proud to be a dodger fan

i thought maybe i noticed something when i added emmet sheehan's 2024 topps 1989 35th anniversary insert to my collection.

the photo is the same one topps used on his 2023 topps now card commemorating his big league debut

but for some reason it's darker. 

here's the getty images file photo topps used

and here are the cards side by side

i'm not sure why topps modified the image, especially after using it in 2023 in a different way.

it's worth noting that sheehan happened to make his big league debut on 2023's pride night at dodger stadium which was a year ago yesterday, and even though topps has darkened the image for the 2024 card, you can still make out the colors of the logo if you look closely enough. the size of the logo doesn't allow for as much clarity as you see on trevor rogers' 2023 topps heritage high numbers card (featuring a photo taken during the same game in which sheehan debuted), but you can tell that it's there.

topps used a different photo from a different game for sheehan's base card

which also looks to have been darkened from the original seen here. i would love to know about topps' process for filtering images for their cards.

anyway, to their credit, the dodgers held pride night on friday night even as other teams shy away from the event. they wore the hats again, but i didn't see any patches on the royals' uniforms like the giants wore in last year's game. time will tell if any images from the game make it to cardboard - filtered or not.

tommy lasorda's legacy continues

while the dodgers' pitchers and catchers reported last friday, the astros' batteries report tomorrow. they will be arriving to a new manager now that dusty baker has retired from the position.  i bought the topps now card that was issued after he announced his plans to hang up his personalized sweatbands for my post-dodger dusty baker collection

he has since rejoined the giants as an advisor, but won't be adding to his accolades noted on the back of the card

i hope he considers second place finishes in the national league west "great things".

anyway, with dusty retiring there was a period where there were no longer any major league managers who played under tommy lasorda. a long time ago, i wrote about the tommy lasorda managerial tree and i haven't stopped paying attention. baker's managerial career began while tommy was still leading the dodgers, but there were some years after lasorda's retirement where baker was not managing. fortunately, in 2007 there were lasorda players willie randolph, phil garner, mike scioscia, and ron washington leading teams to keep the tree alive. dusty was also out of the game in 2014 and 2015, but scioscia and ron roenicke were managers during both of those seasons, along with kirk gibson and washington in 2014. in 2018, scioscia was the only one still standing and i was a bit concerned that the end was near.

scioscia stepped down after the 2018 season, so in 2019 we were without a manager who played under lasorda until tom prince got to manage the last game of the season for the pirates. thankfully, baker was hired by the astros for the 2020 season and now here we are.

in addition to the astros, the angels have their pitchers & catchers reporting tomorrow and their new manager will be there, too. that would be ron washington who was hired in early november. i have a managerial card of washington in my dodger collection because he was featured on a 2014 topps heritage ad panel with chris capuano and (future dodger) chris perez

here's the back:

i am actually hoping that washington finds some success in anaheim because mike trout deserves to be playing in the postseason.

i may as well show one of my newest lasorda cards - a 2022 topps chrome platinum anniversary black & white mini diamonds refractor

along with another card i picked up last year for another one of my post-dodger player collections.

that would be a 2002 topps gold parallel card of davey lopes who managed the brewers for a couple of seasons. like baker, lopes is retired from managing and coaching (he was on dusty's staff with the nationals) and so he won't be showing up in any dugouts in the future. 

something about old acquaintances

we are about to enter 2024 and i suppose that means some people somewhere will be singing "auld lang syne". to quote sally albright, "it's about old friends". one old friend that returned to the fold in 2023 was kiké hernandez. he showed up as a dodger in the 2023 topps holiday set and again in 2023 topps heritage high numbers. his card is the lone dodger short print, but i picked it up for not much more than the cost of a regular base card:

the fact that hernandez played for the dodgers just a couple of years ago means that topps has a number of photos already on hand, so his inclusion in these sets is not surprising to me. in fact, topps used that same photo on a previous hernandez card, although they photoshopped him in to a red sox uniform.

they actually did a decent job, too. still, it's good to see the original photo on cardboard.

conversely, even though he too is a dodger double dipper, miguel rojas was a dodger a long time ago and there is no cardboard evidence of his first tenure in dodger blue. he did get a very nice card in high numbers, and is joined below by a very bad photoshop job on gus varland's card, plus the long awaited clayton kershaw 2024 heritage card

the varland card is interesting to me. i mean, topps obviously knew that varland was a dodger, but they didn't know what number he was wearing? he returned to the franchise in may but didn't make his dodger debut until august, so i suppose it is possible that topps created the card in between those dates and took a guess. still, he didn't wear 99 for the brewers earlier in 2023 so i am not sure where that came from

and yes, i said varland "returned" to the dodgers because he was in their system prior to being claimed by the brewers. however, he never pitched at the big league level for the dodgers prior to this season so i don't consider him a double dipper. 

finally, i thought maybe we would get an homage to claude osteen's flamingo pose with kershaw's card, but instead we get a photo that should have been used on a portrait card. 

there are two more landscape cards in the dodger team set - bobby miller and michael busch

of the five shown, the rojas card is the best in my opinion. not sure why topps refuses to show full feet on these cards. i wouldn't mind having doubles of the rojas and miller cards for the dodger stadium collection, too.

topps used similar photos for miguel vargas and j.d. martinez

and these cards are giving me some yin and yang vibes. one features a rookie, at night, in the home whites. the other features a seasoned veteran, in a day game, in the road grays. i am just thankful that none of these cards feature the fake backgrounds we have seen in heritage for the last few years.

the last dodger base card in high numbers is lance lynn

with lynn signing with the cardinals so early in the postseason, i didn't think we would get a dodger card of him, but here we are. he's already an old acquaintance but i was glad to see him included by topps.

not a dodger but another old acquaintance of sorts, stephen strasburg did not pitch in the major leagues in 2023. in fact, he's only appeared in eight games since he helped the nationals win the 2019 world series. despite his efforts, it appeared that his career was over when, late in the 2023 season, the nationals announced that they would hold a retirement news conference for their former ace (including news of a number retirement in 2024). but then, they cancelled and announced that they expected him to serve out his contract.

after all this transpired, it was a surprise to me to see strasburg included in 2023 topps update.

the back of the card tells the story of his career

i think it is likely that this card will be a true final tribute, as it seems he will not make it back to a major league mound in the future. i don't know enough about the contract terms to speculate on the reasons behind the nationals' reversal but it sure wouldn't surprise me if it were somehow financially motivated as it has been reported that there was no insurance policy taken out on his contract.

if strasburg's career is over, he will have unfortunately failed to live up to the ridiculous hype that surrounded his entry in to professional baseball while still compiling one of the best k/9 ratios in history. he had nearly 1,700 strikeouts through his age 30 season and was certainly on pace to pile up a lot more. i wonder what happened to the guy who spent way too much money on his bowman superfractor auto or whatever it was back in 2009 or 2010. it made national news as i recall. maybe that guy has similarly invested in jasson dominguez.

in other news, we are now 80 days away from the dodgers' season opener which will be held in south korea on march 20. here's a 2023 topps now card of emmet sheehan 

to accentuate the 80 day milestone until we have regular season baseball again. it's kind of dumb, though, as spring training will continue for the dodgers and padres after they return from their two game set in south korea. still, it's the 2024 season and it is only 80 days away!

remembering 2023 memorials

with update having been released, i've been able to find some non-topps now cards that show images from the 2023 season. i am always looking for examples to include in my armbands and memorial patches mini-collection, and i found a few!

once bruce sutter's patch was removed from cardinal jerseys early in the season, i went ahead and bought a topps now card just to be sure to have a card for the collection. you can read about that memorial here.

other teams wore memorials for all or part of the season, and i'll begin with the san francisco giants. in december of 2022, hall of famer gaylord perry passed away and the team responded by wearing patches with his last name and jersey number (36) on their sleeves as seen on anthony desclafani's rainbow foil parallel card from 2023 topps update

although he had his best seasons elsewhere, perry pitched for the giants over the first 10 seasons of his career, and the club retired his number in 2005.

when bay area favorite vida blue passed away in may of 2023, the giants added a second patch to honor him. the patch was typically worn above perry's with his first name and number (14). both patches are visible on patrick bailey's update card

blue only pitched for the giants for four seasons, but he was an all-star for three of those four years and he finished third in the nl cy young voting in 1978. 

i mentioned that blue's patch was typically stacked under perry's because once the giants added an advertising patch to their jerseys, space was limited on the opposite sleeve of their city connect uniforms. in that case, the patches were worn side by side. there is a topps now card that shows this configuration i believe, but i haven't bothered to grab it.

the oakland a's also honored blue, and coupled the patch bearing his first name with a patch for sal bando who had passed away in january. both patches were added to the home whites at the same time, and they can be readily seen on this 2023 topps now card of esteury ruiz and rickey henderson

there is a card or two in update that show the patches, albeit poorly, so i went ahead and picked up the topps now card. the patches are readily legible and i get another rickey card in my collection! both blue and bando were big parts of the oakland a's dynasty in the early 1970's, with bando having been with the team since their kansas city days.

the washington nationals wore a patch all season for their late owner ted lerner bearing his initials (tnl) in a blue oval, and it is visible on thaddeus ward's update card

lerner had bought the club from mlb back in 2006. he passed away in february of this year. i am guessing that the padres will do something similar in 2024 for their late owner peter seidler who just passed away. i was not aware that seidler was related to the o'malleys who owned the dodgers for decades. anyway, i am assuming that the padres' big motorola patch won't preclude them from a memorial patch, but only time will tell.

the remainder of the memorials worn this year haven't shown up on cardboard (yet). first, the guardians wore a patch just twice. here's a photo of myles straw wearing the patch on opening day

and here's gavin williams wearing it on august 24

this patch was worn to honor longtime fan john adams who beat the drum at home games dating back to the 1973 season. he passed away in january of this year, and the patch was a nice touch from the franchise. 

[edit - gavin williams is shown wearing the patch on his 2024 topps big league card]

the umpires continued their tradition of wearing square initial patches for their late cohorts. in the 2023 season, some umpires wore a dd patch for don denkinger (as seen on cory blaser's left sleeve in june) 

and a dm patch off and on for their former colleague dan morrison as worn by tripp gibson in august

notice that the ftx patches they wore in past seasons were removed from their uniforms (with haste). there didn't seem to be any uniformity to the wearing of these patches as sometimes i would see them during games i was watching and sometimes i wouldn't.

finally, the orioles added a "5" patch for brooks robinson during the alds as seen on adley rutschman's jersey in this photo

robinson was, of course, one of the all-time greats and i wonder if the team will honor him with a patch throughout the 2024 season as the yankees did yogi berra and whitey ford - both of whom passed late in the baseball season and were honored during the postseason and the following season. either way, i sure hope ito see that number 5 patch on to some 2024 cardboard.

unfortunately, there are already some players who have passed away this fall that may be honored in 2024. tim wakefield is one, and i wouldn't be surprised if frank howard is honored by the nationals, even though he has no connection to that franchise. he is still part of their ring of honor given his time spent in dc with the senators. we will have to wait and see.

twins win!

i am sure those who are following the postseason so far are aware that the twins not only ended their consecutive games lost streak at 19 with a win in game 1 of the wild card series against the blue jays, they also advanced within the postseason for the first time since 2002 with their win in game 2.

the last time the twins won a postseason series was in 2002 when they beat the a's in the alds which was the first round back then. that was their first postseason appearance since they won the 1991 world series, by the way. by beating the a's, they moved on to the alcs against the eventual world series champion angels. and game 2 of that series was the last time i attended a postseason game in person. until yesterday.

a friend reached out and invited me to game 2 at target field and it was a blast. the crowd was in to the game from first pitch through the last, and was metrodome-level loud when vladimir guerrero jr got picked off of second base at a critical point in the game.  i forgot to screenshot my ticket stub and the ballpark app isn't good about retaining that sort of data, which stinks.  

i did take a couple of photos, including this one of sonny gray pitching in the top of the 1st

but mostly i just enjoyed the game.

i did record the final out, and here's an image grab from my video just after jhoan duran struck out daulton varsho 

fans were pretty quick to celebrate the win!

of course, topps created a card that i will add to my "games i've attended in person" mini-collection once they are printed and shipped - here's the screenshot from topps.com 

truth be told i would have been just fine with a blue jay win, but that would have put me in a very small minority here in the land of 10,000 lakes.

a short lived memorial patch for bruce sutter

in recent years, one of the teams that has been the most consistent in the styling of their memorial patches has been, in my opinion, the cardinals. they use simple black circular patches with white initials or numbering for some of their patches, but for team icons whose numbers have been retired, they have a more elaborate patch scheme.

hall of famer bruce sutter is the latest cardinal to receive this treatment, although the team only wore a patch in his honor for the first part of the month of april 2023, rather than the full season. here's a 2023 topps now card of nolan gorman that shows the patch on his left sleeve

this style of patch - color coded to the uniform worn, with the player's number embroidered under their facsimile signature - first appeared in 2013 with stan musial's patch. since then, the style has been applied to red schoendienst, lou brock, bob gibson, and now sutter.

the cardinals stopped wearing the patch just before they began sporting their paid advertiser patch, but the team said it was just a coincidence and that the limited duration of the sutter patch was based on his tenure and stature with the franchise. he wasn't the franchise icon that the four mentioned above were, so i suppose their reasoning holds a bit of water. still, it's quite a coincidence.  i'm just glad the patch was captured on cardboard.

[edit]

later in the year i found a 2023 topps update jordan walker black gold insert that also showed the patch

and it is the home whites version, so it joins gorman and the away grays in my collection.

belated greetings from los angeles

here is a very appropriate card from 2022 topps archives

as i recently spent a couple of days in los angeles myself. of course, the postcard insert would have made more sense had i posted this while i was in la, but oh well.

here's another postcard, by the way, featuring hall of very good pitcher tommy john

it's from john's first year with the club - 1972 - and features the three sisters palm trees out near the left field pavilion. i added this postcard to my collection a few months back.

anyway, i went out west with a buddy who wanted to see dodger stadium. we wound up taking in the game on mother's day against the padres

and the game the next night against the twins

it had been almost 11 years since i had been to dodger stadium, and there have been a bunch of changes in that time. so, i made sure we got to the park as soon as the gates opened on sunday so we would have plenty of time to look around. 

i had a special shirt to wear that day

and i got a few comments on it as i walked around the stadium. they have done a great job of enhancing pretty much every entrance to the stadium and connecting the outfield and pavilion areas to the rest of the park.  i've got another post in the works that will expand on some of the elements on display, so stay tuned.

you may have noticed that the monday night game ticket included access to the stadium club. this was my first time in the semi-exclusive area down the right field line. there were plenty of displays to admire in this area, including some original volpe artwork from the 1960's, various trophies and murals, and some framed blowups of yearbooks. i took a shot of the 1995 yearbook

because this is a baseball card blog and the yearbook features the rookie of the year set that was distributed to season ticket holders. i finally picked up a set of my own a few years ago and shared it on this blog last year. i did not see the 1980 yearbook on display, which is another one that prominently features baseball cards on the cover, in that case it was 1980 topps.

here's another card photo - i remembered to take a photo of my wallet card on monday night

the card is definitely more credit card shaped these days.

the dodgers shut out the padres on sunday, and the monday night game went in to extras, with the dodgers winning on a walk-off walk. and yes, we stayed until the end.  i wasn't quite ready to be done, however, so i stayed an extra day to go to the tuesday night game

this was in large part due to the fact that clayton kershaw was making the start. unfortunately, the dodgers dropped that game to the twins.

one of the things i was most interested in seeing at the stadium were the statues of sandy koufax

and jackie robinson

they are both situated beyond centerfield where there was a lot of action taking place before the sunday game.

unfortunately, nothing significant enough happened to warrant a topps now card from any of the games i attended (even including a game i went to at target field a few days before heading to la). had trayce thompson got a hit in the bottom of the 12th inning instead of a walk to drive in the winning run, i bet there would have been a card. i am still able to tie a topps now card to this post, however, as the back of the annual jackie robinson day card this year featured the statue of the trailblazer

dave roberts took the team out to the plaza to see the statue on april 15, and that's jason heyward in the foreground speaking to his teammates. this is a great addition to my dodger stadium collection.  of course, i picked up two copies so i would also have one for the 42 collection. here's the front of the card:

that's aaron judge, brayan bello, and ke'bryan hayes for those of you keeping score at home.

the dodgers did warrant a topps now card for their game on jackie robinson day courtesy of david peralta

who drove in james outman and miguel vargas

with a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth to beat the cubs 2-1.

this next card has nothing to do with dodger stadium or jackie robinson day, but it's another topps now card that i picked up, so it seems appropriate to tack it on to this post

yes, topps made a card of mookie betts playing shortstop and turning a double play in wrigley field. here's the back:

and, because i bought five of these directly from topps, i came away with a blue parallel numbered to 49

the parallel thing isn't guaranteed, but i like to think topps looks out for the small orders when so many of these cards are purchased in bulk by resellers.

anyway, it was great to be back at chavez ravine for a few games. can't believe i had been away for so long!