Final Years as a Dodger

Below are Steve's five Topps/OPC releases as a Dodger. I felt that Topps did a good job of selecting images with the exception of his 1982 base card.

1979 Topps #50 (front)

Sadly, this card is a double print. It seems that only slightly fewer of these were produced than Steve's 1987 Topps cards. I think the catcher is the Giants Marc Hill.

1979 Topps #50 (back)



1979 O-Pee-Chee #21 (front)

The O-Pee-Chee logo had a lot more style than the Topps logo in 1979.

1979 O-Pee-Chee #21 (back)

1980 Topps #290 (front)

This is another one of my favorite cards. It's probably because of the use of Primary Colors (Red and Yellow) that balance nicely against the Blue Dodgers jersey.

1980 Topps #290 (back)

1981 Topps # 530 (front)

This image was taken around the same time as Steve's 1982 Topps In Action Card.

1981 Topps # 530 (back)

1982 Topps # 179 (front)

This is my least favorite Topps card of Steve as a Dodger. Things I don't like about this card include: the Hockey Stick on the left side of the card, the pink and purple color pattern on the hockey stick, the fact that Steve's wearing a helmet that covers his ears and the fact that the card's image always seems a bit blurry to me.

1982 Topps # 179 (back)

As a kid, I was alway disappointed that Topps didn't produce World Series Cards from the 1981 World Series in their 1982 set as they had done with most of their sets during the past two decades.

1982 Topps In Action # 180 (front)

1982 Topps In Action # 180 (back)

1983 Topps # 610 (front)

1983 Topps # 610 (back)

Topps & O-Pee-Chee - The Early Years

The first pack of cards I collected was 1975 Topps. Four years later (1979), I went to my first card show and two years after that (1981) I went to a baseball card shop for the first time.

Somewhere during that period, I saw Steve Garvey's 1971-74 Topps cards and put them on my wantlist because I couldn't afford them at the time.

Below are images of Steve's 1971-1974 Topps Cards and 1971 & 1973 OPC Cards.

1971 Topps #341 (Front)

1971 Topps #341 (Back)

1971 O-Pee-Chee #341 (Front)

1971 O-Pee-Chee #341 (Back)

I actually like the Yellow background of '71 OPC over '71 Topps

1972 Topps #686 (Front)

Because it's a high number, this card along with Rod Carew's regular and In Action card were the highest priced cards in the 1972 set when I was a kid.

1972 Topps #686 (Back)

1973 Topps #213 (Front)

Topps should have created a subset in 1973 called "Teammates" as this is more a Steve Garvey & Wes Parker combo card than a Steve Garvey card.

1973 Topps #213 (Back)

If you didn't catch the cartoon on the back of Steve's 1972 card, Topps reminded you about Steve's marriage to Cyndy on the back of his 1973 card with another cartoon.

1973 O-Pee-Chee #213 (Front)

In my opinion, Wes Parker and Bill Buckner are two of many reasons why Steve isn't in the Hall of Fame yet, as they both ate into Steve's playing time from 1970-1973. Those extra at bats could have helped make up the 401 hit difference Steve needed to reach 3,000.

1973 O-Pee-Chee #213 (Back)

The diference between 1973 Topps and O-Pee-Chee is subtle compared to 1971.

1974 Topps #575 (Front)

This is the first time Topps' annointed him star status. If you remember, Topps used to give star players numbers that ended in 5 & 0 star status with superstars having numbers that ended in 50 and 00 (i.e. 550, 200).

1974 Topps #575 (Back)
1974 O-Pee-Chee is on my wantlist. I'll add it to this page when I get it in the future.