Early Bird's Night Owl Haul: Pack #2

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Time now for the second "pack" of Night Owl's childhood cards, featuring a Philly phanatic's phantasy:

1976 Topps Greg Luzinski PHI #610
1976 Topps Garry Maddox PHI #38
1976 Topps Tim McCarver PHI #502

I'm a Tim McCarver fan. He was, to say the least, polarizing as a color man. He could be annoying at times, but I kinda liked him for the most part. But it's his playing career that I'm a fan of. I'm all about pitching. Good field generals behind the plate are a corollary interest of mine, and by all accounts McCarver was excellent in that respect. Unfortunately, he was done by the time I got started watching. But you can see what Gibson and Carlton saw in him if you catch the oft repeated 1968 World Series, Game 1, on ESPN Classic. Plus he's a catcher who once led the league in triples, and that's pretty cool, too.

1976 Topps Nelson Briles TEX #569
1976 Topps Steve Brye MIN #519
1976 Topps Dick Ruthven PHI #431
1976 Topps John Denny STL #339

I find a card as old as 1976 of John Denny interesting because he didn't really exist for me until he won the '83 Cy Young Award. I was surprised at the time to find that he'd been around awhile, and had even won an ERA title the year this card came out. Plus it's a really unusual picture. You don't see many introspective super-closeups on baseball cards.

1976 Topps Ken Brett PIT #401

I like the Brett for a few reasons other than Ken's sibling ties to a Hall of Famer. One, he's a member of the all-time Dodgers roster. Two, both Ken and George played against my cousin Craig in high school. Finally, I love the color scheme on '76 Pirates cards, with the uniform-matching yellow and the universal baseball (grass) color, green.

1976 Topps Tom Veryzer DET #432
1976 Topps John Ellis CLE #383

More sweet, sweet cardboard. Thanks Night Owl.