Yet another uncatalogued newspaper "card" set came to my attention thanks to a post in the "Ozzie Smith collectors thread" over at Freedom Cardboard today. It seems that in 1981, The San Diego Union printed a series of player profiles to introduce the 1981 Padres to the city. The series ran from March 8th to April 17th in the sports section and kicked off in style with the Wizard, and this message:
A Message To Our Readers
From the manager down through the ranks, the 1981 Padres sport a new look -- so new, many baseball fans literally won't be able to tell the players without a score- card. Therefore, beginning today and continuing daily until the start of the San Diego Padres season April 9, The San Diego Union will present each member of the 1981 Padres in the form of a baseball card. |
The set actually ran eight days longer than advertised and wrapped up at 41 "cards". Curiously, for someone who didn't really factor into the Padres in any meaningful way, Randy Bass was featured twice, on March 16th and March 20th.
 |
| Scan courtesy of Mozzie22 |
| 8 March 1981 | Ozzie Smith | |
| 9 March 1981 | Craig Stimac | |
| 10 March 1981 | Broderick Perkins | |
| 11 March 1981 | Dave Cash | |
| 12 March 1981 | Jerry Turner | |
| 13 March 1981 | Bill Fahey | |
| 14 March 1981 | Eric Rasmussen | |
| 15 March 1981 | Tim Flannery | |
| 16 March 1981 | Randy Bass | |
| 17 March 1981 | Luis Salazar | |
| 18 March 1981 | Gary Lucas | |
| 19 March 1981 | John Curtis | |
| 20 March 1981 | Randy Bass | |
| 21 March 1981 | Steve Swisher | |
| 22 March 1981 | Mike Phillips | |
| 23 March 1981 | Dave Edwards | |
| 24 March 1981 | Barry Evans | |
| 25 March 1981 | Eric Show | |
| 26 March 1981 | Jerry Mumphrey | |
| 27 March 1981 | Rick Wise | |
| 28 March 1981 | Kim Seaman | |
| 29 March 1981 | Gene Richards | |
| 30 March 1981 | Tom Tellman | |
| 31 March 1981 | Juan Eichelberger | |
| 1 April 1981 | Steve Mura | |
| 2 April 1981 | John Urrea | |
| 3 April 1981 | Terry Kennedy | |
| 4 April 1981 | Alan Wiggins | |
| 5 April 1981 | John Littlefield | |
| 6 April 1981 | Bobby Tolan (hitting coach) | |
| 7 April 1981 | Danny Boone | |
| 8 April 1981 | Juan Bonilla | |
| 9 April 1981 | Ruppert Jones | |
| 10 April 1981 | Joe Lefebvre | |
| 11 April 1981 | Tim Lollar | |
| 12 April 1981 | Chris Welsh | |
| 13 April 1981 | Frank Howard (manager) | |
| 14 April 1981 | Chuck Estrada (pitching coach) | |
| 15 April 1981 | Eddie Brinkman (infield coach) | |
| 16 April 1981 | Jack Krol (third base coach) | |
| 17 April 1981 | Ed Stevens (coach) |
Thanks to GenealogyBank.com for carrying the San Diego Union archives, making this post possible. While I don't have access to any further years of the newspaper, I am told this feature ran for a few more years.
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That Ozzie is spectacular! Huge fan of newspaper cards (cutouts). When I was a kid, I used to collect the A's and Giants cards from the San Jose Mercury News.
ReplyDeleteJason: Thanks for sharing this! As a longtime Padres fan (since 1974), I'm always interested in seeing "rare" or uncommon Padres team card issues, etc. Very nice article. In retrospect, do you think the Padres would still have made the deal trading Smith for Templeton (there were a few others in the trade, but those were the major two)?
ReplyDeleteBased on the players involved, it really just looks like San Diego was looking for a little extra punch at short, and Ozzie was really looking like an all-field, no hit proposition. But looking at the rest of the players involved (and assuming Templeton was the "get"), I have a hard time understanding what they were trying to accomplish by swapping the other players around. Looking at Ozzie's numbers, it really seemed like he was a good hitting coach away from being a decent hitter. He was making a lot of contact, his Ks were low, but he just wasn't getting on base. The Padres didn't really gain much as Templeton missed a lot of games in the following seasons.
DeleteI agree. I think it would have been a more competitive 1984 World Series (of course, we can play "what if's" all day) had the following occurred:
Delete1. Padres resigned Dave Winfield
2. Padres kept Ozzie Smith
3. Bevacqua does not stumble around 2nd and get thrown out at 3rd in game 1. If not, Padres win game 1 as well as game 2, and it's a different series headed to Detroit.
Of course, all pure conjecture....