the almost daily dodger - pedro guerrero

my ears perked up a couple of weeks ago when i read that pedro guerrero was going to be the marlins' hitting coach. it turned out to not be the pedro guerrero i first thought of - the dodger player who shared the 1981 world series mvp with steve yeager and ron cey - but rather a former dodger farmhand who had previously worked in a similar capacity with gabe kapler, who is the marlins' gm these days.

i was reminded that i had added a card of the pedro guerrero i knew about to my collection earlier in the fall - his 2005 topps all-time fan favorites refractor parallel

i like this card so much.  the base version was my favorite dodger card that i added to my collection back in 2005, and it was featured prominently in my original blog header. 

i keep an eye out for these refractors, and have pulled the trigger on a couple more. i picked up another one of dusty baker's refractors and put it with my 1978 topps "master" set. it fittingly is numbered 078/299 as the card features the 1978 topps design

i also added another of rick monday's refractors to put with the set, but it's not numbered as nicely

most recently, i added a different dodger's atff refractor to my collection, but i'll save that for a different post. stay tuned!

no more mondays

i have had a couple of saved ebay searches centered around two elusive rick monday cards for years with no triggers. then, in the span of a month or so, both cards showed up on ebay from two different sellers.

the first one - a 1991 padres coke issue - is one that i sort of already had. meaning, i had the card but it was signed by monday

and i still wanted a "clean" version. 

enter comc, who added one to their ebay inventory and recently introduced a $2.99 shipping option on that platform which made me decide to buy the card that way rather than load funds to comc and pay slightly less for the card but with the long wait and $4.99 shipping. it took only a few days for the card to show up, and here it is:

here's the back

these cards were given to members of the padres' coca-cola junior club. i know that as a young dodger fan, i would have been confused if i received some dodger cards that included announcers, but would have totally loved it once i got older.

the other card was from the team's 1990 unocal 76 set that was (mostly) distributed through the padres' game programs, and it features monday and his broadcast partner, jerry coleman

that's a pretty strong flex by monday to be wearing his 1981 dodgers world series ring, but he earned it so he should wear it.

here's the back:

monday was only with the padres from 1989-1992, and these are the only two cards featuring him that i am aware of from that stint. he rejoined the dodgers as a broadcaster in 1993 and has been with the team ever since.

because i am only interested in cards from post-dodger careers of the primary players (and manager) of the team of my youth, my rick monday pc stands complete. there are still quite a few dodger monday oddballs out there to chase, though.

it's still 1978 somewhere

i've been paying some attention to my "1978 master set" lately (as a refresher, i featured the non-1978 flagship cards that i've included in my 1978 master set in this post). as a result, i've tracked down some more cards to add to the effort.

i had previously dismissed the reprints of nolan ryan's 1978 topps card that topps issued back in 1999 because they were reprints. however, i decided to pick up the "finest"

and "finest" refractor

versions because they offer the first glimpse of 1978 topps chrome-ified. 

similarly, i had ignored willie hernandez's 2001 topps archives reserve

and ron guidry's 2002 topps archives reserve

cards for the same reason, but relented because they, too, show chromed and refractored versions of their respective 1978 topps cards.

i then decided to pick up chrome refractor examples of at least one of the 1978 topps design cards from the 2003-2005 topps all-time fan favorites sets. from 2003 i picked up jim rice

and from 2004 it was eric gregg

joining my collection.

i was able to track down a second copy of dusty baker's 2005 topps atff refractor

to complete the three year run. these sets used different photos which was fun to see.  i also picked up a rick monday refractor

for the dodger collection, along with the gold refractor parallel

these are numbered to 25 so i probably won't be able to find one to add to the '78 master set.  also, 1978 topps looks strange with a gold border.

back to reprints, here's a 2014 topps chrome eddie murray all-time rookies insert

and i believe it is the first time that the topps chrome logo has shown up on a 1978 topps card.

in 2021, there were three new 1978 design cards to find thanks to the 70 years of topps insert sets across series 1, 2 and update. i decided to pick up at least one of the chrome versions of the cards and wound up with cal ripken's

this is the second one of these in my overall collection, as this card was also my favorite non-dodger card of the year back then.

with 2022 topps archives using the 1978 design, there were plenty of parallels to chase. i held off for quite some time, but decided to go out and pick up examples of the ones that i didn't already have (where were all but the rainbow foil). so, here's the green border

numbered to 125

the silver border

numbered to 99

the red border

numbered to 75

the blue foil

numbered to 25

the red hot foil

numbered to 50

the orange hot foil

numbered to 15

for some reason, trevor rogers and alex kiriloff were easily available in the parallels when i went looking. rogers is the player whose rainbow foil i pulled from the box i opened as well. i have a spencer torkelson design variation/color swap as well, and so i'm not too concerned about chasing down any of those. maybe someday i will find a 1/1 foil fractor though.

i also decided to add this 1988 topps card to my master '78 set

and then i went out and bought an autographed version of it from 2023 topps archives signature series

i put that card in my "meaningful and just because" collection. here's the back:

it gives a nice little recap of the 1978 regular season, which was the first one i followed wire to wire.

collecting baseball cards that year was a lot of fun, even though there was only topps. i amassed a bunch of doubles on my way to completing a set, and i suppose if other options had existed i would have bought those cards, too. so, i may eventually try to chase down the rest of the 2002 donruss originals what if? 1978 inserts - i already have pops

and i know that chasing these down will help me keep the feeling of being a new baseball fan alive.

letter rip

seeing fuji's now not so recent post got me thinking about how i would represent my blog name with players and cards. his post was in response to nacho grande's original post that used board games. as fuji said, "challenge accepted"!

c - ron cey (2005 playoff prestige al east champions)

a - walt alston (2005 topps dem bums)

r - bill russell (2014 topps archives fan favorites autograph)

d - davey lopes (1981 topps)

s - steve garvey (2022 leaf in the game used sports hall of fame caliber silver relic)

a - don aase (1991 fleer)

s - reggie smith (1978 topps)

i - kazuhisa ishii (2003 playoff absolute memorabilia tools of the trade)

s - don sutton (2021 topps chrome platinum anniversary)

e - andre ethier (2013 topps archives day-glo parallel)

e - scott erickson (2005 topps total)

t - derrel thomas (1979 o-pee-chee)

h - charlie hough (2018 topps archives snapshots)

e - aj ellis (2013 topps)

m - rick monday (1979 topps)

yes, that ethier card really is the orange parallel. also, i was happy to get clayton kershaw in there, even if it was just as a lurker on aj ellis' card.

if i went all last names, don drysdale and duke snider would replace lopes and garvey up top. i can get duke in if i were to apply this challenge to my first blog's name:

g - steve garvey 

a - walt alston

r - jackie robinson (2010 topps turkey red)

v - fernando valenzuela (2017 topps 1987 all-star)

e - andre ethier 

y - steve yeager (2004 upper deck legends timeless teams gold)

c - ron cey

e - scott erickson

y - eric young (1999 upper deck)

r - bill russell

u - julio urias (2019 topps chrome sapphire edition)

s - reggie smith

s - don sutton 

e - aj ellis 

l - tom lasorda (2001 topps tribute patch)

l - lee lacy (1976 topps)

l - davey lopes 

o - al oliver (2005 donruss throwback threads throwback collection)

p - mike piazza (1996 score big bats)

e - bruce edwards (1951 bowman)

s - duke snider (1980-87 sspc baseball immortals)

fun stuff. thanks for the inspiration nachos and fuji!