Much like the team that made it to the 1982 World Series, very good offensive team. Unfortunately the pitching took many steps back and ended up in 5th place in the AL East in 1983. Considering how strong the AL East was in 1983, that still meant they ended up with a respectable 87 wins.
Best Player: Cecil Cooper
Best Pitcher: Moose Haas
All-Stars: Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, Ted Simmons, Robin Yount
Hall-of-Famers: Paul Molitor, Don Sutton, Robin Yount
Rookie Card of the Year: Pete Ladd (first solo card)...Pete Ladd appeared on the Astros prospects card in the 1980 Topps set
Other rookie cards: Dwight Bernard (listed under retired players), Tom Tellman (first solo card)...Tellman's true rookie card was on the Padres prospects card in the 1981 Topps set...both Ladd and Tellman were out of the majors after 1986, I gave Ladd the rookie card of the year because he was the closer for the Brewers in 1983 while Rollie Fingers sat out the year with injuries (which is why he is listed in the minors in the checklist below).
First Brewer card: Jamie Easterly, Rick Manning, Doc Medich (listed under retired players), Don Sutton, Rick Waits...all of these players except Medich and Sutton came to the Brewers in a June 6, 1983 trade for fan favorite Gorman Thomas, who was sent to the Indians. This is the latest trade I've come across so far to be included in the traded set....Typical of most teams coming off success the previous season, few transactions were made. The Gorman Thomas trade was made to shore up the outfield defense, but probably just negated some of the offense. Sutton and Medich both came over during the stretch drive in 1982 and their first cards as Brewers show up in the regular 1983 sets.
Most interesting non-Topps card: the above mentioned Pete Ladd is the only card that isn't from a Topps set.
Other notes: Topps produced a regional set for Gardner's Bakery. The set consisted of 22 Brewers players, but is a redundant set because all of the players appear in the regular 1983 Topps set. A sample of the card is shown above (Robin Yount), but I pulled this off of ebay and it looks like something was cut off in the picture.
Starters
| __ | TO | 450 | C | Ted Simmons | MIL |
| __ | TO | 190 | 1B | Cecil Cooper | MIL |
| __ | TO | 88 | 2B | Jim Gantner | MIL |
| __ | TO | 350 | SS | Robin Yount | MIL |
| __ | TO | 630 | 3B | Paul Molitor | MIL |
| __ | TO | 750 | LF | Ben Oglivie | MIL |
| __ | TT | 65 | CF | Rick Manning | MIL |
| __ | TO | 659 | RF | Charlie Moore | MIL |
| __ | TO | 218 | DH | Roy Howell | MIL |
| __ | TO | 145 | SP | Don Sutton | MIL |
| __ | TO | 142 | SP | Mike Caldwell | MIL |
| __ | TO | 503 | SP | Moose Haas | MIL |
| __ | TO | 62 | SP | Bob McClure | MIL |
| __ | SP | Chuck Porter |
| __ | FL | 37 | CL | Pete Ladd | MIL |
| __ | TT | 109 | RP | Tom Tellmann | MIL |
| __ | TO | 114 | RP | Jim Slaton | MIL |
| __ | RP | Bob Gibson | |||
| __ | SP | Tom Candiotti | |||
| __ | TO | 424 | RP | Jerry Augustine | MIL |
| __ | TO | 297 | C | Ned Yost | MIL |
| __ | TO | 167 | LF | Mark Brouhard | MIL |
| __ | TO | 10 | CF | Gorman Thomas | MIL |
| __ | TO | 271 | UT | Ed Romero | MIL |
| __ | TO | 608 | DH | Don Money | MIL |
| __ | TO | 582 | UT | Marshall Edwards | MIL |
| __ | C | Bill Schroeder | |||
| __ | UT | Randy Ready | |||
| __ | TO | 476 | UT | Rob Picciolo | MIL |
| __ | UT | Bob Skube | |||
| __ | UT | Dion James | |||
| __ | TT | 123 | RP | Rick Waits | MIL |
| __ | SP | Jaime Cocanower | |||
| __ | TO | 375 | SP | Pete Vuckovich | MIL |
| __ | TO | 528 | RP | Jamie Easterly | MIL |
| __ | RP | Andy Beene |
| __ | TO | 35 | MN | Rollie Fingers | MIL |
| __ | TO | 726 | MG | Harvey Kuenn | MIL |
Deja Vu,
ReplyDeleteI just got a set of 83 Gardner's Brewers off of ebay. For a whole buck I couldn't pass it up. On the plus I got another Yount and Fingers for both PC and a complete team set. I miss the food issues of the 80's
I only came across that set when looking at the wikipedia entry for 1983 Topps...if you know of any other regional issues for the Brewers, let me know so I can see if I can fill in some of the blanks in this checklist
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