i spent a lot of time studying the backs of baseball cards in 1978. one of those card backs belonged to rudy meoli's card
what struck me back then (and still does today) is that meoli hadn't appeared in the majors since 1975, but was given a card in the 1978 set. this confounded me as a youth, and made me a wee bit annoyed with topps that such players as ron washington, joe simpson, boog powell, dennis lewallyn - guys who had all suited up in 1977 - were left out of the set. heck, even rick sutcliffe had appeared in a game more recently than meoli (he pitched in one game in 1976), and he had to wait until 1980 to get into a topps set. i was jealous that cubs fans had a card of this guy and that i did not have a another dodger card instead.
i am guessing that topps was trying to even out cards distributed by team, and needed another cub. meoli had just been acquired by the northsiders from the reds in september of 1977, so he may have been fresh in the news when the checklist was being compiled. however, the cubs had more single player cards than the dodgers in the set, so i really don't know why meoli made the cut and others didn't.
the end result, for whatever reason, is that meoli is in the set, and, thanks to his generosity in signing cards through the mail, i have one more card signed for my partial autographed set.
meoli played in 47 games for the cubs in 1978, and in 30 games for the phillies in 1979, but never appeared in a topps set after 1978. go figure.
Generally, Tops was trying to produce cards of guys who would be playing in the majors that year. So if they gave Meoli a card, it means they believed the Cubs acquired him because they intended to play him in the majors.
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