busted

i have a number of collections entered into tcdb, with many of my mini-collections separated out as individual collections. when it comes to my dodger collection, however, it doesn't stand alone. i made the decision to include my player collections as part of that particular entry for a couple of reasons. one, i had already entered most of my pc's before i realized that i could create separate collections. and two, i left it that way because not every steve garvey card that i own has a duplicate in the dodger collection, but not every steve garvey card is a dodger card. so, to know how many dodger cards i have, i needed to include all of my garveys with my dodgers. make sense?

the garvey cards that i own in singular are typically serial numbered or other rare-ish inserts, and once in a while i will pick one up specifically for the dodger collection. for example, a few months ago i picked up a second 2003 donruss team heroes statline steve garvey parallel numbered to 115

because the price was right. 

the garvey cards that donruss produced as part of this set are nice in that they show a pretty violently broken bat which is not all that common on cards, and certainly not on steve garvey cards. i definitely didn't mind seeing it again on the 2003 donruss dodger magazine exclusive card, either.

especially since it shows the garv fully within the photo.

around the same time that i added the statline parallel, i bought a 2004 donruss world series blue card of garvey for the dodger collection.

there's no broken bat in the photo, but it sure looked familiar to me. it didn't take any time at all to determine that the photos on these cards are from the same game at least, if not the same at bat. they aren't the same swing, but could be the same plate appearance.

as an aside, donruss used the same photo from the world series card on an insert in their 2004 throwback threads release, and they used it again in 2005 on garvey's team heroes and donruss greats cards. here's the latter card

that came in a sportlots order in which i completed the dodger team set from that release. accompanying garvey in that order were don sutton, maury wills, duke snider, and tommy john

anyway, back to the garvey at bat. it looks like the dodgers were playing the reds at dodger stadium. there's a fan in a with shirt with green sleeves in the stands near garvey's right shoulder in the broken bat photo, and there's a guy in the camera well in that image as well. in the second image, the green sleeves guy is more visible near the left side of the image, but the camera well guy has retreated.

to make things more interesting, another image from that game or at bat showed up on one of garvey's 1984 star cards

here we've got mr. greensleeves and the camera well guy in different positions as well. while i like the broken bat image, i also like the variety very much.

i did think about looking at some box scores from 1981 (garvey is wearing the city of los angeles bicentennial patch on his left sleeve - partially visible in the broken bat photo) but once i saw two day games against the reds around memorial day i figured it would be impossible to determine which game these images came from. i will just be content knowing they are all different but from the same game.

rolled reuss?

back when i was playing baseball (mostly in the 1980's), uniform day was a much anticipated milestone. one thing that got a lot of attention were the stirrups.

there were lots of things to consider - do you stretch them or not? if so, how much of the top of the stirrup will you show? and, the more you stretch, the more material closer to the knee, and with that there was the question of whether you fold or roll that material. and remember -  we wore socks, covered by "sanitarys", and then the stirrups. three layers of material that contributed to the mass that needed to be dealt with. some of my teammates used tape to try to keep it all in place, but a lot of them rolled it down.

it looks like jerry reuss was a "roller" based on the image used on his 1982 topps sticker

but i reached out to him to get the scoop:

My older brother tutored me on the proper sock roll. I don’t know where he came up with the method but it sounded right to me. Put on uni pants with bottoms near your ankles. Then pull sanis as high as you can get them, followed by the stirrups (preferably 7”) riding same height. Pull up pants and fold all three layers together to desired height. If the socks were striped, I made sure all stripes were visible.

that's great big league advice right there! you can see examples of the stripes he refers to on his 1972 topps card (cardinals) and 1976 topps card (pirates).

i can't tell what pedro guerrero's tendencies were from the photo on reuss' sticker, but he clearly stretched his stirrups! his 1985 topps sticker 

doesn't show any bulk near his knee, so maybe he didn't have to roll or fold?!

one guy who i am pretty sure didn't stretch his stirrups was steve garvey, as you can see a pretty standard approach on his cards including this 2004 donruss world series blue card

it's hard to tell, however, if garvey rolled or folded. i assume folded, but his left leg shows some bulk. still, it looks folded to me. as an aside, i folded, and my league issued stirrups looked like garvey's in my little league days. if you go back to the first post on this blog, you will see that i stretched them out a bit as i moved on to babe ruth baseball.

in earlier decades, i think the stirrups were slightly different, with less actual stirrup. case in point, jim gilliam's 2002 topps superteams foil parallel card

shows very little of the sock underneath the stirrup.

in recent years, after a preponderance of long pants that showed no sock, sanitary, or stirrup for many players, this has been replaced by socks with designs, like cody bellinger is wearing on his 2022 topps pristine refractor parallel

even more recently, these socks have evolved to include a stirrups design! you can see this on jj bleday's 2023 topps stadium club card

looks like he pulled those socks up a bit higher than intended!

thanks to number 41 for his insight on the topic, and no matter whether they are stretched and folded or rolled or just printed on socks, i enjoy seeing the stirrups!

fall classic time

the world series is set to begin tomorrow!

there were some cards i acquired during the last few months that have a fall classic theme and i figured now is the time to show them.  2021 leaf lumber included a "fall classic" subset, and steve garvey appeared on two of the cards. the first celebrates the 1977 world series between the yankees and the dodgers:

and the second commemorates the 1981 world series between those same two franchises

the 1977 world series is the first baseball viewing memory that i have, so i considered chasing as many versions of this card as i could get my hands on. in the end, i settled for just the bronze version. for the record, the dodgers on the card are steve garvey, davey lopes, and ron cey (no bill russell - boo!). the yankees are reggie jackson, thurman munson, and lou piniella. for the 1981 version (of which i have the emerald parallel), lopes is replaced (boo) by russell (yay) and munson is replaced by dave winfield, aka "mr. may". 

i also picked up a 2004 donruss world series relic card of steve garvey that i didn't previously own

it's a bit knocked around, but it is numbered to 50 and is 17 years old, so i didn't worry about the condition.

last but not least is this 2002 fleer fall classic rival factions card featuring garvey and tony perez

i bought it because it features a variation of sorts in regards to the jersey piece representing perez on the card. i have a few different versions of this card already

but not one with the white stripe. it's a shame that one of these cards will be on a separate binder page. oh well, on to the world series!  any predictions?

collecting roberto alomar double play cards is kind of like playing whack-a-mole

just when you think you have them all, some more pop up! i was going to say they were like a bad penny, but they are not a bad thing!

a recent perusal of comc led to me picking up these two cards from sportlots

those are 1991 score blue jays alomar cards, with one celebrating the 1991 all-star game that was played in toronto. you can see alomar turning two on that card with ozzie smith sliding in. the batter on that play was tony gwynn.

here's another alomar double play card that i acquired recently

it's from the 2004 donruss world series blue release, but doesn't feature world series action. i think that is wayne kirby joining in on the action.

of course, there are other double play cards to acquire that don't feature alomar, and i found one in a pack of gypsy queen a few months ago

yes, this shed long card features a double play turn. i promise. as does this 1994 o-pee-chee rich amaral card which, appropriately enough, came from baseballcardstore.ca.

more traditional double play cards are more plentiful, and there was this jose altuve card

included in the 2020 topps american league stars factory team set that i bought and broke apart.

i found a couple more to go with the aforementioned amaral in a recent baseballcardstore.ca order - a 2019 topps big league tim beckham

and a 2012 topps orlando hudson walmart blue parallel

however, sportlots is my main source for purchasing cards of this ilk, and i recently added a few more parallels to the mini collection from that site - 2014 topps chrome orange refractor andrelton simmons

2017 topps chrome ben zobrist

2018 topps asdrubal cabrera rainbow foil

and 2019 topps chrome whit merrifield pink refractor

plus a 1999 upper deck mike lansing card

a 2018 topps stadium club xander bogaerts card

and a 2019 topps stadium club rougned odor card

which is pretty tremendous.

double play cards are by far the most populous of my mini collections, and i know there will be more for me to add, including some roberto alomar cards that will pop up out of nowhere.