busted

i have a number of collections entered into tcdb, with many of my mini-collections separated out as individual collections. when it comes to my dodger collection, however, it doesn't stand alone. i made the decision to include my player collections as part of that particular entry for a couple of reasons. one, i had already entered most of my pc's before i realized that i could create separate collections. and two, i left it that way because not every steve garvey card that i own has a duplicate in the dodger collection, but not every steve garvey card is a dodger card. so, to know how many dodger cards i have, i needed to include all of my garveys with my dodgers. make sense?

the garvey cards that i own in singular are typically serial numbered or other rare-ish inserts, and once in a while i will pick one up specifically for the dodger collection. for example, a few months ago i picked up a second 2003 donruss team heroes statline steve garvey parallel numbered to 115

because the price was right. 

the garvey cards that donruss produced as part of this set are nice in that they show a pretty violently broken bat which is not all that common on cards, and certainly not on steve garvey cards. i definitely didn't mind seeing it again on the 2003 donruss dodger magazine exclusive card, either.

especially since it shows the garv fully within the photo.

around the same time that i added the statline parallel, i bought a 2004 donruss world series blue card of garvey for the dodger collection.

there's no broken bat in the photo, but it sure looked familiar to me. it didn't take any time at all to determine that the photos on these cards are from the same game at least, if not the same at bat. they aren't the same swing, but could be the same plate appearance.

as an aside, donruss used the same photo from the world series card on an insert in their 2004 throwback threads release, and they used it again in 2005 on garvey's team heroes and donruss greats cards. here's the latter card

that came in a sportlots order in which i completed the dodger team set from that release. accompanying garvey in that order were don sutton, maury wills, duke snider, and tommy john

anyway, back to the garvey at bat. it looks like the dodgers were playing the reds at dodger stadium. there's a fan in a with shirt with green sleeves in the stands near garvey's right shoulder in the broken bat photo, and there's a guy in the camera well in that image as well. in the second image, the green sleeves guy is more visible near the left side of the image, but the camera well guy has retreated.

to make things more interesting, another image from that game or at bat showed up on one of garvey's 1984 star cards

here we've got mr. greensleeves and the camera well guy in different positions as well. while i like the broken bat image, i also like the variety very much.

i did think about looking at some box scores from 1981 (garvey is wearing the city of los angeles bicentennial patch on his left sleeve - partially visible in the broken bat photo) but once i saw two day games against the reds around memorial day i figured it would be impossible to determine which game these images came from. i will just be content knowing they are all different but from the same game.

never too many garveys

what a joy it is to see an email from an old "friend" pop up after a couple of years. even more joyous is when that email includes the question "do you need this card?". that was the case a while back when dennis from too many verlanders asked me about a certain steve garvey card.

a card panel, to be more precise. he was working on a trade through tcdb and had a line on this 1984 star steve garvey autograph panel

and wanted to know if had was in need of it. well, i have the full set in both perforated and panel form, but i never did pick up an autographed version, so i said "heck yes" and sometime later, dennis sent the card to me.

it's number 687 of what i believe to be 1,000 signed panels and i am really pleased to have it.  thankfully, dennis wasn't too concerned with what i could send back his way, and, as it turns out, was pleased with what i wound up sending.

it's just lucky for me the garv is a michigan state guy, and not a michigan alum!  thanks dennis and feel free to ask about any garveys (or dodgers) in the future!