another summer come and gone

i know summer isn't officially over for a couple more weeks, but i've always associated labor day with its end. that's because of back to school, of course. these days, the days, weeks, months, seasons just sort of roll along.  anyway, baseball is the primary summer sport, and we are heading towards the end of the regular season. i am happy that i was able to get out to a few games and stadiums this year, but sad that dodger stadium wasn't one of them. i plan to be in los angeles next month, so maybe there is a chance if the dodgers are still playing in the postseason.

this post is going to feature a bunch of cards that contain images taken in the confines of chavez ravine, and i'll kick it off with a 1983 donruss nolan ryan card that i culled from my dad's collection:

i spent some time going through some sets from the 1980s looking for dodger stadium cards that i had to give up to the set build back when we were opening packs, and i found quite a few that i then pursued on sportlots for my dodger stadium collection.

1984 donruss charlie puleo

1985 donruss luis aguayo

1986 donruss vince coleman

hubie brooks

ken oberkfell

jose deleon (the original)

steve kemp

jody davis

leon durham

eddie milner

and tony perez

davis and durham look like they could have been standing next to each other.

i looked through some fleer sets, too, and found some more to add.

1983 fleer atlee hammaker

1985 fleer update dave rucker

herm winningham

mickey mahler

joe sambito

calvin schiraldi

rick schu

gary carter

hubie brooks

dave lapoint

and jeff calhoun

obviously those update cards were part of a box set that i never broke rather than packs. easy and cheap pickings on sportlots now.

i went through the 1986 fleer update set as well, and found this jim deshaies

plus a couple from the flagship set - bill gullickson

and scott sanderson

back to update for this 1987 fleer update dave dravecky

and dave meads

cards. 1987 was the last year i added the boxed fleer update sets, so i went to comc to see images from later sets. i found this 1989 fleer update randy kramer card

plus a few from the 1990 fleer update set to add:

dave hollins

luis salazar

dennis boyd

mariano duncan

there were some dodgers, too, that i hadn't yet added to the dodger stadium collection, such as this 1986 donruss bob welch

and some fleer dodgers, like a 1981 fleer mickey hatcher

1981 fleer star stickers davey (davy) lopes

1983 fleer candy maldonado

1985 fleer update al oliver

and 1987 fleer mike scioscia

i also found some oversized cards to add, like this 1984 donruss action all-stars willie mcgee

and these 1987 donruss all-stars cards of glenn davis

and mike krukow

moving to the 21st century, i added a 2001 topps chrome dodgers team card

to a recent sportlots order so i could put it in the dodger stadium collection, and i also picked up a 2017 topps javy baez card

in a lot of cards i recently purchased. with the full playoff crowd it's somewhat hard to tell that he's in dodger stadium, but he is. many of these cards are not necessarily the best examples of dodger stadium backgrounds, but oh well.

the last two dodger stadium cards i bought haven't arrived yet, but i'll share the images. they are both from 2021 topps now, and are turn back the clock cards. here are vladimir guerrero

who moved in to first place as far as expo home run hitters while in dodger stadium back in 2003, and ernie banks

who became the first cub player to have his number retired back in 1992. of course, the ceremony was held in wrigley field, but topps opted for a photo of banks hanging out by the batting cage in dodger stadium. i'm not complaining.

bonus card:

it's not dodger stadium, but it is a site i have visited on a couple of summer vacations. devils tower in wyoming was featured on the 2016 topps allen & ginter natural wonders insert checklist, so i figured i would add the card to my "meaningful and just because" mini-collection. it reminds me of yet more summers come and gone.

18 again

on the day after fuji posted about the "great eight", i received three cards in the mail. all three featured players wearing number 18. coincidence? no, that is not what a coincidence is. anyway, this card

features short-time dodger jose hernandez lurking in the background of derek jeter's 2005 topps heritage new age performer insert. hernandez wore what to me is bill russell's number for the dodgers in 2004. i targeted this card for my lurker mini-collection.

i also received this card

that is, of course, a 1984 topps darryl strawberry card. i recently decided to part with one of my 1984 fleer sets only to find that teenage gcrl must have sold/traded the strawberry and mattingly cards at some point. it will still pay off to purchase singles of those two cards in order to sell the set, so i went off in search of those cards. i found someone selling both the 84 fleer and topps strawberry cards for cheap, and so here we are.  strawberry wore number 18 for the entirety of his mets tenure, but wore different numbers with the dodgers, giants, and yankees later in his career.

no dodger currently wears number 18, although kenta maeda wore it for the duration of his time in la.  here's a 2017 topps heritage new age performer card of his

that i received from nick a while back. i've received a number of mailings from dime box central over the last year, and i've been slow to show off the bounty. so slow, in fact, that i received these gavin lux rookie cards from topps opening day

topps big league

and topps update (target parallel!)

back when it was a big deal to receive gavin lux rookie cards. same goes for this mookie betts big league card

which was his first "real" dodger card and was, for a short time, in the running for my favorite dodger card of 2020.  here are a couple other cards nick sent from big league - max muncy flipping out insert

and a hyun-jin ryu league leader

orange parallel!  speaking of parallels, here's a walmart exlusive royal blue card from 2020 topps update

featuring what may have been the last time we will see russell martin on cardboard.  martin hails from montreal, as i am sure you know, so this is a perfect segue to the most unique card of the post:

that's not just an expos team card, but a 1970 o-pee-chee expos team card

look at those "record des expos"! note that single season records were franchise records at that point. i will now take a moment to let those of you who may not be aware know that i had a blog dedicated to o-pee-chee variations which were always my favorite part of o-pee-chee sets. check it out - oh my o-pee-chee!

nick and i both collect cards showing the double play turn, and so he often sends me dupes from his collection. here's a 2005 donruss brandon phillips card

that fits the bill, as well as a 2020 topps fernando tatis jr card

and it's opening day twin

nick included a few others from 2020 topps opening day - jonathan villar

carlos correa (boo)

tommy lastella

and dansby swanson

all know how to turn two. i am pretty sure that is new dodger trea turner sliding under swanson. turner wears steve garvey's number 6 for the dodgers, for what it's worth.

so there you have 18 cards, 3 of which have to do with number 18, and 16 of which came from nick and have been patiently waiting to be shown here. i have more to post from nick, and will try to do that sooner rather than later. thanks nick!

saxy time!

i was reviewing my want lists from 1990 recently when i saw the score mcdonald's set. i didn't know much about the set, but i was surprised that i had steve sax listed as a need. i knew that he wasn't a dodger in 1989 or 1990, but thought that maybe he was featured as a dodger and that was why i included him in my team set needs. a quick search confirmed that sax was not a dodger in that set, so i figured i could delete him from my list.

however, i found an image of the card and saw that sax was given a double play card, 

so i bought one anyway. check out the cobra bearing down! also note the batting glove hanging out of sax's pocket. when i was in high school in the mid to late 80's, i used to have my batting gloves in my pocket so that the fingers flapped around just like saxy.

the dodger team set turned out to consist only of ramon martinez

so i have now completed that set.

i also added an ozzie guillen card

because he, too, was featured turning two.

these cards are fairly scarce, as they were apparently a test run in idaho of all places. maybe they figured that if baseball cards could be sold in idaho fast food restaurants, they could be sold anywhere.

the remainder of this post is all about sax. he was my favorite dodger from the time steve garvey left prior to the 1983 season to the time that he, himself left for the american league after the 1988 season. here are the cards that i have in my "favorite dodger through the years" mini-collection to mark sax's reign:

1983 fleer

1984 donruss

1985 topps

1986 donruss

1987 fleer all-star

1988 topps

sax ended his dodger tenure on a high note with a world championship. in fact, his dodger career was bookended with world series wins in 1981 as well as 1988. sax, of course, played a much larger role in the 1988 title, and i will always remember how pumped he was when he hit the first pitch of the dodgers' 1988 season over the fence for a home run against the giants. super saxy!

my favorite cards of the year - 2012 edition

i recently introduced my mini collection focusing on my favorite cards from each year that i've been a collector. the basic gist is that i wanted to create a space for the cards that i most appreciated having in my collection in the year that they were released. these were cards that i acquired in the year that they were issued, and that i considered to be my favorites at the time. i have disallowed (most) cards that are already in other mini collections in order to avoid having a mini collection consisting of more steve garvey, double plays, and dodger stadium cards.

2012 is the last time that the dodgers finished lower than first place in the national league west (knock on wood). they were 8 games behind the eventual world champion san francisco giants and 2 games out of a wild card spot. it's also the last time i saw a game in dodger stadium as i attended the game that took place the night before the big trade with the red sox was finalized.  fast forward to late in the year when topps update was released and i was super pissed about the super short printing of the dodger cards of adrian gonzalez, nick punto, carl crawford, and josh beckett. that put an end to my annual completion of topps flagship and update dodger team sets which from 2009 through 2011 had included the legends short prints. it also left a bad taste in my mouth, although i was right back in it in 2013 chasing all of the yasiel puig short prints in that year's update set. shame on me.  to this day, i have only acquired the beckett card from 2012 update and i don't even look for the others any more.  now, on to my favorite cards from that year.

favorite non-dodger card: topps andrew mccutchen

i am sure it is not intentional, but there is a lot of symbolism present in the photo chosen for this card. as you probably know if you are a regular reader of my blogs, i spend a lot of time looking at the backgrounds of cards and i have a thing for retired numbers on display in stadiums. i decided against a retired numbers mini-collection (i only collect those cards that show jackie robinson's (and bruce sutter's) 42), but i recognized this card as a favorite worthy of keeping due in part to roberto clemente's number 21 on display behind mccutchen. combine the fact that cutch is in the foreground and that number is in the background with cutch wearing number 22 and there is a lot of "next" on this card. the pirates' home field makes for a great background on cards, and i can't wait to get out to pnc park and see it for myself.

favorite dodger card: topps update adam kennedy

speaking of stadiums, the star of this card is dodger stadium - no offense meant to adam kennedy.  i typically disallow cards like this from consideration, but it was so far and away my favorite card that year that i made an exception (for the record, the runner-up was matt kemp's faces of the franchise insert from 2012 topps finest). this card was one that i chased the rainbow for, thanks to it's wonderful aesthetic. i never did find a printing plate, though.

up next, 1996. stay tuned!

350 is a magic number - may the 4s be with you

a while back i noted that i was pondering the idea of adding a number type mini-collection to my collection. of the options i considered - 190, 272, 350, or none at all - i decided to go with 350 for the topps flagship set, starting with 1957. 

i am posting cards from the same year of each decade, and so far i've shown the 8s, 7s, 6s, 3s, 2s, and 1s. this post will be all about the 4s.

1964 topps #350

willie mccovey led the national league in home runs in 1963, more than doubling his previous career high in that category. it was his best season since his rookie of the year campaign in 1959. it is strange to me to see an "of" position designation for mccovey, but he played 133 games (about half of his career total) in the outfield in '63, so it is certainly warranted.

1974 topps #350 

bob gibson had his 1973 season cut short by injuries, but he did manage to pass jim bunning on the all-time strikeout list to move in to second place as the card back notes. he was primed to pass 3,000 strikeouts in 1974, which he did in july by striking out cesar geronimo of the reds. the stat doesn't show up on the back of his card, but gibson threw 12 complete games in 1973, including six in a row.

1984 topps #350

george foster was a superstar to me when i started following baseball. he hit 52 home runs in 1977, so the cards i collected the following year had that big number on the back (he was card #500!), as well as on a league leader card. foster also led the league in rbi that year, so he had three cards to collect in that set. by the time 1983 rolled around, foster was not the mvp player he had been in '77. he did drive in 90 runs for the mets, but was clearly in decline. however, like gibson, foster was on the cusp of a milestone, and on july 1, 1984, he hit career home run number 300. also, am i the only one who thinks it is weird that topps abbreviated foster's birth state as "ala" but his home state as just "o"?

1994 topps #350

jim abbott is a bit of an outlier at number 350, but he was a yankee so that must count for something. he did throw a no-hitter in 1993, which likely helped his case for the number (we've seen the same with larry dierker in 1977). i followed abbott's career while he was with the angels (i was there the night of his first career shutout) and was happy when they brought him back via trade in 1995.

2004 topps #350

kerry wood and mark prior certainly gave the cub fans hope in 2003. this card documents the team's nlds victory which marked their first postseason series win since the 1908 world series. however, they lost to the marlins in the nlcs by losing the last three games of the seven game series. prior and wood were the losing pitchers in games 6 and 7 for what it's worth.

2014 topps #350

carlos gonzalez won the national league batting title in 2010. the rockies must have more batting champs relative to their years of existence than any other team, right? i really like michael cuddyer as a twin, but holy cow never thought he would be a batting champ. anyway, gonzalez missed a chunk of the 2013 season as the card back says but still wound up on card number 350. 2014 turned out to be his worst year with the rockies, but he did have a nice bounce back season in 2015.

i am tracking a few things in an effort to find any consistency with number 350, although there really isn't any. still, i am keeping track of the following occurrences, now through two posts:

number of reigning rookies of the year: 1 (kris bryant)

number of reigning mvps: 2 (frank robinson, robin yount)

number of reigning cy young winners: 0

number of reigning world series champions: 2 (keith hernandez, joe carter)

number of reigning pennant winners: 7 (frank robinson, steve garvey, robin yount, jack clark, keith hernandez, joe carter, clayton kershaw)

number of reigning league leaders: 11 (ernie banks - home runs; mel stottlemyre - complete games; willie mccovey - home runs; billy williams - runs, hits; robin yount - hits, doubles; keith hernandez - walks; kenny lofton - sb; chase utley - runs; david ortiz - doubles, rbi; clayton kershaw - wins, era; dj lemahieu - batting average)

subset types: 2 (all-time all-stars, postseason highlights (3))

number of repeat players: 0

number of dodgers: 2 (steve garvey, clayton kershaw)

frequency of teams: cardinals (5), astros (4), mets (4), cubs (4), twins (3), yankees (3), dodgers (2), braves (2), a's (2), reds (2), brewers (2), giants (2), white sox, indians, phillies, red sox, blue jays, angels, rangers, orioles, rays, padres, rockies

i will have another post with another run of cards soon - stay tuned!