Ninety years ago, baseball debuted its All-Star Game, a novelty that quickly became an annual tradition. Babe Ruth, naturally, launched the classic’s first home run in that inaugural contest, and it was 50 years later that California’s Fred Lynn hit the game’s first grand slam. Those two memorable shots, in games replete with dozens of Hall of Famers and other favorites, have made the 1933 and 1983 games among the most memorable in history, and beginning on July 10, Strat-O-Matic fans can relive and replay them like never before with the issue of the second entry in the Strat-O-Matic Collectibles Series: Strat-O-Matic All-Stars.
Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Bill Terry, Tony Lazzeri (Yankees), Carl Hubbell, Hal Schumacher, Lefty O’Doul (Giants) and Tony Cuccinello (Dodgers) represented the New York teams in ’33, while it was slimmer pickings for Gotham rooters in ’83, with just Dave Winfield and Ron Guidry in Pinstripes and Jesse Orosco in blue and orange.
This special edition card set will feature the baseball All-Star teams from the 1933 and 1983 seasons on vivid, colorful cards with all-red (for the American League) or all-blue (for the National League) backgrounds and white text on both the basic and advanced sides of the cards. The numbered sets will be offered in a unique shrink-wrapped box that will also include charts detailing the starting lineups, rosters, and a box score for each game.
All 96 player cards from these two games will be released in Super Advanced format: a first for the majority of 1983 players (the season having been previously released with advanced-only features) while the 1933 season has never been released in card form by Strat-O-Matic.
“We expect demand for Strat-O-Matic All-Stars to be at least as strong as our Strat-O-Matic Black set, which sold out in less than two days,” said Adam Richman, CEO, Strat-O-Matic, Media. “Only 600 of these All-Star sets will be offered, never to be printed in this format again, so we advise fans to reserve theirs as soon as they go on sale at noon on July 10, just in time for the All-Star Game.”
The 1933 game, and this card set, featured Hall of Famers including Ruth, Gehrig, Hubbell, Pie Traynor, Fordham’s own Frankie Frisch, and more. The 1983 classic included an incredible 18 Cooperstown inductees. Both contests were played at the revered Comiskey Park in Chicago.
[…] Ruth, Terry, Orosco Among Strat-O-Matic All-Stars in New Set […]