My First Cards

I have this memory from when I was a kid, pretending to be Tony Armas in my backyard on a hot afternoon in late June.

I was wearing my plastic Oakland A's helmet and tossing my whiffle ball up a little, waiting for it to slide back down into my swinging zone. Then I just smack it over my backyard fence into the left field upper deck. The upper deck was actually the roof of a neighbors garage, but not to a boy obsessed with baseball.

I still think of that moment when I think of Tony Armas. Always. It flashes through my head whenever I hear his name. Just like the image on this card. This is how I still picture him.

It was always one of my favorite cards from the '82 set. It shows a star player looking like he enjoyed his baseball life & there's glimpses of two other players. Two other All-Stars. That's awesome!

Even when I was a kid, I knew this had to be a photo from the day of the '81 All-Star game (August 9, 1981), 'cause you can see three different uniforms and one of them is definitely the sleeve of a Phillies player in his road uniform. I could always identify that Phillies sleeve as Manny Trillo, because Trillo's card makes it obvious.

I could never figure out who the other player was though, until just a few days ago. I just had to look up each All-Star who wore the number 7 and a uniform with those colors. Turns out that player is California Angels SS Rick Burleson.

So this photo was shot on Sunday, August 9, 1981* just before the All-Star game, and gives us a trio of All-Stars—Tony Armas, Rick Burleson, and Manny Trillo.

Besides the card itself being one of the best cards out there, some on the field highlights of Tony's 1982 include slugging a multi-HR game in Minnesota. This game featured Tony Armas whalloping a 2 Run HR in the top of the 12th inning for the win.

A couple months later he showed off his defense in Toronto when he made 11 putouts in a single game in rightfield. The '83 Topps set made a record breaker card memorializing this performance, but the card's photo isn't from that day. You can tell because the card shows him playing on natural grass, and Toronto has astroturf.

In August, he smacked a grand slam off the Red Sox Bob Stanley in the 6th inning to give Oakland a safe 6 run lead. It's probably no coincidence that the Red Sox traded for him after the season.

* - In '81, there was no All-Star break. The players for the game weren't in town the day before for any kind of home run contests or other usual All-Star festivities. The All-Star game was the first MLB event after the strike, and the next day everybody was off with their regular teams again. Therefore, we know this photo was from the day of the game, and not from any other.