1978 Topps Image Inventory

[deweyinthehall]

For a long time I've wanted to dive into my favorite/first set, 1978 Topps, and see if I could determine to the best of my ability the location and approximate date for each image.

I've gotten to the point where I'm actually almost done, and in the coming days I plan on posting the results in this thread for others who are as obsessive as I am about either the 1978 set or in general about vintage Topps sets.

I will post team by team - the 1978 set has 763 images in total counting the 4x4 rookie cards, leaders, record breakers, team cards, managers and post season cards. Actually it just dawned on me that the managers also have those small black and white photos - I will try to ID those as well.

Each team's entry will include every image of a player from that team. Paint jobs (i.e. Dennis Blair and Nelson Briles for the Orioles) will be included in the team with which they were photographed - the Expos for Blair and the Rangers for Briles.

On rare occasion, it will be possible to identify the specific date of an image, but in most cases I will just need to say either the team's first or second trip to Yankee Stadium in 1977. I will also try to identify the locations of images taken during spring training, which has proven tough.

Anyway, the 1978 is my 'first love' in the hobby, and this has been a fun and occasionally illuminating exercise.

If anyone can correct any of my conclusions or offer to fill in missing information, please do so!

[texmrsport]

Cool project. Look forward to reading your deductions. You could almost do a panoramic 360 shot of inside Candlestick Park so many were taken there. I love the shot of "Yankee" Goose Gossage pitching at the Stick pre interleague play.

[deweyinthehall]

1978 Topps Orioles

I'll bang one out tonight.

In 1978, Topps used 27 images on Orioles cards, not counting Dennis Blair and Nelson Briles which were paint jobs.

One image, Mark Belanger, was taken in a spring stadium, almost certainly in the spring of 1977 (which I will default to in later posts). It is hard to tell if he is wearing his home whites or away light grays. It doesn't look like Miami Stadium from the images I've seen so this remains an unknown location to me.

The small B&W image of Earl Weaver as a player appears to have been taken when he was with either the Fitzgerald Orioles in 1957 or the Dublin Orioles in 1958 as a player/manager, the only two clubs he was with that went by Orioles, and there is clearly a bird on his cap.

Larry Harlow's photo was taken in Memorial Stadium either before June 2 when he went to Rochester, or in September when he returned. His long sleeves don't give anything away as both periods likely had chilly games.

Brooks Robinson's Record Breaker card was, to the best of my ability to identify, taken in Milwaukee County Stadium (the light poles and the outfield bleachers seem to be a match) during the O's visits in April, June or July, but given his long sleeves, it was probably snapped in April.

The following images were taken in Yankee Stadium during the club's visits there 5/19-5/22 or 7/26-7/28, with long sleeves possibly indicating the earlier visit and short the latter: Singleton (long), D. Martinez (Long), Bumbry (long), Weaver, Dempsey (short), T. Martinez (long), Muser (long), May (long) and Palmer (short).

Rudy May and Scott McGregor are shown in Yankee Stadium in action shots in long sleeves. Assuming this means a May visit, then these images were taken when they each started one end of a double header on May 22 (May game 1, McGregor game 2).

The following images were taken when the Orioles visited Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, either 5/13-5/15 or 8/1-8/2 (same logic with sleeves): DeCinces (long), Dauer (long), Garcia, Flanagan (long), Skaggs (short), Kelly, Smith, Grimsley and Murray (long). However, Mora's image shows him in long sleeves, and he was only there for the August series, so that sort of screws things up.

The image of Palmer on the Victory Leaders card was inexplicably taken sometime between 1966 and 1971 when the team wore that kind of road uniform. Looks like a spring shot.

Finally, the team photo - because of the presence of Tony Chevez, it had to be taken during a homestand, either 6/14-6/16 or 6/20-6/24.

[deweyinthehall]

1978 Topps Boston Red Sox.

The Boston team set includes 32 images, not counting the paint jobs of Bailey, Torrez or Brohamer, but including the Tom Murphy Blue Jays paint job.

The team photo was taken at Fenway between 8/26 and 9/1, after the arrival of Sam Bowen, but before the call-ups arrived.

The small B&W image of Zimmer seems to have been taken when he was with the Senators from 63-65.

The following images all seem to have been taken at Chain-o-Lakes Park in Winter Haven in the spring of '77 - Murphy, Campbell, Cleveland, Lee, Stanley, Willoughby, Wise, Doyle, Evans, Dillard, Cox and Diaz.

These images seem to have been taken at Yankee Stadium during 5/23-5/24, 6/24-/26 or 9/13-9/15 (not listing the sleeves here...you can look at the cards to see): Yastrzemski, Montgomery, Rice, Burleson, Lynn, Miller and Carbo. Helms was snapped after he joined the club, during either the June or September series.

These are Oakland shots, taken 5/9-5/11 or 8/4-8/7: Zimmer, Scott, Hobson, Fisk and Jenkins. Aase had to be taken in the August series, after being called up.

Drago is an interesting case - ordinarily Topps would have used a paint job as he joined the club from Baltimore in the fall of 1977, but they used an image they must have taken of him in 1975 in Oakland, either 5/12-5/13 or 8/8-8/11.

Paxton seems to have been a colorization of a black and white image of him with the Sox - possibly a team-issued card.

Tiant is a mystery to me - I cannot tell if that was a spring shot, or at Yankee Stadium or Oakland. I lean to Oakland, but cannot be sure.

Finally, there is the image of Rice used on the HR Leaders card - you'd probably say it was impossible to tell where it was snapped, but a few years ago the Topps Vault spat out the attached image which shows it was Yankee Stadium.

[deweyinthehall]

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.

[deweyinthehall]

1978 Topps Detroit Tigers

There are 30 Tiger images in the set, including Dave Roberts, painted to appear a Cub, minus Roric Harrison.

The team photo was taken in Tiger Stadium sometime between April 27 and June 22, owing to the presence of Luis Alvarado (3rd row, 3rd from left). The other players are too indistinct and I could find no key to accompany the image to permit a more precise dating.

The black and white image of Houk was taken at some point during his playing career with the Yankees, which spanned 1947-1954.

A good number of the images were taken at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, FL during the spring of '77, including: Arroyo, Ruhle, Wockenfuss, Fuentes, Mankowski, Rodriguez, Oglivie, Scrivener, Taylor, Morris, Parrish and Whitaker.

The Tigers had two series in Oakland, 6/10-6/12 and 8/24, during which time these images were taken: Houk, Foucault, Rozema, Hiller, Staub, May, Kemp and Corcoran.

Dave Roberts, painted to look like a Cub, was snapped in Oakland during the June series, as he had departed the club before their stop there in August.

Mark Fidrych was also taken in Oakland, but here we have a game action shot (as opposed to Rozema, which appears to have been taken as he warmed up in the pen). The only game Fidrych appeared in in Oakland that season was 6/11, which positively dates this image. He started, and threw a CG win.

LeFlore, Veryzer and Thompson all appear to have been captured during one of the club's visits to Yankee Stadium, 7/1-7/3 or 9/30-10/2.

This leaves us with Milt Wilcox, Mickey Stanley and Alan Trammell. All are wearing home uniforms, meaning they were either photographed in Lakeland or at Tiger Stadium. I think both the Wilcox and the Trammell photo clearly have the cavernous stadium in the background, so they were both shot there (Trammell was called up in September, so his would have been either 9/2-9/8 or 9/16-9/25).

Mickey Stanley is harder, but the image isn't a posed shot - it's what could be called a candid which is an action shot but without action, if that makes any sense. These sorts of images are scarce if not non-existent in the spring sites, so my conclusion is that this is Tiger Stadium as well.

[deweyinthehall]

1978 Topps Milwaukee Brewers

There are 26 Brewers images in the set, not counting the Fosse and Hisle paint jobs.

The team photo was taken on June 17th in County Stadium. Appearing in the photo are Mike Caldwell (top row to the left of the keg) who was acquired the 15th and was activated on the 17th, and Barry Cort (top row to the right of the keg) who was sent to Spokane to make room on the roster for him later that same day.

The Brewers' spring training site, Sun City Stadium in Sun City, AZ, was the site of the photographs of: Beare, Castro, Haas, Slaton, Sorensen, Travers, Haney, Yount, Joshua and Johnson.

The Brewers played 2 series in Yankee Stadium, 4/7-4/10 and 7/21-7/23, during one or both of which the following images were captured: Moore, Quirk, Cooper, Bando, Wohlford, Lezcano, Rodriguez, Brye and Augustine.

In a departure from the norm, no Oakland shots are present. Instead, several players were photographed in Comiskey Park either 5/30 or 8/26-8/28. They are: Money, McClure and Hinds. Kirkpatrick and Caldwell were also shot in Comiskey, but during the August series as they hadn't joined the club by May.

The final image is that of Paul Molitor. Molitor didn't make the Brewers until 1978, and from the information I've been able to see, he wasn't on the club's spring '77 roster either. In 1977 he played with team's A club in Burlington, IA, whose uniforms, other than their caps, mirrored those of the parent club. So, since he is wearing what appears like a Brewers' home uniform top, I think he was photographed some time during 1977 while with the Burlington club.

This image released several years ago by the Topps Vault is clearer than that on his card: