1986 Bend Oregon Phillies

This is a set only a hard-core Phillies collector would buy. Guilty as charged. I actually came upon this set on Ebay when I was looking for something else, some mid-1990's Pacific set. Pacific apparently got it's start producing minor league sets, like this Bend OR Phillies set ,in the '80's.

The Phillies teams of the late 1980's and early 1990's were not good teams. The Bend Phillies may have been part of the reason. Bend was the home of one of the Phillies single A farm teams. There are 25 cards in this set. Of the 25, only 2 could be said to have had major league careers. Many of the rest never made it to the majors. Many of them never even made it to AA ball. Here are the players who made it to the majors and a few more for fun.

Andy Ashby was by far the best player to come from this team.  He  didn't make it to the majors until 1991 and then only spent one and a half years with the Phillies. He went on to have a 14-year career and a 2-time All-Star, with a 98-110 record. He even pitched in the 1998 World Series with the Padres.

Scarsone was the Phillies 2nd round draft pick of 1986 and went on to have a 7 year career but only a few months of that was with the Phillies. He was mainly a utility infielder with not nearly the impact of Ashby.

Garland Kiser appeared in 7 games (4.2 IP) for the Indians in 1991 and was never heard from again.

Chuck Malone was 1-0 in 7 appearances with the Phillies in 1990. Malone must have missed team photo day and got his photo taken on a much nicer looking day. I think the background sky perfectly matches the dismal careers most of these players had.

Brad Moore pitched 5.2 innings for the Phillies in 1988 and another 2.2 innings in 1990. What is he doing today, I wonder? And that's it, only 5 of the 25 made it to the majors.

Bubba (aka Jesse) Allison was the Phillies #1 draft pick for 1986. Ever hear of him? Neither had I. He was 0-8 with a 6.39 ERA for Bend in 1986 and that was his whole professional career.

Another guy who missed the original photo shoot. Glen Anderson, according to baseball-reference.com, never played anywhere professionally, not even for Bend.

John Guanukakis looks like he just got out of bed. His career consisted of one year in Bend.

This is Elvis Romero. Elvis was 0-2 with 4 different single A teams in 1987 and then vanishes until 1997. He played for two independent teams in 1997-1998 and lost two more games.

The very serious-looking Leroy Ventress played in the minors from 1986 until 1995, making it all the way to AA ball at Harrisburg with the Expos.