More of the 1980 Donruss Set that Never Was

Rookies, Team Cards, Managers, and Award Winners

"Super" Joe Charboneau was the beer-drinking, softball-playing Rookie of the Year for the Cleveland Indians in 1980. His career was cut short by an injury sustained the following strike-shortened season. In 1980 he played 131 games and hit .289 with 23 homers and 87 RBIs. He only played 70 more games in his career (1981 & 82). He batted .211 with 6 homers and 27 RBIs. 

Steve Howe was the 1980 Rookie of the Year and an All Star Reliever in 1982. But he was plagued by substance abuse. He was suspended 7 times for drug policy violations, including the entire 1984 season. He was given a "Lifetime Ban" in 1992 which was overturned on appeal. He died in 2006 when he crashed his car. There was methamphetamine in hes system. 

As for the design, I used just base cards with the Rated Rookies logo that we came to recognize on Donruss cards.  Donruss didn't begin making "Rated Rookie" cards until the 1984 set.  Even then it wasn't the iconic logo that I am using on this imaginary set.  In 1984 it was a banner that was similar to the team name design that year.

For the team cards, I didn't stray far from the base. Simply went horizontal and dropped one of the pennants.

In 1980 the Angels were coming off a year in which the won the AL West division. It was their first post season appearance in team history. Although the loss of Nolan Ryan had to hurt, falling to 6th place 30 games under .500? 

The 1980 Braves were in their 3rd season under Booby Cox. After two last place finishes, the 1980 Braves would end the season one game over .500 and finish 4th. It wouldn't be enough to save him. By the end of 1981 Cox would be gone. He would, of course, return in 1990 for 21 more years managing the Braves.

Speaking of managers.  Donruss tended to just put managers on base cards.  I went a different way because I think the coaches can be interesting, too.

Particularly on this Mariners card.  Darrell Johnson was the manager of the 1975 Pennant winning Red Sox. He was named first manager of the expansion Mariners. But his coaching staff! Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski.  All-Star shortstop, 1962 MVP, perennial stolen base leader and future  Mariners skipper, Maury Wills. The speedy All-Star outfielder Vada Pinson and veteran pitching coach of the Swingin' A's, Wes Stock.

The 1980 Expos also had ties to the Swingin' A's with Dick Williams at the helm. Their coaching staff included future Expos manager Felipe Alou. Norm Sherry was a coach under Williams for the Angels in 1976 and took over as manager after Williams was fired. Galen Cisco was a veteran pitcher and pitching coach. Ozzie Virgil Sr. broke the color barrier as a player for the 1958 Detroit Tigers. He went 5 for 5 in his first home game for the Tigers.

One of the things that Donruss did right from the start was make Award Winner cards. In my last post you can see the 1981 Brett MVP card and the 1981 Carlton Cy Young card.  So in this imaginary set from 1980, I included a card of the NL Co-MVPs from 1979, Keith Hernandez and Willie Stargell.

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As usual, I am taking request for cards based on this design. So if there are any players or even subsets you'd like to see in a future post, leave a comment.

1967 Alt-Topps Requests

I promised to have these done "before spring training ends".  But it ended rather abruptly.  I did at least manage to get these out before the regular season starts, if there is a season at all.  

This time around, there weren't as many requests as I usually get.  It's as though you might have had more important things to tend to.  In all seriousness, I hope that everyone is staying healthy and following the CDC guidelines.  Here's something to kill a few minutes of your self quarantine. 

I got a couple requests for more All Star cards, particularly Harmon Killebrew.  The Killer wasn't actually a starting All Star in 1966.  He was on the All Star roster, though.  Topps played pretty fast and loose with their All Star cards in the '60s. Often they referred to them as "Sporting News All Stars". Despite the title, sometimes the players on their cards weren't named to the Sporting News All Star team, either. So I have no qualms about including Killebrew in this Alt-Topps subset.  The Ron Santo card is one that I had made earlier, then decided to make a McCovey card instead.  After all McCovey's name was on the original mock-up, even though his image wasn't.  

I also got a request for a Phillies and an Orioles card.  The reason: both had yellow as their base colors in the real 1967 Topps set.  "Bob" thought yellow wouldn't work well in this design. He may have a point.  I found a decent head shot of Uecker wearing a Phillies uniform.  His real 1967 card was of the hatless variety.  For the Orioles, I dragged out one of my favorite players, Luis Aparicio.

As I said before, the request were few, so I had a couple that I wanted for myself.  I always like to add a card of "the Mick" whenever I can.  In 1967 he moved from the outfield and played first base exclusively.  His real 1967 card still listed him as an outfielder.  I also needed to add possibly the biggest trade of 1967, Maury Wills.  He not only moved from LA to Pittsburgh but also from shortstop to third base.  The Pirates already had a Gold Glove shortstop in Gene Alley

A request came in for the multi player cards that were a Topps staple in the '60s.  In this instance, the request was for the White Sox pitching rotation that included Tommy John, Joel Horlen and Gary Peters.  Although the Sporting News had all three on their cover in July of 1967, I could not find a similar color photo. But heck, two out of three ain't bad. I also made a card of the Alou brothers.  I used the term Family Affair. That TV show debuted in September of 1966. The Sly and Family Stone hit single of the same name wouldn't come out until 1971.

 

The same person wanted a rookie card that featured Fred Lasher and Cisco Carlos.  Both were late call ups that pitched for 2 of the 4 late-season AL contenders. (As late as September 6th, the Twins, Tigers, Red Sox and White Sox were all tied for 1st place). Lasher was a closer with 9 saves in 17 appearances in '67.  He also had 28 strikeouts in just 30 innings pitched.  Cisco Carlos was 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA and a strikeout to walk ratio of 3 to 1. He was good enough to be included with Johnny Bench on the cover of the 1968 MLB rookie edition of Sports Illustrated.  However in 1968 he went 4-14 for the Sox.

"Deogolf" wanted more World Series cards and I wanted to provide some equal time for the Dodgers.  But the reality is LA was pretty much absent from the 1966 Fall Classic.  Even the real 1967 Topps set had only Orioles on their World Series cards.  One of the better performances by the Dodgers was Claude Osteen's pitching in game 3.  He only gave up 3 hits in 7 innings. But one of those hits was a solo homer by Paul Blair.  The Dodgers gave him zero runs in support.  

1971 Alt-Topps Requests

 Here's a few more 1971 Alt-Topps requested in the comment sections. KookKards wanted a card of The Hawk in his final year. Two interesting things here, first KoolKards is a blog by 3 brothers creating their own cards. Although they made a few of big league players, most are family oriented. They must've come across the same rejected mockups. Here is a link to the KoolKards page using one of the rejected designs for a family football game. Very nicely done..

Another interesting thing is that Harrelson had his nickname "Hawk" emblazoned on the back of his jersey when he was traded to the Indians in 1969. That  is why I used his nickname on his Alt-Topps card.

As usual "Buzz" (who's lengthy and informative comments often out-shine the posts themselves) had a handful of great request. He hit upon one of my all time favorites, Mr. Cub. Ernie Banks was also in his final season in 1971.

He was also looking for Felipe Alou. He was betting that I could "do better" than an already very good action card issued in the real 1971 set.

Despite my attempt, the real 1971 Topps Felipe Alou is still superior

Buzz also requested a card of the 48 year old knuckler, Hoyt Wilhelm.  After his longest tenure from 1963-1968 with the Chicago White Sox, he was well traveled in the twilight of his career.  He was picked up by the Royals in the 1968 expansion draft. KC dealt him to the Angels. Toward the end of the 1969 season, California traded him to the Braves. 

Again before the end of the 1970 season, Wilhelm was claimed off waivers by the Cubs. The Cubs the traded him back to Atlanta before the start of the 1971 season. He was released by the Braves mid season 1971. He signed with LA and played until mid-season 1972 when he ultimately ended his playing career 5 days before his 50th birthday.

Topps created a card for Wilhelm on the Cubs. In typical O Pee Chee fashion, the same photo was used on a Braves card with a notation "Recently Trade to Braves".

Tony Horton had never appeared on a Topps card in his short but prolific career. His career ended in tragically 1970.  He took himself out of a second game of a double header.  He then attempted suicide.  He was treated for stress likely stemming from the treatment he receive from the Cleveland fans following a salary dispute.  Thankfully, he recovered and still lives today.  Unfortunately, he never played another game.

Although Buzz only left a description, not a name in his first comment, I knew who he was writing about.  I had created 2 other Tony Horton Cards That Never Were. Here he is included on a rookie card created for the 1964 Alt-Topps a few months ago.

Here is another that I was asked to make for 1969 Topps Baseball blog. 

Deogolf requested that I once again complete the World Series subset.

One of the key plays of Game 1 was the play at the plate in which the umpire was out of position. Hendricks tagged Carbo with his mitt while the ball was in his other hand. Conversely, Carbo missed the plate. So while Ken Burkhart may have not been in the best position to make the call, he did manage to make the correct call.

Game 2 had plenty of offence. The game had 3 long balls in an eleven run game. I chose to put Boog hitting his second of the series on this card.

Game 3 saw 9 runs put up by the Orioles. This included a grand slam by the pitcher, Dave McNalley. McNalley also pitched a complete game for Baltimore.

Lee May kept Cincinnati's hopes alive by going 2 for 3 with 4 RBIs and a walk. This included what turned out to be a game winning 3-run homer in the 8th inning.

Game 5 and the "celebration" card were included in my previous post.

Buzz also wanted more information on the font used here.  It is called Playbill and it is based on the font that was used on vintage Broadway programs of the same name.

Buzz thought it looked similar to the old west "Wanted" posters. Here are a couple cards in that vein. I chose the career leaders (in 1971) of  stolen bases and shutouts.  I suppose in some alternate universe these cards could have been inserts into the 1971 Alt-Topps wax packs.

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There was one more request from Jim for A Tony Oliva card. I decided to add it here. I had actually made another in memory of Bill Buckner and didn't want to add this onto that page.