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

1980 World Champion Philadelphia Phillies Index

This is an Index related to the 1980 World Series Campion Phillies.

1981 Topps #404 Phillies Win First World Series 

This index is divided into two sections. The first is of new profiles done for the 40th anniversary of the Championship, original material written in the 2019-2020 time frame.

Steve Carlton
Bob Boone
Pete Rose
Manny Trillo
Mike Schmidt
Mike Schmidt (70th Birtday)
Larry Bowa
Greg Luzinski
Garry Maddox
Bake McBride
Tug McGraw
Dallas Green

Lonnie Smith
Del Unser
Greg Gross
Dick Ruthven

This latter list is of Player Indexes that link to various articles on players. My output is not nearly what it was a decade ago, so I wanted to point readers to something somewhat relevant until I get around to an actual posting.

Steve Carlton
Bob Boone
Pete Rose
Manny Trillo
Mike Schmidt
Larry Bowa
Greg Luzinski
Garry Maddox
Bake McBride
Tug McGraw
Dallas Green

Lonnie Smith
Del Unser
Greg Gross
Dick Ruthven

1981 Fleer #645 Triple Threat Schmidt Rose Bowa (30th Anniversary project which was Abandoned)


Sources and Links
Featured Teams Page

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    

Tug McGraw would have been 70: 1979 Topps #345

Over the weekend found out via @HighHeatStats that this past Saturday would have been Tug McGraw's 70th birthday. McGraw seemed perpetually young, his 2004 death from brain cancer at age 59 felt so premature. 

1999 09 15 Tug McGraw Event Poster for Chester County Historical Society Speaker Series. Artwork by Dick Perez
1979 Topps #345 Tug McGraw

15 years ago I got to see Tug McGraw speak as part of a baseball exhibit at the Chester County Historical Society, which at the time was a block away from my apartment.

As one can imagine Tug was a great speaker, He talked about his days as a starting pitcher with the Mets and as a reliever for the 1980 Phillies.

Some of the interesting tidbits I remember are that he pitched against Sandy Koufax. He also batted against him and said that one of his proudest moments was putting the ball in play off of the Hall of Famer.

He brought his personal World Series Trophy (the players each get a smaller replica trophy from the league) from the Phillies 1980 World Championship. He also had his 1969 World Series Ring from the Miracle Mets triumph. McGraw explained that he knew it was a Phillies event but that the then current year (1999) was a Mets Anniversary Year and he wore that ring. The following year would be the Phillies 20th anniversary and he would switch rings in 2000.

Amazingly McGraw passed both items through the audience. He said he had done this has similar speaking engagements and knew he would get them back.

Autographs
The night of the CCHS event Tugger signed autographs for all in attendance. There was youngster in front of me that had a baseball that literally had the cover ripped away. The boy asked McGraw to sign the ball on the inside of the cover. McGraw mentioned that he had signed thousands of autographs but had never signed on the inside of the horsehide.

McGraw signed both poster that accompanied the event and a 1979 Topps Card that I brought. Both autographs contained his trademark smiley face.  

Sources & Links
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

Swag from Night Owl Cards

I don't know how he does it - Not only does Night Owl Cards blog at epic proportions, but he is also one of the best traders out there. Here are a couple of Phillies Highlights from a package that NOC sent our way recently.

2012 Topps Chrome Red Refractor #36 Cole Hamels

I have been testing using a smart phone to capture my card images - so you will need to bear with me till I get a little better at finding well lit locations.

The red border really helps out the Phillies 2012 Topps Cards, which rightfully is consider a pretty hurting design.

 

2012 Bowman Gold #184 Chase Utley
2013 Topps Calling Card #CC5 Jonathan Papelbon
2010 UD Biography #SB26 Ryan Howard

Wow a 2013 Topps Insert card - I have only picked up a hanger box and a single pack of retail of 2013 Topps so this is my first insert to feature a Phillies player - pretty sweet to get that in the mail within a month of the products initial release,

2011 Topps Diamond Stars #DS-22 Ryan Howard
1991 Topps Stickers #262 Tug McGraw
2012 Topps Chrome #15 Jimmy Rollins

Here we have another Ryan Hoard insert - I don't have a lot of 2011 DS cards and this is a welcome addition. Thats a Tug McGraw sticker in the middle.  This might be the first 1981 Topps sticker in my collection. Jimmy Rollins from last years chrome set.

Swag from Night Owl Cards

Last week the incoming mail included some great cards from Greg of the Prolific Night Owl Cards. So many of the bloggers blow me away not only with their frequency of posts, but also with so many ideas that are both interesting and funny. As you all are aware Night Owl is one of the best at coming up with so many of these gems.


Swag


2007 Bowman's Best #14 Chase Utley
1981 Topps #40 Tug McGraw
1992 Classic Best #395 Checklist
2010 Topps #89 JA Happ

The Bowman's Best Utley card is real nice. On top of being nice and shiny the card has some real weight and sturdiness. Any card of the Tugger Rocks - I like the artwork on the front of the checklist - Finally just wanted to post JA Happ and mention that the fan favorite is returning to Philadelphia this week after being traded last month in the deal for Roy Oswalt.


1995 Score #26 Tommy Greene
2009 Topps Chrome #62 Chase Utley
2009 Uppder Deck Gold #813 Ryan Howard

Tommy Greene with some Chrome and Gold.

A sad note, Tommy Greene's young wife just passed away after battling cancer I think. He was in town for the Alumni weekend a few weeks back. I was always a fan of his and hope that he is able to deal with this real life loss.

And There's More

If you take a close look you may notice a Non-Phils card in there. At some point I hope to put up a posting regarding this card that should be a significant help in completing a special Phungo Set.

Swag from Nachos Grande...

I was pleasantly surprised to get a nice package of cards from Nachos Grande which included Several great Phillies Cards.

2008 Topps #140 Ryan Howard (Authorized by Cincinnati Red Ken Griffey)
1990 Donruss Diamond Kings #7 Lenny Dykstra
1985 Topps #157 Tug McGraw

Fine cards indeed....wha????? What the Heck is this - the unis are Red, but the players aren't to familiar looking???


2009 UD #95 Brandon Phillips (multiple)
2009 UD #601 Brandon Phillips (multiple)
2009 UD #961 Brandon Phillips (multiple)

Ahh this Explains It!!!

Bippage Relic Card Numbered to /2 - My lowest Serial EVER!!!

It feels like Groundhog's Day, I have been bipped again!

I wonder who got the Other Relic??

Thanks to Fan Of Reds and the Nachos Grande Crew - And Thorzul for making this all possible.

Phungo Readers Salute - Mets Fans

Today’s Phungo Readers Salute goes out to a couple of Mets fans that are good enough to stop by here. I don’t know what it is but despite the fact that we are sending out largely Phillies content, we have a couple Mets fans that visit pretty consistently.

I really enjoy Sports Locker - JRJ posts a lot of interesting information on cards and memorabilia. Yes He is a fan of the Mets but we will forgive him. Sports Locker has a background in the Jersey area so there is also the occasional Philadelphia related post.

The Mets stuff and too bad, but the Cowboys info get a little hard to take.

Mark runs Stats on the Back and is attempting to collect a card of every Met. Best of luck with that, I think some of those late 70s teams may have went through a lot of players that never got cards. He is also an active member in the Spot the Sig! contest and has scored a run to move into a tie for first place.

Finally I want to mention Paul’s Random Stuff, who occasionally drops in a comment here. This sometimes confuses me, since my name is also Paul and I am easily confused. PRS features a nice array of Mets cards, info, and lots of Autos.

There were a couple of different directions I could of gone here, I will save both Phils and Mets fans some anguish and not post a Billy Wagner card. Instead I will post a card of a different reliever who may be the only player to contribute to both a Mets and a Phillies World Championship team, Tug McGraw.

1975 Topps Mini #67 Tug McGraw
1977 Topps #164 Tug McGraw

These two cards are interesting when placed side by side. The Photos both feature Tugger in roughly the same pose, and they both appear to have been taken at spring training facilities. What really separates the two pictures is the uniform.

Regardless of the team he played on, I think most people think of Tug McGraw as one cool dude. I saw McGraw speak once at a local historical society. He was very funny and amusing as one can imagine. It’s unfortunate that McGraw died so young, but I am glad I was able to enjoy his career and his humor.

Tug McGraw – great guy, something both Mets and Phils fans can agree on.

2008 09 07 Phillies 6 @ Mets 2

Just some quick pictures from our trip up to Shea Stadium to see the Phils take on the Mets. Fortunately we caught the first game which the Phils won behind another great performance by the ageless Jamie Moyer. Greg Dobbs had the big hit on offesnse knocking out a 3 run homer against Pedro Martinez.
Another good day in the sun for Jamie Moyer. I was pretty happy the Mets announced the postponment of the game early on Saturday. The weather on Sunday was near perfect for baseball.

Here is a picture both Mets and Phils fans can enjoy.

There are several banners of Mets greats hung from the rafters in the lower concourse. This is one of Tug McGraw.

Here is another one more for the Mets Fans.
Luckily, The only time we saw The Big Apple make an appearance was not for a Mets Home Run but during the 7th innning stretch.

More pictures, highlights, and commentary later in the week.