the Green Motif - which I have dubbed Green Eggs and Spam. if you know your not going to be able to use logos, why not use the team colors or at least the crayola crayons 8 base colors. Perhaps this would have been a violation of the Topps Exclusivity agreement - I don't know.

It's a Hit - Camden Yards Card


I don't really like the stadium cards, and I will get to that later, but this one here is a dandy.

Foul - First Card


Thumbs down on my first UD card of 2010 just because he is a member of the team that beat Phils in the World Series. The card is ok, the opinion is purely personal.

Mixed - Phillies

I picked up 3 Phils cards which is better then the 1 card I got out of 5 topps packs. A couple of set up guys and Jayson Werth. All three were members of the 2008 World Championship Phillies squad. I really like the Romero photo and consider it one of the better ones in the pack.

Foul - Tape Measures


These cards from this post are all from a pair of rack packs ($10.58 including PA Sales Tax). The UD Racks seemed to always have a lame insert. These cards are ok, but why not have the city name of the players? I mean they went to the trouble of naming the pitcher and the hand he throws with. Magglio Hit hist dinger on the Road, pictured in a Home Jersey. Votto hit his at home, here he is featured in a roadie. That to me is laziness on UDs part - Insert cards are supposed to be special treat them as if they are. The other two are probably 3rd jersey's so I am not sure on those two.

Mixed - Biography
I actually don't mind these - The two I got were probably the 2 furthest apart magnitude wise. Buerhle's card commemorates a great event while the other card is a footnote for a team that had little to cheer about last year. My biggest issue is that I have seen a lot of folks that have praised this set, yet 2008 Topps Year In Review was universally panned - it's the same stinkin set.

Home Run - Catcher Cards

UD knew that catchers in gear would not have many logos in view and they took good advantage of the situation. There were several good action shots of catchers in the 2 rack packs I opened.

Foul - b-sides


As usual UD left a good bit of exciting white space on the back of their cards.

Foul - Hidden Ball Trick?

I just got done praising the Catcher cards above then UD does this to me. The profile photo is in the way of the action in both catcher cards above and obscures the ball in the Inge shot. This is similar to something that handicapped 08 Topps when all the players had to "duck" out from under the Topps Logo.

miscellaneous nits

I don't like the cropping on the Samardzija. That may be nit-picking though. The stadium cards are generally boring. The under construction Target Field may be top of the list. And finally in general I do not like the Two player Team Checklist cards. I have almost always liked them before with only one player. maybe these will grow on me, but right now they are a thumbs down.

Richie Ashburn article on Wrigley Wax

I just wanted to point out this article over at Chicago Cubs Blog Wrigley Wax which features Phils Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn. Ashburn spent the bulk of his Hall of Fame career with the Phils before being traded to the Cubs in 1960. He was then drafted by the New York Mets for their inagural season and retired following the 1962 season.

To see the Phungo Card featuring Richie Ashburn click here.

Whoohoo!!!!

2006 Topps Opening Day #117 Pat Burrell

and since as far as I know Joe Blanton doesn't have a Phillies card available yet I bring you this good guy Photo of Mr. Blanton signing autographs prior to a game earlier this season.

Nice Outing for Blanton. It is odd to think that the Phils made a minor move to get Blanton to patch a hole in their troubled rotation and today he advances in the playoffs while both CC and Rich Harden end up going home.

I am also happy to see Pat Burrell come through in a big game. He has struggled during the second half and his long tenure as a Phil may come to an end following 2008. Hopefully Pat and the Phils can extend the 08 season deep into October.

Go Phils!