ya basic

a few months ago i bought a don sutton card from the 1975 mengler set

which left me with just bill buckner's to track down (plus a second steve garvey, i suppose) to complete my dodger team set. or so i thought.

for those of you who are unfamiliar, i showed some others from this set in an older post and more recently found a photo of a checklist and ad for the set that gives a better explanation

i found this helpful, if not a bit frustrating, as neither andy messersmith and jim wynn are listed as dodgers on tcdb. not that i will ever find their cards, or buckner's for that matter, at a price i am willing to pay.

not so long ago, i wouldn't have given the mengler set a second thought. it was too plain, too basic, and not what i thought a baseball card should be. becoming more of a completist (or at least a more fervent player and team collector) of dodgers from this era over the last several years had me thinking otherwise.

adding the sutton card and again seeing how truly simplistic the mengler cards are had me thinking about my early collecting days when i eschewed sets like the ones tcma put out in the late 1970's because they lacked any sort of design or name or team affiliation on the front. today, i have no problem adding cards like this 1979 tcma the 1950's sandy koufax

or this 2019 bowman heritage dustin may

to my collection. yes, they are basic, but they are also baseball cards of players that i collect.

my retired number collection - 19

this is the 17th 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.

without further ado, here are the people for whom the number 19 has been retired:

bob feller (retired by the guardians in 1956) 2004 playoff honors

feller was the first player to be honored by the now-guardians franchise by having his number retired. the team retired the number on december 28, 1956 which was the same day feller announced his retirement from the game. his number 19 shows up nicely on this 2004 playoff honors card (a really great set, by the way), and feller was, of course, the last cleveland player to wear the number.

feller's hall of fame career (he was inducted in 1962 on his first ballot) included 18 seasons pitching for the indians during which time he won 266 games and struck out 2,581 batters. had he not missed three seasons due to military service he certainly would have surpassed 300 wins and become the second pitcher all-time to reach 3,000 strikeouts. 

jim gilliam (retired by the dodgers in 1978) 2003 topps tribute world series edition

gilliam's number retirement occurred on october 10, 1978 - two days after the lifelong dodger player and coach passed away during the postseason. the retirement of his number bucked the requisite hall of fame membership that was in place for all numbers retired by the dodgers before and after - up until fernando valenzuela's number was retired in 2023.

gilliam was the 1953 national league rookie of the year, and helped the dodgers to the pennant and his first world series (as noted on his 2003 topps tribute card above). he remained with the club as a player (eventually a player/coach) through 1966, appearing in seven world series and winning four rings.

obviously, gilliam was the last to wear number 19 for the dodgers although the team sported memorial patches with the number for the remainder of their postseason run in '78. i didn't know it at the time, but seeing that patch worn by the team would later inspire me to start an armbands and memorial patches mini-collection.

billy pierce (retired by the white sox in 1987) 1979 tcma 1950's 

we only get one digit of pierce's number on that 1979 tcma card, but it was the best card i could find. the white sox retired his number on july 25, 1987. i am not sure how far in advance it was planned as floyd bannister was wearing the number for at least part of the '87 season according to baseball reference. 

pierce spent 13 seasons with the white sox and won 186 games in that time. he led the league in era in 1955 with a 1.97 mark and followed that season up with a fifth place finish in mvp voting in 1956. he is the franchise's all-time leader in strikeouts with 1,796 and tops several other categories among postwar pitchers. he has a statue outside of the white sox' stadium, and his hall of fame candidacy has received a boost over the last couple of decades, although he has not received the minimum number of votes on the eras ballots he has appeared on to date.

robin yount (retired by the brewers in 1994) 1986 fleer

next to gilliam, yount is probably the first player i think of when i think of number 19, and his number is on prominent display on his 1986 fleer card. yount's career began a couple of years before i was aware of baseball, but i followed his teammate paul molitor pretty closely and so became familiar with yount by association.

unlike molitor, yount spent his entire career with the brewers, capping it with a hall of fame induction in 1999. a first ballot hall of famer, yount surpassed 3,000 hits and won two mvp awards - one as a shortstop and one as an outfielder. he was the fifth and final player in franchise history to wear the number, which was retired by the club on may 29, 1994.

tony gwynn (retired by the padres in 2004) 1998 fleer sports illustrated then & now

the padres retired number 19 for gwynn on september 4, 2004. he had retired following the 2001 season, so i am not sure why they waited. nobody wore the number after gwynn hung it up, as he was an obvious hall of famer (he was inducted on the first ballot in 2007) and number retirement candidate. in fact, gene richards (in 1978) is the only other padre player to have worn the number.

gwynn won eight batting titles during his career, which was spent entirely in san diego. he amassed 3,141 hits over 20 seasons, although i would say only 15 were full seasons. his lifetime batting average is .338 and he was probably the best bet of his era to hit .400, coming the closest in the strike-shortened 1994 campaign with a .394 average. 

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

retired numbers by team (through the 17 posts so far):

yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16

giants - 3, 4, 11

pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11

guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19

red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14

phillies - 1, 14, 15

cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17

reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18

braves - 3, 6, 10

astros - 5, 7

mets - 14, 16, 17, 18

orioles - 4, 5, 8

dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19

twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14

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

brewers - 1, 4, 19

tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16

cubs - 10, 14

royals - 5, 10

padres - 6, 19

athletics - 9

angels - 11

expos - 8, 10

rangers - 7, 10

major league baseball

rays - 12

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies - 17

mariners - 11

nationals - 11

marlins

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 9 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 (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024)

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

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 90

running total of non-hall of famers: 28

so many dodgers on cards

by the end of this post, i will be caught up with trade packages that have been sent my way by kerry, he of cards on cards. i've posted some cards over the last year from some of these mailings, but i had a few remaining in my scanned folder so here we are.

back in november 2020, i received this 2020 topps update keibert ruiz insert

among other cards. it was an exciting card to have as the 1989 design has grown on me in recent years, and ruiz was the dodgers' top prospect. today the card means as much to me as the 1984 donruss sid fernandez rated rookie card. happy to have it in my dodger collection, but beyond that - meh.

more cards from kerry came in march of 2021, including this shiny card from 2020 topps chrome update

i like cards that focus on jersey numbers. there have been a few, such as the entire 2001 topps tribute set, plus various insert sets like this one. 

a month later, in april of 2021, still more cards arrived. i am guessing that maybe i didn't show any cards from this package before now, because i had quite a few scanned - such as...

a 2017 honus bonus chase utley card

sort of the opposite of those 2009 topps legends of the game inserts i showed earlier in the week.

how about a 2019 panini prizm dennis santana rookie auto red, white, and blue prizm

nice!

plus a 2020 topps turkey red insert of jackie robinson

i know kerry was trying to complete this insert set, and i had sent him a couple of cards for his set build.

and then there was this 1994 topps jose offerman

nothing really special about this card other than you don't see a lot of 1994 topps on the blogs. the player name text is reminiscent of 1970 topps and doesn't seem to fit too well with the other design elements. at any rate, this card goes in my "names/numbers on the back" mini-collection.

the last couple of cards i will show from this package come from the 1979 tcma the 1950's set.  here we have joe pignatano and gil hodges

along with someone named carmen mauro

i mean no disrespect, i mean mauro was a major league ballplayer for goodness sake, but i had not heard of him before. it turns out that he was born right here in st. paul, and the dodgers were the first of three teams he played for in 1953. he appeared in only eight games for the dodgers, so we should count ourselves fortunate that this card exists.

fast forward to may of 2021, and kerry sent almost a full team set of 2021 topps opening day dodger cards

along with a couple of 2021 topps needs

i like to see dodger world series cards!

also included was this 2021 panini donruss walker buehler name variation

i prefer "ferris".

one more card from that package, a 2021 topps heritage will smith boyhood photos of the stars

nice ymca representation. our local y didn't sponsor baseball or any other sport, although i played a lot of basketball there after school and on weekends.

last but certainly not least, i received some cards from kerry's annual spring cleaning event. these arrived in september of 2021. i had put in for twins as well as dodgers, and would up keeping a couple of cards featuring the minnesota club.

1994 pinnacle dave winfield

kirby puckett's presence on the card puts it in my lurker collection.

2011 topps update michael cuddyer

is a perfect fit for my tatooine collection

2018 topps chrome zack granite

goes in the dodger stadium collection, even though the scan doesn't show the background too clearly.

i picked a few cards from the dodger side of the box, including this 1983 donruss card of mark belanger

just like '94 topps, i don't think we've seen too much belanger on the blogs.

here's a 2011 topps triple threads pee wee reese card

and a 2021 topps stadium club mookie betts virtual reality insert

watching mookie in the 2020 postseason was a treat. such a great defensive player.

not the best segue to this 2021 topps allen & ginter max muncy relic card

but muncy's card does provide a good transition to this batch of cards also from 2021 topps allen & ginter 

in addition to sending me a complete dodger team set of the regular a&g cards (of which that lasorda is a short print), kerry also included those eight silver parallel cards. shiny!

2021 was a great year for dodger cards thanks to their 2020 postseason success. it made the back of allen & ginter cards all the more appropriate

the world's champions, indeed!

thanks kerry!