Monday, June 14, 2021

yeager-bombs and other former dodger pick ups

i decided towards the end of last year to take a look at my few remaining player collections and see if i could make some meaningful additions to them. these collections are primarily guys from the starting lineup of the team of my youth - the 1977 dodgers - and consist of cards that feature them after they left the dodger organization.  that means there are not many cards available for some, but quite a few for others. here are just a few of the cards that i added, primarily through a late december order from burbank sports cards.

now that i said that, of course, this first card was actually an ebay purchase around thanksgiving, and was the first card i picked up after setting out on this quest. it's a 2004 topps originals 1986 topps traded steve yeager signed buyback
there's a pretty healthy scuff on the plastic holder, but i plan to leave it encased. i'll look for cards from this set time-to-time, as there is a favorable dodger player checklist, but it's been awhile since i've added one to my collection.

this next steve yeager card also came from ebay. it's a 2007 grandstand inland empire 66ers card
yeager was the hitting coach that season for the 66ers, the dodgers' high-a affiliate. his star pupil was carlos santana, who was later dealt to the indians the following year for casey blake. for guys like yeager and bill russell, i consider these minor league cards to be non-dodger cards and keep them in my player collections since i have no desire to complete these team sets.

ok. now the remainder of the cards i'll show come from burbank.  i added quite a number of non-dodger don sutton cards, but i'll only show a couple of the late hall-of-famer.  this first one is a 1983 donruss variation
the 'regular' version of sutton's 1983 donruss card has a blue border around the photo, and this version has the green border. all of the other brewer cards in '83 donruss have green borders, so i am not sure why this one is considered to be the variant.

this is a 2005 upper deck hall of famers cooperstown calling card, numbered out of 50
i was a sucker for any cooperstown calling/call to the hall type inserts that popped up in the '90s and '00s since a lot of the players featured in those sets were ones that i grew up following. sutton was no exception. his call to the hall came in 1998, so i don't think they were still calling in 2005.

thanks to playing for four different teams and several years after leaving the dodgers and eventually making it to the hall of fame, sutton has the most post-dodger cards of anyone in my player collections outside of steve garvey.  dusty baker is third, i am fairly certain.  i added this 1992 mother's giants coaches card
as well as a few managerial cards of johnnie b., including these gold parallels
from 2001 topps, 2006 topps, and 2009 topps. sure would love to see an astros card of dusty in 2021!

similarly, i added a 1997 mother's padres coaches card for davey lopes
as well as a card from his lone managerial gig. this one is from 2001 topps chrome, and it is the 'retrofracter' parallel
the best part about the card is the back
it's not the first time lopes was featured on a card blowing a bubble.

finally, here's a ron cey from 2017 topps archives signature series
it's cey's 1983 o-pee-chee card which is a nice team and text variation (although not as colorful as his 1987 variation), and is worthy of a hearty "oh my, o-pee-chee!". since cey is listed as a cub, i consider this to be a post-dodger career card of his, and so it goes in this mini-collection.

i'll continue to keep an eye out for post-dodger cards of these guys, along with reggie smith, rick monday, bill russell, and tommy lasorda but there are not too many new ones to be found.

bonus content! i recently added a card from ebay that showed up in time to make it in to this post
that's a 2005 playoff absolute memorabilia team quads double swatch spectrum card. yes, rod carew and reggie jackson are not former dodgers, but the two guys on the back are
of course, this goes in the don sutton post-dodger collection, but it's nice to see tommy john, too. sutton and john were never teammates on the angels - they missed each other by a couple of months in 1985 - but each of them did pitch with carew and jackson behind them in anaheim.

double bonus content! mr. haverkamp recently sent me another dusty baker gold parallel for the collection:
that's a 2008 topps gold parallel, to be exact. thanks jim!

8 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. yeah, it's too bad sutton doesn't have a bat piece there. odd to see one for tommy john who was more of an al pitcher than sutton.

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  2. I always forget that Lopes managed the Brewers. The sight of him in that uniform still hasn't quite registered with me.

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    1. i totally missed that he coached for the rangers when it was happening, so finding a card of him in that uniform was mind blowing to me.

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  3. I love the buyback autographs. Don't imagine I'd ever spend money on opening packs of that stuff, but I love picking up cheap singles. And that Angels quad card is awesome!

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    1. bless the person who spent $65 only to sell a ron cey buyback auto to me for $10.

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  4. Aw man, I hope I have that Yeager minor league coach on my big minor league list for my PC guys. I might have some other Yeagers and Bakers in my dupes. You have a list somewhere?

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    1. I paid too much for that yeager I fear.

      Here are links to my baker and yeager player collections:
      https://gcrlwants.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-dusty-baker-post-dodger-collection.html
      https://gcrlwants.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-steve-yeager-post-dodger-collection.html

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