my retired number collection - 50

this is the 47th 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.

so, without further ado, here is the one person for whom number 50 has been retired:

jimmie reese (retired by the angels in 1995) 1976 sspc

let's hear it for coach cards! reese's 1976 sspc card gives us just a part of his number, but i count myself lucky to have a card of reese at all for this collection. he actually has a couple of other cards to choose from - 1991 bowman and 1991 studio - but this one had the best view of his number.

reese played in the majors over the course of three seasons - 1930 and 1931 with the yankees (where he roomed with babe ruth on road trips) and 1932 with the cardinals - but spent most of his playing career in the pacific coast league where he spent time with the los angeles angels. it wasn't until the early 1970's, however, that he joined the california angels franchise as a coach on bobby winkles' staff. reese remained in uniform as a coach wearing number 50 until his death in 1994 at the age of 92.

in recognition of his time with the club, and the high regard in which he was held by the players (including his good friend nolan ryan), the angels posthumously retired his number on august 2, 1995 as part of a ceremony that also inducted reese into the team's hall of fame.

i think it is pretty likely that mookie betts will have his number 50 retired by the dodgers when his career is completed, but for now, reese is the lone person to have that honor.

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

retired numbers by team (through the 47 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

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

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

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

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

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

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): 158

running total of non-hall of famers: 57

card show scrounging

i am not currently working on any vintage sets, and i feed my primary player collection through online purchases, so i often find myself unsure about heading out to the card shows. once in awhile, i decide to go and look for cheap inserts and parallels and maybe find some new product singles for my dodger collection. such was the case last weekend when i went to the monthly card show. i already shared my meetup with brian, so this post will focus on the rest of my time spent there.

"bargain" boxes were not hard to find, but i only found three dealers with dime boxes. the first ones i saw didn't interest me. it was a monster box of base rookies for a dime each. it looked like a lot of recent bowman, and some guy came and bought the box for $115 about 15 minutes in to the show. one of the dime box sellers had the equivalent of four four-row monster boxes with baseball cards. the other had a couple of similarly sized monster boxes, but i think just one of baseball. he's a seller i've bought from before, so i expected to find these boxes. the other bargain boxes i expected to find just weren't there, even though the sellers who had previously offered them were. one of the sellers who has always had 5/$1 boxes (and gave great deals when it came time to pay) had dollar boxes only. the times they are a-changin;. 

i picked through almost all of the second guy's boxes and found some good and interesting stuff. in all, i picked 230-ish dime cards and one $2 card. he asked for $22.

perhaps the most interesting card i found was this one:

no, i did not purchase a t206 drum ty cobb card, but rather a standard sized card from a 2021 heritage auction promotional set.

the best bargains i found were this 2015 topps andrew mccutchen photo variation

and this 2014 topps jose fernandez future stars variation

both are worth more than a dime, for sure.

there were oddball items for my dodger collection - a 1986 jiffy pop disc of fernando valenzuela

and a 1995 king b disc of raul mondei

plus some oddball items that most definitely don't fir in my dodger collection.  such as, a pack of 1981 topps coca-cola royals cards

with willie mays aikens peeking through the back

and a unstuck 1987 topps coca-cola tigers panel with dwight lowry showing

i couldn't tell who else is featured, but the checklist

on tcdb tells me that chet lemon and dan petry reside inside the four panel item.

i found a couple of 1994 o-pee-chee all-star cards, including barry bonds

there were redemption type cards that could be used to obtain some jumbo cards. just fill out the back

and send 5 cards with 20 bucks. i wonder how many of the 5,000 sets were actually redeemed.

here's a 1995 topps stadium club ring leaders phone card

it commemorates the 1993 all-star garme and is worth 3 points

tcdb tells me this is the silver version, although the ring looks gold to me.

how about a 2004 topps mcgruff the crime dog insert?

this is a five or six card set, with carlos delgado being the card you are most likely to find in a dime box.

i did find a few more cards for my collection, including this 1998 pinnacle hideo nomo card

it is the "home stats" version

which i was blissfully unaware of until i entered my dodger collection on tcdb. i have a full team set if you put the regular, home stats, and away stats versions together, but i don't have a complete set of any one of those three variations. nomo is one of the cards i have a full stat version of, so now just need the away stat variation. fun.

there were a few topps giveaway code cards, and i was hoping to find two of these roy campanella cards

that's because both the angels, in order and i have it listed on our want lists. unfortunately, this was the only one. still i did pick up a couple of cards for tom.

in the "patience pays off" department, i had held off placing a sportlots order that included this next card on the off chance that i would find it at the show. it's one of kirk gibson's 1989 upper deck cards

that i already have in various collections and mini-collections. i wanted another one for the "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection and this guy's dime boxes came through. i hit a vein of 1989 upper deck and was able to pull one of nick's dime box dozen cards as well.

speaking of mini-collections, my double play collection grew with a rey sanchez 1995 score gold rush card

and a 1998 upper deck special fx craig biggio card

that features a different image of this dp turn on the back

my lurker collection had this 2004 upper deck jorge posada card 

added to it, thanks to derek jeter there in the foreground. jason giambi on his own wouldn't have prompted me to buy the card.

i picked up this 1982 topps keith hernandez card

for the aforementioned "names/numbers on the back" collection. hernandez is not my favorite player, but this is the perfect sort of card for that collection.

finally, i was able to add four cards to the dodger stadium mini-collection - a 1991 pacific nolan ryan express card

a 1994 select fred mcgriff card,

a 2003 fleer ultra matt clement gold medallion edition parallel

with kevin brown and shawn green murals in the background, and 1 1995 pinnacle artist's proof parallel of milt thompson dunking a beach ball over the center field fence.

such a classic card!

i mentioned up above that i added a $2 card to my stack. it was this 1996 leaf signature series extended autograph card of wayne kirby

who is shown as an indian but listed as a dodger. this completes the seven card team set in the extended series of autographs, and i have eight of the nine dodger autos from the regular issue. time to track down that raul mondesi card, i guess!

as i am sure you have experienced, pulling so many cards as a show poses an issue. the seller took my stack after awhile and put it behind his station. it made sense, but didn't really afford me the opportunity to cull any cards from what i had set aside. in the early goings, i had pulled a stack of 1976 sspc cards, and wound up bringing them home. i thought there was someone in the blogosphere working on this set but i don't recall who it was - let me know in the comments if you or someone you know could use some cards from the set!

the most interesting card i pulled is ike hampton's.

he's shown in his tidewater tides uniform from his time in the mets' system. the card is actually a california angels card, however.

by this time, it was plenty stuffy and warm inside the old bloomington armory. there were a couple of people crowding in who looked a bit like sonny seibert here

sweaty and a bit disheveled. they brought with them the dreaded smells of card shows - something different than the "batting odor" that ken griffey jr is experiencing on this 1992 upper deck comic ball 3 card

or maybe not, as his reaction is similar to what mine was. it was time for me to move on, so i handed over the $22 and went to find brian.

after visiting with brian, i saw the third dime box guy. he always has a couple of dime boxes under his main table which is packed with slabbed and toploaded cards of all sorts. it's kind of a mess, but there are usually some decent cards in those dime boxes. that was the case this time for sure. i wound up pulling 90 cards for $9, and gave two of the cards (remember aristedes aquino?) to brian on the way out. here are some of the other 88 cards i kept.

six cody bellinger cards that i thought i needed

i was right about all of them except the prismic power insert.

2022 topps capstone max muncy red parallel

not sure who is buying and ripping this stuff but thanks for the work you do.

2022 panini donruss andy pages pink fireworks parallel

2020 topps stadium club chrome vladimir guerrero

2017 topps ben zobrist gold parallel

i also grabbed some cards just because they were different and/or shiny. it's fun to find a bunch of 582 montgomery cards in a dime box, like these from set #2

as well as black & white mini diamond refractors like this bunch

by this time, there was some drama unfolding with a kid, his metal mega hitz carrying case, and some cards that he had for some reason set down on the dealer's table so i settled up and headed out. i had considered stopping at the 50-cent vintage boxes brian had pointed out to me, but i kept walking.

there is a different show in the cities next weekend, but i will pass. the next club show is on february 17, so i will probably go in search of some 2024 topps series 1 stuff. stay tuned!

not so random grab bag

jay from card hemorrhage recently posted about 25-card grab bags that he was selling as a way of paring down his collection. one of the cards shown in his post was this 1977 topps ed goodson card signed by goodson himself!

being the collector that i am, i asked how likely it would be that my grab bag included the goodson, and jay said he would make it so. following on the heels of my recent post regarding goodson signing a 1978 topps card for me, i was very happy to add this card to my collection. i also have a signed 1976 topps card, so i have the full topps run of goodson dodger cards signed by the man himself.

the pack was fun to open and wade through, and came with vintage as advertised:

even some dodgers/orioles who would become dodgers or were previously dodgers

powell would have been a teammate of ed goodson back in 1977. the tommy davis comes from the 1976 sspc set (copyright 1975). i have called it 1975 in the past but i think someone corrected me.  jay guaranteed cards from that set, and in addition to tommy davis, i received cards of art howe and ross grimsley

i recognized grimsley but not howe.

here's a 1981 donruss paul householder card

that reminded me of my dad. he collected householder cards from 1981 through 1984 or so. someone had told him that householder was the next mickey mantle i think.

here's a 1981 topps dave bristol/giants team card.

i was not a fan of the combo manager/team cards that topps used from 1979 through 1981. my opinion was based on the 1978 set which had them separated. it wasn't until later that i realized the '78 set was the anomaly from 1975 - 1981.

greg minton hot pack! here's a 1981 topps sticker and 1989 topps card of the righthander:

sadly no 1978 topps card, although jay does use that as his avatar.

there were some more modern cards in the package, but i'll show just a couple of them. here's a 1994 topps gold parallel of tim bogar

with a joe oliver sighting.

and here's another parallel - a 2020 topps update brock holt walgreens yellow card

lots of fun cards for sure! check out jay's post and pick one up for yourself!