Phanatical

Now we have a brief tribute to that greatest of the mascots, the Phillie Phanatic.  I consider myself fortunate to have grown up with our local stadium being his home.  Over the years I've seen many mascots, and I always think how much better the Phanatic is.

Two 1987 Acme supermarket Phanatic figurines.

I remember getting some of these little Phanatic figures when I was a kid.  I seem to remember that they came from Acme.  If you're not from the Philly area, you might think of Acme as only the place that the coyote got all the gadgets he tries to use against the road runner.  But around Philly, Acme is one of the big supermarket chains.  (Back in the day it was the leading grocer in the area, but it's been surpassed by ShopRite at this point.)  This blog post confirms that these did come from Acme, and puts the date at 1987.  I would have been 11 years old in the summer of 1987, and I remember getting a couple of these at the time.  These that I have pictured here haven't been with me since childhood, though; I don't have my original ones, so I ordered a couple cheap off eBay a little while ago.  I remember that the one in the tux was called "Mr. Formal," and the advertisement pictured at the other blog's link shows that that's right.  

Dale Murphy and the Phanatic on a Star card.

So I thought I'd get a card of the Phanatic, too, and I picked this Dale Murphy Star card from 1986.  I vaguely knew about the existence of Star in the 80s, although I never got any of their cards.  I considered buying some of the old Star sets now (Fritsch has some sets in stock, for example), but decided that it doesn't feel like that fits with my collection since I didn't have them back then.  But if I don't want a whole set, I can still get a single card.  So this here puts the Phanatic into my main binder, and represents Star in my collection.  I also have fond memories of Dale Murphy's time with the Phillies, and you could say that this card foreshadows that.  So it's all good as a part of my collection now.

That's it for now; as always, thanks for reading!