if it's iconic is it a keeper?

it was not quite a year ago when i completed the 1961 topps baseball thrills subset. the last card i needed was babe ruth's, and i picked it up as part of a partial set purchase. there were about 100 cards from the set in the purchase, including the ruth and this card

roger maris was number 2 in the set

while his mvp counterpart (and world series champion) in the national league, dick groat, was number 1.

i decided not to pursue the full set and wound up flipping the other cards as a lot on sportlots except for the ruth and this maris. i kept the maris even though it doesn't fit within the standard confines of my collection. i thought about putting it as the 1961 topps representative in my topps flagship year by year collection, but i currently have tracy stallard (who gave up maris' 61st home run in 1961) in that spot. i bought the stallard at my local card shop when i was just a kid and so i don't see moving it out of my collection. i suppose that is why i also have the "meaningful and just because" minicollection - for cards like this which don't have a home but are worth holding on to.

maybe i should start an "iconic card" minicollection. that would be dangerous!

what if i were making progress on an insert set build?

in april i mentioned that the personal significance of the 1978 season was compelling me to add the what if '78 insert set from 2002 donruss originals to my collection. i decided to do this despite only having cards from the 1980 insert set (the box i bought back in 2002 contained eddie murray's what if '80 card and i later picked up duke snider's card as well). willie stargell's '78 card was the first one i picked up as part of this effort, and i've since added over two-thirds of the set to my collection.

the first three cards in the set are "rated rookies" which first showed up in real time in 1983. however, that year the "rated rookie" designation was printed on the back. in 1984, it moved to the front and was a huge deal! anyway, thanks to brian and his set up at the recent card show, my collection currently starts with one of the three rated rookie cards!

2. alan trammell

trammell tied for fourth in the 1978 rookie of the year voting. he was behind teammate lou whitaker, paul molitor, and carney lansford and tied with rich gale. lansford and gale were ignored by topps in their 1978 set, but the other three were all featured on four-in-one rookie cards.

4. george brett

the first thing i noticed with these cards is that there are no "all-star" designations like topps had on their cards, including the 1978 topps george brett card.

5. johnny bench

bench also got the all-star shield in 1978

6. rod carew

another 1977 all-star, and he was also the 1977 american league mvp

7. carlton fisk

and another 1977 all-star

8. reggie jackson

and another guy who had the awesome all-star shield on his 1978 topps card. the card backs are pretty standard donruss

with only one year of stats. donruss did pay attention to the theme of the cards and made sure that the career stats were presented through the 1977 season. let's keep going

10. joe morgan

one more 1977 all-star

11. eddie murray

with murray's card we see that donruss did not identify top rookies from the 1977 season, either.

12. jim palmer

palmer was the american league's all-star starter in 1977.

13. tom seaver

seaver had a fantastic year in 1977, but by modern metrics such as war, rick reuschel was slightly better!

14. willie stargell

stargell missed a majority of the 1977 season due to injury. he bounced back and was the co-mvp in the national league in the magical 1979 season.

16. dave parker

parker was the 1978 national league mvp, winning his second straight batting title that season

17. mike schmidt

in 1977 schmidt hit 38 homers for the third consecutive season, but for the first time in those three years he did not lead the league. that was thanks to george foster's monster year.

18. eddie mathews

the mathews card is included due to his election to the hall of fame in 1978. this was a nice touch by donruss, i think.

19. lou brock

brock stole 30 bases for the last time in his career in 1977. one of his 35 steals that year put him ahead of ty cobb atop the all-time leader list.

20. willie mccovey

mccovey had his last big-ish year in 1977 in his return to the giants. he hit 28 homers and hit .280 in 141 games.

22. dennis eckersley

eckersley's inclusion is the only one that i might question on the checklist. he was an all-star in 1977 but was just three years into his career after the 1977 season. he was also with the indians through the 1977 season, joining the red sox via a trade in march of 1978. that was too late to update the topps set, but maybe donruss would have been on a later printing schedule and eckersley would have been included with his new team. sparky lyle was the american league cy young award winner in 1977 if you are wondering.

24. nolan ryan

always fun to see ryan with the eye black. he led the american league in strikeouts in 1977.

25. steve carlton

there's your 1977 national league cy young award winner

27. ozzie smith

this is smith's second card in the set - he's one of the rated rookies up at the top of the checklist. this card gives a glimpse of the "the rookies" release that donruss began doing in the latter part of the 1980's as a response to the topps and fleer traded and update sets.  here's the back of ozzie's card

it focuses on the 1978 season, which was his first year in the big leagues. the rated rookie cards show 1977 stats on the back, so in smith's case that would be minor league stats from his time in walla walla.

i also grabbed smith's what if? '80 card

which fits nicely into my name/number on the back collection.

so, as you can see, i am two-thirds of the way there with the 1978 set, but the remaining cards are either very scarce or command higher prices than i want to pay, or both. so for now, i am left wondering what if this is as far as it goes?

a moment for fernando valenzuela

i woke up this morning to the news that fernando valenzuela had passed away. it was surprising but not surprising at the same time, as the dodgers had announced late in the season that fernando was stepping away from his role with the club for health reasons, and the last time i saw him on screen (at dusty baker's legends of dodger baseball induction in august) he did not look well.

there have already been so many tribute pieces written and video compilations published so i won't say much other than fernando was one of those players that made me happy to be a dodger fan. growing up where i did i think it was perhaps the first time i saw the power of representation, without understanding what that meant.

i am glad i was able to see him pitch in person a couple of times, and i will never forget nearly running into him in the concourse at dodger stadium as he was being escorted to one of the pregame autograph tables in the early 1980's. as for my collection, he is one of the few dodgers not included in the 1978 topps set of whom i seek out their non-dodger cards, and there are a few of his cards that are also in my "favorite cards of the year" minicollection. his 1981 fleer card

is one of them. that card, along with his 1981 topps rookie card

were such hot commodities in my neighborhood that even the neighbors who were giant and yankee fans were coveting them.

i had these two 1982 o-pee-chee stickers 

in my scanned folder, and this is the newest valenzuela card in my collection

that is a 2017 panini donruss masters of the game insert that sluggo sent to me in our most recent trade.

rest in peace, fernando, but viva fernandomania!

the almost daily dodger - luke prokopec

i was watching the last series of the regular season between the dodgers and rockies, and one of the games had the rockies starting cal quantrill on the mound. he is the son of former major league pitcher paul quantrill, who had a couple of pretty solid years pitching out of the dodger bullpen in 2002 and 2003. in fact, quantrill was the first dodger pitcher to lead the league in games pitched since mike marshall set the record at 106 games in 1974.

anyway, one of the guys that the dodgers gave up to acquire quantrill was luke prokopec, seen here on his 2002 topps chrome gold refractor parallel

these cards are pretty nice in person. 

making his debut in september of 2000, prokopec was the second australian to pitch for the dodgers, following jeff williams by a year. in his first game, prokopec entered a lopsided affair, and the left fielder was paul loduca, the first baseman jim leyritz, and his catcher was chad kreuter, whose 2002 topps chrome gold refractor i also own.

i don't know how the dodgers could have put more catchers out on the field at one time.

after the 2001 season, quantrill and cesar izturis were traded to the dodgers for prokopec and chad ricketts. an australian, two canadians and a venezuelan - there's probably a joke in there somewhere.

pennant!

the world series matchup is set! the dodgers and yankees will square off for the fourth time in my lifetime and for someone whose first baseball memories are of the 1977 fall classic, it just feels right. 

in light of the dodgers’ win over the mets last night, here's a card with a pennant on it

from upper deck in 1992.

earlier in the season i was hoping for a 1965 world series rematch but the twins didn't even make the playoffs thanks to a september collapse. here's a minnesota pennant-themed card anyway

it's from 2023 panini donruss and features 1987 world champion frank viola. the card was a throw-in from a dealer at the big semi-annual show last month, and i think i subsequently handed it to brian from highly subjective and completely aribitrary soon thereafter.

here are some cards from my scanned folder showing dodger players jumping around and celebrating postseason advancement like they did last night - a 2015 topps dodgers team rainbow foil parallel

and a 2022 topps chris taylor walk off rainbow foil parallel

they lost to the mets in the nlcs back in 2015, and in 2022 they lost to the padres in the nlds. the 2022 card depicts the last postseason success the dodgers had prior to this year as they won their nlds matchup against the giants after beating the cardinals in the wild card game thanks to that chris taylor home run.

both teams, but especially the dodgers, have the luxury of getting their pitching (such that it is) lined up for the series. i am really happy (relieved?) that the dodgers have advanced and i am looking forward to the series and the flashbacks to my youth!

the almost daily dodger - orel hershiser

here we are in october with postseason baseball, and i can't help but think of the bulldog - orel hershiser - who on this date in 1988 beat the oakland a's to secure the dodgers' 1988 world series championship. here's his 1995 upper deck sp championship series october legends subset card

at the time it was issued, hershiser had made postseason appearances only twice even though the card says three times. i think that is because he debuted with the dodgers in september of 1983 and the club went on to the nlcs against the phillies that year. i am not sure if hershiser was on the postseason roster, but either way he did not pitch in the dodgers' loss to the phillies. the two times hershiser did pitch in the postseason as a dodger were 1985 and the aforementioned 'year that was so improbable' 1988.

he would return to the postseason in 1995 with cleveland, winning his first three starts of that postseason as well as game 5 of the world series against the braves. hershiser won his second lcs mvp award that year as well. to finish things off, hershiser pitched in three more postseasons - 1996 and 1997 with cleveland, and 1999 with the mets.

here's another hershiser card from my scanned folder

that's a 1989 msa superstars card from one of the few non-round msa sets.

there was no doubt that hershiser was considered a superstar in 1989, and at one time he was statistically one of the greatest postseason pitchers of all time.

a new era

with 1978 topps being the first set i collected, i missed out by a year seeing davey lopes on a league leader card in real time. i was ever hopeful that a dodger would show up on a league leader card, as well as a record breaker or highlight card, in the annual topps set. in 1980, i got my wish in regards to the record breaker card as manny mota made the cut thanks to his pinch hit mark. a year later, don sutton graced the era league leader card, and for the first time in my collecting days, a dodger was featured.

the next dodger to lead the league in era was alejandro pena in 1984, but topps had stopped giving space to league leaders in their flagship set conveniently enough starting with the 1985 release. league leader cards were back as inserts in 1995, but not the way they were meant to be with representatives from each league on the fronts. 

in 2000, the league leaders returned to the base set, but the leaders were shown one on each side which is dumb. it happened again in 2001, and to show why it is dumb to do it this way, here is kevin brown on a 2001 topps chrome league leader card

brown was the first dodger to lead the national league in era since pena. that card, by the way, is the refractor parallel, or as it was called then the "retrofractor" parallel. the back, of course, is not chromeified even though it features the american league era leader

why brown was given the front of the card when pedro martinez had a lower era (1.74!) makes no sense to me but then again doing league leader cards like this makes no sense to me either. i am glad that topps is back to multiplayer league leader cards (which started in 2008), although i prefer one card with both leagues on it rather than one card (with multiple players) for each league.

here's some bonus content - a dodger pedro martinez card!

that's his 1993 topps gold parallel, and it completed my team set of these early days gold inserts. pedro didn't lead the league in era as a dodger of course, but he did as an expo in 1997 before going to boston and leading the american league on four different occasions. i am of the mind that he deserved some traditional league leader cardboard for his efforts!