Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Completely Red: 1979 Topps

The year 1979 was the last year the Reds would make the playoffs before their iconic underdog championship season of 1990. The Reds had a tremendous roster, having previously added Tom Seaver to The Machine to balance to exceptional hitting. The Reds would lose to the Pirates in the NLCS, then would fluctuate between good-not-great and awful in the 80's. But '79 being such a good year, and '79 Topps being such a good set, we get a nice 30-card team set of the Redlegs.

Topps reduced the Rookie multi-cards from four players to three, which is an improvement, and the cards featured only one team of rookies, which is much better than by position, but I don't understand the inexplicable black-and-white. Again, the All-Star designation is on the player's base card, robbing us of an extra few dozen cards, and in particular, four extra Reds cards. But we have a nice pair of George Foster League Leader cards and a Pete Rose Record Breaker card. Unlike the previous year's Topps set, we have a bunch of action shots, which I always prefer. Also, someone needs to explain to me why Pedro Borbon's text is blue and everyone else's is green.

STATS:

Cards - 30

RC's - 4 (Junior Kennedy, Mike LaCoss/Ron Oester/Harry Spillman)

All Stars - 10 (George Foster x3, Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench, Pete Rose x2, Tom Hume, Ray Knight, Ken Griffey, Dave Concepcion, Mike LaCoss)

Hall of Famers - 4 (Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench, Sparky Anderson)

Reds Hall of Famers - 10 (Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Sparky Anderson, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, Ken Griffey, Tom Seaver, Cesar Geronimo, Pedro Borbon, Dan Driessen)

George Foster Sideburns - 3 (All left)

Action Shot Camera Lens Aperture - Too wide


Checklist:

2 Leaders George Foster - Jim Rice
3 Leaders George Foster - Jim Rice

20 Joe Morgan
47 Fred Norman
73 Ken Henderson
100 Tom Seaver
126 Doug Bair
149 Manny sarmiento
174 Rick Auerbach
200 Johnny Bench
204 Pete Rose RB
220 Cesar Geronimo
259 Sparky Anderson
281 Vic Correll
301 Tom Hume
326 Pedro Borbon
354 Bill Bonham
377 Paul Moskau
401 Ray Knight
420 Ken Griffey
450 Dave Concepcion
475 Dan Driessen
501 Junior Kennedy
516 Champ Summers
556 Mike Lum
600 George Foster
622 Dave Collins
650 Pete Rose
674 Dave Tomlin
717 Mike LaCoss - Ron Oester - Harry Spilman


Go Reds.

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