Of course, when I saw the 1977 Red Sox yearbook, money was no object. It was going to be mine.
Even though I started collecting in 1977, I don't remember watching any Red Sox games, so this yearbook was full of players I never saw or don't remember seeing play.
Just like I used to mimic Dennis Eckersley's pitching motion, I also used to do the same with Luis Tiant. Sad to say I was extremely wild when doing this. In fact, the safest place to be was at the plate, because the ball was coming nowhere near you.
I remember Bob Montgomery more as the Red Sox announcer than the Red Sox catcher. This was also the last year he got a page all to himself.
I have never had a Labatt's Blue Label.
The back cover always featured an ad for Magnavox. Back then they were boasting "Computer-sharp color...Computer fast". You also could "whisk instantly, silently, directly to any of the 82 VHF or UHF channels".
There also was the 1979 yearbook ripe for the picking.
I've heard that players didn't like these uniforms because they felt like they were wearing pajamas. For me though, these are my favorite Red Sox uniforms.
PROSPECT UPDATE
Both Steve Schneck and Burke Suter never made the majors.
Mike O'Berry played in 43 games for the 1979 Red Sox before being traded for Ted Sizemore.
Allen Ripley was 5-6 in 2 seasons for the Red Sox before being purchased by the San Francisco Giants in April of 1980.
And here is the obligatory back cover Magnavox ad.
But the yearbooks weren't what got my attention. This was.
A program from the 1986 American League Championship Series between the Red Sox and Angels.
It's a typical program and it was a nice look back at all the players on the 1986 team.
It also had a story reviewing the 1986 season which also brought back memories.
These were the radio and TV announcers back in 1986. Joe Castiglione is still doing the radio broadcasts and here you see Bob Montgomery as an announcer instead of a backup catcher.
The scorecard inside was unused (and also gave me an opportunity to scan it very badly).
Did anybody ever watch "The Baseball Bunch"? It was on Saturday mornings around here. I would watch that, then cartoons until "This Week In Baseball" was on.
Most of the advertisements in the program were beer. Nothing wrong with that.
The last couple of pages had a little bit about the Angels.
But included with the program was the coolest part:
A ticket stub from Game 1!
I was expecting to pay probably five or ten bucks for this and then putting the two yearbooks on top of that plus the cards from the previous post, I was probably going to go over my twenty dollar budget.
Would you believe all of this only cost me nine dollars? Six dollars for the cards and a dollar a piece for the yearbooks and program. I have no idea where this guy finds all of this cool stuff, but at these prices, I'm more than happy to take it off his hands.
I'll always remember the '79 Red Sox yearbook cover because it was very similar to the the '79 Padres yearbook cover and I was disappointed because the Red Sox were so far above the lowly Padres. (The Brewers '79 yearbook cover was similar, too).
ReplyDeleteI was enjoying the yearbooks and scorecard, but floored by the ticket stub. Extremely cool pickup.
ReplyDeleteOooh, digital tuning! No clunky knobs on these TV's! Is it wrong that the Magnavox ads were my favorite part of the yearbooks?
I was a little old for The Baseball Bunch, and a little too much of a hopeless cause athletically, but I watched it a bunch of times anyway because it combined my two favorite pastimes: baseball and watching TV.
I went through a phase where I was going back and buying yearbooks. Wish I could have continued buy space is always an issue. Love the old advertisements.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Baseball Bunch!
ReplyDeleteI picked up a lot of Giants yearbooks from some more recent years and have dabbled with the thought of going back further. It will probably depend on how much room I have at the new place after we move.