a retired favorite

paul molitor reaches retirement age tomorrow. at least, what standard retirement age used to be: 65. i believe molitor has stated that he is, in fact, retired from managing, but with tony larussa returning to the dugout at the age of 76, who knows for sure whether or not molitor could be lured back to a uniformed position.

i followed molitor's career pretty closely from start to finish. he was a rookie in the 1978 topps set - the first set i ever saw and collected - and had enough early success that i quickly paid attention. he finished his career playing for his hometown team, and the timing of his return to minnesota pretty much coincided with my move to the land of 10,000 lakes.

once steve garvey's career ended, i anointed molitor as my favorite non-dodger. he remained so until the strike in 1994, after which i started paying attention to shawn green. here are the cards of molly that i have in my "favorite non-dodger of the year" mini-collection:

1988 score

1989 fleer

1990 donruss baseball's best

1991 topps

1992 upper deck

1993 fleer flair

1994 topps black gold

i tried for some variety amongst manufacturers to get some different designs in the collection, but there is only so much that can be done from this peak of the junk wax era. it's a little bit daunting to see people i followed as a youngster hit milestone ages, but time waits for no man. happy 65th molly!

orel, historian

yesterday morning i saw an article on mlb.com that referenced orel hershiser's 1994 topps stadium club card. 

my first thought was that, for some reason, this card was the latest to be commanding ridiculous prices on the market.  however, when i read the article, the author noted that the card could be had for $0.99 on ebay. whew.

later in the day i was thinking that i wanted to post some hershiser cards that represent his run as my favorite dodger from "my favorite dodger through the years" mini-collection. i thought that the article and the story that he shared explaining the reason behind the appearance of sod in a shopping cart on a baseball card would make a nice lead-in for those cards.

i started typing the post in the early afternoon, and was surprised to find that in the 12+ years i've been blogging, i've apparently never scanned that card. so, i went to ebay to steal an image. of course, i then found out that there was a run on the card, and one copy had sold earlier in the day for $19.99.  i went downstairs and pulled a dupe from my sportlots inventory to scan. in the time that it took me to do that, the sportlots inventory for the card had gone from over 30 to just 21. 

anyway, once steve sax left the dodgers after the 1988 world series, orel became my new favorite dodger, and remained so until early in the 1994 season when he was supplanted by raul mondesi.  here are the cards that represent his tenure in my collection.

1989: upper deck (world series)

1990: donruss baseball's best

1991: topps

1992: leaf black gold

1993: donruss diamond kings

i suppose that had my fandom extended through the 1994 season, i might have added that stadium club card to this collection. it's too late now anyway, i sold my dupe for $6 plus shipping yesterday afternoon. these are crazy times.