Thursday, January 20, 2011

1983 Milwaukee Brewers



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
Starting Pitchers
__ 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
Relief Pitchers
__ 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
Other Players
__ 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
Minors
__ TO 35 MN Rollie Fingers MIL
Manager
__ TO 726 MG Harvey Kuenn MIL

2 comments:

  1. Deja Vu,
    I 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

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  2. 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

    ReplyDelete