a moment for tommy john

tommy john passed away yesterday, which was not a surprise given how much attention his health had received lately. john penned a "farewell" message to his fans during the yankees' oldtimers' weekend just over a week ago, and it was picked up by nearly every media outlet that i came across. 

he obviously associated himself, or a large part of himself, with the yankees as he had two stints playing for them and won more games while in pinstripes than in any of his other stops. to me, however, he was always a dodger.

when i think of numbers, it's john who is number 25. being a member of the 1978 topps dodgers 

asserts that "privilege", with very few exceptions.

being included in that set as a dodger means that i have all of john's topps flagship cards, thanks to my "evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers" mini-collection. as i've done for some other recent passings, i've compiled the full run of his primary cards in the topps sets. in john's case, that means cards from 1964 through 1989

for others, i've tiled the cards into a single image, but there are just too many cards here to do that effectively. john was left out of the traded sets each time he switched teams - 1982, 1985, and 1986 - but he does have a sweet 1979 topps burger king yankee card that serves the purpose of a "traded" or update set. he also was featured on the yankees' 1982 team leader card as well as a 1983 super veteran card and one of the 1984 career leader cards. the latter two speak to his longevity in the game, a remarkable feat especially given the fact that he had his namesake surgery (what turned out to be) so early in his career.

he began his career in 1963 (no card) and ended it in 1989. he was left out of all major 1990 releases, although i did make a "final tribute" for him years ago

the stats on the back of that card show his 288 career wins and 760 games pitched. he is one of eight men to have started at least 700 games as a pitcher. the top 15 pitchers on that list are all in the hall of fame except for john and roger clemens. yes, he was a stat compiler due to his longevity, but i think he is worthy of the hall of fame. he's in mine.

john is the ninth member of the 1978 topps dodgers to pass away, joining davey lopes, jerry grote, vic davalillo, don sutton, tom lasorda, lance rautzhan, johnny oates, and glenn burke. i am sad to have lost another member of the team of my youth, but happy that i was able to witness the majority of his career. rest in peace 25.

a moment for davey lopes

damn.

davey lopes passed away earlier today.

i heard he was in bad health just the other day thanks to a comment on night owl's excellent recent post. i went looking for an update on that news just about an hour ago and saw the announcement that he had passed away.

there aren't many words, so here is a retrospective of his primary topps cards from his playing days, each of which has a special place in my collection.

of course, lopes also featured prominently on topps record breaker and league leader cards throughout his career, as well as the 1978 topps 1977 nlcs retrospective card

and 1982 all-star and in action subset cards along with a traded set card that year. i even made a custom when he was left out of the 1984 and 1986 topps traded sets. he returned to topps flagship sets as the brewers' manager in 2001 and 2002

and has a ton of other cards from various releases due to his career as a player, coach, and manager.

i've written often about my love for the dodger infield, and that i played second base quite a bit. i was a big fan of lopes, and i wore his number 15 on a couple of different occasions in my babe ruth baseball playing days. i never really had the chance to interact with him other than a short recognition and simultaneous head nod and thumbs up from him at a nationals game in 2017 where he was the first base coach under dusty baker.

my most recent lopes additions to my collection come from that same year, as these 2017 topps rediscover topps buybacks

arrived in my mailbox just a week or so ago from a sportlots seller.

lopes is the eighth member of the 1978 topps dodgers to pass away, joining jerry grote, vic davalillo, don sutton, tom lasorda, lance rautzhan, johnny oates, and glenn burke. i am sad to have lost another member of the team of my youth, but happy that i was able to witness the majority of his career. 

rest in peace 15.

it's good to know a guy

i had been occasionally checking the local card collector club's website to see when the next church show was going to be held. they are typically held once in the spring and once in the fall. however, there was just a glaring "tbd" on the site for months. running into brian at the monthly club show in august had me thinking about the church show again, and thankfully i got an email from him letting me know that the church show was happening on september 21. better yet, brian and a couple friends were setting up as a vendor.

it turns out that the reason the club website wasn't being updated is that the church show was scheduled for the same day as the monthly club show and they didn't want to publicize the competition. for me, with brian selling, it was a nobrainer to eschew the club show and head to church!

brian had told me that he was going to have two 5000 count monster dime boxes, and when i approached the table, he put the first one down. there in the second row was this card in front

i told brian that having a 1982 donruss steve garvey diamond king in front was a smart move. he said it was all about knowing his customer. of course, i couldn't leave the garv behind.

the first block of cards that i looked at included a bunch of 2024 topps aqua parallels, and i told brian that i was a sucker for those sorts of parallels, too. here's a "color match" fernando tatis jr card

to represent the stack of these that i added to my pile. there were a host of other parallel types that i took, including a 2017 topps fire brooks robinson flame parallel

there were a boatload of straight up inserts, too. here's a 2022 panini prizm vladimir guerrero jr illumination insert

i suspect that the holo version is more "illuminated" than this base insert version.

here are a couple of topps heritage inserts that caught my eye - a nolan ryan card from 2015

and an ernie banks card from 2020

there were some attractive base cards, too. this 1994 upper deck ken griffey jr card

is one of my favorite base cards of all-time so i had to grab one of the two that brian had for sale. and i am not sure that i had seen this 2014 topps stadium club roberto clemente card before

so i took it, too.

i felt that it was worth a dime to acquire this 1974 topps hank aaron card

even though it is in rough shape. as brian noted, "it's 96% intact!"

as for dodgers, there were plenty even though brian has provided me with a steady stream of cards featuring the boys in blue over the years. here's a 2017 topps gypsy queen jackie robinson short print

that i needed, and here's a 2021 topps chrome max muncy all-star game refractor insert

that was also a need. these seem to be less prevalent than the 2022 counterparts, but that may not actually be the case.

back to some cards that i didn't really need but bought nonetheless, here's a 1970 topps dodger team card

and a 1987 topps bill russell card

that i chose to take with me.

one player specific card that was new to me was this 2022 panini donruss vladimir guerrero orange holo

parallel.

i found a lot of cards for my various mini-collections, too.

double play cards like a 2002 donruss originals jeff kent 

and a couple of 2022 panini donruss ryne sandberg cards

the base version is a dupe of one i already had, so it goes into my lurker collection thanks to tony gwynn showing up.

here's another one for the lurker collection - a 2016 topps stadium club manny machado card

featuring cal ripken jr.

brian was wise to have this 2012 topps gypsy queen willie mays glove stories insert in one of the boxes

because i will purchase pretty much any card showing "the catch" for my name/number on the back collection. that's where this 1992 leaf jon olerud card is headed

as is this 1998 donruss collections leaf eric davis card

and this 2019 topps stadium club mookie betts card

i have kind of shied away from adding too many tatooine cards lately, but i did choose this electric blue parallel of jazz chisholm's 2021 topps big league card

as well as this 2021 topps stadium club jose ramirez card

that photo really should have been saved for 2022 topps heritage, as it has 1973 topps written all over it. i see the first base coach's head, the first baseman's arm, the second baseman's leg, and the umpire's arm all disembodied. it's chaos!

at some point while i was digging through the boxes, brian laid out a couple of cards he had set aside for me specifically. this is a 2001 pacific private stock shawn green game gear card

and this is a 1998 topps interleague matchups mystery finest card

that hasn't been peeled. here's the back:

so, does the card front feature mike piazza, eric karros, jim edmonds, or tim salmon? i didn't peel it, but based on the comparison of the impression underneath and images online, i believe this to be jim edmonds' card.

brian also had somehow acquired duplicates of a baseball card breakdown 1975 hostess clayton kershaw custom

so he handed one over to me.

after all was said and done, i had pulled around 460 cards from the two dime boxes. after settling up, brian handed over this 2015 topps stadium club yasiel puig gold foil parallel

it is a beaut of a card.

finally, i had added an unopened pack of 2003 topps opening day to my pile

of course, i opened it when i got home. the mini insert was mike piazza

and the cards were your standard early 2000's variety of guys -todd helton, carlos lee, cliff floyd, and mike sweeney. the floyd card offered a nice view of the ted williams memorial that the red sox wore. i thought it appropriate that the last card in the pack was this one

a sweet minky card from a fellow twin cities card collector. thanks brian!

and, if anyone out there is looking for a pair of john candy's pants, i know a guy who knows a guy.

perfect sells

with the 1975 baseball season on our minds this year thanks to topps heritage, i thought it would be fun to revisit a meaningless yet meaningful game from september of that year. it involves pitcher dave sells, who i think only has this 1974 topps card

to mark his time as an active player in the big leagues, although he pitched in parts of four seasons. he also has a 1990 target dodgers card, as he was the player to be named later in the trade between the angels and dodgers that saw jim brewer head to anaheim. he wasn't anyone i was aware of growing up, as his career ended with the 1975 season, but i took note of him when i first saw his card from the 1974 set because his name, like rick waits or davey lopes, forms a complete sentence.

according to baseball reference, sells appeared in his penultimate big league appearance 49 years ago today. it was a day after his 29th birthday (he turned 78 yesterday - happy birthday!), and he was called in to relieve charlie hough at the start of the bottom of the 9th inning against the astros at the astrodome., replacing willie crawford in the batting order. the game was tied 4-4 as hough had surrendered a solo home run to cesar cedeno in the bottom of the 8th after lee lacy had scored on a wild pitch in the top of the inning to give the dodgers a lead. sells set down the side in order, and the game went into extra innings.

neither team scored in the 10th, with sells striking out dodger nemesis jose cruz en route to another perfect inning. in the 11th, the dodgers make two quick outs before lacy, batting ahead of what was now the pitcher's slot in the order, draws a walk. now, to this point, only doug rau, hough, and sells have pitched, so you would think there would be some arms in the bullpen and the dodgers would send up a pinch hitter, especially with the expanded rosters that they had in september back then. however, manager walter alston has already used a fair number of position players in the game, and with the reds running away with the division, the game didn't really matter too much. whatever the reason, sells is allowed to hit.

the next thing you know, lacy is on second after a wild pitch. the dodgers have steve garvey on deck, and there is no need for a force out with two outs, so the astros continue to pitch to sells. he is a pitcher, after all, and this is his first major league at bat. well, what do you know - sells goes and promptly bangs a hit to left, driving in lacy and the go ahead run. garvey grounds into a force out, and we go to the bottom of the 11th.

now, let me inject myself into this story for a moment and share an experience i had in little league. in the second game of my 12-year old season, i was the starting pitcher for our team and pitched the top of the first inning with no problem. in the bottom of the inning, i hit a home run to center. i was so amped on adrenaline that i couldn't get anybody out in the second inning and had to be replaced by my coach. i wasn't a professional like sells, but i would think that getting your first big league hit to drive in the goahead run in a game in which you are in line for your first win with your new team might have you pumped up a bit. 

whether it was adrenaline or not, sells gave up a home run to the first batter he faced in the 11th - cesar cedeno. after that, he retired the next five astros he faced on groundouts before he walked milt may and gave up back-to-back singles to wilbur howard and ken boswell in the bottom of the 12th resulting in a 5-4 astro victory. not the ending sells was hoping for, but still a pretty memorable game for him. i decided i would create a 2024 topps heritage baseball flashbacks card for him to mark the occasion:

in his next outing, sells did not get an at bat, so he ended his big league career 1 for 1 at the plate with an rbi to boot. the only other dodger i know of off the top of my head with a career 1.000 batting average is roy gleason. it's worth noting (at least for me) that one of sells' teammates who appeared in this game was tom paciorek, whose brother john also hit 1.000 for his career, although he was 3 for 3. baseball is a crazy game.

my retired number collection - 27

this is the 27th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the three people for whom number 27 has been retired:

juan marichal (retired by the giants in 1983) 1974 topps

the giants retired marichal's number on july 10, 1983 in advance of his enshrinement in cooperstown later that summer. marichal spent the first 14 seasons of his 16 year career with the giants, winning 243 games and striking out 2,281 batters while pitching 244 complete games for them. he twice led the league in wins and once in era, but was among the league leaders in most of the seasons during the 1960's.

marichal's 1974 topps card is one of my favorite base cards of all-time, and it found its way into my collection very early on in my youth. even though i knew of him initially because of the incident with johnny roseboro and was sworn to dislike him as a dodger fan, i liked the card. later i realized that if roseboro was able to forgive marichal, then i had no business holding a grudge. 

the giants held number 27 out of rotation after marichal's contract was purchased by the red sox prior to the 1974 season, and they never reissued it, making marichal the last giant to wear the number. in his one year with boston and two starts a year later with the dodgers, he did not wear 27 because of carlton fisk (more on him in a moment) and willie crawford, respectively.

jim hunter (retired by the a's in 1991) 2002 fleer fall classic

jim "catfish" hunter had his number retired by the a's on june 9, 1991. he was already a hall of famer at that point, having been inducted in 1987, but the a's had never retired a number in the franchise history until they gave hunter the honor four years later so it's not as if his accomplishments had been ignored. with the a's, hunter won 161 games and the 1974 american league cy young award. more importantly, he led them to three straight world series titles from 1972-1974, posting a 4-0 record in six starts across those series.

he began his career at the age of 19, and pitched a perfect game in 1968 when he was just 22. he was probably my favorite a's player of all-time when i caught billyball fever and began collecting a's cards back to 1965 because it was his rookie year. even though he had been a yankee who beat the dodgers in the first two world series i followed as a fan, i was a fan of his. i like the 2002 fleer fall classic card because it showcases one of the cool uniforms the a's wore during hunter's time with the club. because the a's had never retired a number, they didn't keep 27 out of circulation when hunter joined the yankees in 1975. as a result, several players wore it in the ensuing years (including don sutton) until ron hassey became the last athletic to do so in 1990.

carlton fisk (retired by the red sox in 2000) 2023 topps stadium club

carlton fisk wore number 27 for the red sox from 1971 through 1980, which is why marichal wore a different number in boston in 1974. fisk was the 1972 american league rookie of the year and a seven time all-star for the red sox. he helped them win their first pennant in the division era in 1975, and then delivered one of the most iconic home runs in baseball history to force a seventh game in the world series. the photo used on the 2023 topps stadium club card above is from that at bat and gives a great view of his number. just like "the catch", i will pick up pretty much any card that shows fisk as he waves that home run fair.

fisk did not leave the red sox on good terms, and the team did not keep his number out of rotation after he joined the white sox. in 1999, kip gross became the last red sox player to wear the number as the franchise decided to retire the number in fisk's honor on september 4, 2000 following his induction into the baseball hall of fame.

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 27 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 42

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 42

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 42

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 42

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 42

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 42

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 42, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 42

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16, 23, 42

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 42

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 42

angels - 11, 26, 42

expos - 8, 10, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42

blue jays - 42

rockies - 17, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 118

running total of non-hall of famers: 44