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.

a blogger's impact

trading is not the only way for bloggers to impact another's collection. by simply doing what we do - posting about cards - we can increase other's awareness of the vast multitude of cards that exist.  case in point, nick at dime boxes recently showed a couple of cards as part of his second frankenset that i had not seen before.

one was this 2000 fleer impact edgar martinez card

and the other was this 2003 donruss team heroes mark ellis card

both cards were missing from my collection - the edgar is a sweet dodger stadium card, and the ellis is a double play turn - so i thanked nick and headed to sportlots to acquire these new found gems.

now, anyone who has shopped on sportlots knows that there is a temptation to maximize the return and add cards to the shopping cart to optimize the shipping costs.  even with the "box" option, many sellers offer decent shipping costs for multiple cards.  so, i decided to try to finish up a team set or two.

i settled on 1999 fleer tradition, and added the dodgers that i was missing from my setl

kevin brown

not a padre anymore.

antonio osuna

angel pena

jeff shaw

gary sheffield

and devon white

even with these cards, i still had room in my cart for a couple more without increasing the shipping cost.  so, i went to comc to browse images from the set, thinking that there may be a dodger stadium or double play card or two from another team that i could add.

one of the cards i came across was this charles johnson card

cj is an oriole in name only - he's wearing dodger blue, so i added it to the purchase.

i knew already that there were quite a few cards in the set that featured images taken in dodger stadium. because i needed a few dodgers, i filtered my search at comc by team to see if any of those cards featured a dodger stadium shot.  as a result, i picked up another copy of jeff shaw's card, but not gary sheffield's. that's because i didn't turn the card over until it arrived,

so it wasn't until then that i saw the '1965' behind him from the world championships mural. oh well.  i did pick up a second copy of eric gagne's update card for my dodger stadium collection

as well as a second card of eric weaver from the base set

i found a few other dodger stadium cards featuring players from visiting teams, like chris peters

masato yoshii

larry walker

the gagne card actually shows the 1999 murals in the background which were based on the heroes patches that the players wore that year. the weaver, peters, and yoshii cards show the 1959 championship in the background, with don drysdale appearing towards the edge of yoshii's card (the murals also included retired numbers). walker's card shows sandy koufax on the wall.

the murals weren't the only part of dodger stadium on display. here's jon lieber 

and jay powell

at the dugout rail. i always appreciate seeing a dodger usher in the background like on that lieber card.  interestingly enough, i already had the warning track parallel of the powell card in my collection, but not the base.

here's dante bichette

chillin' and maxin' in the golf cart he spent all day waxin', hanging out in front of the old dugout level seats.

and here's future dodger hitting coach turner ward

bringing good gum game to chavez ravine as a player.

i know that i will likely never have all of the dodger fleer ultra inserts, so that is a good place for me to look when i am adding cards to the collection. i wound up grabbing two copies of roger cedeno's 1996 golden prospects card.

one for the team set, and one for the dodger stadium mini-collection. i like the aerial view on the front.

so now we are getting to the double play portion of the post. 1999 fleer tradition did not disappoint as i was able to add a few new cards to my collection.

unfortunately, sportlots does not usually have images, especially for 20-year old base.  so, while i ordered a nm copy of abraham nunez's card, i received this jacked up version

it's miscut and suffers from offset printing. maybe i'll try to flip it and pick up a better version. i know some folks out there collect these sorts of printing errors.

other new-to-me double plays included this alex gonzalez card

plus a couple featuring miguel tejada - his card

and that of darren lewis

next up are a couple of tatooine cards - brant brown

and andres galarraga

i think galarraga's name is a good anagram for a star wars character.  how about sendar ralagraga? sounds right to me.

finally, i added this mark loretta card to my card.

the future dodger is shown in front of jackie robinson's retired number, which makes it a great add to my mini-collection.

in all, i picked up around 30 cards with this sportlots purchase that was spurred on by just a couple of cards nick posted. it was not the first time and won't be the last time that another blogger impacts my collection in this way, so thank you to everyone posting about their cards and collections! i never know what i might find to add to my collection as a result.