today is the 103rd anniversary of jackie robinson's birth, so i figured i would show some cards that are associated with the annual award named in his honor - the rookie of the year award.
the cards make up a 14-card set from 1995 given to season ticket holders that celebrates the dodgers (through 1994) to be voted as the rookie of the year in the national league (or in jackie robinson's case, the rookie of the year in major league baseball). using relatively new chrome technology, the set included jackie robinson (1947), don newcombe (1949), joe black (1952), jim gilliam (1953), frank howard (1960), jim lefebvre (1965), ted sizemore (1969), rick sutcliffe (1979), steve howe (1980), fernando valenzuela (1981), steve sax (1982), eric karros (1992), mike piazza (1993), and raul mondesi (1994).
let's see the cards!
thanks to the uncertainty surrounding rookies regarding the remainder of their careers, there are some guys included here that don't have many cards. in fact, these may be the only post-career cards of jim lefebvre (as a player) and ted sizemore outside of the 1990 target dodgers set. plus, any newer rick sutcliffe cards most likely don't show him as a dodger.
the card backs are different colors, but have the same information.
it took me about 20 years to pick up this set although i think i only knew about its existence for a couple of years before i found one on ebay for a very nice price. i think the purchase came when i was between blogs, so i never featured it in a post, and i don't think i've ever seen it featured on any other blog.
i would imagine the set was issued at least in part as an effort to reward season ticket holders while the players' strike was still going on. whether it was issued prior to the start of the 1995 season or not, it certainly was issued too soon to include 1995 rookie of the year hideo nomo, and i don't believe there was any sort of update made. of course, since then, the dodgers have also produced rookies of the year in 1996 (todd hollandsworth), 2016 (corey seager), and 2017 (cody bellinger).
i am not sure what the deal is, but you can see some blotchy spots on some of the cards. there is no surface damage to the cards, so i guess it is just reflective of the chromium holochrome technology of the times. here's a glimpse at the back of jackie's card:
it was a source of pride to me as a young dodger fan to have four consecutive rookies of the year from 1979 to 1982, and i was secretly disappointed in greg brock that he couldn't bring the award home in 1983. of course, a decade later the dodgers were on their way to five straight rookies of the year which was fun to witness.
this has to be my favorite dodger produced set (even when considering the massive aformentioned target set), and it would be great to see an update someday with those four (or hopefully more) subsequent rookie of the year award winners.
