payton's place in my collection

i found a couple of cards to move in to a couple of my mini-collections while sorting through some boxes. these are both jay payton cards, and both come from his time with the padres, sort of.

first up is a 2004 upper deck first pitch card.

this shows payton at dodger stadium as a member of the rockies, but it's a padre card as he was signed by the club for the 2004 season after a big year in colorado. the dodger catcher whose arm we see is either david ross or paul loduca, by the way.  it's a nice broken bat card, but it goes in my dodger stadium collection. also worth noting is that the inset for these early 2004 upper deck padre cards showed jack murphy stadium. they later used an image of the brand spanking new petco park.

the second payton card is from 2004 playoff honors

that goes in the tatooine collection, obviously. payton only spent the one season in san diego as he was dealt to the red sox prior to the 2005 campaign for world champion dave roberts, but at least he had a couple of nice cards from his tenure with the friars. 

here are some cards featuring a game i attended

tomorrow marks the 17th anniversary of my first (and to date, only) game taken in at pac bell at&t oracle whatever park. the home of the san francisco giants.

that day, september 27, 2003, featured the visiting dodgers with a 20-year old rookie on the hill against barry bonds and his band of defending national league champions.  i've written about the game before as part of my hall of famer collection post featuring bonds, so i won't go in to any real detail here.  this post is more about the cards.

there was no topps now back then, but in 2004 i did get a few cards that reminded me of my time spent at the ballpark.  that game happened to be edwin jackson's only appearance in san francisco during the 2003 season, as well as just his 3rd career start, and several of his cards featured photos from that outing.  take a look:

2004 topps #689 edwin jackson/greg miller prospects

it's hard to tell, i suppose, but the giants' stadium has a distinctive brick arch background that shows up on a ton of pitchers' cards. the same goes for this card, but it is more visible on some of the others, as you will see.

2004 topps etopps #19 edwin jackson #/3655

the background is a little blurry, but the placard behind jackson is the "hit water win $500" sign sponsored by old navy that used to be in right-center. it was to the left of the "splash down" sign featuring the count of home runs hit in to mccovey cove just outside of fair territory down the right field line.

2004 upper deck #369 edwin jackson

that photo was taken from a slightly different angle than the etopps photo.

2004 upper deck first pitch #275 edwin jackson

this one is probably my favorite of the bunch as you can see a bit of the crowd and more of the "hit water" sign.  here's the back of the card

it doesn't mention the game in san francisco, but it does address his arrival to the majors in september of 2003, and reminds me that he debuted on his 20th birthday, meaning he just turned 37 a couple of weeks ago.  happy belated birthday, edwin jackson!

images from that game were still used in 2005 as evidenced by this 2005 upper deck origins card

not a bad shot, and i'm glad that it was used.

since this was my only visit to the stadium, i'll also go ahead and share the card that represents it in my "stadiums i've seen games in" mini-collection

that's from 2009 upper deck o-pee-chee.

finally, here's a picture of yours truly with barry bonds (he's in left field) from that day.

i wore my dodger hat and got zero grief from the home crowd. it was nice.

jackson had been in camp with the diamondbacks this past spring, but i am not aware of him being with any team at the moment. he's had a long (and well traveled) career, and i was happy to see him pitch in person 17 years ago tomorrow!

in case you haven't guessed, i've got a mini-collection going of cards featuring games that i've attended, and i'll address the next one in a couple of weeks.

stay tuned.