Oversized in My Collection: 1981 Topps Supers (Part 2 of 2)

Last Saturday, I showed about half of my 1981 Topps Supers.  They included both "Home Team" and "National" varieties, but this week the rest are all National.

Tom Seaver.

Rod Carew.

I remember when I was growing up, Tom Seaver and Johnny Bench were the two most famous Reds.  I knew that Seaver had been with the Miracle Mets in 1969, but I had assumed that he was part of the Big Red Machine in the 70s, too.  I only found out recently I was wrong about that, and 1969 was his only World Series win.  I don't have any stories to tell about Rod Carew, but I think he's great.  I have a bunch of cards of him, and this is one of them.

Steve Garvey.

Pete Rose.

Steve Garvey's career ended just as I started paying attention to baseball, in 1987 -- I remember clearly his 1987 Topps card, of him stretching on the field, with the Padres.  He has career numbers are just below what looks like a Hall-of-Famer, like Bill Buckner or maybe Mark Grace.  Then we have Pete Rose again, on whom I won't comment further.

Jim Rice.

Johnny Bench.

I'm almost done reading The Bad Guys Won!, about the 1986 Mets team that won the World Series.  According to the writer, you could lay the blame for the Red Sox losing the World Series on Jim Rice for his poor baserunning.  I don't think I ever saw him play, since he was in the AL, but I was a fan of Rice, and was glad he made the Hall.  Johnny Bench retired before I started seriously watching baseball, but I did know him, as I said above, as one of the great Reds.  I also knew him for his spray paint commercials in the 80s.

Jim Palmer.

Ted Simmons.

Jim Palmer was also retired before I started seriously paying attention to baseball, but we were from close to Balitmore (closer to Philly, but not far from Baltimore), and people still talked about him.  In the 1979 series that the Pirates won, he was getting older by then, but pitched 15 innings in 2 games, going 0-1.  His third and final World Series win would be a few years later in 1983, over the Phillies.  I don't really know anything about Ted Simmons, but looking him up, I see that he was an 8-time All-Star, with career numbers similar to Garvey (i.e., just below Hall of Fame level).

Next Saturday, I think we'll continue this series on oversized cards with some Phillies team-issued cards.