Here's a highlight from the 1970's that always wowed me as a kid:
the 1977 Dodgers with FOUR players hitting 30 or more home runs in the same
season.
Not until these four sluggers achieved this was it ever accomplished in Major League history.
Call me nuts, but this feat deserved a card in the mighty 1978 set in my book.
Think of all the classic slugging teams throughout history up until that point ('27 Yanks, '61 Yanks, '56 Reds, '64 Twins), and this team was the first to do it.
So take a look at the card design I came up with:
Steve Garvey, Reggie Smith, Dusty Baker and Ron Cey.
Four "thumpers" who powered the Dodgers into the World Series against
the Yankees by combining for 125 homers and 398 runs batted in all on their own!
Not until the home run days of the late 1990's/early 00's did another team also match the 1977 Dodgers.
In 1995 the Rockies accomplished this feat in the first of what
would be FOUR TIMES in the next five years, with the 1997 Dodgers also
having four players attain those lofty numbers.
Since then, a handful of other teams have reached the now
watered-down milestone in team-power, but when the 1977 Dodgers did it,
it was big stuff.
Big enough for the Los Angeles team to even feature a picture of
the four sluggers under the L.A. Scoreboard with "30" emblazoned in
lights. (I couldn't find a decent enough sized file for the cover shot since it was a natural for a card design):
You think Topps could have found a little room to fit a card like this in their set instead of an Oscar Zamora or Dennis Blair! (No offense to those ex-players).
Hope some of you out there are enjoying these "highlight" cards.
I'm having a blast designing them and revisiting these high-points of my baseball youth.
More to come!
So keep an eye out here...