16 teams have cards in the 300-card set, and happily for me the Tigers are one of them. As a matter of fact, Detroit comprises 31 of that total, spread out over four teams: 1968, 1972, 1984, and 1987. Only two of those teams won titles so in Detroit's case it might have been more fun to get the guys from '35 and '45, but as far as how this set is handled it still works out nicely.
I already had something like nine of these cards since a good number of my PC players are represented, and then I took the opportunity to fill in the rest via Sportlots, a decision I'm glad I made.
Here's all 31 cards, fronts and backs, broken up by each "timeless team":
Man, what a roster Detroit had in '68! HOFer Al Kaline played in only 102 games, but the outfield of Horton/Stanley/Northrup was excellent--good enough, in fact, that manager Mayo Smith made the bold move to put Stanley, the CF, at SS, to get all of their bats in the lineup. Needless to say, it worked! PC guy Bill Freehan posted a career-high bWAR of 7.0 leading all hitters, while 31 game winner McLain and Mickey Lolich were a fearsome one-two punch.
The backs include brief write-ups along with career stats and a high-up view of old Tiger Stadium, except for Memorable Moments cards, which cover a notable stat, game, or series.
While the '72 team wasn't nearly as successful, they did push the eventual champion A's to five games in the ALCS. The lineup was largely the same, though their performance didn't approach what it had four years earlier. Freehan led the hitters while Lolich starred in place of the departed McLain, sent to the Senators back in 1970. Still, the mix of players and their near playoff success explain their appearance in this set.
Honestly, how often would you see a RP that wasn't a closer for most of his career show up twice in any other set? Canadian John Hiller had an impact on both of the teams shown so far, but his only big year as a ninth inning guy was 1973, when he put up 38 saves. It's cool to see him get credit among the other stars you see above.
And now we get to my favorite team, with plenty of fun choices in terms of player selection. Tram, Gibby, and Sweet Lou are all PC guys, of course, and I'm always happy to add new stuff when it comes to Lemon, Morris, and Sparky. Speaking of Jack, I was surprised his memorable moment wasn't his no-hitter! If I was in charge of the player selection I would have found room for Lance Parrish and Guillermo Hernandez, but this is still a great group.
HoJo is an interesting choice here as he would become more famous with the Mets later in the decade, plus he went 0-6 in limited World Series action. He was a solid contributor during the regular season, though, and it's too bad he didn't get to stick around Motown a bit longer.
Analogous to the '72 squad, the '87 team was quite similar to the one that won it all fewer than five years earlier, but they couldn't quite get over the hump, getting flattened in the ALCS by a fun Twins team that rode some potent bats and excellent pitching to their first World Series (at least with that name). The Tigers put up some nice offensive stats of their own, in large part due to the guys you see here, plus Darrell Evans (who also has an argument for inclusion in the set) and ROY C Matt Nokes, who filled in nicely for the departing Lance Parrish. Morris had another nice year and the rest of the pitching was solid (or even better, in the case of Doyle Alexander, at the cost of a young John Smoltz). That was the last time the team would sniff the playoffs until their surprise pennant in 2006.
I love that some of my favorite Tigers pop up in this set more than once--Kaline and Freehan above, the Tram/Gibby/Lou trio, Sparky, Morris, et al. And I simply can't say enough about how cool this product was. Throw in the autographed versions and you've got a real winner.
I'll work on getting more stuff from this purchase scanned and posted, but in the meantime, what do you think of this set? Did your favorite team make the cut? Were any fun players included that were key contributors to winning clubs but didn't tend to get any cardboard love? Please let me know in the comments!
I love this set and have been working on it for years. I'll probably never actually finish it unless I stumble across a huge stack of them at a flea market or something. And yeah... it features a few A's teams from over the years.
ReplyDeleteThe whole set is cool so I could definitely see putting it together, though in my case I'd probably just save myself time and buy it. UD was able to find a few good Oakland teams from the 70s and 80s, eh?
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