quien es mas macho? the "phillies finest" edition

it's been awhile since i've done one of these, i am pretty sure. every once in a while, we come across cards that are created either by competing manufacturers, or perhaps the same company, that have a similar theme. i find it fun to compare them and see who did it better.

digging through my old mike schmidt pc this past summer, i rediscovered a couple of cards from 1982.  this one is from donruss

and this one is from fleer

sure, donruss left out the possessive apostrophe, but here we have two cards from the same year with the same theme, yet different players featured? let's find out quien es mas macho.

first, here is the back to the donruss card:

after reading the back, this card seems to take a holistic approach to celebrating schmidt and pete rose. lots of cooperstown talk with the last paragraph focusing on their 1981 seasons. sensible.

now here is the back of the fleer card:

this one reads like it was meant to be included in the 1981 fleer set (fleer did have a "triple threat" card in that set featuring schmidt, rose, and larry bowa), although it does recognize that the phillies were the 1st half champions of the nl east in 1981. putting the card in the 1982 set makes sense i guess as the photo would have been taken in 1981 with the players receiving team awards for their accomplishments the previous season.

almost forty years later, i can use baseball reference to see that the phillies' finest players in 1981 (by war) were mike schmidt and steve carlton. the phillie with the third highest war in 1981 was gary matthews (not pictured), and fourth was lonnie smith.  rose was seventh behind those four plus larry bowa and manny trillo.

as much as i enjoy seeing pete rose on cardboard, i have to give the nod here to the fleer card. this is largely due to the inclusion of carlton who was simply the best national league pitcher in the early 1980's, let alone being the finest on the phillies.  so, fleer es mas macho!

finally, congratulations to the dodgers and rays for winning their respective leagues' pennants over the weekend. looking forward to the world series!