[deweyinthehall]

The 1978 Topps Pittsburgh Pirates.

There are 32 Pirate images to assess, including the paint jobs of Forster and Gossage.

The team photo was taken in Three Rivers Stadium sometime during 4/7-4/13. All members of the opening day roster are there, minus Willie Stargell, who was about to be placed on the DL on the 15th. He was replaced on the roster by Ken Macha who is not in the image.

The small black and white of Chuck Tanner was taken while he was with the Cubs sometime during 1957-1958.

Here is where it gets ugly. The Pirates kicked my butt at trying to ID stadiums - too many fuzzy, out of focus backgrounds, as few pre-1977 images and other things that made this really a hard one. What follows can, in some cases, be considered "best guesses" and I welcome any corrections.

OK - I am calling these images as being taken in Shea during 4/22-4/23, 7/15-7/17 or 9/20-9/21 - Garner, Demery, Parker, Parker LL, Rooker, Jones and Oliver.

Tekulve was taken in Shea as well, but on one of the two days he pitched - 4/22 or 7/17.

These I am slotting for Candlestick, from 6/17-6/19 or 8/30-8/31: Ott, Stennett, Reuss, Moreno, Fregosi, Mendoza, Gonzalez, Robinson, Tanner, Stargell, Dyer, Taveras, Jackson and Forster.

Kison was taken there on 6/18 or 8/31, Macha on 8/30 or 8/31, Dilone from 6/17-6/19 (he was on the DL, but there is no other option, given the Giant player in the background) and Gossage, on either 6/18 or 8/31.

I am attributing Tim Jones' image to McKechnie Field in Bradenton in the spring, but that is chancy since it would be the only spring photo here.

Finally, the images of Candelaria, his LL card and the Taveras LL card were snapped in 1976, before the Bucs wore pinstripes. I believe both LLs were taken in Shea from 5/31-6/1, 7/28-7/29 or 9/17-9/20. I say Shea because no Pirate cards in the 1977 set, with images taken in '76, were shot at the Stick. Candelaria's main card puzzled me greatly until I saw Ted Simmons' card which was taken at the Cardinals camp at Al Lang Stadium - there is a perfect match in the images' backgrounds. Therefore, Candy's image was shot when the Buccos were visiting Al Lang for a spring game in 1976 - or perhaps '77 as teams often didn't debut new uniforms until opening day.

Like I said, I am in no way certain about many of these - there is a surprising lack of vintage 70s views of these and other stadiums which would help bring greater certainty to things. I even have the Met's yearbooks from 77 and 78 and they were of little help in terms of offering images of Shea.

Please let me know where I've erred - if I had started out with the Pirates I may not have gone onto other teams.