some cards that should have been in 1984

i'm not talking about the 1984 topps traded roger clemens or kirby puckett cards.  no, i'm talking about cards that should have featured players who were a part of the 1978 topps dodgers.  like steve garvey, who played in his 1118th consecutive game in 1983, breaking the national league record held by billy williams.

i was at that game, and was hoping that the 1984 set would have a card commemorating the event.  fleer did issue a card, but it featured a generic batting photo of the garv.

here is the highlight card that should have been.

i used the photo that was on the cover of sports illustrated the following week.  it has been used in some of the 1990's fleer/si sets for a card, too.  here's the back

i made no note of the streak ending since the format of those highlight cards was similar to a news clipping.  the back of the fleer card kind of/sort of addresses the end of the streak, as they note his mark of 1,207 games.

however, they also use the word 'currently', so it's somewhat confusing.  garvey broke his thumb in july and was put on the disabled list for the first time since 1971, ending the streak.

here's another version i made.

it uses a photo from the sports illustrated article, with garvey posing in front of a printout of every box score from the streak.  it's more of the type of photo that i would have expected fleer to use.

don sutton also hit a milestone in 1983, recording his 3000th strikeout on june 24.  he was denied a highlights card because three pitchers passed walter johnson on the all-time k list which is apparently more worthy of a card than simply passing the 3000 mark.  here's my version of the card that should have been.

yes, i used a photo of sutton in a road uni even though the strikeout came at home.

of course, there was another card that should have been, the 1984 topps traded davey lopes card

(lopes went from the a's to the cubs in september) but topps would make us wait until 1986 to get a base card of lopes in a cubs uniform.

so, with that, i will soon be moving on to 1985 in the continuing evolutionary saga of the 1978 topps dodgers.  stay tuned!