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.

christmas in august

like many of you, i was both surprised and excited to see an email from david at tribecards a few weeks ago. he let me know that my cards from his christmas 2020 giveaway were shipping! about a week later, i had a 660 count box in my mailbox!

now, i had forgotten about this giveaway, and so i went back to see what it was all about. after all, this was not the first time that david hosted a huge card giveaway. for this one, he had asked us to choose our top 3 teams and top 3 players. i didn't see any cards featuring the players that i most likely identified, but i recognized the three teams for sure.

the dodgers were team number one for me, of course, and while there weren't a lot of boys in blue, the best thing in the box related to them was this 1997 donruss vxp 1.0 mike piazza thing

that's the front of a booklet that contained this

which is a rectangular cd-rom. i did not know that donruss was in the cd-rom game, but they were. here are the instructions

i did not try the item out before putting it in my 1997 dodgers binder, so i don't know if it is windows 10 compatible or not. what a great oddball for my collection!

the other two teams i identified are represented by the oldest and newest cards in the box

a 1977 topps dan ford twins card and a 2024 topps heritage george springer blue jays card. the oldest blue jays card was this 1978 topps jesse jefferson

and holy smokes i love getting 1978 topps cards in the mail!

there were a couple of outliers in my box, including a 1980 topps rusty staub card

i certainly didn't mind seeing le grand orange, and this card and the other 1980 topps cards gave me some serious flashbacks to neighborhood pack ripping.

here are some of the other cards that caught my eye. 

from the dodger stack, this 1988 score mini great moments in baseball insert was new to me

it's all about the end of don drysdale's scoreless innings streak

i always knew drysdale's streak as 58 and two-thirds innings, but at some point, elias changed it to just 58 innings which is the number on the back of the card. i recall drysdale not being in favor of losing two outs from the streak (although that last out was a sac fly). it was all made moot when orel hershiser went 59 innings without allowing a run at the end of the 1988 season.

here's a 1982 topps derrel thomas card

that made me do a double take. it's not blackless as it has the border around the photo and the facsimile signature, but the color is definitely not all there.

another printer anomaly was this 1991 topps mike scioscia

which had some printing plates off register - but not as badly as some that jon shared recently!

another 1991 card david included was this jose gonzalez card

which really features a photo of billy bean. bean passed away recently, and will be remembered as a bit of a trailblazer in the sport.

not a dodger card, but here's the guy who was drafted immediately after alex rodriguez

little d had flashes of dominance, but it just didn't work out in the end.

most of the cards i received (like last time) were twins cards. i've no issue with that, as these cards included some gems like this 1995 topps embossed golden idols kirby puckett card

i had probably not thought of or looked at darrell jackson's 1981 fleer card

for over 40 years, but there it was in the box i received and i immediately thought back to me and my friends wondering why an american league pitcher was holding a bat.

the cards also reminded me that shane mack must have had a clause that his cards needed to show him sliding into third base

i don't think i had ever seen randy bush's 1989 fleer card before (i stopped set collecting fleer after 1987)

but his teammates were nicer to him than bill ripken's teammates were to ol' duckface. for what it's worth, i don't think that bush is holding his bat in the photo.

there were some recent twins cards, including these 2024 bowman inserts (paper and chrome)

of brooks lee. lee is from near where i grew up so he has potential to become my favorite non-dodger.

one more twins card - a 2021 topps allen & ginter ryan jeffers auto card

it's more like an initialed card, but it's still pretty sweet.

as for the blue jays, here's a roger clemens base card

from that donruss vxp 1.0 release.

i have a weird affinity for buybacks, and i received these two from 2017

the 1999 topps jose cruz jr is a silver foil version, while the 1988 topps jose nunez is bronze. i remember being shocked when the mariners traded cruz to the blue jays during his rookie campaign as he was a highly touted prospect.

speaking of prospects, here's a 2023 bowman sterling prospect autograph of manuel beltre

i think this one actually is just initialed, but with a star added for effect. beltre is currently 20 years old and with the blue jays single-a affiliate in dunedin.

my favorite blue jays card in the box was this black & white parallel

of vladimir guerrero jr's 2019 topps archives snapshots card.

by choosing the dodgers, twin, and blue jays, i was able to handle a lot of cards that i hadn't taken the time to look at for a long time. i was also able to do a comparison of ken landreaux cards from near-opposite ends of the 1980's

fun fact - for a brief time in 1987, the dodgers had half of the players that the angels sent to the twins for rod carew in landreaux and brad havens. i will always remember landreaux for the 1981 season and the fact that he caught the last out of the 1981 world series.

thank you david for your giveaway! your generosity is appreciated!

my retired number collection - crazy 8s

this is the ninth 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 seven people for whom the number 8 has been retired:

yogi berra (retired by the yankees in 1972) 2021 topps stadium club chrome

and bill dickey (retired by the yankees in 1972) 2001 upper deck sp legendary cuts

the yankees retired number 8 on july 22, 1972, and honored both berra and dickey at the same time. this is the first, but not last, instance of a franchise retiring a number for two players.  dickey was the second yankee to wear the number, and berra was the last, and if it weren't for dickey's two years of military service in 1945 and 1946, there would have only been three yankees total to ever wear the number.

i was happy to find the card for berra showing the number as i could not find any dickey cards showing his back. both players are in the hall of fame, with dickey being voted in in 1954, and berra joining him in 1972 - his induction was a couple of weeks after the number retirement ceremony. yogi, of course, was managing the mets at the time.

dickey was a lifelong yankee and catcher - he never moved to a different position - and had three seasons where he was in the top-five for mvp votes to go along with his eight world series rings. berra on the other hand played one season for the mets after 18 with the yankees, and he played a bit of left field towards the end of his career. he had three mvp awards and ten world series rings as a player.

willie stargell (retired by the pirates in 1982) 1982 topps

here we have some sleeve number representation thanks to pops' 1982 topps card! stargell had his number retired by the pirates on september 6, 1982 which was about a month before his career came to an end. he was obviously the last pirate to wear the number as a result.

stargell's career accomplishments included an mvp award, two world series titles, 475 home runs and 1,540 rbi. he was voted in to the hall of fame in 1988 on his first ballot.

carl yastrzemski (retired by the red sox in 1989) 2009 topps tribute

the red sox retired number 8 for yaz on august 6, 1989; a couple of weeks after he was inducted in to the hall of fame. yaz was the last person to wear the number for boston, and it was the only number he wore over the course of his 23 year career.

yaz was the 1967 american league mvp thanks to his triple crown win, but he had two other batting titles to boot. he finished his career with 3,419 hits and 452 home runs. only pete rose played in more major league baseball games than yaz, who made 3,308 appearances for the red sox.

gary carter (retired by the expos in 1993) 1984 fleer

i really liked the expos uniform with the rare right side front number! carter's number 8 was the first number to be retired by the expo franchise. it was retired on july 31, 1993, the summer after carter retired as a player. he began and finished his career in montreal, where he was a 7-time all-star in his 11-plus seasons with the club. carter led the expos to their first and only postseason berth in 1981, and hit well over .400 in both the nlds against the phillies and the nlcs against the dodgers.

carter, who went in to the hall of fame in 2003, was the last expo to wear the number 8, but the washington nationals put it in to circulation in their second season. since then, seven players have worn the number (most recently carter kieboom). i am keeping carter (and the other expo retired numbers) in this collection even though the nationals don't recognize them as being retired. this is a different case than, say, the marlins retiring number 5 for executive carl barger and then putting it in to circulation a few years later.

joe morgan (retired by the reds in 1998) 2003 fleer flair

sporting the more traditional left side front number, joe morgan's 2003 fleer flair card gives us a good look at his number 8 which was retired by the reds on june 6, 1998. i am not sure why it took the club so long to retire the number, as morgan entered the hall of fame in 1990. maybe because morgan left the reds and played his last few seasons elsewhere had something to do with it? the reds did redistribute his number, and it was last worn by damon berryhill in 1995.

as a player, morgan led the reds to back-to-back titles in 1975 and 1976 as one of the key cogs in the big red machine. he won the national league mvp award both of those seasons as well. between his 2,517 hits and 1,865 walks, morgan was on base over 4,200 times in his career. he scored 1,650 runs and also stole 689 bases. these days, he may be best remembered as a broadcaster whose takes inspired the great website "fire joe morgan". one of the guys behind that website went on to work on "the office" and co-create "parks and recreation". i believe he was "ken tremendous", and somewhere i have an email from him about a comment i made on the site. good times.

cal ripken jr. (retired by the orioles in 2001) 1984 topps

one more front jersey number! the iron man had his number retired by the orioles on october 6, 2001 which was also the final day of ripken's playing career. it was fitting that the lifelong oriole be the last to wear the number, and that the retirement not be delayed.

ripken's career was remarkable for his durability, but he was also a rookie of the year and two-time american league mvp. he led the orioles to the 1983 pennant and won his only ring as they beat the phillies that year. he tallied 3,184 hits and 431 home runs during his career, and was one of the most popular players of his era as evidenced by his 19 all-star game appearances. 

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

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

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

giants - 3, 4

pirates - 1, 4, 8

guardians - 3, 5

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8

phillies - 1

cardinals - 1, 2, 6

reds - 1, 5, 8

braves - 3, 6

astros - 5, 7

mets

orioles - 4, 5, 8

dodgers - 1, 2, 4

twins - 3, 6, 7

white sox - 2, 3, 4

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6

cubs

royals - 5

padres - 6

athletics

angels

expos - 8

rangers - 7

major league baseball

rays

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners

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)

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 59

running total of non-hall of famers: 7

maybe they do exist

i am five, well, really six, cards short of a complete dodger team set of 2015 topps 1978 buybacks. while it wasn't the first time that topps included buybacks in packs of flagship, for some reason the foil stamp used on the 2015 version appealed to me and i went about trying to amass dodgers from every year.

from what i could find, topps included all flagship years from 1957 through 1980, except for 1964 and 1965. i assume those two years were omitted due to the need for buybacks in the then current and "on deck" heritage releases. another anomaly is that only the first 10 or so cards of the 1980 set were included in the buyback release. of course, manny mota had a record breaker card at the top of the set, so the dodgers were represented.

i did pretty well with this effort, with right around 200 of the 2015 buyback dodgers, ranging from a 1957 don bessent card 

to the aforementioned manny mota card 

from 1980.

as the hunt went on, i realized that i was close to a complete team set of my favorite release - 1978. and, while tcdb only lists 16 dodger cards as 2015 buybacks, i was able to track down 23 of the 29 cards that make up the dodger team set from that release. now, i am almost certain that topps did not include any of the 4-in-1 rookie cards in the buybacks released in 2015, so i am not counting lance rautzhan's card in my quest. however, i would find it difficult to dismiss the others that i am missing from existence.

one of them, elias sosa, i am certain exists because i saw it on ebay - after it had sold for a pittance. so, there is at least one of those. the other four i am missing i have never seen. those four are tommy john, dusty baker, terry forster and tom lasorda.

comc shows a record of these buybacks for john's 1973, 1974, and 1977 cards, and i have the 1973 and 1974 but not the '77.  i have also seen baker's cards show up from 1973 through 1976 (when he was a brave), and i own a buyback of his 1979 card, but i haven't seen the '77 or '78. topps did issue a buyback version of dusty's 1978 card in 2017, but i don't own it. and one more note on sosa - i haven't seen his 1977 card as a 2015 buyback either. his non-dodger cards seem to show up from time to time, however.

forster's pre-1978 cards, along with his 1979 card (which i have), all have shown up in 2015 buyback form, but i've never seen his 1978 card. topps did issue it in 2016 as a buyback, and i added the blue foil version to my collection

so at least there is that. i do have his 1979 card and 1975 league leader card as part of my collection, 

since he shares space with dodger mike marshall, but i would really like to find that missing '78.

as for lasorda, i have his 1978 card in 2014 topps buyback form

but not 2015. in fact, in addition to not ever seeing his 1978 card as a 2015 "original", i don't recall ever seeing the dodger team cards for 1977 or 1979 in 2015 buyback form. both of those cards identify lasorda as the dodger skipper. i do have the 1978 topps dodger team card with the 2015 foil stamp though. curious.

in related buyback news, i added a 2016 buyback of steve garvey a while back. it's the silver foil version of his 1982 card

which is one of the more abundant garvey as a dodger buyback cards around. topps held some of these cards to include in their archives signature series release that same year, and here's my copy

that the seller removed from the magnetic case for some reason. this card continues to show up in subsequent archives signature series releases in varying numbers.

baker and john have also been showing up in topps' archive signature releases, but i don't think topps is holding back a bunch of elias sosa or terry forster cards for future signed releases, so i am left to wonder what happened back in 2015. maybe those cards, along with the others, do exist in reasonable quantities and someday my diligence will be rewarded. maybe. and if not with the 2015 buybacks, then hopefully in 2027 when i will try to assemble the team set with heritage buybacks. stay tuned!

a slight return of manager cards!

well well well. i have been lamenting the loss of manager cards in topps heritage over the last few years as it has denied me cards of dusty baker and dave roberts to collect. thankfully, topps included roberts in a flagship insert set - "mlb awards" or some such thing - a few years ago, and both roberts and baker were part of the short printed "skippers" mini insert set in 2016 allen & ginter's (i still need to get a copy of baker's card, by the way).

then along came 2021 topps archives. when i saw that roberts and baker were on the autograph checklist, i figured it would be as fan favorite players, since both were definitely that during their playing careers. but no - they are managers!

i am pretty happy to have a new card of dusty as a non-dodger; especially one that features him in a new uniform. the aforementioned skippers card is the only one i know of from his time with the nationals, so i really do need to track one down.

as for roberts, it's great to have a certified autograph of him as the dodgers' manager. i already had a ttm auto from him on that aforementioned awards card which kept alive my string of autographed cards of dodger managers back to walter alston, but certified is preferred.

topps even went with the 1982 design even though there were no manager cards issued in that set. just great all around stuff that i was all too happy to track down on ebay. for the record, twins' manager rocco baldelli is also featured in the managerial subset which is nice to see, but the other highlight is kim ng's card - even if topps put "marlins" above her name rather than "general manager".

there were no steve garvey cards in archives this year which was a bit of a surprise given his appearance in a number of other topps releases. topps did recycle some of his old cards for their 2021 archives signature series retired players edition, and i dutifully picked up a few of them:

the first two were purchased from comc and i didn't notice that the seller had salvaged the one-touch holders. i put them in one-touches after they arrived though, although i have some uncaged autos from other releases (like 2004 topps originals) that i've left loose. i should work on my consistency. the last card there is the tiffany version of garvey's final topps card. this is the third or fourth year that garvey has been included in this set, and i really don't need to add another signed buyback of his 1987 card, that's for sure. i might be the only person around who would like to see a jim tracy card included in this set, however. more manager cards, please!

350 is a magic number - the not terrible 2s

a few weeks ago i noted that i was pondering the idea of adding a number type mini-collection to my collection. of the options i considered - 190, 272, 350, or none at all - i decided to go with 350. 

i think i'll post cards from the same year of each decade, and so far i've shown the 8s, 7s, 6s, and 3s. this post will be all about the 2s.

1962 topps #350

frank robinson won his first mvp award in 1961, so here we have a clear application of card number 350 as a hero number. in fact, robby probably should have been card number 100. he would go on to win his second mvp award in 1966 after winning the triple crown, and wouldn't you know it - his 1967 topps card is number 100 in the set.

1972 topps #350 

frank howard hit a lot of home runs, and had led the national league in that category as recently as 1970. he was starting to decline at this point in his career, but still gave the first-year rangers a spot at a hero number on the checklist. seeing this card in a box of 1972 dupes is what inspired me to look at starting this mini-collection, for whatever that's worth.

1982 topps #350

thad bosley! no disrespect to the "white sox' most effective pinch-hitter of 1980", but his inclusion here discredits the notion of hero numbers altogether. and it's not as if he had a big postseason moment in 1981 for the brewcrew that might warrant the card number - he only appeared in 1 game of the divisional playoff (or "mini-playoff" as the card back calls it) without a plate appearance.

1992 topps #350

gregg olson was the 1989 american league rookie of the year, and he followed that season with several solid years in the oriole bullpen. perhaps his role in the 1991 no-hitter mentioned on the card helped his case for being featured at card number 350?

2002 topps #350

the oakland athletics had the misfortune of being in the same division as the seattle mariners who won 116 games as opposed to their total of 102 in 2001. as a result, the a's took the american league wild card in and faced the yankees who had won only 95 games. it didn't matter, as the yankees beat the a's in the alds by coming back from a two games to none deficit in the series. it's an interesting choice of words topps used on the back of the card regarding the team's "destructive offense". "juiced" has a certain connotation in baseball, and i suppose topps could have done this intentionally given the timeframe. when the mitchell report was released in 2007, jermaine dye was not among those players included in the findings, but jason giambi was. 

2012 topps #350

evan longoria was a solid choice for this spot on the checklist in my opinion. he was the face of the rays at this point, and had, as the card back states, just put the rays in the postseason as the wild card winner with a walk-off home run on the final day of the season. i remember watching the end of that game, and it was fun to see it happen in real time. longoria actually hit two homers that day as the rays came back against the yankees and a 7-0 deficit to win in 12 innings. although longoria's second dinger won the game, let's not forget dan johnson, who hit a solo home run with two outs in the ninth inning to tie it at 7. not so pleased were the red sox, who wound up missing out on the postseason as a result of longo's heroics.

i am tracking a few things in an effort to find any consistency with number 350, although there really isn't any. still, i am keeping track of the following occurrences, now through two posts:

number of reigning rookies of the year: 1 (kris bryant)

number of reigning mvps: 2 (frank robinson, robin yount)

number of reigning cy young winners: 0

number of reigning world series champions: 2 (keith hernandez, joe carter)

number of reigning pennant winners: 7 (frank robinson, steve garvey, robin yount, jack clark, keith hernandez, joe carter, clayton kershaw)

number of reigning league leaders: 7 (mel stottlemyre - complete games; robin yount - hits, doubles; keith hernandez - walks; kenny lofton - sb; chase utley - runs; david ortiz - doubles, rbi; clayton kershaw - wins, era)

subset types: 2 (all-time all-stars, postseason highlights (2))

number of repeat players: 0

number of dodgers: 2 (steve garvey, clayton kershaw)

frequency of teams: cardinals (4), mets (3), dodgers (2), astros (2), braves (2), twins (2), a's (2), reds (2), brewers (2), white sox, giants, indians, phillies, red sox, yankees, cubs, blue jays, angels, rangers, orioles, rays

i will have another post with another run of cards soon - stay tuned!