1981 Coca-Cola Phillies

Yesterday we featured the 1980 Burger King Phillies, which are one of at least three ways the 1980 Phillies team is commemorated in my collection.  Today we have the 1981 Coca-Cola Phillies team set, which is a second way the '80 Phils are in my collection.

1981 Phillies Team Set offer card.

Topps and Coca-Cola put out sets like this for several teams.  I might consider getting the Royals, to further commemorate the 1980 World Series; I do appreciate the talent on that Royals team, with George Brett, Willie Wilson, Amos Otis, Hal McRae, and others.

Bob Boone, Larry Bowa, and Steve Carlton.

These are in alphabetical order, starting with Boone, Bowa, and Carlton.  The pictures are the same as on the regular 1981 Topps cards.  One difference in the Carlton card is that he had a banner declaring him an "N.L. All-Star" on the regular card, but I guess it interfered with the Coca-Cola logo.

Greg Luzinski, Garry Maddox, Bake McBride, Tug McGraw, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt.

A story related to the origin of this blog: when I got the idea to write a blog about baseball cards, the first idea I had was to name the blog "Baseball Card Bust."  Well, there was already a blog called that, although it is defunct (with the last post made in February, 2015).  Baseball Card Bust appears to have devoted itself to cards "worthy of skewering," and features, in that final post, Greg Luzinski.

This seems like a good time to mention that the book I'm reading, The Bad Guys Won!, mentions the Phillies briefly, early on.  To show how badly behaved the Mets are, it says they're worse than the Phillies teams that had Larry Bowa and Greg Luzinski on them.  I don't know what went on off the field with the Phillies, but I could try reading The Team That Wouldn't Die, the book about the 1980 Phillies season, and see if it says anything about Bowa and Luzinski after the games.

Lonnie Smith and Manny Trillo.

Lonnie Smith was involved in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials, along with Dave Parker, Keith Hernandez, and others.  I wonder how much drug use impacted his career.  He had a great rookie season with the Phillies in 1980, batting .339 with 33 steals.  In 1982, he actually finished 2nd in MVP voting.  He was on three World Series winners; other than the Phillies, he won with the Cardinals in 1982 and the Royals in 1985.