there may be no 'i' in team, but there are dodgers of my youth on team cards

a while back, i showed the 2001 topps tampa bay devil rays team card because it features the shortstop of the team of my youth, bill russell, on it as a coach.  russell is not the only player from the team of my youth to appear on team cards in a coaching or managerial capacity, so i figured that equal time was due.  charlie hough should be on the mets' 2002 team card as he was their 2001 pitching coach, but i wasn't able to verify that, so i'll stick with davey lopes and dusty baker for this post.  also, i apologize in advance for some seriously crooked scans.

lopes first appeared on a team card in 2000, courtesy of this fleer tradition padres team card.  he's the fourth guy in a padres jersey from the right.

i'm realizing now that i should have circled lopes in photoshop before posting these cards, but oh well. generally, lopes will be the shortest guy in the front row.

here's the 2001 topps brewers card, which features lopes as the team's manager. he's right above the brewers' logo, so the short guy in the front row approach proves true.

more of the same in 2002 topps

but that was the end of line for lopes in milwaukee.  in 2004, lopes was back on the padres' team card

he's second from the right in the front row there, but moved to fourth from the right for the 2005 topps team card

and he's even further to the right (closer to the left) on the 2006 topps padres team card

lopes left san diego and joined the washington nationals' coaching staff in 2006, and so showed up on the 2007 topps team card

and 2007 topps heritage team card, too

both featuring the same photo.

from there, lopes joined the phillies' coaching staff and was on the 2010 team card in topps heritage

although he did not get the 'hands on knees' memo

lopes finished up his run of team card appearances to date with the phillies' 2011 topps heritage card

since then, lopes has been the first base coach for the dodgers and now the nationals, but with the way topps does team cards these days, he has been absent from the flagship and heritage sets.

dusty baker's team card appearances follows the same arc, mostly because that's when the team cards were reintroduced to card sets.  so, here are dusty's cards...

...as manager of the giants in 2000 fleer tradition

2001 topps

2002 topps

and 2003 topps, which featured dusty on his last card as the giants' manager

he had to wait until 2005 topps to be featured on the cubs' team card as their manager

and unlike the padres, the cubs got a team card in 2005 heritage as well

2006 topps

the cubs' heritage love continued in 2006, too

2007 topps

and, what do you know, 2007 topps heritage

and 2008 topps heritage

as well.

dusty moved on to manage the reds and so was featured once again in topps heritage in 2009

2010

2011

and 2012

like lopes, dusty is with the nationals these days (as their skipper), but unlike lopes, baker also had managerial cards of his own during this run.