1,033 Steve Carlton Cards!

 

My 2 boxes containing 1,033 Steve Carlton cards. Sharp-eyed baseball card collectors will be able to tell there's quite a few 1987 Fleer, 1987 Donruss, and 1988 Fleer cards in here. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

I bought a lot of 1,033 Steve Carlton cards on eBay a couple of weeks ago. Now that I’ve gone through and organized the cards, I can report the details to you, faithful readers. About half of the cards were from when Carlton was an active, with the other half dating from the 1990’s to the present. The oldest card was Carlton’s 1976 SSPC card. The 1976 SSPC set was an attempt to compete with Topps’ monopoly on baseball cards. Ultimately, the company ended up being sued by Topps and never produced another comprehensive set. Fun fact: the text of the back of the 1976 SSPC cards was written by Keith Olbermann.

Steve Carlton, 1984 Star card #13.

The lot had a nice variety of 1980’s oddities, including several of Carlton’s Sportflics cards, and various stickers from the 1980’s. There was one card from Star’s 1984 24-card set of Steve Carlton. Star made two sets featuring Carlton, one in 1984 and one in 1987. Card #13 from 1984 shows Carlton on the road, in the Phillies’ phantastic powder blue uniforms. Carlton is in mid-stride, and you get a sense of the power of his pitches, as you see his 6’5” frame about to whip a pitch towards the plate. An intimidating sight. I really like this photo, and I think it’s a much better one than a lot of the other action photos that appeared on Carlton’s Topps cards. Judging from what I can see of Steve’s grip on the ball, I’d say the batter is about to get a slider, the pitch that transformed Carlton into a great pitcher, and added many strikeouts to his lifetime total of 4,136. Carlton threw his slider using the same motion as his fastball, making it all but impossible for batters to guess which pitch was coming. Keith Hernandez wrote about Carlton: “Carlton threw the slider like an automaton: outside corner black, at the knees, every time.” (Pure Baseball by Keith Hernandez and Mike Bryan)

The back of the 1984 Star card shows you Carlton's All-Star Game appearances. It even tells you what city the All-Star Game took place in.

The back of the 1984 Star card highlights Carlton’s 10 All-Star selections. Carlton started the 1969 and 1979 All-Star games, and was the winning pitcher in the 1969 game. As you can see from the back of the card, Carlton threw 3 innings in 1969—not something that would happen now in an All-Star game.

Sorry Upper Deck, Steve Carlton didn't actually win 3,000 games.

One of the more humorous errors on these cards is the one on the Upper Deck Baseball Heroes card. It’s meant to commemorate Carlton’s 300^th win, on September 23, 1983. Ironically enough, the Phillies were facing Carlton’s former team, the St. Louis Cardinals in Saint Louis. Carlton gave up only two runs and struck out 12 Cardinals to nail down his milestone victory. (Carlton also beat the Cardinals 5 days earlier for his 299^th win.) However, the Upper Deck card tells us that Carlton achieved his 3,000^th victory in 1983, an utterly amazing feat!

3 Steve Carlton cards from the 2000's.

Pictured above are three cards from the 2000’s that I think look pretty cool. Something that I like about cards from the 2000’s of players who played in the 1970’s and 1980’s is that you get to see photos of them you’ve never seen before. Back in the days before the internet, the main way you were able to see photos of your favorite players was on their baseball cards. It’s fun to see photos you’ve never seen before. On the Panini card in the middle, you may wonder why the Baseball Hall of Fame logo is in the middle of the card, blocking the Phillies logo on Carlton’s hat. Well, that’s because Panini isn’t an officially licensed set, so they can’t reproduce the logos of MLB teams on their cards.

2004 Playoff Steve Carlton, with my hand and my iPhone visible in the reflection.

The back of the 2004 Playoff card, featuring Carlton's unimpressive stat line for 1988.

The 2004 Playoff card is cool one, as it has a shiny, silvery surface on it. (That means that it’s impossible to get a good photo of the card, however.) But I’m more interested in the back of the Donruss card. It gives us Carlton’s career stats, and his stats from his last major league season, when he appeared in 4 games for the Twins in 1988 before being released. Carlton appeared in 3 games in relief, and his last appearance was his 709^th major league start, on April 23, 1988. Carlton pitched 5 innings against the Indians, giving up 9 hits and 9 runs. (That actually lowered his ERA for the season.) Carlton struck out 4 batters that day, including Pat Tabler in the top of the 5^th inning for his 4,136^th strikeout. The last batter Carlton faced in the majors was Andy Allanson, who hit a double off of him, scoring Mel Hall. It’s so weird to just see that stat line, because, as you can see, Carlton wasn’t very effective in 1988. So why put that stat line on the back of this card? It’s an odd choice. For all the retired players in that set, they have their stats from their last major league season. It’s rather sobering to see how many great players left the game on a not-so-great note.

Goodwin Champions, by Upper Deck, featuring Steve Carlton not in a baseball uniform.

Three of the stranger cards are the Goodwin Champions by Upper Deck from 2011, 2012, and 2013. They all feature Carlton out of uniform, a result of MLB essentially giving Topps back their monopoly on baseball cards. Upper Deck can produce cards featuring player’s likenesses, but they can’t use team logos. So, we get a drawing of an older, post-retirement Steve Carlton wearing a blank hat, a drawing of young Steve Carlton talking on the phone, and a drawing based on a 1994 photo of Steve Carlton at his Hall of Fame press conference.

1999 Upper Deck commemorating Steve Carlton's selection as the 30th best baseball player of all-time.

The back of the 1999 Upper Deck card, which shows us Carlton's complete major league stats, from 1965 to 1988. That is a very long time to play major league baseball.

I really like post-retirement cards that have all of Steve Carlton’s career stats on the back, like this 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends card. Steve Carlton only had one 1988 baseball card, made by Fleer. For whatever reason, Topps, Donruss, and Score chose not to include Carlton in their 1988 sets. Although Topps was going to include Carlton at one point, since there are checklists that list Carlton as card #455. Carlton was replaced as card #455 by Shawn Hillegas. I’m hoping that somewhere deep in the Topps vault is a proof of a 1988 Topps Steve Carlton card. That would be an awesome piece of memorabilia to have! But I digress. Because Carlton was released so early in the 1988 season, he didn’t any 1989 cards, so there weren’t any cards with his complete stats on the back until his post-retirement cards. This wasn’t that uncommon, even for big stars. Topps was surprisingly unsentimental about giving retired players one final baseball card with all of their career stats on the back. From a marketing standpoint, I would think that Topps would have wanted to include some of those players just as an additional selling point. “Sure, we know Stan Musial isn’t going to play in 1964, but let’s give him one final card.” Nope, didn’t happen. How about a 1974 Willie Mays card? Nope. 1977 Hank Aaron? Nope. Oh well, I guess I’m more sentimental than Topps executives.

The 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends card commemorates The Sporting News’ 1998 list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players. Carlton was ranked number 30, just below Sandy Koufax and just ahead of Bob Gibson and Tom Seaver. You can read the list of 100 players here.

This concludes my look at my whopping lot of 1,033 Steve Carlton cards. I’ve now written about all the Steve Carlton lots I’ve bought lately, so it might be a while before the next post about Steve Carlton baseball cards.

200 Steve Carlton Cards

 

The lot of 200 Steve Carlton cards I got from eBay in December. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Back in December, I bought a lot of 200 Steve Carlton baseball cards for $40. I knew the cards were a mixture from the 1980’s, but I didn’t know the specific breakdown of what was in there. I do really enjoy the “grab bag” aspect of buying lots of baseball cards. Once I sorted through the cards, I was very happy with the mix of cards. There was one 1978 Topps card included, but everything else was from 1981-1987. The lot wasn’t heavily weighted towards 1986 and 1987, as so many lots can be. In fact, 1986 and 1987 were the years that the least numbers of cards were from. Almost all the cards came in plastic toploader sleeves, which was nice, especially since there’s apparently a global toploader shortage.

There was nothing truly rare or weird in here, the only oddities were a few Topps stickers from 1981 and 1982. What was included were just about every base card of Carlton’s from the 1980’s made by Topps, Donruss, and Fleer, plus numerous other cards that he appeared on from those manufacturers, like league leader cards.

Something that’s interesting about looking at multiple examples of the same baseball card is how different they still are—the printing isn’t exactly the same, the picture isn’t quite in focus, the cards are miscut. That’s why it’s so much fun to collect vintage baseball cards, right? Fun or frustrating, depending on your point of view.

Steve Carlton's 1986 Topps card.

Look at the two 1986 Topps cards pictured above. The coloring on the card on the left is much darker, whereas the card on the right pops out nicely, and you can see Carlton’s face.

4 1983 Steve Carlton Topps cards, all slightly different.

Or look at these 4 1983 Topps cards. From left to right, in the first card, the circular close-up of Carlton is very blurry (even on the best 1983 cards, this photo never looks perfectly focused to me) in the second card, the circular photo is better, but the card is mis-cut, with a noticeably larger border on the right of the card. On the third card, the circular photo is focused, and it’s well-centered, but there’s a streak of reddish ink on the right border of the card, presumably something that happened during the printing process. Finally, the fourth card, on the right, seems to be the best of the bunch, with none of the issues that the other three cards have. That’s just a small example of what card collectors have to deal with if they’re picky.

2 #1 Topps cards for Steve Carlton, 1982 and 1984.

Carlton got the prestigious honor of appearing on two Topps #1 cards during his career, in 1982 and 1984. During the 1980’s, the beginning of the Topps set were always “Highlights” or “Record Breakers” from the previous season. The 1982 card commemorates Carlton passing Bob Gibson to become the all-time NL strikeout leader. This was when league-wide records were still a thing. Players move so much between leagues now that I don’t think anyone cares about league records anymore. For the record, Steve Carlton is still the NL strikeout leader, with exactly 4,000 strikeouts. The 1984 card highlights Steve’s 300^th victory, achieved against his old team, the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as Carlton finishing the season as the all-time strikeout leader, with 3,709. The 1982 card is notable because it kind of looks like Steve doesn’t have a hand. Not the best photo angle to have chosen, Topps. The 1984 card is a much better photo, and you can get a sense of the power of Carlton’s delivery, as his 6’5” frame is captured in mid-windup, about to fire a pitch towards home plate.

1984 Topps NL Active Career Victory Leaders, featuring Fergie Jenkins, Steve Carlton, and Tom Seaver, 3 of the greatest pitchers in history.

Another awesome card from 1984 in this lot was Topps #706, “NL Active Career Victory Leaders.” The card features Carlton, with exactly 300 victories, Fergie Jenkins with 284, and Tom Seaver with 273. Simply put, on one card you have three of the best pitchers ever. Jenkins, Carlton, and Seaver won the 1971, 1972, and 1973 NL Cy Young Awards, in that order. They combined for 18 20-game winning seasons. Jenkins had 7, including 6 in a row from 1967-1972, Carlton had 6, and Seaver had 5. All 3 pitchers are members of the 3,000-strikeout club, with Jenkins becoming the first member of the club to finish his career with 3,000 strikeouts and fewer than 1,000 walks. In 1971, Jenkins only walked 37 batters over 325 innings pitched. Oh, and he had 263 strikeouts that year.

I’ve met Steve Carlton and Fergie Jenkins. Unfortunately, I never had the good fortune to meet Tom Seaver. I’ve met Steve Carlton twice, once at a card show in Cooperstown during his induction to the Hall of Fame in 1994, and once at a card show in the Twin Cities in 2010. Steve was very nice to me both times I met him, very friendly. I met Fergie Jenkins at the festivities around the 2014 All-Star Game. Jenkins was signing autographs as a benefit for his charity. Jenkins was really nice as well. I can’t remember exactly what I said to him. Fergie was standing up when I met him, and man, the 6’5” he’s listed at is no joke. I’m 6 feet tall, but Fergie made me feel short. I follow Fergie Jenkins on Instagram, and his account is a lot of fun—he’s pretty active on the Gram.

Steve Carlton's 1981 Donruss and Topps cards, both featuring his awesome perm.

Looking at these cards again, I notice things I haven’t before. Like how Carlton’s 1981 Donruss and Topps cards are really similar. He’s got a perm in both pics–hey, it was the early 80’s, perms were a thing—and in both pics his face is half in shadow. But the Donruss card actually looks decent, whereas the Topps card it’s just like, this is the best picture you had of him, really? You can hardly see his face. It’s probably a good thing that Fleer and Donruss entered the baseball card market in 1981 to give Topps some competition.