Saturday, June 18, 2016

Fathers Day - 1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

 For Father's Day the Philies have a number of things going on including a book signing with Bret Boone promoting his new book "Home Game". Bret is of course the son of former Phillies catcher Bob Boone.

Bob is also the son of a Major Leaguer, their relationship is recognized on a 1976 Topps card - which is a perfect one for us to feature as part of our 1976 All-Star Game coverage. 

1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

Bob Boone is the middle member of three generations of Boone's. His Father Ray played for 13 seasons mostly with the Tigers and Indians while Sons Aaron and Brett spent 12 and 14 years in the league respectively.

Pretty impressive careers for each but Bob is by far the MLB tenure leader, he spent 19 seasons in the league including a decade with the Phillies

All-Star
Bob Boone made the first of four All-Star teams in 1976. He entered the game in the fourth inning as a defensive replacement for Hall of Famer Johnny Bench. Boone remained in for the balance of the game. He went 0-2 facing Luis Tiant and Frank Tanana. Among the four NL pitchers he caught that day was another future HoF, Tom Seaver.

In 1979 Boone got to start the All-Star game and got to catch teammate Steve Carlton. However that Battery is a bit of an oddity, For the bulk of Lefty's games in that era his receiver was Tim McCarver.

Boone appeared in two other All-Star Games 1978 and 1983 (as an Angel).

1976 Topps Father & Son
1976 Topps #67 Father & Son Ray and Bob Boone

Interesting part of the text here is Bob mentioning that he started his career at third base. In 1972 Boone moved from Third Base to Catcher to make room for Mike Schmidt.

The Father-Son subset is five cards running from #66-#70 the other four pairs are Gus & Buddy Bell, Jim & Mike Hegan, Joe Coleman Sr & Jr, and Roy Smalley Sr & Jr. 

1980 Topps 
Despite appearing in four All-Star Games Boone was never issued a Topps card with an All-Star flair. As noted above he started the 1979 game, however Topps tagged the All-Star ballot winner Ted Simmons with the designation - Simmons had to skip the game due to injury.

Don Sutton Win #300
A just a quick toss back to our posting earlier in the week if you want to read about Don Sutton's 300th victory, a game that was caught by Bob Boone.

Sources and Links
1976 ASG Index
Baseball-ref
Amazon

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