Manufacturer: Topps
Set: 1978 Topps Baseball ➡️
Player Name: Dale Murphy, Lance Parrish, Ernie Whitt & Bo Diaz
Position/Team: Catchers
Card #: 708
Card Size: 2-1/2” x 3-1/2”
Card Values: See Pricing Table Below
Dale Murphy was originally drafted as a catcher, severe throwing struggles forced a move to the outfield, a transition that sparked one of the most dominant individual decades in modern baseball history.
Murphy was an absolute ironman and the premier run producer of the National League during his peak. His crowning achievements came in the early 1980s, putting him in incredibly rare company.
- The 1982 MVP Campaign: Shifting permanently to center field, Murphy played all 162 games, launching 36 home runs, driving in 109 runs, and carrying the Braves to a surprise NL West Division title. He won his first NL MVP award and his first Gold Glove.
- The 1983 Repeat: Murphy managed to top his previous masterpiece. He hit .302 with 36 homers, 121 RBIs, and led the league in slugging percentage (.540) and OPS (.933). He joined the ultra-exclusive club of back-to-back MVP winners.
- The 30-30 Club: Proving his elite athleticism, Murphy stole 30 bases alongside his 36 home runs in 1983, becoming just the sixth player in major league history to record a 30-30 season.
Over his 18-year career split between Atlanta, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Colorado Rockies, Murphy reeled off 7 All-Star selections, 5 consecutive Gold Gloves (1982–1986), and 4 straight Silver Slugger awards. He finished his career just shy of a major milestone with 398 home runs.
Lance Parrish, nicknamed “The Big Wheel,” was one of the premier powerhouse catchers in Major League Baseball throughout the 1980s. Blessed with elite upper-body strength, Parrish redefined the physical template for modern catchers, pairing elite defensive framing and a lethal throwing arm with consistent, home-run-slugging middle-of-the-order offense.
He spent the core of his 19-year big-league career anchoring the Detroit Tigers, serving as a vital locker room leader for one of the most beloved eras in Motor City sports history.
Selected by the Tigers in the first round of the 1974 MLB Draft, Parrish established himself as the team’s everyday catcher by 1978. Alongside franchise icons like Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, and Jack Morris, he formed the competitive spine of the franchise for a decade.
Following his storied tenure with the Tigers, Parrish brought his veteran leadership to several other franchises, enjoying productive late-career stints with the Philadelphia Phillies, California Angels, and Toronto Blue Jays. Over his highly decorated career, he earned 8 All-Star selections, 3 Gold Glove Awards, and 6 Silver Slugger Awards, retiring with 324 career home runs.
Dale Murphy and Lance Parrish share this multi-player “Rookie Catchers” card with Ernie Whitt and Bo Diaz.
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Pricing Data For This Rookie Card
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Pricing chart includes raw card price & some graded card value estimates.
These values are collated from a variety of resources including recently sold listings, sales averages and a variety of other sports card pricing data sources. Please see full disclaimer on “Terms Page” for more information. (Rookiecardprices.com only shows values for regular base set cards. No prices are shown for errors, parallels, subsets, misprints or other cards unless noted.)
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Did You Know? Lance Parrish was actually a star high school football fullback who initially turned down multiple Major League contract offers out of high school to walk on and play football under legendary coach Dick Vermeil at UCLA. Even more incredibly, while playing winter ball early in his career to work on his catching skills, he supplemented his minor league income by taking a job as a professional bodyguard for the legendary rock band The Beach Boys.
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