king for a day

sometimes it seems like it is easier to find scarce parallels than ones with a larger print run. case in point, i had not seen this card

available for purchase for 15 years or so. it's a 2005 donruss diamond kings framed blue parallel of steve garvey, and it is numbered to 100

it was a bit of an outlier in that i had the other /100 and even the /50 parallels from this release, but not this one. anyway, i have it now and it is catalogued in tcdb. i mentioned recently that my dodger collection (as it stands as of last thursday) is entered into tcdb now. i have also entered my player collections which are comprised mainly of dodgers from the 1978 topps set that went on to play for other teams.

i plan to start entering my mini collections so figured that now is a good time to take a snapshot of my collection.

from a team standpoint, here's where things sit:

no real surprises there. the padres are mostly due to steve garvey cards, and the expos and angels are largely vladimir guerrero (my one non-dodger pc). don sutton also contributes to the angels, with ron cey, davey lopes, and dusty baker helping populate the cubs.

those los angeles dodger cards, including this 1992 leaf mike scioscia black gold parallel,

put me in the top spot 

but i recognize my hold there is tenuous at best.  for the brooklyn dodgers, i am in the 2nd spot

and will never get any higher than that even as i add cards like this 1993 upper deck all-time heroes card featuring joe black

there just won't be enough jackie robinson cards to get me to first place, and that's ok. a dodger collection totaling over 27,500 unique cards is pretty good!

as for the players, i decided to look at my top 25

i know, that's 26 people, but with vladimir guerrero not being a dodger, i went this route to get the top 25 dodgers. plus, it allows me to show where the penguin sits in my collection! 

1. steve garvey - i rank 1st overall on tcdb in terms of garvey cards. 

obviously, this is my main pc. my collection includes dodger and non-dodger cards, which are just padres cards plus a few michigan state cards. i keep my garvey cards separated from my dodger collection, with duplicates going to the team binders. of course, tcdb makes no distinction between the two.

2. clayton kershaw - i rank 4th

and i would expect night owl to pass me at some point. these cards are all dodgers except for a couple team usa cards - assuming tcdb catalogs them as such - and all of my kershaws are in my dodger team binders.

3. mike piazza - my piazza cards only get me to 21st on tcdb. here's one of my piazza cards

a 1995 upper deck sp special edition card. there are some cards in my collection that i consider to be dodger piazza cards that tcdb lists as marlin or met cards, but my take governs! all of these piazza cards are part of my team collection.

4. vladimir guerrero - i have fallen to 9th place among tcdb collectors when it comes to vladdy cards.

that's a 2022 topps throwback thursday card i picked up earlier this year. it's nice to see vladdy appearing in current card sets, but my ambition to seek them out is pretty low.

5. shawn green - i am 3rd on tcdb, and my collection only includes dodger cards, like this 2000 topps tek card

green has been both my favorite non-dodger and my favorite dodger. however, i limit my pc to his dodger cards which are actually part of my team binders.

6. matt kemp - i was surprised to see that i ranked first in matt kemp cards on tcdb

even though it's not by much. again, these are all dodger cards that are part of my dodger collection.

7. hideo nomo - i come in 2nd on tcdb in terms of nomo cards, right behind night owl.

i would love to add more cards if they looked like that 1997 pacific crown collection gold crown die-cut card. easily my favorite nomo card that i have added in the last few years. i am a bit surprised he hasn't shown up in any recent card releases, but i am sure there are reasons.

8. eric karros - my dodger karros cards get me to 3rd place on tcdb

karros is the guy who shows up high on my list solely because he had a ton of cards made. i don't know that i have ever actively sought out a karros card other than to complete a team set. although i guess i did add that 2000 topps chrome allegiance insert to a card order earlier this year out of convenience.

9. cody bellinger - as with karros, i am 3rd on tcdb with bellinger cards. that will likely change, assuming others continue to add his cards even though he is no longer a dodger. i have decided not to take that route. here's his 2017 topps holiday card:

i will always remember his 2017 and 2019 seasons fondly.

10, jackie robinson - rounding out my top 10 is jackie, whose cards are exclusively brooklyn dodger cards, like this one

from 2022 topps allen & ginter x. my jackie cards are good enough to slot in at 3rd overall on tcdb.

11. raul mondesi - from one roy to another, i will assume that my mondesi dodger card total will eventually top the 400 mark. 

that 1999 topps gold label class 2 card is gorgeous, and got me one card closer to 400 a few months ago.  right now, i am 2nd on tcdb in terms of mondesi-ness (behind night owl).

12. fernando valenzuela - my valenzuela collection, which includes his non-dodger cards, ranks 2nd on tcdb. i recently showed off the bulk of my post-dodger fernando collection here.

13. duke snider - i rank 2nd on tcdb with my snider cards, which are only dodger cards. here's his 2022 topps pristine card

which was once one of my nefarious 9 most wanted cards as it was all that was standing between me and the complete team set.

14. adrian beltre - my collection of beltre dodger cards, including this 1998 bowman's best card

are good for 9th overall on tcdb. considering how many ranger cards he has, that surprised me a bit although maybe there aren't too many ranger team collectors.

15. orel hershiser - the bulldog is a popular player with a number of cards from his time between dodger tenures. my dodger only collection of hershiser cards is good enough for 6th on the site. i haven't added a new hershiser card for a long time, so here's an oldie but a goodie

from 1998 fleer sports illustrated world series fever

16. don sutton - my sutton collection spans his entire career, since he started it as a dodger, and it lands me at 1st place overall on tcdb

i proudly add cards of sutton to my collection showing him from his dodger days, like this 2013 panini cooperstown colgan chips card

as well as his foray in to enemy territory as an astro

brewer

athletic and angel

those cards are his 1981 all-star game program insert, 1984 topps nestle, and 1988 panini stickers issues. sutton has been keeping up appearances in current sets, so i will continue adding to my total in the future.

17. sandy koufax - my koufax cards, which are all dodger cards except for one card that is a cincinnati bearcat card, put me in 2nd place on tcdb. here's one of my newest koufax additions

that's his 2016 topps archives short print card. he had a regular card in the base set, but topps decided to short print him, too.

18. kevin brown - brown played for a lot of teams, and even though my cards are almost all dodgers (there are a few that tcdb considers to be yankee cards), i still rank 4th among collectors on the site.

there is no mistaking that 2003 topps chrome gold refractor parallel - it is a dodger card through and through - and it helped me get brown over the 300 threshold at some point.

19. corey seager - seager will be next to cross the 300 card mark. i was surprised to find that i am in 1st place in terms of seager cards, with this 2017 topps update photo variation card

being one of my fairly recent acquisitions, but i expect my rank to fall now that seager is getting a bunch of non-dodger cards as a ranger. my affinity for his cards stopped once he signed with texas.

20. andre ethier - i am in 2nd place behind night owl for ethier cards. even though he was a longtime dodger (and only appeared in the majors as a dodger), he probably won't get any attention in future card sets. there are still plenty to chase, however, and this 2012 topps heritage chrome card

just arrived in my collection a couple of weeks ago.

21. ramon martinez - i sit in 4th place on tcdb with my cards of pedro's older brother, and my newest addition just showed up the other day from night owl!

it's a 1992 classic update blue/red travel card, with a nicely cropped photo to boot!

22. davey lopes - it took a while to get to the next member of the infield, but that has a lot to do with the era in which lopes played and had cards produced bearing his likeness. i am ranked 1st overall

due to the fact that i collect his athletics, cubs, astros, and coach cards!

those three are phillies photocards from 2008 and 2010 (two versions). only two are listed on tcdb, however.  of course, my first choice for lopes cards are dodger cards, but those are few and far between these days.

23. russell martin - i almost feel like i should add martin to my list of players for whom i collection post-dodger cards because he has so many great looking cards as a pirate, yankee, and blue jay. as it is, i've limited myself to dodger cards (plus the occasional team canada cards), and that puts me in 2nd place on tcdb.

his 2006 bowman originals card, with the huge rookie card logo, reminds me that if it hadn't been for nomar joining the dodgers, martin may well have been my favorite dodger that year.

24. mookie betts - my 242 betts cards (all dodgers) are good enough for 24th place on tcdb. this is his 2022 topps international trading card day card

betts will continue to climb on this list as he will be a dodger for a long time yet, and will keep getting cards produced. i am a-ok with that!

24. gary sheffield - sheffield and betts are tied at 242 cards each, but i only rank 52nd among others with sheffield in their collections. i recently sought out his 2000 skybox card

as it has the 1999 jackie robinson heroes patch fairly visible. and i wanted to get closer to completing the team set, too.

26. ron cey - the third baseman from the team of my youth is represented in my collection by all of his cards regardless of team. this approach gets me to 1st on the site

ahead of night owl. i know that night owl doesn't have the fervor that i do for cey's post-dodger cards so it is very likely that he owns more dodger cards of the penguin than i do.

so, most of my player collections don't crack the top 26 - only garvey, vlad, sutton, lopes, and cey made it. as a reminder, these player collections are primarily of dodgers from the 1977/78 squad who went on to play for other teams after leaving the dodgers. i did want to see where the others fall, and here's a summary:

34. dusty baker - i have 173 unique baker cards logged in tcdb, and that puts me at 1st place on the site!

those 173 cards include his coaching and managerial career which has been getting some attention lately. here's a 2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary aqua wave refractor parallel

his coaching career is a sneaky way for the giants to infiltrate my collection as this 1988 mothers cookies card

attests. the only baker cards i don't collect are braves cards, since he was with them prior to being a dodger.

39. tommy lasorda - lasorda is not too far behind baker, and my 168 cards have me in 1st place somewhat comfortably

the only non-dodger cards lasorda has are team usa cards, and i include those in my collection. here's one of the newest lasorda cards in my collection

it's a 2004 upper deck sp authentic all-star memories insert. the card references the 1982 all-star game which was played in montreal, but the photo comes from the midsummer classic played in seattle in 2001. that was the game that lasorda (who was retired by then) coached third base and got knocked over by vladimir guerrero's wayward bat.

41. bill russell - russell is not too far behind lasorda, and i am also 1st on the site for his cards

these are almost all dodger cards - there are a couple of tampa bay devil ray minor league cards - and the next one i want to find is a 2023 topps heritage buyback.

63. steve yeager - i am just shy of 100 unique yeager cards but still in 1st place on tcdb

my yeagers include his mariner cards plus a couple of oddballs from the movie "major league". it's been a while since i've found a new yeager card for my collection, but i keep my eye out.

78. reggie smith - i don't collect smith's red sox or cardinal cards, but my dodger and giant (both san francisco and yomiuri) and team usa cards of him are good enough to fall in 1st place on tcdb

which is a huge surprise to me. i would love to see some new reggie cards!

115. rick monday - the last of my baseball player collections is not really much of one. all of my rick monday cards are in my dodger collection except for one, and that one is not listed on tcdb. the 55 cards i have marked on the site rank me 3rd overall which is not too bad for someone who doesn't collect his athletics or cub cards.  the one non-dodger card of his that i have in my pc is a padres magazine card from his short stint as a padres announcer.

so, next up for me is to enter my mini-collections and then my "keeper" sets, which are my complete topps sets from 1957, 1965, and sets from 1970 through 1979, plus some random (mostly "legends" sets from fleer, upper deck, and topps) sets from the late 1990s and early 2000s. i am undecided about keeping my topps, fleer, donruss, and upper deck sets from 1980 through 2009 as of right now. and then there are my non-baseball player collections of wayne gretzky, luc robitaille, and mark brunell. i've still got a lot of cataloging to do, but it's fun to see where things stack up - at least for a moment in time!

it wasn't just baseball card night

get ready for a looooooong post...

[but first (spoiler alert) let me share my excitement that topps has featured steve garvey on today's "turn back the clock" card. i am very pleased! now back to the originally written post.]

thirty eight years ago tonight (april 16, 1983), my family was at dodger stadium to see the dodgers host the padres. the pocket schedule will tell you that it was baseball card night - the fourth year in a row that the dodgers had partnered with the lapd to produce a stadium giveaway of oddly sized cards. it was also the fourth year in a row that my dad had taken us to that promotion's game.

the game was notable for another reason - it was the night that steve garvey would break billy williams' national league record of 1,117 consecutive games played.  while my brother and i were able to secure autographs from steve sax, mike scioscia, and tom niedenfuer on the backs of their cards issued that evening, the highlight for me was getting steve garvey himself to sign my autograph book.

i've torn my collection inside out looking for my ticket stub from that game (it used to be in my autograph book), with no success, but i do still have the program. let's take a look, shall we?

the cover celebrates the los angeles dodgers who had won the rookie of the year award up to that point, with the reigning roy, steve sax, front and center.

here's the opponent preview page, with a large photo of mr. clean.

i appreciate juan bonilla being noted as a dodger nemesis because he took jerry reuss deep in the top of the 1st inning. here's the scorecard

don't pay any attention to the scratched-out text under gene richards. i had put bonilla's name there instead of on the line intended for the second hitter. you can see further down that there wasn't enough space provided to capture all of the in-game changes that the padres made. kenny landreaux was listed as the starting centerfielder, but ron roenicke took the field instead. that's what the scratch-out is on the dodger side of the scorecard. 

you can see that the pads had a big first inning, which included a single from the man of the hour, but the dodgers wound up winning, 8-5. steve yeager hit a home run late in the game to end the scoring, and speaking of the dodger backstop, he appeared in an ad in the program for baseball cards!

i believe the concession stands sold collated team sets, not packs, but i don't recall for sure.  there was another ad in the program for cards, too:

a card dealer for new jersey thinking that i didn't enjoy opening packs and chewing the gum found in topps packs - the nerve!

i also have a bunch of photos with which to remember the game, thanks to my dad who always had a camera (or two) with him.  the first photo my dad took wasn't developed, but i looked at the (partial) negative, and it was a photo of fernando valenzuela, steve howe, tom niedenfuer and a few other relievers hanging out in left field near where our seats were down the left field line. shortly after he took that picture he took off toward the home plate area, as garvey was signing autographs near the visitor's dugout, and that's where i was at the time.

he told me that he stopped here because he thought he couldn't make it around in time to get a photo of me hoping for an autograph. it's too bad that he went this far and so wasn't able to get a decent photo. the big group of photographers there are taking photos of garvey signing, so somewhere, there may very well be a photo of garvey signing my book thanks to one of them. or maybe my dad just really wanted a photo of the padre i believe to be tim flannery. flannery grew up in orange county, so if that is him, it's possible that he's chatting with an old friend.

as he made his way back towards our seats, my dad took a photo of the dodgers in the cage

greg brock and steve sax are here, plus rick monday in the foreground. not sure who the bp pitcher is. here's another photo from a little further down the line

now we see derrel thomas waiting his turn with sax (who was still "s. sax" as his brother dave was in the dodger system). you can see that the photographers have dispersed over near the field level scoreboard, although flannery is still hanging out. also, the man visible above saxy's right shoulder is billy williams.

next up is a photo showing garvey being interviewed.

monday is still hanging out, and the garv is lit up in the center of the picture closer to the old dugout level seats. notice the old logo espn camera! i like to think that one of the guys on the field looks a bit like keith olbermann, but i don't know for sure if he was there. lots of great early 80's sportswriter fashion, though!

now my dad continues his trek back to our seats

he took a couple of photos of tommy lasorda, who is distracted by someone in the stands.

and there's manny mota! he's officially retired at this point, and was almost certainly hitting fungoes prior to this photo being taken.

not sure why ozzie virgil was hanging out along the 3rd base side, but there he is. he was a padres coach at the time. i am guessing my dad took his picture because he remembered him from his playing days with the giants. i know my dad saw him play a few times at both dodger stadium and candlestick.

next up are some photos from our seats or at least in the general vicinity of them.

those are a couple that feature candy maldonado shagging fly balls and fernando chatting with alex taveras. who knows - these could be the only photos of taveras as a dodger on the field.

the padres took bp next, but my dad only took one photo:

those guys are luis salazar, kurt bevacqua, and mike couchee. again, this could be one of the few mike couchee photos around as he made it in to only 8 games during the 1983 season during his big league career.

after bp, there was some pregame entertainment:

in case you hadn't guessed, it was part of the 6th annual battle of the bands competition

glen wilson high school is in hacienda heights, about 17.5 miles east-southeast of dodger stadium. we will see more of diamondvision later.

i don't know why my dad took these photos. he was not, nor were any of us kids, in band. ever. i am also not sure who the dodger is at the bottom of that last photo.

there was high confidence that the game would be played, so the ceremony honoring garvey took place before the first pitch. here's a photo of the crowd behind home plate where things were happening.

you can see tommy lasorda standing there in uniform next to billy williams. the two dodger ushers further to the left are standing by some presentation piece. i forget what it was.

garvey waved to the fans

it was definitely easier to see things on diamondvision., but here's another shot of the crowd around garvey:

it looks like the presentation is being made at this point, with williams and lasorda leaning forward to see what it is. ron roenicke (40) and derrel thomas (30) are playing catch with someone, and i think those are both bat boys playing catch to the left of the photo.

more images from diamondvision:

garvey got to speak, and he thanked the dodger fans for their support. williams also spoke, and was very congratulatory towards garvey. i believe he mentioned that he wasn't sure garvey would get to lou gehrig's record which of course was a very reasonable thing to say given garvey's age, but i didn't like hearing that.

here's the last photo that was developed:

starting lineups on the old right field scoreboard! as i mentioned up top, kenny landreaux (44) was replaced in the lineup by roenicke, although he did get in the game later on.

i looked at the negatives, and there is another photo that wasn't printed, and it appears to be garvey at bat in the top of the first inning. i'll have to see if i can get it printed now. if so, i'll add it to this post.

fast forward many years later, and i was beyond excited when fleer partnered with sports illustrated to produce cards in 1997 and included some of their covers as cards. then, in 1999, they came through with a card for their april 25, 1983 issue which covered the game in question. this was the impetus for my "cards featuring games i've attended in person collection", even though it was not the first card that i owned to feature a game i attended.

there aren't many cards that feature that game, but i am happy to have the ones that do:

1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game covers #46 steve garvey

1999 fleer sports illustrated greats of the game autographs #stga steve garvey

i am hoping that this year's topps/sports illustrated endeavor includes one of garvey's covers, even if it's not this one.

the only other card i've found (other than a couple of first-day covers) that is specific enough to be added to this collection is this 2005 donruss diamond kings

cool that donruss considered this to be a "crowning moment". that was good enough for me to include this card in the mini-collection.

here's the 2021 topps now turn back the clock card 

that will soon be added to this mini-collection as well!

speaking of mini-collections, i'll go ahead and use this post to show the card that represents all of my dodger stadium visits in another mini-collection - the "cards featuring stadiums i've attended games in" collection:

good old 1994 score features one of the earliest cards i recall seeing that showed chavez ravine.

one last item related to the game - i was not aware of this item until just a few months ago when a couple popped up on ebay. i wound up adding one as part of a lot of garvey oddballs that i purchased earlier this year.

that's a novelty penny commemorating the event. i don't recall seeing a penny machine at the stadium that night, but there certainly could have been one.  this oddball is in my garvey collection along with some other items from that purchase that i will show off later.  this post is long enough as it is. stay tuned!