kiké hernandez, dodger double dipper!

back at my first blog, one of the running features was dodger "double dippers". these were players who played for the dodgers, left to play for a different team (at the big league level), and then returned to play for the dodgers again. there were 97 installments for 97 different dodger double dippers:

brett butler, omar daal, eric young, nick willhite, chris gwynn, mickey hatcher, dave anderson, don zimmer, rafael landestoy, dave hansen, jose vizcaino, hideo nomo, greg maddux, mike maddux, jon garland, chan ho park, vicente romo, gene mauch, denny lewallyn, von joshua, joe moeller, dioner navarro, rudy seanez, bart shirley, randy wolf, ismael valdes, bobby castillo, mike devereaux, pete richert, jay johnstone, jesse orosco, lee lacy, giovanni carrara, jeff weaver, ted sizemore,  orel hershiser, tom goodwin, joe ferguson, eddie murray, matt luke, ken mcmullen, tim wallach, jerry grote, don sutton, ralph branca, todd hundley, elmer dessens, guillermo mota, joe beckwith, jamie hoffmann, babe herman, joe medwick, juan castro, ron perranoski, clyde king, paul waner, hughie jennings, ron negray, broadway aleck smith, george smith, johnny cooney, jim fairey, frenchy bordagaray, doc casey, waite hoyt, luis olmo, clyde sukeforth, willie keeler,  harry howell, germany smith, johnny allen, marv rackley, bobo newsom, maury wills, dazzy vance, ray hayworth, zack taylor, john cronin, art herring, brian falkenborg, bill reidy, john anderson, vito tamulis, wally hood, jim bruske, bill dahlen, patsy donovan, jamey wright, watty clark, andy messersmith, rocky nelson, newt kimball, hank behrman, jimmy sheckard, jake flowers, goody rosen, and chin-hui tsao.

here at cards as i see them, i haven't been as vigilant with these posts, so i haven't captured all of the qualifying players over the last seven or so years. these are the guys i am aware of that weren't featured on the old blog:

matt kemp, alex wood, trayce thompson, jake reed, daniel hudson, joe kelly, adam kolarek, miguel rojas, and the subject of this post, kiké hernandez.

hernandez first joined the dodgers way back in december of 2014. he was acquired in a trade with the marlins that had, among others, miguel rojas heading to florida. he was a fan favorite pretty much right away, playing all over the field and exuding positivity.  his biggest moment as a dodger came in the 2017 nlcs when he hit three home runs in game 5 to propel the dodgers back to the world series for the first time since 1988.

here's a card from his first stint as a dodger - it's a yellow parallel of his 2019 topps card

hernandez is one of those guys who seems to pretty much always show up on cardboard in an interesting way. it's probably due to the number of different defensive positions he plays, with his style of play being a big factor, too.

here's his 2021 topps card that shows his with the boston red sox

the bosox signed hernandez as a free agent in february of 2021, so the image on the card above is actually hernandez as a dodger photoshopped in to red sox duds. here's an card showing hernandez as an actual red sox (sock?) from 2021 topps chrome update sapphire edition

he is featured there with former dodger teammate alex verdugo, and they are wearing the city connect uniforms that nike developed for boston.

hernandez played all over the diamond for the red sox in his two-plus seasons there, except catcher and pitcher. he played most of the time, and did about as well as you would expect at the plate. the red sox had him playing a lot of shortstop in 2023, and his defense wasn't quite up to par. still the dodgers and other teams valued his positional flexibility, and in late july 2023, the dodgers sent a couple of players to the red sox to reacquire kiké.

here's a card from his second stint with the dodgers:

i didn't expect him to be in update this year, so it was no surprise when he was left off of that checklist, however, topps did get him in to their 2023 holiday release, so i have a card to bookend the double dipping with! this is reminiscent of 2021 when trea turner made his first appearance as a dodger in the holiday set.

you may recall that in 2020 one of my favorite dodger cards was hernandez's base card. i went out pursuing as many parallels as i could find, and somewhat recently added the mini version 

to my collection, too. i sure hope the dodgers re-sign him this offseason so we can be treated to more great on-card action.

welcome back kiké!