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Saturday, October 18, 2008

1981 Fleer Team by Team Tribute: Phillies

1981 Fleer was my oldest complete set until a few years ago. Lately, I have gotten rid of most of my 80's and 90's sets. 1981 may be the next to go. Fleer made a comeback in 1981 with their first baseball card product since the 60's. Cards were arranged by team, in order of record. So without further ado, here are the World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies.

Bake McBride

Bake had the cool nickname, "Shake 'n' Bake", and the skill to get that tiny Phillies batting helmet on his afro-puffed head. McBride was the ROY in 1974.
Fleer chose to show off the almost meaningless stat of Batting Average in the circle in the top right corner. Bake batted .300 in 1980. He had a pretty good 11 seasons, batting .299 and stealing more than a few bases per year.

Greg Gross
Check out the crowd in the Padres dugout. Those must be Topps photographers, worried that the new kids,Donruss and Fleer, would get all the good action shots of a young Padres' shortstop named Ozzie!

Greg Gross actually finished 2nd behind McBride in ROY voting in 1974 while playing for the Stros. Does anybody remember when Greg Gross and Glenn Wilson were the same bearded, aviator glasses-wearing people? Completely indistinguishable.

Next Up: 1980 Runner-Up KC Royals

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I liked it when Fleer used to include minor league stats on the back.

mmosley said...

Especially when the stats went vertical (1983, I think)! Players with long careers filled up the card while relative newbies got a factoid at the bottom. Or that statistics chart. That may be the focus of a future post.

Unknown said...

The Hot/Cold charts never really held my attention. But I could have used them if I ever had the chance to face a major leaguer in a whiffle ball game.

Speaking of whiffle ball, when are we going to play again?

MMayes said...

Who's that Padre grabbing his junk while watching Greg swing? All I can say is, "Gross."