a moment for vic davalillo, players from my youth, and the new dodger dh

i read last wednesday that vic davalillo passed away, and it made me pause.

thanks to his incredible, rally starting, two-out bunt in the 9th inning of game 3 of the 1977 nlcs and his inclusion in the 1978 topps set as a dodger, i got to know davalillo at the very beginning of my fandom and collecting days. he didn't play a lot, but he was a dodger and there was cardboard evidence of that fact, so he was respected and celebrated in my collection.

i have all of davalillo's major manufacturer cards (issued in the us, anyway), as his entire topps flagship run 

is encapsulated in my "evolution of the 1978 topps dodgers" mini-collection, and his 1981 fleer offering

is in my dodger collection. there are one or two venezuelan releases that i wouldn't mind adding to the collection, but i haven't ever made it a priority.

davalillo is the sixth member of the 1978 topps dodgers to pass away. preceding him were glenn burke (1995), johnny oates (2004), lance rautzhan (2016), tom lasorda (2021), and don sutton (2021). time marches on, but it is still a bit of a thing to see these players whose cardboard i coveted back then pass away.

shifting to another way of looking at the 1978 topps set, i get excited when i can complete the immaculate grid using only players who appeared in that set. it is always my goal to use as many as i can, and there was a two day stretch last week where i was able to do so:

with davalillo getting center square in saturday's grid! as of now, that second one has a score of 8, which would be my second lowest ever.

finally, i would be remiss if i didn't mention the 700 million dollar man, shohei ohtani. i feel for angel fans who will now see ohtani suit up for the dodgers, but not enough to not be excited about ohtani joining the dodgers. here are some 2018 topps update cards i have of ohtani

with the last one being the most valuable, i guess, since it's a rainbow foil parallel. the dodgers still need pitching for the 2024 season (ohtani can't help them there), but it's a good start to a longer term benefit. i suppose my team break costs for 2024 just went up. way up.

supporting north american free trade

jim gilliam spent two years playing for the dodger triple-a affiliate in montreal.  that's in canada, or quebec, at least (those crazy separatists!).  i recently received a fantastically conditioned 1960 topps jim gilliam card

from captain canuck, defender of  baseball card collecting in the prairie provinces.  there were four cards in the pwe that i received from the self-proclaimed waxaholic, but they were four glorious cards that tell a story of our fine continent.

in addition to the gilliam card, there were two 1977 o-pee-chee cards.  now, everyone knows all about o-pee-chee cards (thanks in some part to my blog, i hope), and the brighter backs associated with our northern neighbors' cards are an increasingly welcome sight for my aging eyes.  here's ron cey's 1977 o-pee-chee card back:

with a native american on it!

the other o-pee-chee card was the dave lopes/bill north league leaders card, and here is its back:

it's slightly miscut, with some of the grass that should be on the bottom of the card leaking onto the top of the card, but otherwise very clean.  and yes, don baylor once stole 52 bases.

the last card of the trade was this 2014 topps 75th anniversary buyback of vic davalillo

davalillo was famously (at least to us dodger fans) plucked from the mexican league during the 1977 season, and wound up getting one of most memorable pinch-hits in dodger history (but not the most, obviously). davalillo came up to bat for lance rautzhan with two outs and nobody on base in game 3 of the 1977 nlcs. the dodgers were trailing 5-3, and were on the verge of falling behind in the series two games to one.  davalillo bunted for a hit, and the game winning rally was on. and then reggie jackson destroyed my dreams.

so there you have it - a great trade between canada and the us, featuring cards with ties to both countries plus mexico.  as long as there are adam laroche cards to be uncovered (along with various other braves and hockey folks), i will support free trades like this one.  thanks captain!