1977 rod carew

i don't know why o-pee-chee didn't care for all-star banners, but whatever the reason, they allowed us to see rod carew's feet on his 1977 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

carew was an all-star every year of his career except for his final season (1985).  that's crazy.  1977 turned out to be his best season - he set career highs in runs, hits, double, triples, obp, and ops, and he tied his career high in homers to boot.  his average on the season was also a career best - .388 - netting him his 6th of 7 batting titles.  he was hitting over .400 on july 10th, but didn't flirt with that magic number after the all-star break.

voici à vous, 1977 rod carew!

1979 rod carew

rodney cline carew was traded from the twins to the angels in february of 1979.  here's his 1979 o-pee-chee card:

here's the topps front:

now the o-pee-chee back:

and the topps back:

this is one of my favorite o-pee-chee variations simply because of the improbability of it.  growing up in socal, i paid some attention to the angels, and i was shocked when i learned that the singing cowboy was bringing 11 time all-star rod carew to the big a.  later that summer, i got my mitts on this card and reveled in the team variation it featured.  it was much more interesting to me than the pete broberg card, that's for sure.  you may notice that it is the only non-dodger variation featured in the blog header (except for that ridiculous 1988 delino deshields card).  it was also the very first card i featured on this blog.  i like it that much.

as for carew, he hit over .300 in each of his first five seasons in anaheim, including a .412 performance in their first postseason appearance in 1979.  he also helped them back to the playoffs in 1982, but wasn't a part of the 1986 al west champs, as he was forced out after the 1985 season to make room for 'wally world'.

voici à vous, 1979 rod carew!