Tuesday, May 11, 2010

1978 bert blyleven

bert blyleven was part of that big trade in december of 1977 involving the mets, rangers and pirates.  he went from texas to pittsburgh, and here's the proof - his 1978 o-pee-chee card
here's the topps front:
now the o-pee-chee back:
and the topps back:
after 1+ seasons in texas, blyleven made his way to the national league. usually one would assume that a pitcher would benefit from such a move, but blyleven didn't.  his numbers were about the same as they had been in texas, with his era up, complete games down, and wins and strikeouts exactly the same.  his national league tenure would end after the 1980 season as bert would head to cleveland.  he did win the first of his two world championships during that time, so it wasn't all bad.

voici à vous, 1978 bert blyleven!

2 comments:

  1. That was a huge trade and impacted a bunch of card sets. Cool to see that Blyleven picked up a Pirates card in 1978, thanks to OPC. Another piece of the puzzle, Jon Matlack, got his first (airbrushed Rangers) card in the Burger King set.

    1978 Burger King #5, Jon Matlack

    Keep up the good work! Any other Topps/OPCs differences from that trade that you've seen?

    ReplyDelete
  2. blyeven, matlack, al oliver, and willie montanez get the opc treatment. matlack and oliver get the burger king rangers cards, and montanez gets a mets card in the 1978 topps zest set. i think that's it. john milner was in the topps set, but not opc.

    ReplyDelete