1980 Topps parallels – Steve Carlton

In my last post I brought up my next thing to go over for this monster that I’ve created called the Lifetime Topps Project.  The next 20+ posts will be the parallel cards I got from each year.

1980 Topps

Card I selected:  #210 – Steve Carlton

One thing about this part of the project, I want to select cards that have as many parallel cards as possible.  So I’m limited in this by players who have all cards in the various “parallel” sets.  There’s a Phillies set that was issued in Philly area Burger Kings, and there’s a national Burger King set called Pinch, Hit, Run.  Only Carlton and Pete Rose are in both, and I like the Carlton card better.  Carlton was also the 1980 Cy Young winner in a bit of a resurgence, helping the Phillies to their first World Series title.  So he’s a good pick from that perspective.

# of cards (including the Topps card):  4

The parallel sets in 1980 include:

• O-Pee-Chee
• Burger King Pinch, Hit, Run
• Burger King Phillies

Scans:

1980 Topps #210

1980 O-Pee-Chee #113

From 1965 to 1992, O-Pee-Chee issued a Canadian version of the Topps set.  The set was usually smaller than the actual Topps set, so it’s not numbered the same.  In 1980, it was 374 cards, a little more than half the size of the Topps set.  The front of the card is exactly the same as Topps.  There are 3 ways to tell the difference for this card, all on the back:

• the different number.
• the copyright says O-Pee-Chee and notes the card was printed in Canada.
• the card is printed on white card stock.  Also, the cards tend to be poorly cut (as mine is) and much harder to find in good condition.

1980 Burger King Pinch, Hit, Run #2

This 34-card set (33 players and a header card) was issued in participating Burger King restaurants in 1980 and contains cards of stars of the era.  Both Nolan Ryan and Joe Morgan are shown with their new team in 1980, the Astros, so they have a different picture from their 1980 Topps card.  There are a few others like that, too.  But Carlton has the same pose.  There are quite a few ways to differentiate this card from the Topps version:

• The front has the BK logo in the top left where the position is on the other cards.  The words “collector’s series” appear above that at the top.
• The card number is different.
• The back is red.
• There’s a “pinch hit run” cartoon in the cartoon section of the card.

1980 Burger King Phillies #15

This 23-card set (22 Phillies and a header) was handed out at local eastern PA Burger King restaurants.  It’s a Phillies team set from 1980.  There are actually a few guys in the team set that aren’t in the Topps set.  Like the O-Pee-Chee card, the front is indistinguishable from the Topps card.  On the back, you can differentiate the cards by:

• The card number is different.
• There is a BK logo where the Topps card has the card number.
• The card number is moved to the right hand side.

The “Rainbow”:

Any sets I didn’t get:  There’s a very rare Topps Pepsi test set that was never released.  Topps sold off the cards from their vault in 2005.  The test cards include the 22 players with All-Star designations on their 1980 Topps cards.  Which means Carlton does have a card – I just don’t know if I’ll be willing to dole out the coin if I ever see it.

Other cards I would have liked to do:  George Foster, Joe Morgan, Nolan Ryan, Joe Niekro

Foster and Niekro have 2 of my favorite cards in the set.  Morgan and Ryan also have cool cards, and the BK Pinch, Hit, Run card has a different picture as I noted above.

1980 Topps odd-ball sets

Since I began this blog over a year and a half ago, I’ve learned a lot about how to research what kind of card sets were issued in the past.  I’m getting pretty good at using Wikipedia, baseballcardpedia, my SCD Standard catalog to figure out what kind of sets are out there.  I found out about a few older Topps sets I didn’t mention when I went through these specific years – here are 3 interesting ones from 1980.  I updated my original write-up on the sets to now include these.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship

#1 – Topps issued a 23-card team set for the Phillies and distributed it as a promotion in the areas surrounding Philadelphia.  The design and photos are the same as the base Topps set, however there is a Burger King logo on the back where the Topps logo is.  There are 3 players (Keith Moreland, Lonnie Smith, John Vukovich) who aren’t in the base Topps set.  Kevin Saucier is on the Phillies Prospect card, but the Phillies card is a solo picture.  Manager Dallas Green also has a different picture – as he’s featured on the Team Checklist / Team Photo card in the base set.

#2 – Topps issued another set as a Burger King promotion nationally called “Pinch, Hit & Run”.  The 34-card set contained, in order, 11 pitchers, 11 “hitters”, 11 “runners” and a checklist card.  Some cards have the same photos as the base set, but some are different.  The design is similar, except the Burger King logo replaces the flag with the position at the top of the cards.  This set has the first cards of Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan pictured with the Astros.

#3 – Topps planned on a 22-card “Pepsi All-Star” set that was never actually released.  Topps later sold what was printed of these cards on-line in 2005.  They are extremely rare and very expensive.  Like the Burger King set, a Pepsi Logo replaces the top flag.  The flag on the bottom is white with blue letters.  All of the cards have the same picture as the 1980 set, except the Mike Schmidt photo is actually the one from his 1979 Topps card.

Completed set & master set – one last look at 1980 Topps

As I displayed a few posts ago, I am using all resources available to complete my Topps sets.  Including the Topps Diamond Giveaway.  I got the last 10 cards for the 1980 set from trading on the Topps Diamond site, and I’ve still been able to get Diamond Die-Cuts of 2 Reds and of one of my all-time favorite players, Rickey Henderson.

Anyways, here’s my standard “look back” at this set.

Info about my set:

How I put the set together:

• 456 cards from the wax box
• 214 more cards from a vending box
• 45 cards from trades
• 1 card bought at LCS (Mike Schmidt)
• 10 cards from the Diamond Topps Giveaway

Card that completed my set: #700 – Rod Carew (1 of the 10 cards from the Diamond Giveaway – my rule is I pick the one I like the best when I get a group all at once to finish up a set)

’90 Reds Catchup Post – 1980-1981 Topps

As mentioned in the last post, I’ll be scanning in players from the 90 Reds postseason roster. Here’s the lone 1980 card – though it’s not even really a 90 Reds. Sweet Lou still playing in pinstripes!

1980 – Lou Piniella

Ron Oester’s RC was in 1979 – he was shown on the Reds’ 3-player prospect card. However, he didn’t have a card in 1980. Rick Mahler, along with Oester, was the elder statesman on the Reds’ 1990 championship team. He saw (limited) MLB time in 1979, though he didn’t have RC until 1982.

1981 – Lou Piniella, Ron Oester

Pack Promotions

I haven’t really mentioned much in previous posts about what pack promotions Topps had in previous years. I’m updating those previous posts with that info, but here’s a quick summary:

1980 Topps

• You could send in for information on personalized trading cards, “just like cards in this pack”, except supposedly “with your personal data on the back”
• For 1 Topps baseball wrapper and 50 ¢, you could send in for an uncut sheet of all the Team Checklist cards.
• Topps also issued some “test” wrappers with the “Hit to Win” promotion that was available in every wax pack in 1981 – I would presume this was issued later in the release run
• You could send in 1 Topps wrapper (any sport), plus $5.25 plus 75 ¢ S&H to receive a Topps Sports Card Locker that held 1300+ cards

1981 Topps

• Every pack contained a scratch off game called Topps “Hit to Win”, where various hits would win you prizes ranging from a Wilson Jim Rice model glove to various supersize glossy photos of “top players”
• You could again, (though for 75 ¢ now) Send in 1 Topps baseball wrapper for an uncut sheet of all the Team Checklist cards
• For $1 and a baseball wrapper, you could receive a collecting box with 5 “easy-to carry files”
• For $8 bucks and a wrapper, you could get a “classic stripes cap” of an MLB team of your choice

1982 Topps

• The back of packs advertised buying an album for the insert stickers where Topps cards were sold.
• For $2 + 60¢ S&H, you could send in for 10 “Official Topps Sports Card Collectors Sheets”; these are 9-card sheets to store your cards, similar to what Ultra-Pro has today
• Again, for $5.75 plus 75¢ S&H and 1 Topps (any sport) wrapper, you could send for the 1982 version of the Sports Card Locker
• You could send in for the collecting box for the same cost as the year before

1980 Topps vending box break

I’ve been living out of a hotel for the last month while I transition from Ohio to New Jersey.  So, after a long layoff from this blog and from baseball cards, I’m back to updating my project.  I opened the 1980 vending box, which contained ~500 cards (512 actually).  Numbers below don’t include my first box; this gives a feel for how close the vending box got to completing a set:

35 doubles (9 of which were triples and 3 of which are quads)

477 of the 726 card set. (65.7% set completion)

One good thing about the vending box – there are no gum stains or wax stains, so all the cards are allowed to go into my set.  I didn’t do quite as well with this box.  I did get another Henderson, so that was pretty good.  Other than that, though I didn’t get an Ozzie, a Ryan or a Rose from this box.  I still don’t have a Mike Schmidt or a George Brett – the two MVPs! – which kind of stinks to be missing both of those guys.  I did get Eddie Murray this box.  Again, pretty shocked at how good the collation was; I’d read that the vending boxes tend to get you a ton of doubles – I was hoping for like 6 Henderson rookies 🙂

However, the crossover between opening both a wax and vending box wasn’t quite as good as I thought, though I can’t complain too much.  I’m 56 cards short out of 726 after opening both boxes.  So the vending box netted me 214 singles after opening the other box.  Now the task is to get those last 56 cards, maybe through trading or other means.  I’ve posted a list of what I still need on the website – “Topps Cards needed” at the top of the page.

1980 Topps wax box break

So my first Topps box break is completed. “Statistics” listed below:

36 packs per box * 15 cards per pack = 540 cards overall

– 31 doubles

509 of the 726 card set. (70.1% set completion)

Additionally, there were 53 cards out of the 509 that have wax on the front of the card or a gum stain on the back of the card. Basically, the first card opened of each pack usually had a residue from the was pack stuck to the front of the card and the gum was next to the back of the last card. Usually this was pretty noticeable and caused these cards to look pretty bad. I guess I need to decide if I want to include these cards in my set. I’m really just trying to complete these sets, so on some level it seems like I should just keep the cards. But there are a couple of factors here – these are actual foreign substances on the cards, and I consider this much worse than a poorly centered card, or even a nick or crease. Also, I’d be a little worried about the gum or wax rubbing onto the other cards in the set. Adding 50 more cards to collect won’t be that bad since none of them we’re really good players (I think Dave Parker and Bert Blyleven were the best two players), and I’m still going to buy a vending box that may eliminate the problem for a majority of these cards anyways. So I’m not going to include those in my set. This will probably be an issue for any of the card sets that have gum in them and/or are from actual wax packs, so I’ll follow this rule throughout my quest. I will, however, include those cards in my “statistics” I track from each box. My rationale is that most of these stains wouldn’t be there in the summer of 1980, or even a few years later; this is more of an issue of the fact that I’m opening these 20-30 years after originally packaged.

As mentioned in the last post, I did pretty well in this box. I got the 4 best cards available (Henderson RC, Ozzie  2nd year, N. Ryan, P. Rose). Some of the better cards I didn’t get include Mike Schmidt, George Brett and Eddie Murray. Only 31 doubles and no triples shocked me at how good the collation was for 1980. Makes you wonder how it was so notoriously bad (at least from what I remember) for all companies in the late 80’s and early 90’s. My next step is to open a vending box for this set, which I ordered from BBXC and received last week. I’ll probably open that next weekend.

Pictures – 1980 Topps box

OK, finished opening the box. Overall, pretty good pulls – I got the Henderson, which is the key card. It’s in really good shape (no gum stain, sharp overall), except it’s probably 60/40 centered. Overall, though, I’m pretty happy since I pulled it on the 3rd to last pack, and was thinking I wasn’t going to get a Rickey! Also got the Nolan Ryan, the Pete Rose, and the second year Ozzie Smith. Mike Schmidt, Eddie Murray, and George Brett are the biggest names I missed out on. See some scans attached:

The three best cards in the set, all in somewhat decent condition!

Here’s the different subsets in the set – Future Star triples, Batting Leaders, 1979 Highlights, and Manager/Team Checklists.

I liked these cards, because they showed some of the more interesting haircuts of the day. And because there was a red-headed dude named Mike Tyson. I bet he really hated his parents for giving him that name a few years after this set came out…

These guys are all more famous for reasons other than their baseball playing careers.

3 feared hitters. I love the picture of Hawk – one of the better ones in this set, which tends to be poses that don’t seem very genuine. Dawson and Rice are both recent HOFers who waited their turn to get in, but if you ask me, were both very deserving.

Three more recognizable players, all 3 photos that I kind of enjoyed.

Members of the 500-HR club. As mentioned, I didn’t pull the other two guys in this set – Murray and Schmidt.

At this point in time, these guys were probably considered the best players at their position, or at least upcoming prospects. Whitaker isn’t even on the HOF ballot any more, and Trammell and Murphy hardly get their fair share of votes. I think all 3 should be in, hopefully some of them will eventually get some love from the veteran’s committee. For now, they’ll have to be happy with mention in my blog.

8 of the 9 Big Red Machines. The middle 3 all wearing different uniforms. Seeing Perez in the Expos uniform just looks weird. Missing only Joe Morgan (who I believe will be in a Phillies uni for this set). Nope – looked it up, still with the Reds, and I actually missed a couple stops in between. Here’s his card and the one other BRM card (Pete Rose Highlight).

So that’s it for now. Need to go through and figure out how much of the set I filled, etc. It didn’t seem like I got as many doubles as I would have expected for 1980 collation.

First packs – 1980 Topps Wax

OK, work and other commitments have pushed the beginning of this “project” back a couple of weeks. But I’ll choose to look at this in a positive light – I’m now starting my trek to collect the Topps sets on an appropriate day. Opening Night 2010! This is one of the more exciting days of the year for me – I’m an accountant, so it signifies the ending of my busy season and back to more normal working hours. Even before I was working, though, Opening Day was still special. It means (for the most part) that winter is over, spring is here, and baseball is in the air! OK, that’s a little cliché, and I probably just jinxed myself and ensured that it will be snowing next weekend. But once the first Monday of April hits, that has always meant the start of the best time of year.

When I was a kid, this meant Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall calling my hometown Reds – and often me hiding a Walkman from my parents to hear the end of the game, and hopefully Marty’s signature call line “This one belongs to the Reds”. Joe’s no longer with us, but Marty is still calling games the same as he has been since 1974. Now, he’s alongside a number of guys, most frequently the Cowboy Jeff Brantley or his son Thom. I really like Jeff, and Thom’s not so bad either, but something about me misses the combination of Marty and Joe. Here’s to you Joe!

Side note – here’s some interesting trivia: Who did Marty replace in the Reds radio booth? Answer to come in a future post!

In honor of opening night, my wife and I cooked a “dish” we saw on one of the food network shows. It comes from the Gateway Grizzlies in Sauget, IL. Which apparently is just outside of St. Louis (BOOOO Cardinals). So we sautéed up some “Philadelphia cheese steak nachos”. Goes excellent alongside an old slugger ale brewed in Cooperstown NY. I had one saved from my trip there last summer. Actually, it was just at the back of the fridge, but tasty nonetheless!

So as I watch the Yankees pound Josh Beckett, on to the point of this blog! 1980 Topps Box, purchased from Baseball Card Exchange for a price I won’t mention on this blog (this is the one box that will actually cost me some decent cash). BBXC was more expensive than eBay, but since this one is pretty expensive, I’d rather ensure I’m getting a box that hasn’t been tampered with or replaced with a bunch of packs once someone found a Rickey Henderson rookie in theirs. I found out Terry Puhl of the Astros is the cover man for the box. An interesting choice by Topps – he was a decent major leaguer who typically hit around .280 (.287 in the year before, 1979) and made one All-Star team (not 1979). Topps has some advertising “NOW 15 CARDS IN EVERY PACK”, which was an increase from 12 previously.

It was difficult opening the first pack – I felt like I was ruining a bit of history with something packaged 30 years ago, up to and including the 30-year-old stick of gum (probably not as tasty as the old slugger)! But eventually I got through that and ripped the first pack. And the first card staring at me was a………

Poorly centered Jerry White!!!! Card #724!!! I have, until now, never heard of Jerry, but  he played for the Expos, and according to the back of his card, he did pretty well in the American Association in 1977. And the Expos traded him to the Cubs, and then traded back for him. Maybe this is foreshadowing why MLB  doesn’t have a team in Montreal any more?

Well, the rest of the first pack mirrors the makeup of this set. I pulled 2 HOF-ers (Carlton Fist and Don Sutton), and more than a few recognizable players. Bob Boone prior to his days ruining the Reds’ rotation, Doug DeCines, and Jose Cardenal. From the back of the card, I learned that Cardenal is the cousin to another pretty good major leaguer – Bert Campaneris. Also found a Don Zimmer manager card with the Red Sox team picture. Didn’t know Zim managed the Red Sox. Maybe Pedro should have thought about that when he threw the old coach to the ground 4 or 5 years ago in the bench-clearing brawl. Also got a Reds future stars card – apparently the Reds’ future looks bright with Are DeFreites, Frank Pastore and Harry Spilman waiting in the wings!

I’m only opening 9 packs today. Later packs included some other interesting names. So far, I’ve pulled 3 of the Big Red Machine – Johnny Bench, Cesar Geronimo, Ken Griffey. My favorite two cards thus far are a close up of Andre Dawson and Reggie Jackson. It’s also hilarious to see some of the hairdo from 30 years ago. Scans to follow tomorrow…

1980 Topps Overview

So, I’m ready to start this project off with the first set – 1980 Topps. I did a little research on this set, and here’s some of the stuff I came up with, already knew, or some combination of both.

• 726 cards in the set.
• Subsets: Season Highlights (1-6), Team Checklists (26 cards throughout, manager on front), League Leaders (201-207), Future Stars (661-686). The Future Stars were 3-player cards, 1 for each team.  66 cards in the set are double printed.
• Set design: The card front features a white border, a small flag featuring the player’s un-abbreviated position in the top left corner, player name across the top, another flag with the team name on the bottom right, and a facsimile autograph somewhere on top of the player picture. The blue card back features season stats and career totals and a highlighted moment from the player’s career along with a comic-type depiction of the moment.
• Packs: Cards were issued in 15 card wax packs (25¢ SRP) that came 36 packs per box and 20 per case.  Also available in 42 card rack packs (69¢ SRP), 25 card cello packs (39¢ SRP) 28 card super cello packs with 3 sticks of gum (59¢ SRP), and 3-card cello packs (I’d guess a nickel?).
• Rookies: Key rookie is Rickey Henderson.  Other rookies include Rick Sutcliffe, Dan Quisenberry, Jesse Orosco and Dave Stieb.
• Hall of Fame: Johnny Bench, Bert Blyleven, George Brett, Rod Carew, Steve Carlton, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Carlton Fisk, Goose Gossage, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Willie McCovey, Paul Molitor, Joe Morgan, Jack Morris, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Phil Niekro, Tony Perez, Gaylord Perry, Jim Rice, Nolan Ryan, Mike Schmidt, Tom Seaver, Ted Simmons, Ozzie Smith, Willie Stargell, Bruce Sutter, Don Sutton, Alan Trammell, Dave Winfield, Carl Yastrzemski, Robin Yount, Earl Weaver (manager), Tommy LaSorda (manager), Dick Williams (manager), Sparky Anderson (manager), Joe Torre (manager), Bobby Cox (manager), Tony LaRussa (manager), Lou Brock (HL). Wow, that’s 37 38 41 42 44 45HOF-ers, I’m betting that’s the most of any set I’ll do.  Interesting tidbit: Whitey Herzog was fired from the Royals after the 1979 season and hired by the Cardinals in 1980, thus has no manager checklist card this year.  This set featured the last Topps cards (LTC) for both McCovey and Brock.
• Guys who will or should be in the Hall could be in the HOF in the future include Pete Rose (BRM), Dave Concepcion (BRM – ok, this guys a stretch, but Marty Brennaman thinks he should be in), Jack Morris, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Tony LaRussa (as White Sox manager – the steroid enabler and my least favorite person in all of baseball), Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, Alan Trammel/Dale Murphy (travesty these two aren’t getting more consideration), Dwight Evans, Lou Piniella, Bill Buckner (just wait, he’ll be a vet committee guy someday), Tim McCarver (could make it as an announcer? – eesh, I hope not).
• Variation: Originally, Yankees manager Billy Martin was intended to be included on the Yankees team checklist card.  Early proof sheets have Martin’s inset picture and name on card #424.  However, Martin was fired in October 1979, and the actual set contains Dick Howser.
• Last Active Player: Jesse Orosco and Rickey Henderson were both active through the end of 2003.  Henderson’s last game was 9/17/03, while Orosco’s was 9/27/03.  Henderson, of course, tried to stay on and played after 2003 with a couple minor league teams.

The box has a picture of an Astros hitter on the front, stepping into a swing at the plate. There is a baseball pictured with notation that there are “Now 15 cards in every pack”. The word “Topps” is in a pennant in the top left, while the words “Major League BASEBALL picture cards bubble gum” is in a pennant below the Astros player (kind of built like the card design). I’m not sure who this player is? Something to research.

A couple other things that are relevant for this set.  First, this is the last year that Topps didn’t issue an “update” set (Topps Traded), so there are only RC’s this year of players who debuted in 1979, not the XRC’s you’d get for guys like Ripken, Gwynn, etc. in future years.  Second, more importantly, this was the last year Topps had a complete monopoly, basically since 1963 Fleer. Even 2010 is going to still have a 600-card upper deck issue, so I would say that is still true until 2011 (and who knows what will happen between now and then). So since Topps only issued one set – if you discount the 60-card Topps Super foray – there was only one set released this year. This means only one Pete Rose card, only one 2nd year Ozzie Smith, only one Rickey Henderson rookie.

This makes this set somewhat of a watershed set in the hobby. Add the factors above to the fact that there is only 1 Hall-of-Famer with a RC in this set, and the fact that he is truly a best-of-the-best all-time great, and the Henderson card is one of the more iconic cards in history. Take away the ’89 UD Griffey (which has to be at least the 2nd most famous card of all time), I’d struggle to think of a more familiar card in the 80’s. Cards that jump to mind are the ’82 Ripken Topps RC, the Bo Jackson ’88 score fb/bb card. Other famous 80’s cards could be Don Mattingly ’84 Donruss, Bonds ’87 Fleer, or McGwire ’84 Topps Traded Olympic XRC.  I’d put the Hendo card above all but the Bo Jackson in notoriety.

Parallel Set

As it had done since 1965, Canadian-based O-Pee-Chee issued a set that was a partial parallel to the Topps base set.  Each of the cards in the 374-card set had the same design and photographs as the Topps set, with lighter card stock and bi-lingual backs (French and English).  As always, the set leaned toward the Canadian teams; the Manager and Future Stars card for the Expos and Blue Jays were the only subsets included as part of this set.  The Rickey Henderson rookie was not included in the set.

Promotions

• You could send in for information on personalized trading cards, “just like cards in this pack”, except supposedly “with your personal data on the back”.
• For 1 Topps baseball wrapper and 50 ¢, you could send in for an uncut sheet of all the Team Checklist cards.
• Topps also issued some “test” wrappers with the “Hit to Win” promotion that was available in every wax pack in 1981 – I would presume this was issued later in the release run.
• You could send in 1 Topps wrapper (any sport), plus $5.25 plus 75 ¢ S&H to receive a Topps Sports Card Locker that held 1300+ cards.

Other releases associated with the Topps flagship

#1 – Topps issued a 23-card team set for the Phillies and distributed it as a promotion in the areas surrounding Philadelphia.  The design and photos are the same as the base Topps set, however there is a Burger King logo on the back where the Topps logo is.  There are 3 players (Keith Moreland, Lonnie Smith, John Vukovich) who aren’t in the base Topps set.  Kevin Saucier is on the Phillies Prospect card, but the Phillies card is a solo picture.  Manager Dallas Green also has a different picture – as he’s featured on the Team Checklist / Team Photo card in the base set.

#2 – Topps issued another set as a Burger King promotion nationally called “Pinch, Hit & Run”.  The 34-set contained, in order, 11 pitchers, 11 “hitters”, 11 “runners” and a checklist card.  Some cards have the same photos as the base set, but some are different.  The design is similar, except the Burger King logo replaces the flag with the position at the top of the cards.  This set has the first cards of Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan pictured with the Astros.

#3 – Topps planned on a 22-card “Pepsi All-Star” set that was never actually released.  Topps later sold what was printed of these cards on-line in 2005.  They are extremely rare and very expensive.  Like the Burger King set, a Pepsi Logo replaces the top flag.  The flag on the bottom is white with blue letters.  All of the cards have the same picture as the 1980 set, except the Mike Schmidt photo is actually the one from his 1979 Topps card.

Over the next week, I’m going to pretend its spring 1980, I’m a really intelligent newborn wondering why Pete Rose is playing for the Phillies, and I’ll begin breaking my brand new box of 1980 Topps.