that's not necessarily a relief

coming into the 2024 season, kiké hernandez had a career era of 81.00 thanks to an appearance in 2018 in which he surrendered three runs and recorded only one out. over the course of the 2024 campaign, hernandez lowered his era to 9.64 by appearing in four games and allowing two runs over 4 and a third innings of work.  in one of those games, hernandez was 3 for 4 with a couple of rbis and so became the dodgers' best two-way player of the season. i expect that to change next year.

seeing kiké on the mound multiple times in 2024 reminded me of russell martin who also made four relief appearances for the dodgers in a single season (2019). it also made me wonder who the first dodger position player to take the mound might have been.

i looked back at player rosters on baseball reference and found that danny heep, one of the "stuntmen", pitched in relief for the dodgers in 1988. in honor of that achievement, i added a 2017 topps buyback card of heep to my collection

it is the silver version of the "rediscover topps" buybacks in case you were wondering. in his lone relief appearance as a dodger (he would take the mound again in 1990 for the red sox), heep pitched two innings and gave up a two-run home run to ken caminiti in one of them.

i kept looking, and i believe that the first los angeles dodger position player to make a relief appearance (and the only one prior to heep), was jim hickman. hickman has a card as a dodger in the 1967 topps set, but i decided to share this recent pickup instead

that's his 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams silver autograph card, which i have happily added to my partial master set. i keep pecking away at the auto and numbered parallels even though i have no illusions of ever completing any of the parallel sets.

anyway, after hitting for dick egan in the 7th, hickman was called upon to pitch the 8th and 9th innings in a june game against the giants back in '67, even though the dodgers were only down by five. he gave up two hits and one run in his two innings of work - the one run coming on a willie mays home run - and even got a single in the bottom of the 9th for good measure.

it will be interesting to see what comes of 2025 with shohei ohtani due to resume his role as a pitcher every fifth day. how much time off will the dodgers give ohtani and at what cost to their offense? and with kiké becoming a free agent, who will be dave roberts' first call from the bench to take the mound at the end of the lopsided games?

definitely some dodgers on cards for the permanent collection

here's another group of cards sent my way by madding/cards on cards, who is one of the handful of regular trade partners i have at the moment.

my favorite card from this installment is this 2021 panini donruss don sutton card

not only is it old man sutton with the glorious perm showing lots of gray, it's a season stat line parallel numbered to 91 as in his whip from 1972 (which was 0.91 but that is less than 1 so wouldn't work for card numbering). as a bonus, it's a jersey number match as it is number 20 in the print run! a perfect card for the number 1 don sutton collector on tcdb!

there was one other dodger pitcher included in the envelope, and it was yoshinobu yamamoto on his 2024 bowman card

kerry also included future dodger pitcher shohei ohtani's 2024 bowman card, and i showed that card off in a post about his 50/50 achievement.

not too long before these cards arrived, i had been perusing the 2024 panini donruss checklist and determined that the only card i was really interested in was jackie robinson's. well, kerry delivered for me without even knowing!

here's a licensed robinson card from 2024 topps

2024 marks 75 years from jackie's first all-star game appearance for what it's worth.

kerry also sent some 2024 topps chrome cards - a mookie betts base

and a freddie freeman refractor

and if he pulled any ohtanis i hope he kept them to trade in at the local card shop.

here's one more card from the envelope - a 2022 panini chronicles mookie betts card

it is a vertex card, and these days i am not sure whether or not that is a base card subset or an insert. at least with topps fusion back in the day i knew what was what. panini has me so confused.

thanks for another round of trading kerry!

baseless claims

there was another seller other than brian that i purchased some cards from at the church show in september. it was an older couple who i have seen at these shows in the past, and they typically have some decent stuff in their bargain boxes. this time around, there was a smaller quarter box and then a couple of larger 50 cent and dollar boxes. however, they noted that those were 25% off.

as i was digging through, i noticed that these were all parallels with a few inserts here and there. i selected several parallels from these boxes, including a 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary duke snider refractor

i was actually hoping to find some base cards from this set, because i still need a handful of dodgers to complete the team set. no dice. there was no base to be found anywhere even though one of the box rows was filled with cards from this release.

i do have the full dodger base team set from the 2022 version of platinum anniversary, and i was able to find a refractor to add to the collection in the form of freddie freeman

more shiny stuff was there for me to take, like a 2020 panini select clayton kershaw holo prizm

and a 2019 topps fire corey seager green parallel

i found a new double play card for the collection - a 2020 topps chrome dansby swanson negative refractor

but perhaps the shiniest card i took with me was a 2019 topps heritage aroldis chapman chrome refractor card

what can i say, i am a sucker for shiny numbered cards.

here is a smattering of other parallel finds from these boxes

with the card in the upper right being numbered to 25. 

the oddest item i took from these boxes was this 1998 upper deck powerdeck cd-rom for the vladimir guerrero collection

there were a few more cards from this seller that came home with me, but none were base cards primarily because i didn't see any base cards. i am not complaining as it was fun to dig through all of those parallels but it did have me wondering what happened to all the base that had to have been set aside to get to so many parallels.

my retired number collection - 56

this is the 50th post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

no teams have retired numbers 54 or 55. goose gossage probably would have had his number (54) retired by someone if he had stayed with a single franchise for a longer period of time. as for 55, the dodgers could make a case for the number given it was worn by orel hershiser, but he is already a member of the "legends of dodger baseball" and so isn't likely to be considered for number retirement. of course, albert pujols wore the number in la for half a season, but i don't see that changing the equation at all.

so, without further ado, here is the one person for whom number 56 has been retired:

mark buehrle (retired by the white sox in 2017) 2008 topps

while not a member of the hall of fame, buehrle has managed to stay on the ballot through four appearances with over 5% of the vote each time. the lefty spent the first 13 years of his career with the white sox, and was good for more than 200 innings in all but his rookie year. he won 161 games with the team, and struck out 1,396 batters. his numbers are similar to what wilbur wood did with the chisox, but wood's number 28 is still in use today.

wood, of course, did not help the white sox to a world series title, so there is that. in the 2005 world series, buehrle was a big part of one of the most efficient pitching staffs in world series history this side of the 1966 orioles. he started one game and got the save in another as the white sox swept the astros. of course, buehrle is probably best known for the perfect game he threw as a member of the white sox (with help from dewayne wise) in 2009.

buehrle's number is on full display on that 2008 topps card thanks to the team's uniform design that, unlike the dodgers, puts the number on the right side of the jersey instead of the left. after he left chicago following the 2011 season, the club kept the number out of rotation before retiring it formally on june 24, 2017.

because we've already tackled the "high numbers", this is the final post of this series - until someone gets their number retired in the future. i've enjoyed sharing this collection through these posts!

i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (through the 49 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 32, 37, 42, 44, 46, 49, 51

giants - 3, 4, 11, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 36, 42

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 33, 40, 42, 44

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 42, 455

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 27, 34, 42, 45

phillies - 1, 14, 15, 20, 32, 34, 36, 42

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 20, 23, 24, 42, 45, 85

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 42

braves - 3, 6, 10, 21, 25, 31, 35, 41, 42, 44, 47

astros - 5, 7, 24, 25, 32, 33, 34, 40, 42, 49

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, 31, 36, 37, 41, 42

orioles - 4, 5, 8, 20, 22, 33, 42

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19, 20, 24, 32, 34, 39, 42, 53

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14, 28, 34, 36, 42

white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 35, 42, 56, 72

brewers - 1, 4, 19, 34, 42, 44

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 16, 23, 42, 47

cubs - 10, 14, 23, 26, 31, 42

royals - 5, 10, 20, 42

padres - 6, 19, 31, 35, 42, 51

athletics - 9, 24, 27, 34, 42. 43

angels - 11, 26, 30, 42, 50

expos - 8, 10, 30, 42

rangers - 7, 10, 26, 34, 42

major league baseball - 42

rays - 12, 42, 66

diamondbacks - 20, 42, 51

blue jays - 32, 42

rockies - 17, 33, 42

mariners - 11, 24, 42

nationals - 11, 42

marlins - 42

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

3 - retired by 7 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

5 - retired by 7 teams

6 - retired by 7 teams

7 - retired by 4 teams

8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)

9 - retired by 6 teams

10 - retired by 10 teams (retired by expos for two players)

11 - retired by 8 teams

12 - retired by 1 team

13 - retired by 1 team

14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)

15 - retired by 2 teams

16 - retired by 4 teams

17 - retired by 3 teams

18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024) 

19 - retired by 5 teams

20 - retired by 11 teams (retired by orioles, reds, and guardians for same person)

21 - retired by 4 teams

22 - retired by 2 teams

23 - retired by 4 teams

24 - retired by 8 teams (retired by giants and mets for same person)

25 - retired by 4 teams

26 - retired by 4 teams

27 - retired by 3 teams

28 - retired by 1 team

29 - retired by 4 teams (retired by twins and angels for same person)

30 - retired by 3 teams

31 - retired by 4 teams (retired by cubs and braves for same person; retired by cubs for two players)

32 - retired by 5 teams

33 - retired by 4 teams

34 - retired by 8 teams (retired by astros and rangers for same person; retired by brewers and a's for same person; retired by a's for two players)

35 - retired by 3 teams

36 - retired by 4 teams

37 - retired by 2 teams (retired by mets and yankees for same person)

39 - retired by 1 team

40 - retired by 2 teams

41 - retired by 2 teams

42 - retired by 30 teams (retired by cardinals and yankees for individuals in addition to jackie robinson)

43 - retired by 1 team

44 - retired by 4 teams (retired by brewers and braves for same person)

45 - retired by 2 teams

46 - retired by 1 team

47 - retired by 2 teams

49 - retired by 2 teams

50 - retired by 1 team

51 - retired by 3 teams

53 - retired by 1 team

56 - retired by 1 team

66 - retired by 1 team

72 - retired by 1 team

85 - retired by 1 team

455 - retired by 1 team

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 161

running total of non-hall of famers: 59

the almost daily dodger - bob welch

tomorrow is the anniversary of bob welch's world series debut. he relieved terry forster in the 9th inning of game 2 of the 1978 world series with the dodgers leading the yankees 4-3. there was one out and two on when welch entered the game. he got thurman munson to fly out to reggie smith and then struck out reggie jackson to end the game.

here's his 1984 topps tiffany card

that has been sitting in my scanned folder ever since i added it to my collection a few months ago. it is the only 1984 topps tiffany card that i have in my dodger collection.

there was so much joy in my neighborhood following that strikeout of jackson, and welch's save gave the dodgers a 2-0 lead in the series. unfortunately for me and my friends, the dodgers wound up losing the next four. that was when i really began to understand the "wait 'til next year" mentality.

the almost daily dodger - jose lima

twenty years ago today, it was most definitely "lima time" at dodger stadium, as jose lima shut out the cardinals in game 3 of the 2004 nlds to stave off elimination for the dodgers. here's his 2004 topps traded & rookies gold parallel card

2004 was lima's only year with the dodgers, and he made it count. he had his best year since leaving the astros in 2001 and helped the dodgers return to the postseason for the first time since 1996. unfortunately, lima's five-hit gem was the only postseason highlight for the blue as they lost game four to the cardinals the next day. his shutout also marked the only dodger postseason victory between game 5 of the 1988 world series and game 1 of the 2008 nlds. in between those dodger victories, the club was 1-12 in the postseason.

sadly, lima passed away in 2010 at the age of 37. he won't be forgotten by dodger fans, especially today, as it is "lima time" in our collective memories.

something's not right

when i was researching the checklist for the 2024 topps dynamic duals release after finding a dusty baker/lou piniella card in a bargain box at a card show, i clicked on some of the dodger related card images. immediately, this one (which is a "title clashes" insert)

caught my eye.

whitey ford, one of the most successful left handed pitchers in history in terms of win/loss ratio, has been made out to be a right handed pitcher. you can see that the "1" in his number 16 is backwards on his back, and you can see a bit of his glove on what appears to be his left hand.

i suppose that a right-facing ford fits the card better, but topps could have just as easily moved duke snider to the left side. whatever. it's another 1955 world series related insert in my collection and the duke looks great!