1981 Pittsburgh Pirates

Card Design
I really like the 1981 Topps card design. The hats are probably the most effective way to show the team on the card on any Topps design going back to maybe the '50s sets that had team logos on them. They've matched the colors that every team wore in 1981. We've seen teams like the Expos and Orioles with multiple colors and even those show up on the hat design. On the Pirates card, the hat is even shaped like the old painter hats that they wore during this era.

Losing Franchise
The Pirates in 2010 are currently on a 17 season below .500 streak, dating back to 1993. Seeing that this 1981 version finished in the bottom third of all of baseball, it makes you realize how bad Pirate baseball has been for well over a quarter of a century now. If the Barry Bonds/Bobby Bonilla led era of the Pirates from 1988-1992 hadn't existed, that streak could be even uglier. The Pirates had won the World Series in 1979, were a two games over .500 in 1980, had a pretty lousy season in 1981, then picked up to go 84-78 in both 1982 and 1983, then fell off a cliff in 1984, bottoming out in 1985 with a 104 loss team. The Barry Bonds era Pirates put it together in 1988 to have an 85 win team, then the Pirates went to three playoffs in a row from 1990-1992. And then we are where we are now with the Pirates. Hard to believe they haven't had a winning season since Barry Bonds was on their roster...that puts the streak in perspective.

Willie Montanez
In 1981, Willie Montanez played 26 games with the Expos and 29 games with the Pirates. He is shown on his regular 1981 Topps card in one of those awful airbrushed cards of the era with the Expos. In the 1981 Fleer set he is shown as a Padre. There are no cards of him in the Topps Traded set. He played for the Padres and Expos in 1980, but his 1980 Topps card shows him with the Rangers, the team he played with the year before. He was traded from the Padres to the Expos on August 31, 1980 for Tony Phillips. So the Padres card in the Fleer set is the only card ever showing him as a member of the Padres (unless there is a regional set or some retro set I am not aware of).

Since I am keeping all players who are in different uniforms from the various sets, I will place that Padre card of Willie Montanez in this Pirates checklist and I placed the card of him in an Expo uniform on the Expos checklist.

Starting Players

__			C	Tony Pena
__	TT	843	1B	Jason Thompson	PIT
__	TO	573	2B	Phil Garner	PIT
__	TO	715	3B	Bill Madlock	PIT
__	TO	501	SS	Tim Foli	PIT
__	TO	92	LF	Mike Easler	PIT
__	TO	535	CF	Omar Moreno	PIT
__	TO	640	RF	Dave Parker	PIT
__	TO	147	IF	Dale Berra	PIT
__	TO	332	OF	Lee Lacy	PIT
__	TO	212	C	Steve Nicosia	PIT

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	298	SP	Eddie Solomon	PIT
__	TO	430	SP	Jim Bibby	PIT
__	TO	312	SP	Rick Rhoden	PIT
__	TO	627	SP	Luis Tiant	NYY
__			SP	Pascual Perez

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	28	CL	Enrique Romo	PIT
__	TO	695	RP	Kent Tekulve	PIT
__	TO	194	RP	Rod Scurry	PIT
__			SP	Odell Jones
__	TT	751	RP	Victor Cruz	PIT
__	TO	518	RP	Grant Jackson	PIT
__	TO	265	SP	John Candelaria	PIT
__	TO	168	RP	Don Robinson	PIT

Other Players

__			2B	Johnny Ray
__	TO	51	UT	Bill Robinson	PIT
__			MI	Vance Law
__	TO	380	1B	Willie Stargell	PIT
__	TO	618	UT	John Milner	PIT
__	TT	729	UT	Gary Alexander	PIT
__	FL	506	1B	Willie Montanez	SDP
__	TO	118	IF	Kurt Bevacqua	PIT
__	TO	68	OF	Matt Alexander	PIT
__			PH	Doe Boyland
__			RP	Ernie Camacho
__			RP	Mark Lee
__			SP	Bob Long

Manager/Coaches

__

FL

367

MG

Chuck Tanner (or DO 257)

PIT

1981 California Angels

Transition Year
This was a transition year for the Angels. This is two years after they appeared in the ALCS losing to Baltimore, and one year before they would lose again in the ALCS to the Brewers.

They made many changes before the season and this is reflected in the Topps Traded set which has 10 Angel cards in the 132 card set.

New to the Angels in '81 were Geoff Zahn, Rick Burleson, Butch Hobson, John D'Acquisto, Juan Beniquez, Fred Lynn, Steve Renko, Jesse Jefferson, Bill Travers, Ed Ott, Doug Rau, and Ken Forsch. Gone from the 1980 squad are Mark Clark, Carney Lansford, Rick Miller, Joe Rudi, Frank Tanana, John Montague, Jim Barr, Dave LaRoche, and Dickie Thon. That is quite a turnover of players.

Strong Lineup
Looking at this starting lineup, how did this team have a losing season. You have an infield of Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew, Bobby Grich, Rick Burleson, and Butch Hobson. Fred Lynn, Dan Ford, and Brian Downing make up the infield. Don Baylor was the DH. This seems like a solid lineup on paper, but looking at the stats for 1981, all the players received from Boston during the off season fell off a cliff. Also the pitching wasn't very good. That is probably the difference between the 1979/1982 teams and the 1981 team.

Update 1: added O-Pee-Chee cards to checklist on 5/31/2010

Starting Players

__	TT	810	C	Ed Ott	CAL
__	TO	100	1B	Rod Carew	CAL
__	TO	182	2B	Bobby Grich	CAL
__	TT	771	3B	Butch Hobson	CAL
__	TT	743	SS	Rick Burleson	CAL
__	TO	263	LF	Brian Downing	CAL
__	TT	797	CF	Fred Lynn	CAL
__	TO	422	RF	Dan Ford	CAL
__	TO	580	DH	Don Baylor	CAL
__	TT	733	CF	Juan Beniquez	CAL

Starting Pitchers

__	TT	764	SP	Ken Forsch	CAL
__			SP	Mike Witt
__	TT	821	SP	Steve Renko	CAL
__	TT	856	SP	Geoff Zahn	CAL

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	601	CL	Don Aase	CAL
__	TO	454	RP	Andy Hassler	CAL
__	FL	419	RP	Jesse Jefferson	TOR
__	TO	340	RP	Bruce Kison	CAL
__			RP	Luis Sanchez
__	TO	286	SP	Dave Frost	CAL

Other Players

__	TO	121	OF	Larry Harlow	CAL
__	TO	288	OF	Bobby Clark	CAL
__	TO	410	3B	Bert Campaneris	CAL
__			UT	John Harris
__			UT	Daryl Sconiers
__	TO	311	IF	Freddie Patek	CAL
__	TO	711	UT	Joe Ferguson	LAD
__			LF	Tom Brunansky
__			3B	Steve Lubratich
__			UT	Brian Harper
__	TO	221	C	Bob Davis	TOR
__	OP	221	C	Bob Davis	CAL
__			SP	Angel Moreno
__	TO	427	RP	John D'Acquisto	MON
__	OP	204	RP	John D'Acquisto	CAL
__	TT	818	SP	Doug Rau	CAL
__	TT	845	SP	Bill Travers	CAL
__			RP	Mickey Mahler
__	TO	227	RP	Alfredo Martinez	CAL

Manager/Coaches

__	FL	274	MG	Jim Fregosi (or DO 414)	CAL
__			MG	Gene Mauch

Sunday Extra

One of the first posts on this blog was a list of all the players who made it into the 1981 sets that didn't play another game at the major league level after the 1980 season. On that list was Mark "The Bird" Fidrych. He had a card in all three of the base sets out in 1981. I am sure enough has been said about his short career and it is probably better summed up by looking at his wikipedia page then what I could write here.

Why I am posting this is I found this clip online yesterday showing actual highlights from a game he pitched in 1976 against the Yankees. I think this is a cool clip as it shows why the fans were enthusiastic about him, and it shows the 1970s in full display looking at the crowd in old Tiger Stadium - from the fashions and hairstyles to the transistor radios.

1981 Atlanta Braves

Two 300-game winners
The Atlanta Braves of the 1990s were led mostly by their dominant pitching. But what about the staff they had in 1981? It was led by not one, but two pitchers who would end their career with 300+ wins. Unfortunately, both Phil Niekro and Gaylord Perry were 42 during the 1981 season. This was an odd pitching staff, Tommy Boggs was the only other pitcher I would consider a true starting pitcher.

Bobby Cox
29 years later and we see a card for a person still in the same position in 2010 as he was in 1981. Of course he left to manage the Blue Jays for a short period before returning to Atlanta to apparently become the Connie Mack of our time.

Best Player On This Team
Since I started this blog, I have attempted to put up the card in the first spot of who I thought the team MVP was for the year. I have to say, I am going to give that honor to Rick Camp. He was 4th in the league in saves and had a 1.78 ERA. N0 other batters or pitchers on this team seemed to stand out that much. I knew nothing about this player, so looking at his career on baseball-reference.com, it looked like he played for the Braves from 1976-1985. He had a pretty solid 1980 and 1981, posting two sub 2.00 ERA seasons back to back as the teams closer. It looks like he attempted to move into the starting rotation in 1982 and was roughly a .500 pitcher and fell into relative obscurity. This is why sometimes, maybe if it isn't broke don't fix it. Then again I don't know much else about why he was moved into the starting rotation other than looking at his stats.

New Uniforms
The Gaylord Perry card posted above is from the traded set. All the other cards are from the regular 1981 sets that feature photographs taken during the 1980 season. In 1981, the Braves must've moved from the uniforms with the lower case "a" on the hat I associate with Braves wearing when Hank Aaron took over the career home run record, to the scripted "A" that is similar to what they wear now. Although I don't remember them changing hues of blue, it looks like the blue is a slightly different shade than what they wear now.

Starters

__	TO	108	C	Bruce Benedict	ATL
__	TO	155	1B	Chris Chambliss	ATL
__	TO	247	2B	Glenn Hubbard	ATL
__	TO	355	3B	Bob Horner	ATL
__	FL	266	SS	Rafael Ramirez	ATL
__			LF	Rufino Linares
__	TO	504	CF	Dale Murphy	ATL
__	TT	854	RF	Claudell Washington	ATL

Starting Pitchers

__	TO	387	SP	Phil Niekro	ATL
__	TT	812	SP	Gaylord Perry	ATL
__	TO	132	SP	Tommy Boggs	ATL

Relief Pitchers

__	TO	87	CL	Rick Camp	ATL
__			RP	Rick Mahler
__	TO	307	RP	Gene Garber	ATL
__	TO	636	RP	Al Hrabosky	ATL
__	TT	804	RP	John Montefusco	ATL
__	TO	44	SP	Larry McWilliams	ATL
__	TT	853	SP	Bob Walk	ATL
__	TO	594	RP	Preston Hanna	ATL

Other Players

__			LF	Eddie Miller
__			LF	Brett Butler
__	TO	326	3B	Biff Pocoroba	ATL
__	TO	268	IF	Jerry Royster	ATL
__	TO	64	OF	Brian Asselstine	ATL
__			OF	Terry Harper
__	TO	477	IF	Luis Gomez	ATL
__			C	Matt Sinatro
__			SS	Paul Runge
__			C	Larry Owen
__			PH	Bob Porter
__	TO	296	UT	Bill Nahorodny	ATL
__	TO	457	LF	Mike Lum	ATL
__			3B	Brook Jacoby
__			OF	Larry Whisenton
__			OF	Albert Hall
__			1B	Ken Smith
__	TO	542	RP	Larry Bradford	ATL
__			RP	Steve Bedrosian
__	TO	611	RP	Rick Matula	ATL
__			RP	Jose Alvarez

Manager/Coaches

__

FL

247

MG

Bobby Cox (or DO 426)

ATL