The 1970 Phillies Souvenir Program

The post office lied and my Opening Day base set wasn't delivered yesterday.  It's on to plan B.

I have a Cubs scorecard collection that goes back to 1947.  That's a run of 68 years.

My Phillies scorecard collection goes back to 1970.  It is a run of one year.

Why, you may be asking, did I feel the need to buy a Phillies scorecard?  That's a good question.

I have a good answer... just take a look at the cover.

There's my favorite Cub featured prominently on the front of the Phillies 1970 program.  The auction for the program showed up in my daily Ebay search of Billy Williams.  The opening bid was only 99¢, so I thought I'd watch the auction and see how it went.

It went great for me, since I was the only bidder.  Not a bad deal to get a 45-year-old program that's in nice shape for only 99¢.

I think it is very odd that the Phillies put opposing players on the cover of the scorecard.  I think you'd rather downplay the opposition.  I doubt there were many fans that saw Billy Williams on the cover and said, "Hey, I need to buy that."

The program makes no mention at all of Billy.  There's no article on him, no bio... no nothing.  Instead, its full of standard program player bios and team information.

There is a scorecard on card stock that is stapled in the center of the book.

The card is pretty small and not very practical for scoring a game.

Based on the players on the Cubs roster, I can say that this was sold at Connie Mack Stadium from September 25-27.  Pitcher Bob Miller was acquired on September 1 and he's listed.  Oddly, the program still lists #42 Jim Qualls, though the Cubs traded him away on April 22.

These games were the final weekend games played at the old ballpark.  The Expos followed the Cubs into Philadelphia for Mack's last three games.

Some of the information in the program was never updated during the season.

These two pages tout the Phillies new ballpark and mention that the team will be moving into the park sometime during the summer.  But construction delays kept the Phillies out of Veterans Stadium until the start of the 1971 season.  The article was never changed to reflect that.

I've also seen a 1970 program with Ernie Banks on the cover.  Ebay has one for $40.  I'm going to wait for the 99¢ sale.