My First Cards

Obviously, this is one of the coolest cards in the set when you’re an eight year old and I dubbed it “the card of five stars”. You’ve got 5 of the best players AND they’re the home run leaders!

It all starts with Mike Schmidt, who led the National League in homers for the fifth time in his career. His 31 HR’s might sound like an unimpressive number, but he did it in only 102 games played as the Phillies played just 106 that year.

Just doin’ a rough estimate, 31 HR’s in about 2/3 the usual amount of games, means Mike was on pace for about 45 homers. Even if he slumped a little, he probably would’ve reached 40 for the second straight year.

At the mid-season break though, he was stuck in a three way tie that included George Foster and Dave Kingman. Another dangerous slugger and fellow future Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, was just 1 homer shy of them.

Mike wedged out a little breathing room after the All-Star game, smacking 9 HR’s in late August. He had a 4 HR lead over Andre & Dave when September began.

As this card tells us, Dawson and Kingman faded in the end while Schmidt left them all in the dust the rest of the season.

The A.L. race for the home run lead was a much more rabid affair. Actually, it was kind of like the A.L. batting race, with a pair of sluggers coming from behind.

Stormin’ Gorman Thomas led the major leagues with 15 HR’s at the break. Only two behind him in the A.L., were Tony Armas, Dwight Evans, and Gary Gray.

Gary Gray? Yeah, that’s right. A uniquely named nobody was finally getting some playing time in Seattle and making a run at being noticed.

Well, Gary Gray returned to being Gary Gray after the break, and didn’t hit another homer all year.

Meanwhile, after the break, three stars named Bobby Grich, Eddie Murray, and Greg Luzinski were heating up. By September 35, Gorman and Tony were leading the A.L. with 21 HR’s a piece.

It was really anybody’s to have, but Gorman just kept staying one step ahead of the pack. At the time, many figured he was going to end up with the most HR’s in the league. After all, he did it just two years earlier with 45.

But just like in the A.L. batting race, which was Richie Zisk’s to lose, this was Gorman Thomas’s to lose — and he did. He didn’t hit another homer for the rest of the season. He wouldn’t hit another home run til game 5 of the playoffs (the division series against the Yankees).

Greg Luzinski would only smack a pair before the season finished, and that just wouldn’t be enough in this race.

Now, I really should mention how hot Bobby Grich was. From September 20 – October 2, he hit .409/.449/.727 with 4 HR’s. He was just on fire. The 4th homer in that hot stretch came on October 2, and made Bobby the first to reach the 22 homer plateau in ’81. Oh yeah, it was an exciting one too, being a 1st inning 3 run blast.

The next night in Kansas City, Tony Armas joined him at 22, with a 2-run homer in the 6th.

With a day left to the season after that, both Tony & Bobby must’ve been thinkin’ they could win the HR title. The last day of the season though, neither of them would sneak ahead.

That last day of the season, at about the same time of the afternoon, Eddie Murray joined them with a 3rd inning blast and Dwight Evans hit his 21st.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but no. Dwight hits another homer in the 8th inning of his game, to make a four way tie atop the leaderboard!

Thus, Dwight gave birth to the awesome “card of 5 stars”.