2015 Team Issue, Charlie Manuel
(via The Phillies Room)
In a post a few weeks ago, Jim from The Phillies Room detailed the 43-card, 2015 Phillies Team Issue card set. A part of which was left as a mystery to us all - the inclusion of a Charlie Manuel alumni card.
Given it did not have the same design as the rest of the set, and the fact that Charlie is no longer on-field with the team, the card seemed an odd addition. Jim noted these differences and speculated this may be part of a bigger strategy to randomly insert other Alums in sets throughout the season. It is the kind of stuff that made me love collecting cards as a kid - an oddity no one can explain... An old-fashioned mystery just begging to be solved!
Earlier this week, in an attempt to get to the bottom of this question, I exchanged messages with Phillies Merchandising Director, Scott Brandreth. He relayed that the Manuel alumni cards were printed for use in Charlie's community outreach engagements and mistakenly ended up in the sets. He noted that the error was caught and sets sold in the future will neither include the Charlie card, nor feature another team alumnus. A little anticlimactic, but an answer nonetheless...