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”.

When all was said and done in 1981, a pair of third baseman won the batting titles. For Bill, it was his third title, while Carney won his first and only one. They reached their crowns in two different ways though.

Rewinding back to September 7th in the American League, Carney Lansford was trailing Richie Zisk by 26 points. With a young Rickey Henderson and veteran Jerry Remy in the mix too, it didn’t really look like Lansford had much of a chance.

Zisk was on a tear at the time, batting .404 since baseball resumed after the strike. At that point, the American League batting title was basically his to lose.

And lose it, he did. The very next day, he’d pop out to 1st base before grounding out to shortstop his next three at-bats facing Chicago’s Steve Trout. He hit just .174 to finish the season, blowing the batting race.

In the meantime, Carney Lansford upped his game, hitting .365 from September 8 onward, helpin’ him leap over Rickey and Richie, to win the ’81 AL Batting Title.

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Over in the National League, Bill Madlock wasn’t quite as much of a surprise. As I mentioned, Bill had won a pair of titles earlier in his career, though that was half a decade earlier when he played for the Cubs.

When you look at his month-by-month averages in 1981, it’s amazing how consistent he’d been.

Lookin’ at that, it’s easy to see that Madlock fell into a slump as the stresses of the baseball strike were looming. Look closer though, and we see that his BAbip was about 100 points lower than his usual, while his OBP rose up about 100 points.

That’s impressive. Usually the OBP drops when the BAbip drops, but here it does the opposite. So I don’t consider that a slump, ’cause he was clearly still seeing the ball well, but the defenses he faced were on fire.

So unlike Carney, it was Bill’s consistency throughout the ’81 season, that was the key to the NL batting crown.

Boston actually had a shot at a playoff spot in ’81 until an ugly 8th inning in Cleveland on October 2nd tore that dream to shreds.

When the following season started, they were seen as a mediocre team just trying to hang in there with Milwaukee, Detroit, Baltimore, and New York. The only reason the Red Sox would avoid fading into a rebuilding era during the 80′s, is thanks to future stars like Wade Boggs, Oil Can Boyd, Marty Barrett, Bob Ojeda, and Rich Gedman.

Of course, none of them appear on this card, making the card a bit of a disappointment. Sometimes I just don’t understand what Topps guidelines were for these future stars cards.

Dave Stapleton was beat out for AL rookie of the year in 1980, by Joe Charboneau, and it was all downhill from there.

He slapped 33 doubles and hit .321 that season, but his batting average and on-base percentage fell a little bit in each season he played. His slugging dropped every year except one (1985).

The front of this card says he played second base, but he actually played more games at third base & shortstop than second during ’81. Even in ’82, he played more first base & shortstop than second. Way more. He spent 106 games as first baseman in ’82 and only 6 games over at second base.

I wonder if Topps put 2B on here ’cause they saw a game with him playing 2B and wrote him down like that? If so, then I suspect this photo is from September 13, 1981 when the Red Sox were at Yankee Stadium. It’s a day game, he played 2B that day, & the background looks like Yankee to me. He didn’t play many road games at stadiums with blue outfield walls and blue bleacher seats.

Anyway, part of the reason his average dropped in ’82, was that his hand was banged up for a couple weeks. Makes me wonder how often he played through injuries.

Another reason, is related to his 4th inning at-bat on August 7, when Dave hit a foul line drive that struck a little boy, Jonathon Keane, in the head. Scary moment there, and Dave later admitted the event affected his hitting. He didn’t realize at first what happened, but fortunately Jim Rice came to the rescue (photo above article’s title), and the boy got medical help within seconds.

The boy turned out to be fine, thanksfully.

Before the incident, from July 17 thru Aug 6, Dave was hitting .347/.396/.510, but for nine days after it, his averages fell off the earth to a mere .172/.226/.172. It clearly affected him at the plate.

His defense stayed in tact even as his bat lost its value. After ’83, he became more of a backup player. by 1986, he was still playing for Boston, but used almost exclusively as a late inning defensive replacement for Bill Buckner…except for one infamous moment.

He’s probably thinking something like “how much playing time would I get if I were traded to…the Blue Jays?” Or maybe he’s dreaming of what it might be like to switch from being an outfielder to being a pitcher, and whether that would help his career more.

It all starts back in 1974, when Gary was a high valued prospect who was the 4th pick of the draft. He didn’t sign though, and spent the next two seasons being a 1st round pick for two other teams. He seemed to have potential that everybody wanted.

We’ll fast-forward to 1978 from here, when Gary was a 24 year old rookie trying to help the Red Sox win the AL East. In his first 18 games, he did pretty good, hitting .282. In that 18th game itself, he drove in 2 runs and had 3 hits to help the BoSox slip past the Angels 8-6. He’d done his part to keep the Red Sox 7.5 games up in 1st place.

After that game though, it was all downhill. Gary batted just .171, drawing only 1 walk for the rest of ’78. The Red Sox, they went from being a 77-44 club to a 22-20 one after that day. Gary didn’t even get in a game after September 24.

The next year, he spent the season in the minors dreaming of being a major league star while hitting pretty fine .325/.361/.505 in AAA.

When 1980 came, he got another shot at the majors but had trouble getting on base. Same dull story in ’81 too. So, back to Pawtucket he went until September ’82. Still daydreaming of the day…

Then, in 15 major league plate appearances in 1982, he didn’t get a single base hit. Not one. He had a -80 OPS+ for the season. Sure, it’s only a very small number of time at the plate, but at this point, wouldn’t you be thinking about becoming a pitcher? I would.

After the season, he was traded with Carney Lansford to Oakland. Gary spent 1983 playing 101 games in the A’s outfield, and hitting .273 with a 99 ERA+. So, he was just about as average as you could be.

Then came ’84, which was his final season. Although, before it was all over, it probably hit Gary like a ton of bricks that he should’ve been a pitcher all these years, but it was too late to turn around now. On June 25, 1984, he pitched a perfect 1 1/3 innings to finish the game. He induced 3 fly balls and a grounder. Unfortunately, the A’s lost 16-0.

One of those guys who might’ve just been in the wrong line of work all that time.

Growing up in Elmira, NY, you tend to notice very quickly when Elmira’s listed on the back of someone’s baseball card. No matter who the player is or isn’t, it instantly made them cool to us kids.

Reid had a taste of the big leagues in ’80 and got into 39 games in ’81. In ’82, he was used mostly as part of a platoon in centerfield, sometimes filling in for Jim Rice in left, and occasionally did some pinch hitting and right field work. 1982 happened to be the best season of his career once everything was said and done.

It started off slowly though. Through June 8 he only had 32 plate appearances, while starting 8 games in center, mostly entering games as a late innings defensive replacement. The only highlight of this part of his season was on May 28th in Seattle when he smacked his first career home run off Floyd Bannister in the 7th inning. It put the Red Sox up 1-0, and they went on to win 3-2, so that homer really helped.

The everything changed, very suddenly on June 9 in Fenway against the Yankees. He went 2 for 4, scoring a run and driving in another, as the Red Sox beat the Yankees by 1 run. That night was the start of the new Reid Nichols.

In fact, he was the 5th best hitter in Boston the rest of the year among batters with at least 50 PA’s, very comparable to Carney Landsford’s averages.

The season ended up being his career bests in HR (7), RBI (33), batting average (.302), slugging percentage (.461), and OPS+ (112). It earned him more playing time the following year, but he just couldn’t match the production from ’82.

Carney Lansford‘s first year in Boston and he leads the entire American League in batting average. Nice way to earn the respect of your teammates like Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, and Tony Perez, as well as win over any fans who might’ve thought “aahh this guy won’t be as good as Fred Lynn“.

Lansford was like the complete opposite of Lynn. Carney played for the Angels and came to Boston in a trade just before 1981. Fred played for Boston and came to the Angels in a separate trade just before 1981. Lansford became a better hitter after his trade to Boston, while Lynn became a worse hitter after his trade to California. When they switched places, it’s almost like each player picked up where the other left off. Carney comes to Boston and hits like Lynn. Lynn goes to California and hits like Carney. Oh, and both their last names start with L. Weird eh?

Most of that is just the result of what’s called “park effects” (hit .363 at home, .314 on the road), but in the early 1980′s, barely anybody had even thought of that concept. Very fascinating stuff. Carney Lansford was a pretty good hitter throughout his career, posting a 111 OPS+ and in 1988 he made a run at .400. During his two seasons in Boston (81-82), he hit .317, and then was traded to the Oakland A’s.

When you look at his home/road splits for his time in Boston, it’s clear that Fenway helped him a lot. During those two years, his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) at Fenway was way way higher than his road BABIP. For example, in home games, his BABIP was .379 in ’81 and .355 in ’82. On the road though, his BABIP was .330 in ’81 and .275 in ’82. It’s clear that even though Lansford was a decent hitter, the park effects in Boston were helping him the way they helped Fred Lynn.

Unlike Lansford, the other guy on this card, Mike Torrez, had been in Boston since 1978. He got on this card because he posted his best ERA since joining the team, and nobody else with as many innings posted a better ERA during ’81. There actually were 5 pitchers on the staff with a better ERA. Which makes me wonder if Topps put him on this card partly because he was tied for the team lead in wins, but they don’t mention that at all on the card.

Although, it’s very clear the park effects of Fenway had its effect on Torrez’s stats too. In Fenway during 1981 was just 2-2 with a massive 4.74, but a fine 8-1 record due to his 2.72 ERA in the same number of games on the road. Make of that what you will.

Interestingly both players on this card left the Red Sox after the 1982 season.

This team had a number of great players on it. As of 2009, four of them are in the Hall of Fame, and another one of them, Dwight Evans, really should be. I’ve read some good arguments on the net showing that Evans was as good, if not better for the team, than Jim Rice. Maybe Dwight Evans will be inducted via the Veterans committee.

Evans really was the best player on the team in 1981, posting a massive 162 OPS+, tying for the league lead in HR’s, and driving in 71 RBI in just 108 games. He came in 3rd in the MVP voting for the year behind Rollie Fingers and Rickey Henderson (two future Hall of Famers). He didn’t stop there, as in ’82 he smacked 32 HR’s and 98 RBI, drawing 112 walks to push his OBP up to .402. How cool is that?

I always liked team leaders & checklist cards when I was a kid. I used to use them as the top card in my rubber band bundled set of team players cards. They had the team colors, team logo, and two of the teams best players from the previous season. How could you not love that? Then, right on the back, is a list of all the players.