if you've got a sombrero, throw it to the sky

friday night in los angeles kicks off a weekend celebrating fernandomania and its subject - fernando valenzuela. that same night - august 11 - the dodgers will retire number 34 in his honor.

i wrote earlier this year about the fact that fernando is already a member of the "legends of dodger baseball", and i will be interested to see how the team handles the transition from that group to the retired numbers faction. will they just move his monument from one spot to the other? that would be my guess.

anyway, here are some cards of fernando that i've added over the last year or so, starting with a 2017 topps rediscover topps buyback of his 1990 topps card

it's the silver stamp version, not that you can tell.

when it comes to adding cards of fernando to my dodger collection, i am down mainly to oddballs, wo here are a few of those that are new-ish to me

1981 all-star game program insert

1982 topps album stickers

1989 topps super star stickers (with rob deer)

1985 topps rub downs (with tony pena and robin yount)

i also finally added his 1987 star company set to my collection:

i bought the set as single cards on beckett since it was cheaper than what i saw for complete sets, however, one of the cards was missing so i had to pick up a single on ebay

back when the dodgers announced that they were going to retire fernando's number, i made the announcement that i was adding him to my post-dodger player collections. so, i've been adding non-dodger cards of fernando to my collection ever since. some i already had among my non-dodger duplicates and monster boxes, but some i've tracked down online.

i had a reader point out (thanks benjamin!) that fernando's two cards from the 1993-94 line up venezuelan winter league set were on ebay for cheap, but i was too slow to snag his solo card. i did get this card

showing him with urbano lugo. it's a great oddball and i am happy to have a card showing fernando in team mexico gear in my collection.

i've made some great progress in filling out the post-dodger collection (here's my have/want list) so i figured i would share with you. 

1993

you may recall that fernando pitched for the angels in 1991 after he was released by the dodgers just prior to the start of the season. there are sadly no cards of him in his angel uniform, so we jump to 1993. the orioles signed him to a contract and i was pretty happy that he was back in the majors.

those cards include flair, fleer, fleer ultra, leaf, o-pee-chee premier, and topps stadium club.  i have to show the back of the stadium club card

because it features his 1981 topps multi-player rookie (hello jack perconte and mike scioscia!). let's keep going with 1993-1994

i am a big fan of fernando's 1993 upper deck card (it was my favorite non-dodger card that year), and i was confused to find that topps included him in stadium club but not flagship (or traded). after finishing the 1993 season with the orioles, fernando was unsigned until well in to the 1994 campaign. so, it was nice that he was added to some card checklists that year as a phillie.  the cards above are his 1993 topps stadium club member's only parallel, 1993 upper deck, 1994 fleer, 1994 flair, 1994 fleer update, and 1994 pacific.

more from 1994

those are his pacific prism (circles), score, score gold rush, topps, topps gold, and topps stadium club cards from '94. that year marked the end of his run with topps until a few years after his retirement.

here's one more from '94 and some '95 cards

those are the 1994 topps stadium club rainbow foil, 1995 fleer, 1995 fleer update, 1995 mother's cookies padres, 1995 upper deck, and 1995 upper deck series 2 cards. as you can see, fernando left the phillies and joined the padres for the 1995 season.

more '95 cards

there we have his upper deck series 2 electric diamond parallel, his upper deck collector's choice cards (i have them out of order), the upper deck collector's choice trade card redemption, and 1995 upper deck collector's choice se - base and silver signature versions. those last two are nice because he's back in dodger stadium.

on to 1996

it's all padres here, as fernando spent 1996 with them, too. those cards are emotion-xl, flair, fleer tiffany, fleer ultra, mother's cookies padres, and pacific crown collection. i like the back of the emotion-xl card

as it shows fernando peeking to the sky during his wind up.

more from 1996, plus one from '97

pacific prisms, circa, upper deck (young at heart subset), upper deck collector's choice (international flavor subset), upper deck collector's choice silver signature are the '96 cards, and the last card is from 1997 donruss.  there was no regular card for fernando in 1997 upper deck (as was the case with some, but not all, of the other 'young at heart' subjects), but his young at heart card has his full stats on the back, along with a nice photo of him as a dodger

here are the rest of the 1997 cards that i own

donruss press proof, fleer, fleer metal, fleer ultra, mother's cookies padres, pacific crown collection, pacific prism invincibles, pinnacle, score, score premium stock, score showcase series, and upper deck. the back of the upper deck card notes that he was the winning pitcher in the first mlb game held in mexico.

i guess i have a couple more from 1997 - upper deck special report subset, and collector's choice

and those last two are his 1998 final tributes from upper deck and upper deck collector's choice. fernando pitched for the cards in 5 games after being traded by the pads in the middle of the 1997 season. the cardinals released him in july of 1997, so i was surprised (but super happy) to see him in 1998 releases.

as you can see, i am missing a few base cards so feel free to help me out with my post-dodger fernando collection. and don't forget to salute him this weekend as he becomes only the second non-hall of famer to have his numbered retired by the dodgers. fernandomania forever!

i am glad that i signed up!

in my mind there is really only one law of trading (as long as you assume that trading means both parties actually send cards to each other), and it is similar to the golden rule: swap cards that are commensurate with your trading partner's expectations. want to trade by book value? that's fine, although i can't recall the last time i entered a trade like that. blind trade? that's great, but first time blind traders should have an idea of expectations. more often than not, the trades i am involved in are of the ongoing back and forth variety in which we figure things will work out in the end. those are the best kind of trades, and they speak to the quality of trading partners we typically deal with.

back in april of 2020, i commented on a post at my sports obsession in which jeff asked for trading partners for his cousin who collects braves inserts and parallels. by then, (like most) i was working from home and paying more attention to my collection than i had been during the previous year, so i figured why not swap some cards. indeed.

since then, kevin and i have sent cards back and forth 3 or 4 times - braves for dodgers. the haul has been amazing. hundreds of cards including short prints, inserts, variations, parallels, game used, and autographs. here are shots of a couple of the boxes i've received:

i took the time to scan some cards from the third box i received, so hold on

some good stuff here, including a 2008 topps allen & ginter chad billingsley bazooka back and a carl fuillo relic

more cool stuff, including a 2017 topps holiday cody bellinger rookie

just a bunch of parallels and variations and what not. i had a lot of fun going through the cards that kevin sent.

one card that arrived in the first box that really had me scratching my head was this one:

here's the back:

i had never seen one of these before, despite thinking i had all of the dodger cards from 1993 stadium club. i had no record of a "pacific terrific" insert being available, but then it all made sense when i found that this was actually the "superstar duos" insert - the same insert set that topps revisited in this year's stadium club release.

i am hoping to get another package from kevin at some point - i am glad i signed up to trade!

number, number on the wall

i've seen regular season major league baseball games in 22 different stadiums, although that total includes both the hubert h humphrey metrodome and target field in minneapolis. so, there are nine stadiums that i have yet to visit to have seen each major league team in their home whites. one of the things that i like to do at each stadium is look for the retired jersey numbers. 

i first noticed them on telecasts from candlestick park, and have been intrigued ever since. unfortunately, i've only been to candlestick for football. still, i've seen my fair share of retired basseball numbers across the country. i usually try to take a photo, but i am not always successful in that regard.

sometimes, these retired numbers show up on baseball cards, and i at one time considered having a mini-collection of such appearances. as it is, i decided to keep dave bergman's 1983 topps card in my "favorite card of the year" mini-collection, and i keep sightings of jackie robinson's retired number 42 (like at the oakland coliseum and featured on this 2019 topps heritage denard span card)

in my "42" mini-collection.

the other retired number i look(ed) for on cards was steve garvey's number 6, retired by the padres since 1988. believe it or not, i've had some success!

this 1992 mother's padres card of jose melendez

features the right field stands and scoreboard in the background. if you look behind the fence and towards the left edge of the card, you will see a placard to the left of the st. louis cardinals logo - that's garvey's jersey marker. i believe it was placed in the location that his walk-off home run in the 1984 nlcs cleared the fence.

it shows up again on this 1993 mother's padres craig shipley card

just next to shipley's left ear.

it is also featured (although very blurrily) on tim teufel's 1993 topps stadium club card

like i said, blurry.

i found a photo from getty images that features a slightly different take on the placard

this photo was taken on opening day 1993, but if you look at archi cianfrocco's 1994 upper deck card,

we see half of garvey's jersey posted in a similar fashion to the pre-1993 configuration. as a result, i would assume that the photo on cianfrocco's card is from prior to 1993, except that he didn't play for the pads prior to 1993. of course, he wasn't with them on opening day (he was with the expos), so perhaps the padres removed the rectangular placard and put the old one up at some point during the season.

a different configuration of garvey's retired number shows up on trevor hoffman's 1997 upper deck collector's choice card:

it's kind of hard to see - here's an altered image of the card:

now you can see it next to hoffman's right forearm.

here's a photo i took at jack murphy/qualcomm stadium in 2002, with all of the padre numbers on display:

garvey's number is still in right-center, although it moved closer to centerfield. it's next to dave winfield's 31, and on the other side of center is randy jones' 35 and jackie's 42. ray kroc's "rak" is to the right of garvey's 6 as well. i've not seen any cards with this version of garvey's (or jackie's) numbers in the background.  by the way, this is the last game that i attended in san diego (it was the rockies against the pads on may 27, 2002), but i hope to get there soon to take in a game at petco park.

i have this 1994 score card

in my collection representing the murph in my "stadiums i've seen games in" mini-collection. i don't see garvey's jersey on this card, unfortunately.

heading down the lurker rabbit hole

here's joe oliver's 1993 topps stadium club card

night owl posted the card in his best set of 93 post. i had not seen it before, but i immediately took a liking to it, and was particularly intrigued by the presumed baserunner partially obscured by the presumed reds' pitcher. because of the dodger stadium anniversary patch and the bit of red jersey number showing, i knew that was a dodger to oliver's left, and it looked to me to be brett butler. butler, coincidentally, has a cameo on john kruk's card in the same set.

i knew i needed to add this card to my lurker collection regardless, but i still spent half an hour on baseball reference and getty images researching things to determine that it was, in fact, butler and that the photo came from a game on april 13, 1992.

it turns our that i could've just done a few google searches to find this post on a card blog i was not familiar with. i did just that after i had figured out the game that the photo came from - looking for some confirmation. turns out i could have saved myself half an hour. to make things worse, i started looking through posts on that site and came across this 1999 ud choice ellis burks card

that features another lurking dodger - this time it's charles johnson.  the post told me that it came from a september 19, 1998 game.

i wound up picking up both the oliver and the burks cards for my collection in a sportlots order. when they arrived and i went to put them away, i discovered that i already had the burks, and that i had even posted about charles johnson being there on the card.

i guess buying a card i already had for 18 cents on sportlots is a small price to pay for discovering that blog - there are some really interesting posts about images shown on cards - some that i had seen before and some that i had not. i invite you to check it out - you might find a rabbit hole of your own.