34ever

the dodgers dropped some big news yesterday as part of their fanfest celebrations - the franchise will officially retire fernando valenzuela's number in a ceremony during the 2023 season! this is great news for fans like me that felt the dodgers should relax their tradition of only retiring numbers of hall of famers (with the lone exception of jim gilliam) for iconic franchise players like fernando. the truth is, fernando's number 34 has been unofficially retired since he was released by the club just prior to the 1991 season - no player or coach has worn the number since. this will make it official and we will see number 34 up on the facade of the stadium along with the other numbers and microphones.

his number 34 is one of the few numbers that was in use by a player on the 1977 and/or 1978 dodger team (lee lacy) that i do not associate with that player. for example, i still think of jerry grote as #9 rather than mickey hatcher (in his second dodger stint) and rick monday as #16 instead of andre ethier or will smith, but 34 is fernando.

here is the newest fernando card to enter my collection:

it's a 1987 hostess card/sticker that i had no idea existed until i stumbled on an ebay listing. it brought me to 247 (245 unique) fernando dodger cards, according to tcdb. that puts fernando at number 21 on my "top names" list and number 5 among all collectors, although i have a few more of his cards (non-dodger variety) in a couple of mini-collections that i haven't entered in to tcdb.

here's a card that shows his number a bit better, from 2002 topps archives reserve

a few years ago, i culled my player collections to just consist of steve garvey, vladimir guerrero, jimmie hall, and the post-dodger cards of the other starting 8 from the 1977 dodgers. shawn green, steve sax and fernando were the last to be cut, but i've since thought about reinstating fernando. in fact, i mentioned it in a post a while back, and even talked about it with fuji when he and i met up in san jose recently.  well, this number retirement news has helped me make the decision to add fernando to my list of player collections.

unfortunately, i traded away many of his cards to oriole, phillie, padre, and cardinal collectors over the past few years so i don't have many in hand. i do have a few, including this 1995 upper deck electric diamond parallel

and this 1996 pacific crown collection card

plus a few more.

my want list is up, but i haven't finished going through all of my monster boxes of cards that may yield a few more from my past pc. still, i am looking for help! you will be rewarded!

fernando was inducted in to the "legends of dodger baseball" a few years ago, which seemed to me to be the franchise's way of recognizing a tier of player that wasn't going to get to cooperstown and therefore have their number retired. this announcement has me thinking that some other members of that group, such as maury wills

don newcombe

and steve garvey

might join the likes of roy campanella

with their numbers retired, too.

and then there was manny mota, who seemed like someone who could follow the gilliam rule as a longtime dodger player and coach, but they were quick to redistribute his number 11 after he finally retired. i figured if they didn't do it for mota, they probably weren't going to do it for anyone else. i am glad i was wrong.

viva fernandomania!

favorite fabrics

my favorite relic set, hands down, is 2001 leaf certified materials fabric of the game.  perhaps i am biased because there is a strong dodger checklist featured, and i was able to obtain a fantastic steve garvey card numbered 6/6 (a 'jersey number' parallel) back when the set was first issued.

i will occasionally check ebay for dodger cards from this set, but with my garvey collection complete for this issue, there is not much of a priority here.  still, i recently found a seller with a bunch of cards for sale, and picked up four for my collection.

here is a don sutton 'century' parallel - that means it is numbered to 21.

this shawn green card is a 'jersey number' parallel,

so in addition to having the jersey number stencil over the patch, it is numbered to green's familiar 15 (a number which still belongs to davey lopes, by the way).

less rare is this don drysdale 'jersey number' parallel

as big d wore number 53.  i now own roughly 4% of the drysdale 'jersey number' card print run, as i have another in my collection already.  this new one shows the blue dodger patch a bit better.

finally, i also snagged a vladimir guerrero 'century' parallel

for my vladdy collection.

i'm a bit disappointed that none of these patches feature the red dodger number as my fotg garvey 'jersey number' and one of my garvey 'century' parallels do.  so, around the same time i picked those fotg cards up, i scratched that red patch itch with these fine cards:

2008 upper deck spx winning materials limited patch jeff kent

numbered to 99

2008 upper deck spx winning materials dual limited patch rafael furcal

numbered to 50

2015 panini donruss jersey kings studio dee gordon

numbered to 5

2016 topps museum collection meaningful materials prime relic gold zack greinke

numbered to 35

and 2016 topps strata clearly authentic autograph relic green parallel clayton kershaw

numbered to 75

red patch!

an adrian beltre trifecta. no, make that a quadfecta.

we are 5 months away from adrian beltre's 40th birthday. i do not know if he will return for another season in 2019, but i do know that i consider his leaving the dodgers via free agency to have been a big mistake.  a mistake on the part of the dodgers, i mean.  he was coming off of a career year in 2004, and the dodgers were in a situation of potentially overpaying for that one phenomenal year, so i get it.  however, until justin turner came along, there seemed to have been a revolving door at third base, and with beltre's 2217 hits and 330 home runs as a non-dodger, the knife has been twisted quite a bit.

i used one of those various ebay coupons that popped up over the summer to finally land a 1997 bowman beltre card for a decent price.

the addition of this card means that i can show off a couple more cards to qualify for the trifecta.

this is a 2004 upper deck relic card of the dominican republic native

and this is a 1999 topps gallery autograph

then i recalled that i had a beltre patch card in my collection!

this is a 2001 leaf certified materials fabric of the game jersey number relic

logoman!

2001 leaf certified materials fotg is my all-time favorite relic set, and the die-cut jersey numbers parallels are awesome.  i also have a steve garvey and a don drysdale card from this subset.

if beltre does return in 2019, he stands a chance to pass a few more folks on the all-time hit leaderboard, perhaps even passing willie mays for 12th all-time, and he can also make a run at the top ten in total bases as well.  it's too bad that he won't be going in to the hall of fame as a dodger.

30-day baseball card challenge further compressed

i left the 30-day baseball challenge at day 15 last time i posted an entry, so it's time to move on to day 16.  the topic for that day is "a card of a player whom you appreciate by don't like".  for me, this is like led zeppelin. i respect the talent, but it's not really my cup of tea.  while there are a few players i could think of that fit the bill for this topic, i'll go with sammy sosa.

partially because of how much exposure he received as a cub thanks to the fact that wgn was broadcasting cubs' games every night, and also because i was more of a mark mcgwire fan at that time.  i knew a lot about mcgwire because mcgwire was from southern california, played in california, and burst on the scene while i was a very rabid follower of daily boxscores and sportscenter highlights.  sosa came along a couple of years later when i was not paying such close attention to baseball, so i didn't know much about him.  when 1998 rolled around, i was impressed but not endeared.  both players ultimately disappointed me as a fan.  had sosa remained with the white sox (or the rangers, for that matter), i might have been more open to his success at the plate which would not have come at the expense of dodger pitchers as often as it did with him playing on the north side of chicago.  not really relevant to this topic, i nonetheless remember what vin scully once said during a dodgers-cubs broadcast: "the white sox thought he was so-so, but it turns out he was sosa".

day 17 was a day to show a card from the first set you put together by hand. for me, that's 1978 topps.  i spent the summer and early fall of '78 buying packs, trading, and chasing down singles at the local card & comic shop to finish that set.  one of the cards in the set was joe torre's first managerial card

which is also his final tribute as a player.  this was the first final tribute card i recognized as such, since torre was now a manager.  i was really hoping for a similar jim fregosi card in the 1979 topps set, but topps put the managers back on the team cards that year.

that torre card would also work for the day 18 entry, a card of a player who went on to manage your favorite team, but you know that i need to show a billy russell card for that topic.  so, here's russell's 1979 dodger blue card

russell had the unfortunate task of replacing tommy lasorda as manager before tommy wanted to go, and also during an ownership change. a recipe for a short-term gig, as it turns out.

sticking with the infield of my youth, here's ron cey's 1978 o-pee-chee card

that would serve as a day 19 card - a favorite card from a country other than the united states.  that cey card is one that i pulled from a pack in the summer of 1978 in southern saskatchewan, and it wound up pinned to my wall in my bedroom when i returned home.  you can see the pinholes and the rounded corners and know that this card was well loved.  it has since been signed by the penguin and now rests in one of my non-certified auto binders.  while that is certainly a sentimental favorite foreign card, i would be remiss to not showcase rick monday's 1977 o-pee-chee card as a favorite in a different way.

monday's canadian variation blew my mind the first time i saw it, having thought up until that point that the 1978 set was mo's debut in blue.  this card spawned a deep interest in o-pee-chee cards, and many years later led to my oh my o-pee-chee blog.  voici à vous, rick monday!

day 20's topic was a your favorite parallel based on the parallel, not the player.  that is a tough one, as there are parallels that i particularly like, such as the 2007 topps chrome blue refractors and the 2011 topps chrome atomic refractors, but the parallels i first recall trying to seek out were the 2001 leaf certified materials jersey number relic parallels.  i have one of steve garvey's 

and it is one of my favorite cards, period.  i've said before that i am a numbers guy, and jersey numbers are a big deal to me.  this set, with the die-cut jersey numbers over what is typically a prime piece of jersey, are really nice in my opinion. the problem is the scarcity which kept me from even trying to obtain anything close to a complete set.  still, i have a couple others - adrian beltre and don drysdale - and will occasionally take a peek at ebay to see if there are others available (there's a willie mac up for sale right now for $40).  leaf included jersey number die-cuts in subsequent certified materials releases, but none lived up to the original in my book.

top ten garveys

it is difficult for me to choose my 10 favorite cards of my favorite player, and so i will preface this post by saying that some of the following cards, while certainly ones that i appreciate, may not be as solidly in the top ten as the others.  i have a lot of steve garvey cards to choose from, and so there is always the possibility of deviating from this list should i ever put together a similar list in the future.  with that said, here is my entry into collecting cutch's contest. behold my current top ten steve garvey cards from my collection:

first up is a 2011 topps tier one steve garvey game used patch card, numbered to 10.

this card is similar to the 2008 topps sterling patch cards of which i have a few, but this one is special because it features a piece of the all-star game patch that the dodgers wore during the 1980 season.  it is hard to believe that 1980 was the last time the all-star game was played at dodger stadium, and there are no plans to be back there anytime soon.  this year, the asg will be in miami, followed by washington dc in 2018 and cleveland in 2019.  cleveland last hosted in 1997, so jacobs/progressive field will have hosted two all-star games (and cleveland will have hosted three) since dodger stadium hosted its only one.  that makes sense. and, although the traditional american league/national league alternating schedule has been abandoned in recent years (the nl will host from 2015-2018), my guess is that atlanta gets the 2020 game with their new stadium, with 2021 probably going to the rangers who are working on a new stadium of their own.  so, 2022 might be a possibility for dodger stadium, although the dbacks are crying for new digs so who knows.  anyway, i really really like this card and am stoked to have it in my garvey collection.

the other relic in the list is this 2001 leaf certified materials fabric of the game jersey number prime patch card numbered 6/6.

i remember the auction for this card ending while i was at work, and it was pretty stressful.  i really wanted this card for my collection for a number of reasons, and thankfully submitted the winning bid.  the red number patch that was used for this relic is from an early garvey jersey, as it is glorious fuzzy wool.

i have three autographed cards in the list, the first of which is from 2016 panini pantheon

i dubbed this my favorite card of 2016, and i stand by that claim.  it's a great on-card auto with a design and image that make me forget about the lack of the interlocking 'sd' that is supposed to be on garvey's helmet.

another auto i am including here is this 2003 upper deck sp authentic chirography card

this is one of the parallels, and the on-card world series champs inscription puts this one ahead of the other versions in the set.  i was pretty happy when this set came out and featured so many of my favorite dodgers, including the entire infield.

the next card here is another auto. this is garvey's 1999 upper deck retro inkredible auto card

that is the first certified auto card of garvey that i owned, and it is also the first card i received as an ebay purchase.  i discovered ebay in 1999, and was specifically looking for a 1995 upper deck sp championship series kirk gibson card when i stumbled across this. i was dumbfounded and couldn't wait to win the auction.  18 years later, and i'm still a sucker for garvey cards on ebay.

the last five cards i've chosen are base cards which remain the backbone of my collection. first up is this card, also from 1999 upper deck retro

cards of garvey showing him in dodger stadium are not that common, and this card was also one of the first mainstream cards he received after his retirement.  sure, there were plenty of oddballs from 1989 through 1998, plus a couple of appearnces in upper deck products (1994 all-time heroes and 1995 sp championship), but this card and his 1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game card let me know that he was going to be a fixture in sets that would feature retired players.  i was a happy collector.  that fleer si card, by the way, could easily be in this list, too.

now we are down to cards from garvey's playing career.  his 1988 score card

is included here not only because it is a true final tribute card, but also because it is a great card, period.  i will always be thankful to score for producing this card, along with don sutton's 1989 card.

here's garvey's 1974 topps card

which is a favorite for obvious reasons. the card has always intrigued me - from the blurry fans in the background to garvey's posiiton in the foreground to the horizontal orientation that makes it stand out from most other cards in the set.  this is the card that i have in my wallet, and while it is not my favorite garvey card, it is fantastic.

garvey's 1981 donruss card, one of them, anyway, makes the countdown

due to the dodger stadium background and the game action.  topps produced a similar card for garvey in 1981 in that he is also shown leaving the batters box although it is from the view of someone along the first base line and he's in his away grays (at shea stadium, i believe). i actually like the 1981 donruss design, probably because it is very similar to the 1978 topps design.

speaking of which

you had to know that card was coming - it will always be a part of this list.