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Old 03-14-2023, 03:14 PM
deweyinthehall deweyinthehall is offline
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1978 Topps Cleveland Indians

The Indians team set includes 32 images, with no paint jobs taken out from or added to the total.

The team card photo was taken at Municipal Stadium during one of two homestands, either 6/13-6/19 or 6/27-7/3, owing the presence of Ron Pruitt, called up 6/2 and the absence of Charlie Spikes, called up 7/8.

Jeff Torborg's black and white image was taken, probably in the spring, at some point during his stint with the Dodgers from 1964-1970.

The following images all look to have been taken at the club's Hi Corbett Field training site in Tucson in the spring of 77 - Dobson, Eckersley, Fitzmorris, Garland, Hood, Kern, Waits, Kendall, Duffy, Grubb, Manning, Blanks, Dade, Pruitt and the rookies Andersen, Oliver, Camper and Oliver.

The Indians had series in Oakland from 6/6-6/8 and from 8/19-8/21, during which the images for Lowenstein, Monge, Thornton, Bell, Carty, Kuiper, Norris and Bochte were captured.

Spikes was taken in Oakland during the August series as he wasn't with the club in June.

Torborg's manager image, if taken after his promotion from bullpen coach, was also from the August series, or if taken when he was still coaching could have been in June.

One outlier here is Jim Bibby - it looks like he was photographed in Cleveland, but I would welcome additional insights into whether that's the right location. Judging by his short sleeves, it was probably during the summer months. UPDATE - just found a film clip making it seem clear that Bibby's image was taken at Tiger Stadium during one of the Tribe's 2 June series there in the summer of 1977.

UPDATE: Another outlier is Ray Fosse. For the longest time I had assumed his paint job Brewers uniform was a Mariners outfit underneath, but when working on the Mariners post, after a lot of consideration, I now think it shows him with the Indians, where he was until a 9/9 trade to Seattle. As to where the image was taken, again this is tough. After running through all of possibilities, the likeliest one seems to be Oakland, sometime between either 6/6-6/8 or 8/19-8/21.

Last edited by deweyinthehall; 03-17-2023 at 04:09 PM.
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