Umpire and Press Box lineup cards from the final game of the 1978 season for the Padres.
The game was significant for a number of reasons:
- In this game, Gaylord Perry became just the 3rd pitcher of all time (after Walter Johnson and Bob Feller) to strike out 3,000 batters. To this day, there are far fewer pitchers with 3,000 strikeouts than hitters with 3,000 hits
- This game marked the first time that Ozzie Smith (who was a rookie in 1978) did his trademark back flip. There is a cool SABR article about this
- The game featured 2 future 300 win/3000 K pitchers facing off against each other (Perry against Don Sutton). Perry would also win the Cy Young in 1978, adn this was obviously his final start of the season.
I bought a lot of Padres-related lineup cards years ago but was unaware of Perry's feat at the time. Maybe a year ago I learned of it, but searching through my collection, could never find these, and worried that I might have sold them.
I recently moved, and somehow, they turned up now.
Edit: Not sure why they are sideways. The files on my computer are not sideways.