o canada! o-pee-chee!

having spent a good portion of some summers of my youth in canada, i really like o-pee-chee cards. the cardstock is different, the o-pee-chee logo is used instead of topps, and you get the french translation of some baseball terms. who knew, besides the french, that first base = premier but?

now, some o-pee-chee cards are pretty much identical to their topps brethren. like the 1979 steve garvey.

or the 1985 bob welch.but, here on mike (general soreness) marshall's 1983 card, we see the french translation for 1st base.sometimes, though, the cards are completely different. here, rick monday is shown as a member of the dodgers on his 1977 card, complete with airbrushed cap. his 1977 topps card shows him with the cubs, and uses an entirely different pose.usually when a player has changed teams, though, the card format for the new team is used with the unaltered topps photo and some explanatory text, lest we be unsure of the situation a la the 1979 topps bump wills or 1974 topps jerry morales cards. al downing and his 1971 card demonstrate. so, downing was "recently traded to dodgers". sounds good enough. however, o-pee-chee would use different text to get that simple message across, here, we see that derrel thomas was "signed as free agent 11-14-78".that's good information. on his 1979 card, we see that gary thomasson was "traded 2-15-79", presumably from the yankees to the dodgers.more ambiguity on the 1979 cards of andy messersmith and pete broberg. they are simply identified as "free agent"

so, in 1980, we return to a simplistic catch all statement. "now with dodgers" are jay johnstone and dave goltz.

i don't know if it's just the variation or what, but i really like these cards.