number, number on the wall

i've seen regular season major league baseball games in 22 different stadiums, although that total includes both the hubert h humphrey metrodome and target field in minneapolis. so, there are nine stadiums that i have yet to visit to have seen each major league team in their home whites. one of the things that i like to do at each stadium is look for the retired jersey numbers. 

i first noticed them on telecasts from candlestick park, and have been intrigued ever since. unfortunately, i've only been to candlestick for football. still, i've seen my fair share of retired basseball numbers across the country. i usually try to take a photo, but i am not always successful in that regard.

sometimes, these retired numbers show up on baseball cards, and i at one time considered having a mini-collection of such appearances. as it is, i decided to keep dave bergman's 1983 topps card in my "favorite card of the year" mini-collection, and i keep sightings of jackie robinson's retired number 42 (like at the oakland coliseum and featured on this 2019 topps heritage denard span card)

in my "42" mini-collection.

the other retired number i look(ed) for on cards was steve garvey's number 6, retired by the padres since 1988. believe it or not, i've had some success!

this 1992 mother's padres card of jose melendez

features the right field stands and scoreboard in the background. if you look behind the fence and towards the left edge of the card, you will see a placard to the left of the st. louis cardinals logo - that's garvey's jersey marker. i believe it was placed in the location that his walk-off home run in the 1984 nlcs cleared the fence.

it shows up again on this 1993 mother's padres craig shipley card

just next to shipley's left ear.

it is also featured (although very blurrily) on tim teufel's 1993 topps stadium club card

like i said, blurry.

i found a photo from getty images that features a slightly different take on the placard

this photo was taken on opening day 1993, but if you look at archi cianfrocco's 1994 upper deck card,

we see half of garvey's jersey posted in a similar fashion to the pre-1993 configuration. as a result, i would assume that the photo on cianfrocco's card is from prior to 1993, except that he didn't play for the pads prior to 1993. of course, he wasn't with them on opening day (he was with the expos), so perhaps the padres removed the rectangular placard and put the old one up at some point during the season.

a different configuration of garvey's retired number shows up on trevor hoffman's 1997 upper deck collector's choice card:

it's kind of hard to see - here's an altered image of the card:

now you can see it next to hoffman's right forearm.

here's a photo i took at jack murphy/qualcomm stadium in 2002, with all of the padre numbers on display:

garvey's number is still in right-center, although it moved closer to centerfield. it's next to dave winfield's 31, and on the other side of center is randy jones' 35 and jackie's 42. ray kroc's "rak" is to the right of garvey's 6 as well. i've not seen any cards with this version of garvey's (or jackie's) numbers in the background.  by the way, this is the last game that i attended in san diego (it was the rockies against the pads on may 27, 2002), but i hope to get there soon to take in a game at petco park.

i have this 1994 score card

in my collection representing the murph in my "stadiums i've seen games in" mini-collection. i don't see garvey's jersey on this card, unfortunately.

a special final tribute

if i know one thing about jim thome, it's that he has probably described his election to the hall of fame as 'special'.  he used that word hundreds of times during his stint with the twins to describe everything from personal milestones to developing a relationship with harmon killebrew (it came across as completely genuine, by the way).  i don't know that he considered his time with the dodgers to be special, but he sure delivered as a twin.

thome finished his career with the orioles in 2012, and i was disappointed back in 2013 when there was no final tribute card issued by topps.  panini included thome in their 2013 america's pastime set as an indian, which is ok because (even though the set came out in 2014) thome signed a one-day contract with cleveland that year in order to retire as an indian.  that is all good enough for me to add this card to my final tribute collection

the back includes the full career stat line, but not the year-by-year totals

there is a good group of players going in to the hall of fame this weekend, and most have some sort of final tribute in my collection.  i've previously shown off my jack morris final tributes, vladimir guerrero final tributes, and my alan trammell final tribute (although i have picked up another for the collection since it has the 'tribute' shield)

 and it almost has the full year-by-year stats on the back

there are a couple of inductees that i haven't shown final tributes for previously, so here they are.  topps produced a couple of cards of trevor hoffman in 2011, including this one

that shows his complete hall of fame career stats on the back

i had to dig deep to find a chipper jones final tribute.  this 2013 topps update card is a short print with a photo from 2000, although it fits the bill since it was issued the year following his final season

 and has those complete major league stats on the back

congrats to the new hall of famers, and best of luck next year to edgar martinez who should be voted in finally, and also to steve garvey and tommy john as the modern era committee convenes again in 2019.

high flying infield cards rule

like many others, i received a pwe from adam at infield fly rule before christmas. there were some nice cards for my collection in there, including a 1993 fleer ultra eric karros card.

this was one of the last two cards i needed to finish off that team set, and between adam and brian from hsca, i was able to mark it as complete.

here's a nice double play card from 1997 upper deck collector's choice that shows rockie walt wiess avoiding raul mondesi's slide

i had one of these in my double play collection already, so this copy goes in my dodger stadium collection thanks to the appearance of the left field pavilion and dodger bullpen. or perhaps my lurker collection thanks to rauuuuuuuuuul's presence on a non-dodger card.

the highlight of the envelope for me was this 1999 fleer tradition brian bohanon card

it's one of those dodger/non-dodger cards, with bohanon shown in dodger blue but affiliated with the rockies.  shades of o-pee-chee!  a couple of things that i remember about bohanon:  first,  he was a remnant of the first dodger tenure of hideo nomo, as the dodgers and interim general manager tommy lasorda traded greg mcmichael (one of the pieces they got from the mets for nomo in 1998) back to the mets for bohanon scarcely a month after first acquiring mcmichael in the nomo deal.  second, he had a really good era (2.40) and whip (1.13) with the dodgers, but a sub-.500 record (5-7) due to poor run support.  he left for colorado as a free agent after the season ended, just as this card illustrates.

thanks adam! i hope you appreciated the return pwe as well.