1978 Burger King Baseball

By Patrick Mondout

Topps produced a set of four 22 card team sets for Burger King in 1978 for distribution in Houston, Dallas, New York and Detroit. As with the previous year, the cards were distributed in cellophane packs of three cards with an unnumbered checklist.

As with all Topps/Burger King issues of the era, sufficient quantities of the cards entered the hobby through backdoor deals to ensure relatively low prices. Unlike in 1977, there is no particularly rare card, though there are a few valuable rookies.

The Tigers set is significant for the inclusion of full rookie cards of Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, and Jack Morris (in contrast to their "shared with three other guys" rookie cards in the regular set). Dave Bergman and Jesus Alou of the Astros and Bobby Thompson of the Rangers appear in the Burger King sets but not the '78 Topps set on which these cards are based. A few of the players are pictured in their new uniforms in contrast to their '78 Topps card, where they are still pictured in their old uniforms (that would be those players not listed above that have an asterisk next to their name in the checklist below).

The cards are virtually identical to the classic '78 Topps set, with the exceptions mentioned above and the card numbers on the back.

Whoa! So which one is the fake? If you're not familiar with the '78 BK Tigers, you might think they all are, but the first three (Whitaker, Trammell, Morris) are real. Just for fun I created the Lance Parrish from a slide we own (from longtime Fleer photographer Lou Sauritch) since he really should have been included.

This set is also mentioned here. Here is a complete checklist for the four sets:

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