another one down, still nine to go - and that doesn't include the one i found that i didn't know about

you might recognize the title of this post as i've used it before. it means that i have added one of my "nefarious 9" - my most wanted cards. of course, that also means that a new card has been added to the list. the list is dead, long live the list.

this time, the card obtained was....

1982 tcma baseball's greatest pitchers burleigh grimes

here's the back

here are the facts about this card:

position on the nefarious 9 list: 4

how long was it on the list? it predated my current tracking, so that means it's been on the list for longer than ten months (march 1, 2025 was when i started these posts tracking the list)

why was it on the list? this card was the last one i needed (i thought) to complete my dodger team set of the "greatest pitchers" and "greatest hitters" sets, regardless of back color (tan or white). more on that in a bit.

how was it obtained? this card was mined out of a 5 for a dollar bargain bin at the monthly collector's club show in december of 2025

what replaced it on the list?  1984 topps stickers #83/357 rick monday and pete o'brien

why was this card added? this is the last sticker that i need to complete the dodger team set from this issue.  last year i added the alejandro pena and steve yeager stickers

that come with bruce benedict and john wathan, respectively. these two additions left me just a monday/o'brien sticker short of another 1980's team set being complete.

back to the tcma card and my thinking that grimes was all i needed for the team set. i hit a vein of these "baseball's greatest" cards in one of the monster boxes and wound up pulling this wes ferrel (ferrell) card

because it didn't look familiar to me. turns out i was right - ferrell is not listed as a dodger on the checklists for the set. instead, he's an indian which is what is shown on the back

it's really great that tcma has a photo of him in a dodger uniform (assuming that is really him) because he appeared in exactly two games (one as a pinch-hitter and one as a relief pitcher) for the brooklyn squad. that was back in 1940 as he was trying to work his way back from elbow problems. it's worth noting that even his 1990 target dodgers 100th anniversary card shows him in a red sox uniform.

at any rate, i now believe that my 1982 tcma baseball's greatest team sets are complete, so it's on to the next one. can you help a blogger out?!

look mother's, no legs!

bonus mother's day post!

i've mentioned before that i will occasionally check in on cards that i need for my various player collections, and i did so a few months ago with dusty baker. i found a couple of cards for cheap and pulled the trigger. the first one comes from the 1991 mother's cookies giants set, and features baker amongst the rest of roger craig's coaching staff

when i first saw the card, i thought that dusty might have been added to the photo at a later date because there are only eight legs visible among five men. a closer look revealed ten feet and the understanding that dusty's legs are positioned behind those of norm sherry and wendall kim.

the other baker card i added was his 2002 topps home team advantage parallel

not much to say about it as it is one of the weaker parallels of the era.

the seller of these cards included a freebie - this 1987 mother's cookies dodgers alejandro pena card

it's a duplicate, but i have added it to my dodger stadium collection. there aren't a lot of cards that feature both the diamond vision screen over the left field pavilion and the scoreboard over the right field pavilion, but this card does just that!

later, i added another card from the 1991 giants set.

i don't pc mark leonard; instead i was looking for a good example of the retired number placards at candlestick park. this card was the best i could find in terms of clarity and quantity of the placards. in the background we see christy mathewson, john mcgraw, bill terry, carl hubbell, and willie mays. mel ott's placard is behind leonard. i've added this card as a sort of header to my retired number collection, to go along with a couple others that show how other teams do it. i'd like to find cards showing the murals that the white sox and braves used to have, so if you know of any please help a blogger out!

the almost daily dodger - angel pena

the dodgers sure seem to have had a large number of highly touted catching prospects since mike piazza took over behind the plate. maybe that just coincides with the proliferation of prospect focused baseball cards, but it feels like i've heard about more catchers in the dodger pipeline than any other non-pitcher position over the last 30 years.

one such prospect was angel peña, and this is his 1999 upper deck retro inkredible autograph card

i have seen this card so many times over the years, i would have sworn that i had it in triplicate. turns out, i didn't have it at all (i do have some other peña autograph cards). thankfully, night owl sent one my way.

peña was one of the catchers that the dodgers sent out in the post-mike piazza landscape during the 1998 season, but the team ultimately looked for some veterans to take over and he wasn't able to catch on (see what i did there) as anything more than a stop gap backup during his career.

night owl sent some other cards for my collection as well, including a1998 bowman chrome charles johnson card

johnson was the dodgers' catching solution immediately following the piazza trade, as he was part of the haul from the marlins that the dodgers received in exchange for the italian-american superstar slugger. johnson was then traded to the mets with roger cedeño after the 1998 season for the dodgers' next catcher, todd hundley.

here's a 1995 fleer ultra kevin gross card

that had escaped my purview. it's technically a rangers card, but he's still wearing his dodger duds so into the dodger collection it goes.

this 1999 bowman glenn davis card

is not chrome - it's the international parallel. the liberty bell is behind davis, a native of pennsylvania.

here's a 1998 pinnacle plus die-cut card of hideo nomo

it's a "lasting memories" insert, and i am not sure why it needed to have the patterned edge other than it was the 90's

i recently stated a desire to complete the dodgers' 2007 topps gold parallel team set, and getting this brad penny card

from greg was a push to make that commitment. so chunky!

he also sent a different parallel from 2007 topps update & highlights

the red text back

such nonsense.

here's a much more obvious parallel from 2010 bowman

featuring chad billingsley, along with a parallel (or not, depending on how you view the 2021 topps chrome sapphire edition set) of short-time dodger yoshi tsutsugo

he appeared in 12 games for the dodgers in 2021, in between stints in tampa bay and pittsburgh. the fact that he got a dodger card at all is pretty remarkable. perfect timing in terms of checklist development at topps.

one of my favorite cards in the package was this 2023 panini chronicles - classics card of jim gilliam

anytime i can add a new gilliam card to the collection is a good day.

there were also a few "hits" to take in, such as this 2020 bowman sterling autograph of onetime prospect jacob amaya

the dodgers dealt amaya to the marlins for miguel rojas prior to last season. he was just released by the marlins and picked up by the astros a week or two ago.

shawn green had a ton of cards during his dodger days, including relics. both of these cards - a 2001 pacific private stock game gear bat

and a 2004 upper deck authentic stars jersey

were new to my collection

finally, i  also added this 2004 topps cracker jack "take me out to the ball game" paul loduca relic

to my dodger collection because i don't care who the player is - if they are a dodger they belong in my collection.

thanks greg!

what's in the box?

it wasn't really bidding under the influence, but a few weeks ago, i threw a $1 bid on a lot of dodger stuff that was supposedly from an estate sale. i saw a few things in the photos that made me feel comfortable with spending $21 on the stuff, as shipping was $19.99.

nobody else bid, and a few days later, a large flat rate priority mail box showed up on my doorstep.

i thought i knew what to expect, but there was a fair amount of dodger ephemera that wasn't visible in the photos. let's have a look.

probably the most interesting item to me was this 1988 world series pinback button:

i did not see this button in the photos, so it was a surprise. there was a lot of stuff like this for sale at dodger stadium during the 1988 world series - stuff that says "national league champions" - which is now less desirable (i assume) because the dodgers went on to win the series. for example, my dad bought a national league champions sweatshirt at the stadium during game 1 of the series. he still has it, but never bothered to buy a world champions sweatshirt to supersede it.

the oldest item was this "quick" magazine

from april of 1951 featuring don newcombe on the cover. it was interesting to flip through the magazine which appears to be a sort of reader's digest of the weekly news. the baseball stories were short, including the one regarding newk.

there were seven loose 5x7 black and white dodger player pictures. interestingly, the more recent players - gary thomasson, bob welch, doug rau, reggie smith, bobby castillo, and manny mota - were all in worse condition than this duke snider

i am working on a separate post that deals with these pictures that the dodgers sold at the stadium and through the mail - stay tuned for that!

back in 1982, you could pick up some dodger ephemera at unocal/union 76 gas stations as well as builder's emporium, which was a home improvement store. there were a bunch of these items included - from the union 76 volpe portrait set, there were four mike marshalls, one pedro guerrero, six steve garveys, two dusty bakers, three mike scioscias, and twelve (!) mark belangers.

as for the builder emporium sheets, there was a steve garvey

two steve sax sheets (in rough condition), four dusty baker, two jerry reuss, and two tom lasordas - both 

of which appear to have been signed.

there was a 1983 dodger program/scorecard (unscored)

from a series later in the season, with pedro guerrero on the cover and a nod to 1981 topps there on the front. there was a page inside dedicated to the ceremony that the team held for ron cey when the cubs came to town earlier in the year:

looks like the penguin received a few plaques.

one of the largest volume items in the box were commemorative sheets from 1984. these were available at union 76 gas stations just as the volpe portraits had been in 1982. they marked great moments in los angeles dodger history. i think i fell just short of a complete set (missing the four 30-homer dodgers, and the "tenth" man sheets), but there were eight willie davis hitting streak sheets, two jerry reuss/bill singer no-hitter sheets, four 1981 world series champions sheets, two record setting infield (yay!) sheets, four 1959 world series champions sheets, nine don drysdale scoreless streak sheets, three manny mota pinch hit sheets, three maury wills 104 stolen bases sheets, two 1977 nlcs sheets, three 1965 world champions sheets, seven fernando mania sheets, one bob welch strikes out reggie jackson sheet, and four roy campanella night at the coliseum sheets. that's 52 sheets! here's the 1959 world series champions sheet

since it has some imagined baseball cards on it.

the dodgers gave out baseball cards at games starting in 1981. they were sponsored by the los angeles police department, and were oddly sized. this box included a couple of loose 1982 cards of mark belanger and ron roenicke

as well as 15 loose cards from the 1986 set. there were three tom lasordas and two ken landreaux cards, and single cards of the coaching staff, steve sax, franklin stubbs, pedro guerrero, alex trevino, jerry reuss, bob welch, ken howell, reggie williams, and orel hershiser.

that wasn't all, however, as there were 10 complete sets of the 1986 issue. 

eight were still sealed, and two were loose.

there were a bunch of dodger postcards, including three sealed packages. this fact lends credence to the idea that you could buy bundles of loose postcards from the dodgers (the first postcard sets sold at dodger stadium, i believe, were offered in a booklet form). i opened the packages up and found the players to be identical in each group:

dusty baker

greg brock

pedro guerrero
burt hooton

mike marshall
jerry reuss
bill russell

derrel thomas

fernando valenzuela

bob welch

however, one of the three packages had different postcards for baker, hooton, reuss, and russell than the other two. all three packages featured a mix of postcard years. i think this has been suggested before - that the dodgers, while they printed new postcards most years in the 1970's and early 1980's, would combine various years when putting together groups for sale. at any rate, this is a batch that was put together in 1983 at the earliest given the presence of brock and marshall.

there were also six other postcards included loose in the box - two brocks and a guerrero to match the ones in the sealed packages, plus two manny mota and one each of tom lasorda and davey lopes. those six were also from a mix of years.

of the seventeen different postcards (out of 36 total), the only one i needed was this dusty baker

which i would catalog as a 1982 issue based on the research that i presented in this post.  in fact, baker is the m-13 card 

which i was unsure even existed! this all reminds me that mrmopar provided me with some checklist information for dodger postcards after that post ran, and i need to go through and apply that information to my theories. 

there was a lot of other dodger ephemera, including:

8x10 team issue color photo john roseboro

8x10 photographs of kirk gibson - one in home uniform and one in away grays

1985 dodger media guide (with bill russell on the cover)

2 issues of dodgers magazine, both from 1990 - vol 3 #1 and vol 3 #3. both unscored

2 1988 nlcs programs, both unscored

1990 dodgers yearbook - their centennial season with cover art by leroy nieman

and, of course, there were cards, including an intact, non-separated sheet of 1994 dodgers police cards. it's not in the best shape, however.

as for "normal" cards, i counted 228 of them, including a few fleer stickers. the oldest cards were from 1968, and there were two of the jack billingham/jim fairey rookie card

the other '68 was willie davis.

by far, the newest item in the box was a random 2013 topps juan uribe gold parallel

i knew it was in there based on the auction photos, and i knew it was a need for my collection. however, i didn't expect to find any other dodger cards that i needed. i was pleasantly surprised.

these 1985 fleer star stickers of orel hershiser and alejandro pena

completed my team set. always nice to get a hershiser rookie of any variety!

there were a bunch of 1986 fleer mini dodgers, but only one set of the mini stickers

which i needed (they weren't even on my want list). i also needed these 1987 and 1988 fleer sticker inserts,

(or are they 1988 and 1987?) and i decided to add this 1983 fleer bob welch card

to my lurker collection - hello ron cey!

these 1986 topps and topps traded cards were needs

because they are the tiffany versions. just need alex trevino to complete the traded tiffany set.

there were a few oddball sized cards:

2 1985 donruss 3x5 all-stars pedro guerrero

1 1984 topps super pedro guerrero

2 1984 topps super fernando valenzuela

of those, i needed one of the 1984 topps super valenzuela

cards for my dodger collection

here's a signed 1987 topps reggie williams card

that was included

there were more non-dodger steve garvey cards than dodgers:

and there were a few other random cards that didn't really belong at all

although i guess i could sort of understand a mattingly card

in amongst the dodger stuff - just not a 1990 leaf.

finally, there were some 1985 topps r.j. reynolds cards

and by "some" i mean 88 of them. it's his rookie card - i wonder if he'll pan out.

i had a lot of fun going through this box. if anyone needs an '85 topps rj - you know where to find me!