Thursday, January 12, 2017

BASEBALL BROTHERS: PHIL AND JOE NIEKRO

Here’s a thread I’m starting that plays off of the 1977 “Brothers” sub-set, where I sprinkle in some “Baseball Brothers” specialty cards throughout the decade’s sets.
We’ll start off with a 1971 card for the Niekro brothers, pretty much the most glaring omission from the 1977 subset:


What needs to be said about these two that hasn’t already been stated?
These two guys put in 46 years of Major League service, winning almost 550 games, and even led the National League in wins during the same season of 1979 (something I always thought was awesome) making for a cool league-leader card.
Joe put in two 20-win seasons while big brother Phil had three, and between them they struck out over 5000 batters while knuckling their way in the record books.
I wonder why Topps didn’t manage to get them into that 1977 sub set?
Anyone know?

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