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.

the almost daily dodger - maury wills

i have a few maury wills cards in my "scanned" folder, and today is the day that they see the "posted" folder instead.

his 2004 upper deck sweet spot classic card

was a sportlots purchase last fall to complete my non-short print team set. i still need the numbered wills sp and pee wee reese's numbered sp as well to really finish it off. 

speaking of numbered short prints, upper deck used that same photo of wills on his 2007 sp legendary cuts short print

but in color, this time. i think they use the same photo for his base card in the set, just rotated slightly. in 2006, however, upper deck used a different black and white photo for his "when it was a game" insert from the sp legendary cuts set

that's the silver version, numbered to 550. it's also the "base" version.

this 2005 donruss classics legendary players card

uses yet another photo. this card is numbered to 800.

one of the reasons i am noting the photographs is because wills was famously absent from topps sets until 1967, with the exception of a world series subset card in 1960 that did not mention him by name. i have always hoped that topps would use some of the available photos from his first dodger tenure to fill in those gaps with cards in their archives sets. no dice, unfortunately. 

in 2004, as part of their all-time fan favorites release, they put him on a 1967 topps card as a dodger rather than a pirate as he was in the original 1967 set. the year before, they had him on the 1970 design in 2003's version of all-time fan favorites. the card was a downgrade from his original 1970 topps card because of the hatless photo they chose. still, i tracked down the autograph version of the card

for my collection. i've toyed with the idea of picking up the 1969 design expos card of wills from archives a couple of years ago, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. i'll be first in line for any pre-1967 wills cards though!

grab some bench

there is one recent card pick up i've made for my half-arsed effort at completing the 2004 upper deck legends timeless teams autograph parallel set that i did not show in wednesday's post.

johnny bench certified auto! it's the second one in my collection, and the first from this set. i was a steve yeager fan but sure did appreciate the talent of bench.

i added another bench for my dodger stadium mini-collection around the same time:

that card is from 1975 tcma national league most valuable player set. i had no idea this set existed (primarily because they didn't include steve garvey) and only learned about it because this card

showed up in my mailbox. that is maury wills' card from the set, and it forced me to go to comc to find out what it was. it was there that i saw the bench with the dodger stadium pavilion roof in the background. what a great find!

the wills card was sent my way by nick of dime boxes in one of our latest card swaps. i know there will always be some great variety in a package from nick and this proved no exception. here are just a few of the cards nick sent that prove that point

2001 topps jackie robinson through the years

even though i own 1952 topps #312, i enjoy having standard sized versions, too.

1997 bowman's best mike piazza best cuts

at first glance, i figured this card was from 1996 topps laser, but i guess topps held on to the "laser" for some '97 releases, too.

2008 upper deck ultimate collection matt kemp

numbered base cards are not too common 'round these parts.

2006 upper deck first pitch jeff kent

this card could pass for a panini insert except for the dodger logo in the background.

2023 topps big league ryan pepiot

and miguel vargas

big things were expected from these two in 2023, but one was injured for the majority of the season and the other never found his groove. maybe 2024 will be their year.

i can always count on nick to send me some new double play cards for my collection, and this time he sent a 1994 bowman mariano duncan

jay bell

and greg gagne

trio. not sure how i missed these!

same goes for this 1995 select jose lind

that gives prime real estate to mr. marlin jeff conine.

i already had a 2016 topps jj hardy card in my dp collection, but now i have his rainbow foil parallel

too.

one more new dp, and it's a good one:

that's a 1998 donruss damion easley card, featuring the kid.

this 2019 topps stadium club whit merrifield card

also features a dynamic player sliding in - mookie betts. i already had this card in the dp and tattooine collection, so this one is for the lurker collection. 

nick is also a fellow collector of vladimir guerrero cards, and he improved my collection by sending this 2021 topps update 70 years of topps card

and this 2005 topps bazooka comic

that also features mike scioscia if you want to be technical about it.

always great stuff coming from the land of lincoln. thanks nick!

inspired by baseball cards at dodger stadium

during one of the many dodger broadcasts i've watched in the last two to three years, i saw a photo from dodger stadium that was used as a bumper or a promo background that showed steve garvey's legends of dodger baseball monument. on that monument, his 2005 topps pristine card was shown.  during my recent trip to dodger stadium, i wanted to be sure to find the monument and see what cards represent the other members of this fairly new dodger tribute group.

i had a heckuva time finding them, however. i wandered all around the stadium, looking at a bunch of other displays including gold gloves and murals and photos but couldn't find those specific items. i saw an information booth tucked under the right field pavilion just off center field and walked over to inquire. on my way there, i spotted some glass cases with a bunch of baseball cards in them. one of those cards was steve garvey's 1976 topps card

these cards (they are high-res reprints) dangle from either end of a player's bat, and the display honors los angeles dodger all-stars.

no players have been added since 2017 which is too bad, but i still had fun looking through the cases. they aren't in any particular order (juan samuel is hanging above garvey) and there is a wide variety of cardboard representation.  here are photos of the cases (sorry for the glare)

there were a few mother's cookies cards in there along with a couple tcma/renata galasso cards, plus an unlicensed panini donruss card for dee gordon, and even a topps now card for cody bellinger. i was happy to see some 1978 topps for rick monday and don sutton. for the record, the infield was represented with 1976 topps (garvey and davey lopes), 1983 topps (bill russell), and 1975 topps (ron cey).

the person at the booth was able to direct me to the legends display (it's under the drip line of the left field pavilion just off the center field plaza) and so i headed over. each player has a metal display with a card and text displayed. here's a sideways view of all six members:

the first three members were inducted in 2019 - they were don newcombe, steve garvey, and fernando valenzuela

so there's the pristine card i mentioned up top. newcombe has a 1991 topps archives ultimate 1953 card, and fernando's card comes from 1986 topps and shows an alternate take on his 1981 topps traded card. none of these cards are iconic for the player, and i have to admit i was a bit disappointed with the card selection.

here are the other three members - maury wills, kirk gibson, and manny mota

wills and gibson went in during the 2022 season, and mota was just added in april of this year. those are obviously 1972, 1990, and 1970 topps cards, respectively. orel hershiser will be inducted later this year - not too long after the dodgers retire fernando's number 34.

speaking of which, here are the retired numbers on display in the left field corner:

this was my first time to the stadium since they added the microphones for vin scully and jaime jarrin, and number 14 for gil hodges.  i will have to come back sometime after number 34 is added.

i was actually surprised to see that the dodgers also had a display for the retired numbers behind the right field pavilion at the back of the center field plaza. each of the numbers and microphones have the same sort of display as the legends of dodger baseball, complete with baseball card images for the field personnel.

 

1 - pee wee reese

that's reese's 1953 topps card, but the borders tell me it's actually from the 1991 topps archives ultimate 1953 set.

2 - tommy lasorda

1989 topps

4 - duke snider

1959 topps

14 - gil hodges

1991 topps archives ultimate 1953

19 - jim gilliam

1964 topps

20 - don sutton

1978 topps

24 - walter alston

1965 topps

32 - sandy koufax

1964 topps

39 - roy campanella

1991 topps archives ultimate 1953

42 - jackie robinson

2012 topps archives

53 - don drysdale

1961 topps

vin scully

jaime jarrin

some interesting choices there, and it's a shame that there aren't even dodger team issue cards for scully or jarrin to be used. it would have been easy enough, i think, to include them in the lapd/dare sets at some point.  it will be in august that fernando valenzuela joins this group, and i wonder if they will just move his marker from the legends side, or add a new marker. he is obviously the first (and will probably be the only) legend of dodger baseball to later have his number retired so there are no set rules for how to handle the "promotion".

seeing all these cards got me thinking.

i thought about pulling together the cards that represent the dodger all-stars in to a mini-collection, but the fact that the post-2017 all-stars aren't recognized killed that idea. then i thought about a mini-collection for the legends of dodger baseball, but the card selection didn't thrill me. same for the retired numbers, even though the use of the 1991 archives set would make chasing down cards for campy and the others a lot less expensive.

after returning from my trip and looking through all my photos - it hit me. i have decided to put together a mini-collection featuring cards of all field personnel to have their number retired by a major league team. so, not just the 11 (soon to be 12) dodgers, but the dozens of yankees (i exaggerate only slightly) and people from the other 28 (plus the expos) teams as well. my goal will be to find cards that show the player/coach/manager's number but i know that will be impossible thanks to honus wagner whose 33 was retired by the pirates even though i don't know that he ever wore 33. plus i don't think there is a card of don zimmer showing him wearing 66 for the rays. focusing only on field staff means i don't need (or want, frankly) a card of bud selig wearing number 1 for the brewers or august busch jr wearing 85 for the cardinals. gene autry actually wore an angel uniform with 26 on it, but there are no cards showing it.

there are over 200 retired numbers in major league baseball, and i've already begun culling cards from my duplicates and monster boxes that have been sitting around without a purpose. i'll post some cards from time to time and i'll have a "have" list up at my want list site.

some teams don't display uniform numbers anywhere but the back, so one or two of you may be wondering how i will differentiate these cards from my "name/number on the back" mini-collection. well, i knew from the get go that there would be at least one card in both collections, but for the most part i will try to avoid duplication across collections. for example, this 2002 topps stadium club bernie williams card

meets the criteria for both collections, but is only going to be in the "name/number of the back" binder. i've got a different card that isn't quite full back for the retired numbers collection. and yes, the yankees retired bernie williams' number. stay tuned!